Day 2: From Drymen to Balmaha, by way of Conic Hill. Hosea breaks down.

We had breakfast at the Drymen Inn, around the corner from our B&B. I didn't understand the menu (that we were entitled to a large, hearty breakfast) and in any event didn't feel very hungry, so I ate lightly. (Spoiler alert: this was the wrong choice.) Then after we checked out of our B&B, we set off. 

The first couple of hours were pretty easy, and then we came to a fork in the Way. One branch went pretty directly to Balmaha (our next destination) by the easiest and most expeditious route. The other branch was described as "more challenging but more rewarding" and took the long way around, gaining a good bit more altitude and circling Conic Hill, but rewarding the hiker with tremendous views. Debbie definitely wanted to take the longer route, though she was solicitous of my well-being. I had already figured out that I was a lot slower than Debbie would be on her own, but I was still laboring under the delusion that slowness was my only problem. I thought to myself, Hey, I ran cross-country in high school and I put up with Wife for thirty years, so I can handle anything if you only give me enough time. Looking at the mileage we calculated that even in the worst possible case we'd still get to the hotel before dark, and so we took the second fork.

Well, … it was longer. The scenery really was spectacular. We would walk level for a while, or even gently downhill, and then start to climb. After we'd been going up a gentle incline for what seemed like a long time, then suddenly there would be a patch where the rocks were arranged like stairsteps and we literally climbed a rock staircase. For a while. Then we'd be back to level walking or a gentle incline for some considerable distance before coming to another staircase. This pattern continued. I forget how many times—maybe there were only two staircases, or maybe there were more—but it has all blurred together in my memory. We did a lot of climbing. 

Then we came to a spot where the path split. Part of it went straight on ahead, and part of it cut sharply to the left. You can see this split in the photo I've uploaded: it's on the right-hand side of the photo, about midway between the top and the bottom. From the vantage point of the photographer it looks like it is way off in the distance. See it? Right, well we came to that spot. By this time it was mid-afternoon. I was physically exhausted, and I hadn't had much to eat all day. So my brain wasn't working too well. Everyone else that I saw on the trail was veering off to the left, so I figured that's where we were supposed to go. Debbie came along with me without saying a word.

This was the path for the side trip to the top of Conic Hill.

Well, it got a lot steeper. And the path got narrower and more crumbly. The part of the path you can see in the photo is the broad and [comparatively] easy part, that's merely steep, before it gets narrow and treacherous. And for accomplished hikers and climbers it was no big deal. But note that word "accomplished." That's not me.

All of a sudden I just sat down on a rock in a patch of mud just one side of the trail. I could not go another step. Every part of my body below my waist hurt: hips, legs, knees, feet. I had no strength left. And I was afraid of falling. I don't know how rational this fear was; maybe if I had been well-fed and not in pain I would have seen things differently. But I was afraid of falling in two different senses: first, of planting my foot wrong and twisting my ankle so that I fell to the ground; but also, of losing my footing and sliding down the rocky slop until I reached the path way down there at the bottom. 

Debbie stopped on a rock just above me and started to talk to me. First she insisted that I eat something, and drink some of an electrolyte solution she was carrying. Then she explained that I didn't have to keep going.

"But that's the road to the next town and our hotel! Of course I have to keep going."

"No, the map doesn't show that. This is just Conic Hill. People go up here for the view, but then we go back down the same way we came up and pick up the trail at the bottom of the hill to get to the next town."

"Oh." I hadn't understood that. A tiny part of my brain felt stupid for having made that mistake, but the rest of me was relieved.

So I asked her, "Do you want to go up and see the view from the top?"

"Yes, I do."

"OK. I'm going to sit here and rest. Go ahead. When you come back down, then I'll stand up and we can go back down together."

I don't remember how long it took her, but it wasn't long. Not nearly long enough for me to recuperate, but that was going to take hours. I clambered to my feet. Somewhere along the way I had started crying; I don't remember when, or when I stopped. But I was clearly at the end of what I could handle.

We still had a ways to go before we got to Balmaha—I don't remember for sure, maybe it was another hour—but it was all downhill. For much of it there were stairs. As a side note, when the muscles in your legs are already worn out from climbing up stairs, climbing down stairs can feel hard too. But it's a different kind of "hard."

We got to the hotel. We checked in and got to our room. After a while we went down to dinner.

The whole way down, I had been thinking defeatist thoughts. Maybe tomorrow morning I can catch a bus back to Glasgow, and maybe I can move my return flight to tomorrow afternoon. It might cost me some money, but I can just give up and go home. It's a desperate choice, and after all this build-up I hate to do it. But what other choices do I have?

So when we got seated for dinner and the waiter came by to ask if we wanted drinks, Debbie—Debbie the Buddhist teetotaler, bless her heart—said, "Yes, I think we'd each like a beer. Do you have any beers that are gluten-free?" She found a gluten-free beer for herself, and I ordered something local on draft. Then once the beers had arrived, we sat and stared into each other's eyes for a few minutes. 

Then we started to talk. I don't remember what order we said things in. But I told her about my thoughts that maybe I should just give up. And the first words out of her mouth were, "I love you."

"I love you too, Debbie."

She explained that of course she would support whatever decision I made, but had I really examined all the options? For example, we were already booked in Balmaha for two nights, because there were no rooms available in Rowardennan (the next stop). The plan from the travel agency was that on the morrow, April 19, we would hike to Rowardennan, and then take a taxi (pre-paid) back to Balmaha for the night. Then on the morning of April 20 we'd take another pre-paid taxi to Rowardennan and then pick up the trail from there. So in that case, why couldn't I just spend the 19th resting in Balmaha while Debbie followed the original plan? We'd meet up in time for dinner, once the taxi brought her back. And we could go on from there. In future days, maybe I could walk part of the way and take a taxi the rest of the way. Or … gosh, something like that. We could improvise. But the point was, had I really examined all the options?

I agreed to spend the next day resting in Balmaha and deciding what to do next. I thanked her for showing me I had more options than I realized. We talked about a lot of other things that I'll cover in other posts (thematic ones, after the narrative is all done)—about our relationship, about reincarnation, even a little bit about Marie. Somewhere in the course of dinner we told each other "I love you" a second time. And finally we found our way—limping and aching, at least on my part—to bed.

What a day.