Arthur's Seat

Arthur's Seat, only a mile from our hotel, offered us running and climbing challenges on our second day in Edinburgh.

I started the morning early with a run down the mile. I say that literally -- it was all downhill from The Inn on the Mile to the end of the Royal Mile. I then took a right turn at the Scottish Parliament and on to Hollyrood park. I ran around one of the lower foothills of Arthur's seat, thinking I could just do a lap of the whole thing. I couldn't resist the allure of the trails I was running past, so instead I started running up the "low foothill" I had just run 3/4s of the way around.

It didn't take long for the grade, loose terrain, and spectacular view to bring me to a stop. As I stood on top of a saddle with stone stairs I thought must go up to the peak on my right, and the "low foothill" to my left, a local came running down the hill past me. By the looks of him, this was his regular morning workout, as he easily loped along the same narrow loose dirt trail that I had decided was to slippery to run on.

I "took in the view" (caught my breath) for a bit longer, then started up the "low foothill". According to this map, that low foothill is named "Salisbury Crags". The path I had just run along is apparently named "Radical Road".

From the ground, Salisbury Crags looks like a hill. Instead, it is just as the name suggests , a narrow crag with steep slopes or just plain cliff on either side. There isn't really a trail that runs along the top -- ultimately that's a Good Thing, cuts down on the plummeting to one's death I imagine. Instead, there are side hill paths that suddenly deliver you to the top. These trails were worn into the crag by people keen to stand at the top and enjoy the view, I imagined, although they could also just be "the way back down" for rock climbers after they climb one of the cliffs.

I found myself constantly arriving at the cliff's edge, then walking down a nearly vertical path to get to a lower path so I could continue my run.

I continued along the crag, then worked my way down to the running path ("Radical Road", I guess). I passed some people who were in training for something -- they were scrambling up a near vertical shaft, running down a gently sloping path down to the running path, and then back to the vertical shaft. I have no idea how many laps they were doing, but I'm pretty sure one would have done me in, especially at that point. I have no idea what they were training for. There were three coaches -- one running with them and the other two at the top and bottom of the vertical climb.

I ran/walked back up the Royal Mile to the hotel. Having summited Salisbury Crag (repeatedly), the idea of running the relentless uphill of the Royal Mile was a non-starter.

I met up with Chris back at the hotel -- Flex and Nealie had already headed out on other activities (shopping, I think). Chris and I got breakfast at a small sandwich shop on the mile ("Sugarhouse Sandwiches"), and we then proceeded to climb Arthur's seat. As we headed up in sort of the reverse of the route I had taken coming down from Salisbury Crags. As we headed up, we encountered the ominous fork in the path. Based on my earlier sighting of stairs going up to "the summit" earlier in the day, I suggested we take the right hand path, which lead in that direction (I had enjoyed a commanding view of this path for most of my run that morning). As we went along, it became clear that the left hand path lead to an easy but long walk up to the summit. We stuck to our plan, but also figured this was the right path for us to take back down.

It turns out the stairs I had spied earlier, made of flattened rock arranged in a switch-back fashion, didn't go all the way to the summit but instead lead to something that, on the map, is listed as Nether Hill or "Lion's Haunch".

We saw some amazing avian activity on the way up the stairs. As you might be able to tell from the picture accompanying this post, there is a fair bit of wind on Arthur's seat, building steadily as you go up. A seagull (Edinburgh is right on the Firth of Forth, so seagulls are not uncommon anywhere you go in the city) was able to open up its wings and literally "hover" over the steep slope waiting for any sign of movement (prey) in the brush. Some ravens took exception to this and tried to drive the seagull out of what they considered "their" hunting ground. The seagull seemed to take no interest in their complaints, but did fly off after a while. I imagined him saying something like "there's nothing worth hunting here anyway". I don't think we got a picture of this amazing hovering technique -- we were a little too pre-occupied with climbing stairs.

The path from "Lion's Haunch" up to the summit is fairly flat until you get to the "seat" itself, which is pretty vertical no matter where you approach it from. We just scrambled our way up, passing another couple on their way down. Once we got to the top, we found a slightly easier path we could have used (and did use once we were ready to head back down).

We spent about10 to 20 minutes up there, and took lots of pictures. A family offered to take a couple pictures of us with our camera, including the one posted above.

We took our time walking back down that "long sloping path", stopping often to admire the flora and fauna. Near the bottom we stopped at the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel. From the chapel we saw a lake ("St. Margarets Loch") with swans. At one point, the swans all took flight to go from one end of the loch to the other. I tried to get some pictures of it, and one came out OK, but nothing could capture the sheer majesty of seeing that in person.

It happened that we met someone who was on her way up right at that "fork in the path". She asked for advise on how to proceed to the top and I recommended the path we had just taken, explaining about the stairs and the "long slow" path back down. She headed off on the right hand path, so I guess she took my advice.

More on Salisbury Crags, including some explanation of the "Radical Road" and rock climbing opportunities on those cliffs I kept getting delivered to the top of.