Walking Home

reveries of an amateur long-distance hiker

On Boredom

July 31st, 2022

On Boredom

A scene from Gus Van Sant’s film Gerry is a three and a half minute tracking shot of the profiles of the two main characters, both named Gerry, in tight focus as they trudge across a vast and empty desert. While the audience might marvel at the technical virtuosity, they also feel and partially experience the utter boredom of the walk. In filming the tale of two young men lost in the desert for several days, Van Sant stages the pure boredom of wandering in large, seemingly empty landscapes. Similar to Sergio Leone, that other desert auteur, he serves up huge, painterly spaces, and, at the same time, stretches time to a point where it feels as if it must break. The experience of the characters (and the audience) is both intense and empty, concentrated and vast. In a word, boring. Long-distance trekking is both physically and mentally challenging, and one of those challenges is boredom. Hikers face day after day, week after week, waking, packing up, and walking nine, ten or more hours sometimes in spectacular environments but more often in tedious sameness. Appalachian Trail hikers often disparagingly call the path “the green tunnel.” In a sense, boredom is the mental ground of walking.

The literature of walking as well as actual walking must ultimately contend with the fundamental boredom of the practice. A frequent element of everyday life, the actual experience of boredom seems to be something humans want to push off, to eliminate completely if possible (hence the very notion of entertainment), so it is puzzling that a segment of the population—trekkers—seem to put themselves willingly in boring situations. Looking to philosophy for some guidance, we can turn to Martin Heidegger‘s Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. It’s a strange book, as it seems to be two separate paths. The first is a long discussion of boredom as the fundamental attunement of the 20th century, and second half contains his famous but problematic assertion that the stone is worldless, the animal poor-in-world, while the human worlds. The second half of the book has long been a fundamental text for people working in animal studies and in 21st-century environmental studies in general, but first half has remained, at least for me, a puzzle.

On returning to it to gain a perspective on the question of walking and boredom, I was struck that in the first chapters, he develops a fairly sophisticated form of affect theory avant la lettre. First he sets out his notion of attunement, noting that there can be both individual and collective forms. Individual’s have moods, but so do groups. We speak of a happy room or a pessimistic population. Staying consistent with his ongoing philosophical project of understanding Dasein as throwness into the world, he claims (and I am generalizing here) that we notice the exceptional moments— happiness, anger, basic well-being, etc.— but, as we are always already in an attunement (throwness in the world), the fundamental attunement(s) go unnoticed. He goes on to claim that there is no universal attunement. Instead he sees it as historical or epochal and that the fundamental attunement in the 20th century is boredom.

Most of the boredom section maintains a level of abstraction familiar to readers of Heidegger, but he does offer a few material examples, including the scene of waiting four hours for a train in an empty railway station. He details a number of strategies to drive off boredom that are familiar, including idly drawing in the sand or walking back and forth on the road in front of the station, all the while regularly checking his watch. Given his rather querulous relation to modern technology, it is perhaps not surprising that he sees boredom as the fundamental 20th century attunement. His railway example is telling, as would, I think his inclusion of a range of entertainment technologies that occupy the herd, serving as a temporary and probably unsatisfactory way to stave off boredom. (From that perspective, I suspect that such boredom remains foundational in this century, given the efflorescence of media forms whose primary purpose in to drive off boredom. In that sense, the current generation of smartphone users is perhaps the first in human history to have never actually experienced fundamental boredom.) Predictably, across the book he makes many fine-grained distinctions which are a little arcane for this essay, but his distinction between superficial and profound boredom can provide some insight. The first we try to eliminate rapidly through a range of distractions (detailed in his railway station example). But the other he suggests we should let approach us: “not to resist straightaway but to let resonate.” This latter notion can be read productively through the lens of walking. Rather than seeing profound boredom as something to be “driven away,” I want to claim that not only should it be sought out by preparing the ground for it, but it should also be embraced as a significant form of being.

Heidegger sees attunement as a hybrid figure, emerging from—becoming unconcealed—personal or collective interaction with the material world. A book as thing cannot be boring because that can only emerge from human interaction with it. So profound boredom as fundamental attunement is necessarily a dense and complex set of interactions with people, history, ideas, and things. Trekking boredom is just such a hybrid attunement: I wake in a forest—not a forest, more a large copse—where I’ve wild camped near the English Ridgeway (“the oldest footpath in England”). Nothing boring about getting up early to avoid detection by a landowner or gamekeeper. Dressing and packing quickly, I soon gain the path and safety from the charge of trespass. I soon meet another early riser, an old man walking his dog who tells me his version of the many historical tales that layer over any time spent on this literally storied path. Then I’m off for a long day crossing the midpoint of the trail— an anticipated 20+ miles walk to a campground and a legal night’s sleep. The southern half of the Ridgeway is almost all up on a ridgetop, not usually the best place for a path, but on the rolling chalk downs of Wiltshire it is perfect. In the second half of my day, the path descends to the river and follows the Thames through small riverside villages almost to Wallingford (an extra mile off the trail to get there).

The Ridgeway is perhaps not the best choice for a trail to discuss the notion of profound boredom (see Walking England’s Oldest Path). Coming in at 87 miles, it is not really a long-distance path. Its length does not prompt the attenuation of calendar time that characterizes hiking boredom. I choose it because it is the most recent path I have walked so the details and sensations remain fresh, and it was where I thought through this essay (and therefore is a partial exemplification of walking-thinking). In addition, like the Appalachian Trail (which it in no other way resembles), the Ridgeway is unusually well-marked, so its walkers rarely experience the navigational anxiety provoked by such topologically and cartographically challenging trails as the South Island of the Te Araroa, or my recently completed Cape Wrath in the Scottish Highlands. Days on the Ridgeway are punctuated by occasional encounters with other walkers, beautiful agrarian landscapes, and remarking the deep history of the region: barrows, Bronze Age forts, and both ancient and modern white chalk land art. The path surface is well maintained, the hills are not steep, and walking the rolling downs is at times soporific. The lack of distraction helps reveal a foundational, perhaps even primordial boredom.

While walking we may seek to drive off superficial boredom through distraction. There are technological distractions. Heidegger constantly checks his watch in the railway station, and 21st century trekkers constantly monitor GPS via a range of devices (I usually carry several, though for this walk in a tame countryside I left behind my emergency beacon). Calibrating time and distance are some responses to facing a day where for many hours there will be little that one could call distraction. This is not to say walking is not an exhilarating experience as, on some level, the days are full, but, as long-distance trekkers know, there is that moment about an hour into the day where you have settled into a rhythm. You have inventoried your body, adjusted for various aches and pains, consulted your navigation aids, and perhaps eaten a breakfast bar. Then it hits that you will be doing what you are doing with minimal difference for the rest of the day.

This is where profound boredom diverges from the commonly felt superficial version. Long distance trekkers enter willingly such an attunement, seek it out not as something to drive away through experiencing the spectacular but rather to be embraced. For trekkers, profound boredom as fundamental attunement is a ground for Being. Heidegger is correct that attunements are hybrid, composed of multiple materialities and affects. The path, the walk, and the walker enter into an attunement that enables different thinking. It comes in stealthily, in a sense unbidden unless one remembers that the whole process is a bid to experience differently. It goes something like this: over the first hour the logistics of the day recede. Then the immediacy of thought connected to the quotidian— recalled snippets of conversations from colleagues, a task that remains undone, a recent encounter recalled happily or with anguish—also recedes. The sheer physicality of the walk itself, while staying on with some level of awareness, is dampened, as is any navigational anxiety. And, at least on the Ridgeway, anxiety regarding dangerous wildlife is absent. Then the path itself enables thoughts, not fully formed but rather stray bits, affects of the space, odd juxtapositions, a chaotic flow. In a word, walking-thinking commences. As Walt Whitman says in his “Song of the Open Road”: “Allons! the road is before us!”

Profound boredom empties out the quotidian but the walker does not then become empty. Heidegger sometimes characterizes boredom as emptiness, but after all, we are always already in an attunement, so instead through boredom we are differently filled. Walking-thinking is enabled by this foundational attunement but is not directed by it. The empty is an absence of guideposts or blazes—both literal and figurative. It is thinking that does not strain toward truth, understanding, absolutes, or mastery, but instead marvels at and revels in its own aimlessness, obscurity, and creativity. To invoke the thought of another early 20th century philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead in Process and Reality articulates the occasional need for vagueness in thinking in images familiar to walkers: “in the vagueness of the low hum of insects in an August woodland, the inflow into ourselves of feelings from enveloping nature overwhelms us; in the dim consciousness of half-sleep, the presentations of sense fade away, and we are left with the vague feeling of influences from vague things around us.” These are the affects, the attunements, of experience where there is thinking, not completed thought. This directly parallels the experience of walking across a day which, at either end, is goal directed and therefore structured by external exigencies, but the middle is in the milieu (in Gilles Deleuze’s sense— see my Pointless Essay Hiatus for a discussion of milieu and William James’s “specious present”). It is a vague middle embraced rather than driven away. In can be interrupted by the spectacular or the technological but is just as easily recovered because of the vastness of space and time that makes up a long day’s trek.

Returning to the preparatory remarks in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics where he develops an analysis of boredom as the foundational attunement of the 20th century, Heidegger historicizes (or makes epochal) four thinkers (Spengler, Klages, Scheler, Ziegler) who explore the spirit/soul binary. Heidegger then attributes the structure of those arguments to Nietzsche’s Dionysian/Appolonian opposition. I find it interesting that in this section on possible foundational attunement, Heidegger reads The Will to Power as articulating the Dionysian as the ground on which the Greek Appolonian impulse was built. In other words, he doesn’t offer up a simple dialectic but instead uses the Dionysian as the ground that must be revealed. He quotes Nietzsche’s notes: “Dionysos: sensuousness and cruelty. Transitoriness could be interpreted as enjoyment of productive and destructive energy, as constant creation.” So we are led to ask if this triad—sensuous/violence/(productive/destructive) creativity (plus time: transitoriness) —is somehow foundational to boredom, is the ground of a fundamental attunement.

Throughout the book, Heidegger is at pains to avoid causal explanations for any attunements, particularly boredom, so we should resist the overly simplistic idea that the Dionysian impulse springs from and is in some way an antidote to boredom. Seeking excitement would of course be a distraction in the superficial sense, but how would the Dionysian participate in, be foundational for, profound boredom? Rather than looking toward the orgiastic, we can seek an answer in walking. Of course “answer” is the wrong term. Rather walking can provide a glimpse into the Dionysian elements of profound boredom. As Heidegger’s scene at the railway station makes clear, boredom is both about time and a way to think time, and it seems clear that anything that claims to be a fundamental attunement must have a temporal structure. The Dionysian as attunement is fundamentally about time, bringing an understanding of different experiences of time. Dionysian revelry, the world turned upside down, is a revealing of just such multiplicity—orgiastic vs. industrial time. In a way quite similar to the profound boredom of long-distance walking, the Dionysian puts in stark relief the quotidian, which can only be thought by literally stepping outside it, into a different attunement. As Heidegger makes clear from the outset of his discussion, attunement experienced as mood (individual or collective) is something clearly perceptible and lived, but if we are always already in attunement, the foundational attunement is rarely experienced as such. The temporality of profound boredom can come into view through a different experience of time— the Dionysian time and walking-time are of a piece in effecting that unconcealing.

The first two terms in the Nietzschean Dionysian are sensuousness and violence. In other words, it is a profoundly embodied experience. The Dionysian demands a body capable of feeling— feeling intensely— as well as one capable of both being violent and having violence inflicted on it. One immediately thinks of various versions of Sadomasochism as example, and indeed that line of understanding and experience is likely the most fruitful approach, but it is important not to diminish other experiences of embodiment, violence, and pain. To put it bluntly, outside of sexual experiences, there are few activities as sensuous (and as painful) as long distance trekking. As mentioned earlier, every day begins with a bodily inventory— an inventory is ongoing if at times repressed. Trekkers are constantly questioning what a body can do, what its affordances are, and experiencing both the exaltation of accomplishment and the profound pain of failure. The latter is a common experience as trekking is ultimately a world of pain. Trekking is a productive/destructive violence we do to ourselves (a point made poignant in the violent ending of Van Sant’s film).

And finally, creativity—the third term in Nietzsche’s formulation and one that I hope the above discussion of hiking-thinking begins to open up. That would by no means be a naive celebration of the so-called “creative class” in 21st century economic discourse, nor an alignment with the supposed “creative destruction” of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who might superficially be viewed as crude Nietzscheans but who are on the most fundamental level celebrants of neoliberal economics, something subverted by profound boredom and wandering/thinking without product. (Walking is not immune to neoliberal commodification as is demonstrated by all the walk-for-a-cause crowdsource funded treks flogged on social media). The Dionysian creativity can be better linked to the notion of the “Wild” developed by Thoreau in his short book on walking, a book that highlights walking-thinking: “you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking.” Unlike the views of many of his readers, Thoreau’s “wild” does not refer to wilderness— a world empty of humans— but instead to the efflorescence of life around the edges of civilization. The wild proliferates in swamps full of marginalized wildlife, or at the edges of gardens where plants hybridize promiscuously. The wild is the fox I saw on the Cape Wrath Trail, but also the pair who tore into the garbage on the street outside my apartment in Oxford. A Dionysian wild is set up against the tyranny of industrial time, and against any limitations on the possibilities of what a body can do, including a rejection of simple notions separating pleasure from pain. Wild thinking is equally undisciplined, also always taking place in the margins or the middle and never concerned with completion or closure. The wild thinker—walking-thinking— never gets to the point, never concludes, and instead keeps on trudging: to be on a footpath is never to arrive (see Footpaths). To unapologetically express this whole essay in a tautology: Boredom as fundamental attunement is the ground of wild thinking, embodied sometimes painful but patient walking/waiting for complex, obscure, chaotic novelty to emerge, and that practice is, in itself, profound boredom.

T. Hugh Crawford

The Ridgeway, July 17 Day 5, 16 miles

July 18th, 2022

The Ridgeway, July 17 Day 5, 16 miles

Last days on a path tend to be less about accomplishment and more about just getting there. This one was no exception. Apart the last couple of miles, it was just like the day before, a beautiful wander through a shady forest with occasional field crossings. The experience was marred by a mountain bike event— 100 mile ride being undertaken by hundreds of riders. Often the path is narrow which requires I step off when they approach, which after a while becomes tedious. Still everyone was happy and courteous, always saying cheers or some other greeting.

The final approach to Ivinghoe Beacon is across open ground and was very hot. I ran out of water with about a mile to go and was spitting dust in the top. Still not sure what Ivinghoe Beacon is a beacon to, as the commemorative plaque next to the trig point was blank. Still, a satisfying end to an excellent walk.

The buses in the local village don’t run on sundays, so I made my way off the beacon and trekked the mile into Ivinghoe where I had a pint of Ridgeway Ale at the Rose and Crown. A man in the crowd at the bar (it was a busy Sunday afternoon) asked if I had just finished— I’m guessing I had that bedraggled hiker-trash look on. No bus, so I got a cab to the Tring train station where, instead of heading toward Oxford (which is not all that far away), I had to go into London Euston, tube to Paddington and train back out to Oxford. So I exchanged England’s oldest path for a fast Great Western Rail line— seemed somehow fitting.

T. Hugh Crawford

The Ridgeway, July 16 Day 4, 21 miles

July 18th, 2022

The Ridgeway, July 16 Day 4, 21 miles

The early morning walk out of Wallingford was one of the best I’ve ever taken. No longer on the ridge, the path simply winds its way between wheat fields and pastures, but it is shaded by huge old beech trees. In places it drops down into old holloways (like those described so beautifully by Robert MacFarlane in his book of the same name). As the heat wave continues and temperatures were rising across the day, I worried a bit that the path would break out of the woods and cross fields or even get back up on the ridge, but apart from a few scattered exposed sections, it largely remained in the shade.

Crossing a farm not that far from Chequers (the Prime Minister’s country residence— supposedly Boris was there), I heard yelling, barking, and bleating. Before long I got to a gate where a man with a pickup truck and a border collie was moving a flock from one field to the next. We stopped and talked for a moment while I helped him secure the gates and then watched his dog turn the flock, round up some stragglers, and send them down a lane, with the man only saying a few words of direction. Proud of his dog, he noted she had been working for 10 years and was showing no sign of slowing down.

The distances and my too soft feet were starting to take a toll, and I had booked accommodations at the 21st mile marker. On arriving at Princes Risborough, I took the opportunity to get some refreshment and prop my feet at the Bird in Hand pub. Then I pressed on to The Plough at Cadsden which had very fine (and reasonable) accommodation as well as a fascinating regular clientele who obviously spent much time together arguing amicably. Today’s distance puts the end point at Ivinghoe Beacon within 16 miles, so tomorrow should be less intense (if even hotter).

T. Hugh Crawford

The Ridgeway, July 15 Day 3, 18 miles

July 18th, 2022

The Ridgeway, July 15 Day 3, 18 miles

Early mornings of wild camping are always a mix of exultation— hearing all the fauna around the tent while slowly waking with the sun (and birds) is magical—and anxiety as the sun reveals presence to landowners. I was up and out long before a gamekeeper could accost me, walking into the morning sun up high on the ridge. I was no means the only wanderer out that hour, meeting almost immediately a man walking his dog— another of the Ridgeway characters with their history to tell. Just ahead was yet another barrow which he noted was both the grave of an ancient leader and the site of a market town. Although villages here tend to be down off the ridge where water is available, this site was at the crossroads of various drove roads and so was an early livestock center—at least according to my interlocutor.

Today was also the day I crossed the halfway point and learned just how different the second half of this trail is. In the morning I continued on the ridge past many of the same fields I’d been in. As I was leaving Wiltshire and heading into the Chilterns, I was treated with a spectacle uncommon some decades ago. At least a dozen red kites were circling overhead. A raptor that was nearing extinction and only living in Wales, has recovered and been reintroduced in this area. They were circling a field where presumably some game was about. The angle of the sun was such that their shadows regularly passed over me, giving that little jolt of adrenaline that nearby danger brings out.

Late morning I descended off the ridge to Goring and spent the rest of the day walking within sight of the Thames. Like in Oxford, the canal boats were passing and the locks were In full operation. Although the length of the walk made me feel at some distance from Oxford (my current base of operations) I was actually quite close and regularly saw buses on their way there. Given the heat and my own lagging energy, I was sorely tempted to hop one back but resisted. Although Wallingford is a mile off the Ridgeway, it has a campground (the Bridge Villa Caravan Park which is technically in Crowmarsh but, as the name implies, is right by the bridge) run by a lovely couple, so I pushed on off the path, setting up my tent is a now-legal spot, wandering the town before dining on oysters and what-not. All in all, another satisfying day.

T. Hugh Crawford

The Ridgeway, July 14 Day 2, 22 miles

July 18th, 2022

The Ridgeway, July 14 Day 2, 22 miles

An early breakfast at the Bear (eggs, bacon, tomatoes, and blood pudding) and a bus back to where I had left off the trail, I slipped into a hiking rhythm immediately. There are the regular encounters with Iron and Bronze Age barrows— some just rounded hills, others with some visible stones and such. Apart from an insistent history pressing with each step, what struck me most was how intense the contemporary agriculture is in this region. Often I get the impression farming in tourist areas is subsidized decoration, but the farmers here are active— particularly in wheat production. I stopped a while watching a combine emptying its grain in a wagon.

My overall plan remains tentative— just need to average 20 miles over the next 4 days. The guide book tends to draw a distinction between the first half of the path and the second, with accommodation more scarce (or at least at greater distance) in the beginning. I set out today with no clear end point, trusting I’d find a place to sleep and perhaps some food. The latter involved serendipity as up on the ridge approaching the Uffington White Horse nearing lunch time, I crossed a road which had the familiar post and poster of a bus stop. Turns out a bus was due in five minutes that would take me to Avebury, home of the Rose and Crown pub. I soon found myself tucking into whitebait and a roast beef sandwich. Returning to the path required some walking which was soon rewarded by the Uffington White Horse (900 BCE), which is only partly visible from the ground, but shows the stability of the chalk downs environment and the skill of some very early inhabitants.

As there were no nearby villages to find accommodation, I resolved to wild camp, hoping one of the many beech copses would turn up near the end of the day. I’m not sure if beeches ward off competition with chemicals, but their forests rarely have thick (or any) underbrush, making for ideal campsites. In the afternoon I fell in walking with a man from Wantage, the closest large town, who (like Thoreau) tried to walk at least 4 hours per day. Many of the paths are linear, so it takes some ingenuity to walk out a good loop, but he has worked out many. Like everyone I’ve me thus far, he has a deep sense of the history of the area, particularly the geology. He pointed to a series of villages off to the west of the ridge, noting they has been built near the springs that bubble up because of the permeability of the chalk and density of the clay underlying it.

As the day wore on and my feet wore out, I began to despair finding the perfect beech hanger. The area the trail was crossing was heavily farmed and the woods tended to be pine plantations. On crossing a car park, I ran into two shirtless, tattooed, very drunk young Englishmen who were inordinately interested in my trek. After a fist bump or two, they recommended I seek out an abandoned hunting lodge just down the path. Although the structure was still habitable, they recommended I tent in the field near it. Apparently the lodge has a lot of “weird energy.” I hoped I wasn’t heading toward some Wiltshire version of the Red Lodge in Twin Peaks, but I never got to feel that weird energy as their directions were as fuzzy as their brains. Pressing on, I found myself near the Great Bottom Woods, a promising name for a place to trespass, and after a bit of a wander, I discovered a spot for my tent, with my night’s sleep regularly disturbed by deer tramping past.

T. Hugh Crawford

The Ridgeway, July 13 Day 1, 10 miles

July 18th, 2022

The Ridgeway, July 13 Day 1, 10 miles

The Ridgeway, an 86 mile National Trail, wanders (as the name makes clear) along a ridge running between West Overton and Ivinghoe Beacon and is often called the “oldest trail” in England. Obviously any such designation is dubious at best, but it does focus any walker’s attention on what is clearly a deeply sedimented history (both textual and material). I commence this trek on a whim, finding myself in Oxford not long after finishing the Scottish National Trail and so, more or less, in good trekking condition (that remains to be seen after spending several weeks in Oxford more or less sitting on my ass). I’ve been teaching a seminar on walking literature, had made an adjustment to the syllabus that suddenly freed me of obligation from midday Wednesday until Sunday night. I doubt anyone would recommend walking the Ridgeway in 4 days (plus a little bit on first day) but, given the possibility of four 20 mile days (commonplace near the end of the SNT), I dove in— with virtually no planning or preparation.

The first bit of the Ridgeway is a celebration of ancient history, chalk, and flints. I took a train to Swindon and a bus to Avebury where I circled the stone circles circling the Red Lion pub. More like the standing stones on Orkney than Stonehenge, the stones set the tone for the weekend. I later found my way to West Overton, the official starting point of the national version of the Ridgeway. What struck me most was how apt the name is. I’ve hiked so many trails where my heart sinks if the path follows the top of the ridge. The ongoing up and down can be exhausting, and all the pathmakers need do is drop off the ridge a bit to level out. But the Wiltshire downs are slow, rolling hills where walking on the top is a joy. The surface is usually forgiving, the chalk crumbles though the flints do poke a bit.

My disorganization kept the question of accommodations open for the duration. I’ve brought my full kit, so I can wild camp if necessary, but for tonight I caught the bus at the village Ogbourne St. George down to Marlborough where I had a bunk room above a pub (The Bear) and a remarkable meal at Pino’s, a local Italian restaurant. A satisfying start to a new adventure.

T. Hugh Crawford

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 35, June 14, 2022

June 15th, 2022

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 35, June 14, 2022

The ends of long trails usually have a certain drama, none perhaps more than the obligatory Katahdin sign pose at the end of the Appalachian Trail.

The Te Araroa begins with a lighthouse at Cape Reinga but ends at a less impressive signpost at Bluff.

The Camino de Santiago ends in the embrace of St. James, or, even more moving for me, at the waves crashing on the rocks at Muxia.

The Scottish National Trail, in its last days following the Cape Wrath Trail, ends at a lighthouse above crashing waves at the most extreme northwestern point of Scotland. And given you have to cross a Ministry of Defense live firing range (which included climbing a couple of barbed wire fences, which definitely reminded me of my childhood), the drama is even more elevated.

The guidebook I have been following took me first to Sandwood Bay — a remarkable inviting beach— with the end scheduled for the following day, but that same guidebook has been throwing 29-30 km days at me for a week, so when the weather remained ugly, I opted to push on to the end—grateful I did as I avoided a logistical problem I’ll detail presently. I had slept at the Old Schoolhouse Hotel the night before, a comfortable place a mile or two above Rhiconish, so the morning hike already had me ahead of the game. It was an interesting walk—unlike most I’ve had before— as the road wound up through the peninsula and rather than shift to empty pasture land, I continued to pass cottages set out in the landscape facing the ocean that appeared at every turn. An inviting place in the summer.

After a few miles, the path to Sandwood Beach appeared and was also well-graded, so I covered the entire first section by late morning. As it was the last day, I did marvel at the landscape— less imposing as the hills are much lower, but still ripped by the constant winds, and today some rain mixed in. The run-in to Sandwood included some ruins which are now beyond connection by roads and so just deteriorate, but I could imagine life in one crumbling house which was at most a quarter mile from the huge beach. And of course, there were sheep grazing all the way to the ocean. Pressing on the (I thought) last 7.5 miles, the walk changed completely. The landscape was not challenging except a lot of bogs, but the path disappeared for almost all of the section, so navigation was all via GPS. Part of me appreciated that final bit of navigational difficulty before hitting the road and walking the last mile or more to the lighthouse and the Ozone Cafe.

Ends of trails often present logistical difficulties. On the Appalachian Trail, after summiting Katahdin, you have to find transportation to Millinocket (Luckily for me and Bennett, my son Tom came up from Boston, climbed Katahdin with us, and drove back to civilization). I remember I had to hole up for a day on the Tasmanian Overland Track to wait for transport. Cape Wrath is served by a minibus service— the only people who can drive into the area—and I had arranged for transport on the 15th.

https://www.visitcapewrath.com/about-us/

Arriving a day early I expected to have to stay over in the bunkhouse, but soon learned that the ferry would not run on the 15th. One reason I try not to plan too far out is that it is easy in the bush to lose a day for some odd reason, but, because of the train strike, I had made a series of reservations that a two day delay would ruin.

Already waiting in the cafe were three trekkers. One, a man from Switzerland, had just finished the Scottish National Trail, the only person the entire trek I met who was hiking it. The bus arrived almost full of tourists, and they had three empty seats—I was #4. I begged the driver, Stuart, for transport, but he could not accommodate me on a full bus (regulations). Then, what on the Appalachian Trail you would call “trail magic,” he exhibited that amazing Scottish hospitality I have encountered since Kirk Yetholm. The ferry was 22 km away, and he had an hour before he had to bring his load of passengers back, so he drove me out 30 minutes, dropped me. I walked hard and fast toward ferry while he returned to pick up his load. Some time later he passed me, dropped his crew at the ferry, then returned, picked me up and, after our ferry crossing, drove me to Durness from the pier (it was raining hard so that was much appreciated).

I remain dumbfounded by his kindness. In some way, that is the fitting end to my journey. Not some celebration of perseverance and fortitude, or another notch on a trekking pole, but instead a deep appreciation of a people and a culture who for the last 5 weeks have repeatedly astounded me by their kindness, generosity, and just plain human compassion. I will miss Scotland.

T. Hugh Crawford

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 34 June 13, 2022

June 15th, 2022

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 34 June 13, 2022

Weather remained dismal so I met my fishermen friends for breakfast in Kylesku and later went with them to Rhiconish. In our conversation it became clear they had a deep understanding of the history of the area derived from their on-the-ground (or in-the-river) experiences of place. As a result, they knew the breeding habits of fish, the botany of riverine environments, a lot of geology and hydrology, the human history of land occupation (and de-occupation), and the current class-related sociopolitical circumstances of the strange economy that is the Northwestern Highlands today. I got a similar lesson from the crew back in the bothy near Laggan as one was government policy advisor, another a forester, and another a gamekeeper. All good friends but often on different places in the conversation. In my rather desultory preparation for this journey— I had originally planned this trek for 2020 before Covid intervened— I devoured contemporary Scottish nature writers and dug into early 20th and late 19th century books as well. It’s a hard history to learn, as the various traumas are often alluded to without specific context.

The history of the lands where American trails lead is often actively suppressed as those trails try to offer a “truly wild” experience without the taint of human presence— strangely chimeric attitude. I wrote a bit about that in a longer essay on a different topic regarding the lands where the Benton Mackaye and Appalachian Trail overlap:

Careering on the Lakeshore Trail in the Smokies, I encountered, of all things, cars—slowly rusting hulks of 1920’s vehicles, one with an old tree growing up through it. Not the sort of sight you expect in the so-called empty American wilderness, but also not surprising given the path I had been following was once a fairly well-made road. Heading north not far past the cars other evidence of Appalachian settlers emerges— old sheet metal, beams, axles, the remains of an old mill race and stone mill, and then the Calhoun House, the last standing structure of the Proctor community. In the late 19th century Proctor was an agrarian village. In the first decade of the 20th, a railroad was pushed there, and Proctor became a lumber boomtown, swelling to over 1000 inhabitants until the timber was exhausted. During World War II, the Alcoa aluminum plant needed smelting power, so the Fontana Dam was built, with the lake submerging parts of the town. A promised road to Proctor was never finished, though the “tunnel to nowhere” some miles to the east is now a tourist destination. The remaining town dwindled and then disappeared, with most structures disappearing into the regenerating forest. I would guess that disappearance was also hastened by the National Park service— a whole nother story of displacement. The whole essay is here:

https://walkinghome.lmc.gatech.edu/pointless-essays/career/

In part because of the sheer depth of the time of human occupation in the Highlands landscape, the persistence of the past here is not so much suppressed as it is, for naive eyes at least, made puzzling. (I don’t mean to imply the lands of, for example, the Appalachian Trail don’t have a comparable history of human occupation, just that the more obvious marks one encounters when walking there are, at least for me, almost impossible to discern). I’ve spent days here struggling slowly up watersheds to some high bealach— out in the raw wilds of brute nature— only to encounter unmistakable signs of human occupation and industry. The position in the landscape seems to indicate subsistence farming as probable primary occupation, but, for me, those signs— stone walls, dwelling foundations, etc.— always prompted a halt to just look around and try to imagine what day to day life in such circumstances and seeming isolation would have been like. And of course the follow-on question of what became of the people who lived there.

These landscapes have gone through radical transformations— deforestation, subsistence agriculture, the clearances coupled with introduction of sheep and game production, to today’s parcelling up of huge tracts of land amongst incredibly wealthy landowners (often multinationals) and various activist environmental agencies (within and outside government). For all its deep time sensibilities, these spaces seem to be a constantly shifting, fluid occupation. Like the bogs I keep trekking through, getting a sense of history, of some foundation of the land, keeps sliding under foot.

T. Hugh Crawford

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 33, June 12, 2022

June 13th, 2022

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 33, June 12, 2022

Yesterday’s many crossings in heavy mist veiled a bit my awareness of a significant change in the overall terrain (though the rocks and my feet made me acutely if unconsciously aware of it). This glacial nature of landscape, the earth’s skin is scraped raw, exposing boulders prone to roll, massing in huge rock fields. My hike out from a sleepless night in that primitive shelter was still in driving rain, strong winds, and a lot of fog though there was some light low in the distant sky giving some optimism.

Much like yesterday, the trail was often indistinct and wound across several watersheds in what felt like a random pattern though the intent was clearly to take me close to Eas a’ Chual Aluinn, the highest waterfall in the UK. I stood and looked at it for a bit before I realized that was what I was watching. It is incredibly high, but was obscured by the rain and fog. Given the severity of the weather and the stress of yesterday’s trek, I opted for a trail taking me more directly off the mountain to the road to Kylesku, avoiding some navigationally difficult pathless bog trekking. The guides for the Scottish National Trail and for the Cape Wrath Trail all emphasize flexible route choice, so prudence won out over some sense of purity.

The skies did lift a bit, and occasionally I saw my own shadow, and the sheer scale of these rock-strewn slopes pressed hard. It is jaw dropping landscape that requires immersion in it— photographs are pale facsimiles. The other landscape feature— water—also asserted itself. I’ve never been on a mountain with water pouring out of seemingly every rock. It is impossible not to be walking in streams as the whole mountainside is more or less a stream. I followed that water from high loch to lower loch, to burn, to river, finally picking my way to the flatlands and the highway to Kylesku.

My initial plan was to push past the village to reduce tomorrow’s long trek a bit, but the ongoing bad weather and my experience yesterday prompted a revision. Two miles outside of the village, I passed Newton Lodge, a beautiful building sited on a bluff with signs welcoming travelers to their restaurant. As it was around noon and I wanted to get out of the weather and eat something, I turned in— only to experience yet another bit of that fabled Scottish hospitality. As I walked to the door, a woman working in one of the rooms said hello through the window, informing me that—common story across the region— the restaurant was closed because of staffing shortages. As I was about to turn and leave, she hastened to open the door and ushered me into the pub area, insisted I sit a moment, then went to get the manager. Soon a young man appeared, apologized for the restaurant closure, offered a cup of coffee, then checked with their sister hotel in Kylesku that indeed their restaurant was open and would take walk-ins. He then offered to drive me there— I’m guessing I must have looked pretty rough to inspire such concern. I assured him I could easily walk the two miles to town, but thanked him for such hospitality. Both were such kind and concerned people.

Smelling the proverbial barn, I made short shrift of those last two miles and soon found myself at the Kylesku restaurant eating one of the best seafood soups I’ve ever tasted. The Loch here is an arm of the ocean so it’s a fishing village with seals and porpoises cavorting in the water. Just being out of the wind in a warm pub — just washing my hands in warm water—was the greatest pleasure. Realizing I was not going to walk further, I cast about for a place to stay, but, as I already knew, there were no openings anywhere. In wandering about, I found a nice small flat spot on a path above the hotel, just the right size for my tent. Pitched it, arranged my stuff, put on my dry town clothes, I returned to the pub, spending the evening talking to a number of people, particularly with a really wonderful couple— Andrew and Claire— who are fishers traveling about the area. They noted that the weather will continue bad through tomorrow and repeatedly offered to give me a ride to the next point, something given the circumstances I might consider. It was another two part day—profoundly difficult morning, and an exquisite afternoon/evening. It was a day for gratitude.

T. Hugh Crawford

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 32, June 11, 2022

June 12th, 2022

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 32, June 11, 2022

The weather predictions for the next few days were foreboding and, given my experience earlier in the trek, I discounted the severity of what was to come. The first few weeks every day they called for rain, but usually it was just scattered showers, no need to break out the rain gear. This morning started with a light shower and an easy trek up an estate road. Apart from a boggy bit between the estate road and another (linked by a forestry road) it was a pleasant saunter up the Oykel river, a renowned salmon river that, owing to low water from the dry last few weeks, had been largely abandoned by fishermen. After passing the amazing Benmore Lodge (and greeting a pack of hunting dogs), the road began showing markers by the river— a number, small bench and parking turn-out marking a salmon fisher’s designated spot.

I’m afraid that was the highlight of the day, not because I didn’t have an adventure and see some amazing sights, but the weather came in hard with non-stop driving rain and often gale-force winds knocking me off the path (when there was a path). Even though I was a walking ad for ZPacks rain gear, I was completely soaked in no time (to be fair, no rain gear could have stood up to that weather). Navigation would have been difficult in clear weather, it was nigh impossible in the rain—I kept loosing the path or the line.

The trail took me up a number of watersheds, skirted the edges of others, before turning in unexpected directions— the mist made direction nebulous anyway. This area, while still boggy, is much rockier. Clearly glacial, the paths remind me of the Pennsylvania section of the Appalachian trail, though the mountains in no way resemble that state. I’m sure I passed some magnificent landscapes today, but they were all buried in the mist.

This leg was supposed to end in Inchnadamph, with tomorrow’s heading back up the same path for a bit. As there were no accommodations or facilities there, I opted to hike a bit into tomorrow’s leg— a mistake. I still felt strong and was comfortable with a couple more miles, but the alarms should have gone off when the path climbed quickly toward a bealach. Unlike most other places I’ve trekked, in Scotland once you are at any elevation there is almost no cover— no trees or steep stones to tent behind. The landscape is scoured by the winds with plenty of growth ankle high, but nothing that will break the weather.

Foolishly I decided to press on, hoping that in the evening the weather might calm down, or that a sheltered wild camping spot would miraculously appear, or the “small shelter” mentioned in the guide would be open and sufficient. All those hopes were dashed. The shelter was indeed open, but was a mere sod-covered roof over a 5’ narrow bench with some rocks chinked in the sides to form a sort-of wall. Disappointed in myself (and feeling the intense cold), it was there I decided I had to camp.

Trekking is supposed to be an adventure, which in some of its etymological history includes embracing chance and taking risk. My adventure today was tempting chance and was an unnecessary risk. Still we must make the best of bad decisions, so after shucking off dripping clothes and finding dry ones in my pack, I made a bed more or less on the narrow bench (I fell off once, hitting a rock and spraining my wrist). Crawling into my sleeping bag, wearing most of my warm clothes, I felt the warmth slowly return. The day’s exertions erased any appetite, so I choked down a few dry crackers, curled up in a knot (unable to stretch all the way out) and tried to sleep, all the while feeling my gear getting wetter and worrying that I might roll off onto a rock again. Still, I could not help but smile at all the day had thrown at me.

T. Hugh Crawford