this is the end...my only friend, the end

You know you're living high when you wake up in a roofless room in an abandoned church, a hangover splitting your skull and the pale Scottish sunlight beaming down on you like the reprehending finger of God Himself.

You also know that, once again, you've been a sorry bastard who stayed out too late, spent too much money and drank too much booze.

Swearing inwardly, you put a hand over your face, partly to assuage your throbbing temples, and partly to shield your eyes from God's index finger. In about five minutes, you find the courage to sit up. A fresh whack of pain bolts through your head. Your mouth is dry and cottony. Your hair is greasy; your body grimy; your eyes bleary and reluctant to function.

Water. That's what you need. A nice big glass of water. And possibly a swift kick in the arse afterward.

Edinburgh. June 19, 2010, or something. The first thing I did was drink a big glass of water. That helped put me to rights, as did the Egg McMuffin I had at the McDonald's on the eastern end of Princes Street. Now, under grayish skies, Jeff and I were heading toward the Old Town again, on our last day in Edinburgh. We were determined to make good on it. We'd sampled Edinburgh's culinary delights, its liquors and heady vapors, its cultural bestowal, its arts and literature, its hospitality, and its history.

There was but one mysterious component left to assay: natural attractions. And we had quite the weighty feat in mind: climb to Arthur's Seat, the main peak of the bevy of hills which forms Holyrood Park.

The hill the Seat sits on is an extinct volcano. It was formed approximately 350 million years ago during the Carboniferous Age, which makes it older than the dinosaurs. The terrible lizards were just foot-long wannabes during the Caboniferous, newcomers to the global scene. The world was mainly ruled by plants, amphibians, and scorpions the size of dogs.

Later, in the Quaternary, glaciers shaved and scoured at the volcano, exposing rocky crags, igneous and sedimentary layers, paring the mound to about 820 feet in height and gentling its slopes. This occurrence allowed James Hutton, the father of modern geology, to realize that the layers which formed the hills had been set down at different times, far back in the past, much farther than anyone had previously suspected. This revolutionized Earth science. Up until the late 18th century people had believed the planet was just a ball of rock, which never moved or changed or did anything weird. Hutton changed all that. He realized that Earth was a dynamic, pulsating, glowing thing, whose surface had changed drastically over its long past. Hutton both sired modern geology and allowed other scientists, like Charles Darwin, get their theories off the ground by providing a much longer history of Starship Earth with which they could fiddle.

The origin of the name "Arthur's Seat" is disputed, much to everyone's surprise. Many argue that it links back to the legends of King Arthur. There is an intriguing reference in the medieval Welsh poem Y Gododdin to Arthur, mentioned in connection with a "seat" in the north. But since most of England and Scotland is north of Wales, the truth of the matter is up for grabs. It certainly was an intoxicating thought, however, that the old sentry post up on top of the hill in the center of Edinburgh might've played host to the backside of one of the most famous people in British history. 

But all of this is beside the point.

All Jeff and I wanted to do was climb the damn thing.

There's a dichotomy in any natural obstacle or geological formation. In considering it, you must first appreciate its mental or intangible forms. When someone says the word "mountain" to you, you might immediately think of the words "lofty," "beautiful," or "majestic." Those are the pathetic (meaning emotional) buzzwords which the word "mountain" evokes within you. Also there are scientific keywords which trigger certain perceptions within the mind regarding mountains. Your mind may respond with "igneous" or "extrusion"; "subduction" or "convergent boundary" or "tectonic"; "erosion" or "weathering"; or, ignoring the geological, you may think "alpine," "altitude," "moraine," "treeline," or any of the multitudinous biological phrases applying thereto.

Then there is the physical side to the mountain. The rock-hard, ice-cold, vertically-inclined, down-to-earth, gritty sensations which come when climbing instead of considering. Birdsong in the trees. A breeze through the grass. Feet crunching in snow. Sweat dripping down your forehead. Wheezing breath, heaving chests. The beatific gulp of water. Blisters, calluses, muscles aflame. Blood pounding through brains, fingers scraped on rock, sweet mountain air coursing through lungs and nostrils.

It was the physical side to mountaineering and hill-climbing which was foremost in my mind when we started down Princes Street to Holyrood Park, and the climb to Arthur's Seat. I wasn't thinking anything remotely geological, here. I was out to climb a hill.

We weren't quite sure where we were going, but hey—Arthur's Seat was the highest point for miles. It wouldn't exactly be hard to miss. We just followed every side-street and byway we could find until we got to the entrance of Holyrood Park and our way became clear. That's the kind of pioneers Jeff and I are.

The approach was steeper than it looked. And it'd been a while since I'd climbed a hill. But this was Scotland. I wasn't going to leave without surmounting the obstacle, without getting some cool air in my lungs and sweat under my hatband.

Past an ice-cream stall, up and over a small rise, and we were on the trail to the top. My legs were aching in about 15 minutes. My breath sawed at my throat, and my lungs felt like they were filled with sandpaper. Nonetheless I thrust doggedly uphill, wondering which would fail me first: my legs, my lungs, or my sense of adventure. I didn't care which of the three propelled me to the top, as long as I got there in the end. Some twenty minutes later, I realized with disbelief that I was being outstripped by a sixty-year-old man with a beer gut. Insulted and mortified, I intensified my pace. Jeff was a much wiser man about climbing hills (as he'd proved during the ascent of Jirisan in Korea a year earlier). He plugged away, not hurrying, but not stopping either.

And so we went during the 800-foot, multi-kilometer climb: me rocketing upward for a hundred yards only to pause, panting, at the crest of the next rise; Jeff stolidly working his way uphill, a look of benign and peaceful concentration on his brow.

At least the view was nice, though.

Vistas only improved the closer we got to the Seat itself.

And totally not before we knew it, we were at the top.

There wasn't really a seat to speak of up there; more of a cairn with graffiti scrawled all over it. The lumpy basaltic rocks which formed the peak hadn't escaped the street artist's pocketknife, either. Nonetheless the view of Edinburgh, the Firth of Forth, Kirkaldy, and the surrounding countryside was worth the sweaty climb and the chill breeze.

And then down we went again.

Jeff, after his wont, did the same thing going down the mountain as he had going up: he plodded steadily, never hurrying, never slowing. I descend hills like a mountain goat trying to start an avalanche. I was often hundreds of yards ahead of Jeff, and had to slow up and wait. Mr. Mountain Goat and Mr. Lizard were racing down a hill...

...so Mr. Lizard could take some nice photographs of Mr. Mountain Goat when there was a photo-op.

I was unable to resist the temptation of the ice-cream vendor on our way out of Holyrood Park, so I paid a chunk and got myself a cone. It helped cool me down enormously as we threaded our way through the winding, hilly streets of Old Town Edinburgh and back to our hostel.

We got cleaned up, packed our bags, and checked out of the Belford Hostel. We said farewell to the roofless rooms, the vaulted church ceiling, the stony brickwork, and the snores of our fellow inmates, and walked down the street to Ryan's Bar for one last pint. It was here that our trails parted ways. In an hour or so I would be taking the train back to Newcastle, to spend a final 36 hours with Adam and Elaine before I left for London and the flight back to North America; Jeff would jump the Channel into France and his seven-month sojourn in Europe and North Africa.

A good-luck beer seemed appropriate.

What was even more appropriate was the song that came on as we sat, sipped and reflected on our adventures of the last fortnight.

Another case of art imitating life. We were suddenly sobered. Whatever buzz the Scotch ale had imparted to us was abruptly dissipated. We were parting, perhaps for a very long time, and we we knew it. The bond between fellow travelers, tenuous at the best of times, was somehow calcified by the dreamy lyrics Jim Morrison was calling from the pub's dusty speakers.

An excerpt from Two Fusiliers, by Robert Graves, came to my mind as Jeff and I shared that last drink at Ryan's.

And have we done with War at last?
Well, we've been lucky devils both,
And there's no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.

We finished, paid our bill, walked to Waverley Station, shook hands, and parted ways. I got on the train and sat, staring out the window at the rolling green of the countryside, my head spinning and my heart about to burst.