Learning my Limits

I don’t like to miss out on anything. I really don’t like to miss anything. Ok, I HATE to miss anything. This trait has led to sometime exhaustion for myself and for others on the current edition of an Abby adventure.

Sometimes one, of course, cannot do everything. For me, however, this rational thought often gets trumped by an overwhelming desire to do much more than is physically viable. I’ve been like this all of my life. Back in Girl Scout camp, when I was about 10, we actually had to choose between horseback riding and a carnival activity. Given my daughter Julia’s obsession with horses, I think you can guess which one I chose. The horseback riding girls returned back to the campsite before the carnival was over. I was so excited that I started to run towards the party only to be restrained by my counselor.

“You had to chose,” she told me.

“Why?” was my response.

In Santorini in the summer of 1992, my friend Sharon and I were on a bus tour of the Greek island. At one stop, the guide came to a halt at the top of a cliff and told us we had 15 minutes to take in the view. What most people saw was a beautiful inlet with a scenic plateau rock floating in the center. A narrow strip of sand connected the rock to the island. What I saw was a never-to-be-had-again chance to climb that rock. I looked at Sharon. She looked at me. “I’ll be right back. Take a picture.” One of my favorite photos of my entire backpacking European tour is one that has a speck on top of a flat rock in a harbor. That speck was me. Triumphant.

It might not be hard to imagine that yesterday, when faced with endless wonderful hiking options in the Perthshire area of Scotland, I had trouble choosing. I did know where to start. Edradour Distillery. My original choice of a Scottish adventure was to trek the West Highland Way , a  96-mile inn to inn hike. A choice that, if not already in jeopardy due to the discovery of likely midge swarms and and heavy rain en route, was doomed by my desire to experience the Edradour Distillery hike. I was intrigued by this walk originating in Pitlochry, two hours north of Edinburgh and a 10 minute train ride from Blair Atholl. This “Black Sprout” hike began from downtown Pitlochry, wound through forest to a waterfall, and then continued meandering through narrow stone fence passages to Scotland’s “smallest distillery.” What fun to follow a scavenger hunt of pointing trail arrows to conclude in a whiskey tour in the heart of Scotland. I couldn’t miss this.

“You don’t know when to stop,” is a common sentence uttered by my husband. This, while often true, does result in a household with a few more adventures than the average bear’s.

Yesterday was a can’t stop day. On my own with no one of sense distracting me with a pint or of whining tendencies to thwart me, I could keep going as long as I wanted. Excited about completing an excellent adventure to Edradour where a lovely bar man introduced me to a “non-peaty” Scotch that “you can pour on your cornflakes,” I wanted to keep going. There was a hotel and brewery from the 1600’s nearby — and a connecting hike to take me there! Onwards to the Moulin Hotel.

I had bought a very handy map from the TI (tourist Information). An extremely fit 60ish-year-old man there pointed out a path from Edradour to Moulin and then another onto his favorite hike in the area, Ben Vrackie.

“Isn’t Ben Vrackie a mountain?”

“Ah – it’s only a Corbett” (which I later learned was between 2500 and 3000 feet of elevation). “You’re reasonable fit, eh? You could do it. You thinking of doing it today yet?”

“Yes, it wouldn’t be too much with the other hikes first?”

“No, you’ve got all day, haven’t you?”

On the path to Moulin, I focused on bringing my hiking shoes to a halt whenever I looked at a map. I hoped this would help avoid unwanted extra miles due to missed turns. On the hike to Moulin, however, the purple arrows that were to point the way suddenly stopped in a field of unidentifiable tall grassy grain. Was I to head toward the gate diagonally across the field to the road beyond? Continue on straight since no other arrows were present to say differently? There was absolutely no path. Not even a sheep one.

I speared my way out and back in a few directions before finally deciding to just follow a fence winding to the right in the general direction I had been going. This route wasn’t beautiful. The grass whipped me up to my waist and was irritating to walk through. About 20 minutes later I saw a faded lilac arrow on a stone fence. It turned out I had been on the correct route. The next turn was left onto the road I had seen earlier, just at a point farther north and an extra mile away. An hour long annoying detour through grassy fields to just make a hike longer. No wonder that bland check-out lady at the distillery suggested taking the road. 

By the time I reached the Moulin hotel at 3:00 p.m., my left hip was sending up warning flares. The arch on my right foot was cramping, and I was generally tired and cranky. I ordered a Ploughman’s lunch, an Aspall cider and sat down at table G1 to await my food delivery (the hotel pubs I had thus far encountered expected one to select an empty table, order food to be delivered to said table, pay and then rush back hoping that no one else had taken your spot).

While I was sitting there, a light mist started to fall. I looked at the hiking map. I could hike to Ben Vrackie and come down a different route to Killiecrankie and get a bus or taxi from there. (In addition to hating to miss anything, a close second is hating to take the same path back as I took in the first place). I obtained the hotel wifi code and found that it wasn’t due to really rain until after 8 p.m. A local said it would take me about an hour to hike to the summit — after all his son could run all the way up to the top and down in 1 1/2 hours. Killiecrankie was an excellent idea. Totally doable!

Refreshed from my aged cheddar, chutney, Scottish oat cakes, smoked ham and undressed salad (I left the two carrot strips floating in a mayonnaisey substance in a ramekin behind), I began my journey towards the summit. There were many points of possible return. The first was this sign:

Prepared? “No” my mind said flatly, taking in the tiredness in my thighs. Yet I continued. An hour later I came the junction of the Ben Vrackie hike and the Bealach Path, a gentler alternative route to Killiecrankie.

Did I turn left towards a leisurely descent? I saw this:

So, no. As I walked farther, the heather became denser and the scenery stunning, much to the chagrin of my aching calves. Another hour latter (I don’t think I’ll ever trust again a Scot’s estimate of timing for an activity my body will do), I arrived at a lake at the base of the summit ascent and sat on a much welcome bench. Many explicatives escaped my lips as I veered up the “excellently maintained” stone step pathway that disappeared at a 70 degree angle around a large outcrop above. There was a path around the lake that would take me easily to Killiecrankie. I looked at my watch. It was 5:25 p.m. Quickly formulating a newly revised estimate of “real time” Abby hiking progression, I guessed it would be an hour up and an hour down. And then an hour to Killiecrankie. I could almost beat the rain. My brain didn’t put up much of a fight, “you know you are going to do it so just go. You can’t just not climb a mountain.”

Or in this case a Corbett.

And so I did. I was going to get to the top. I was going to embrace a view that spanned all the way to Glencoe to the west and to Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.

It was a crazy hard climb. Bumble bees swarmed everywhere – loudly buzzing in my ears yet oddly invisible to my eyes. I was surprised they traveled so high, but the heather was still dense no matter how many of those stone steps I mounted. If someone could build these steps, the least I could do was climb them.

I encountered many of these along the way:

I had seen no other hiker for hours and was very excited about meeting up with yet another fit 60-ish-year-old, John from Aberdeenshire, poking the stones with his hiking sticks on his way down towards me. As we chatted about all of the hikes we could do, after all it didn’t get dark until 11 p.m., a mist started rising rapidly from the valley. I excused myself, racing as quickly as I could up what one guidebook called “the last mad scramble to the top.” I made it! And saw:

Consoling myself that I still had summited the mountain (I will now call it no other word), and with no need to hang around to enjoy the view, I searched around for the path down. I couldn’t see anything but a white fog.  Which direction to go? After a brief, panicked exploratory scouting of the way I guessed I had come, I found the steps and made my way slowly down. Despite my care, I still slipped on the now slick stones, but escaped with only a egg-sized lump on my elbow.

I was relieved to set foot at the base of the summit climb. It was 7:20 p.m. No time to rest. Needed to get going to beat the rain.

The scenery continued to be glorious – the lake looked like something out of the 80’s Excalibur movie:

As I hiked further, the mist started picking up pace. I could describe in detail the next two hours slogging through the countryside, but I honestly do not care to relive it. I saw more sheep (who were all insultingly terrified of me), and sheep poop than I ever need to see again. When I finally arrived in Killiecrankie and found the Killiecrankie Hotel, I was too embarrassed about my sopping body to go in. My “waterproof” shoes were soaked through as were my water resistant pants. Water literally was streaming down my legs as I sloshed through the path.

It took an absurd amount of stubbornness to make it as far as I did. The last buses for the day had already come and gone by this time. I remembered that the man with the son who ran up and down the summit trail had said earlier that it was only a few miles from Killiecrankie to Blair Atholl, and that I might as well walk it.

I am proud to report that 10 minutes walking through a downpour toward what I was 80% sure was the way to Blair Atholl and my hotel, much of it on a road with no foot path and an occasionally passing car, I stopped and said to myself, finally, “Abby this is just stupid.” I turned around and walked back to the hotel. The tartan pant clad young men at the reception area looked at me in subdued shock. I asked for a taxi and they whispered under their breath, “Let’s just take her.” The matronly manager said she’d get her keys and drive me to my hotel. She put a green plaid blanket on her seat for protection and shuttled me back to arrive at 9:29 pm,  just in time to hear England lose to Croatia in the Soccer World Cup and to place a last minute order for a pheasant burger before the pub kitchen closed.

When I woke this morning and my legs still functioned, I thanked God. I wasn’t sure they would after my 11 hour journey the day before. Today, I had planned to arrive in Nairn and do a 3 hour hike to the Moray Firth to see the dolphins playing off of the shore. This I did not do. Instead I just arrived at the only shoe store in town before it closed and bought these since my “waterproof” hiking shoes were still sopping wet and my mother-in-law’s sandals weren’t made for long distances:

After returning to take a short rest, I listened to a much more sedentary 60ish-year-old man, Jimmy, the husband of my AirBnb host, who directed me towards a short coastal walk

to the Sun Dancer restaurant where my stunning dining view was this:

Tomorrow is the scheduled 13 mile each way bike ride to Culloden. Tonight, I worked with my hosts to shave two miles off the original “to” route. I’ve arranged with the bike company to pick me up in Cawdor in a Tavern, shaving 5 miles off of the return ride. My AirBnB hostess, Corinne, assures me that this is a completely doable bike ride. She actually rides into Inverness (an extra 10 miles further) to work and back each day. Hmmm . . .

Yesterday, I was beyond lucky. I did way too much and by the grace of God and a kindly hotel manager, I made it back to my lodgings safe and sound. That lovely bar man back at Edradour Distillery, upon hearing about my pending adventures, said that if his wife wanted to go traveling on her own, he would just say, “no.” Jorg had insisted that I go to a country where I wouldn’t come home in a body bag (with no objections from me). Scotland still will fit this bill if I step up to calm that 10-year-old Girl Scout down into her almost 50-year-old body.