Photo by lucas Favre on Unsplash
In the summer of ’91, I set out alone into the Scottish Highlands, drawn by stories of stone bothies and the deafening silence of remote peaks. There was no GPS, no mobile phone, no digital map — only Ordnance Survey sheets the size of tablecloths and a hunger for solitude.
I didn’t ask anyone to come with me. This was a pilgrimage, not a holiday.
The train to Fort William crawled through heat, its engine forced to cool at a forgotten station. Backpackers spilled onto the platform like pilgrims, shedding the weight of their weekday selves. I sat cross-legged, content to simply be.
Later, I watched an otter dive for mussels just feet from the shore — the only wild otter I’ve ever seen. It felt like a blessing, a quiet omen.
But the real threshold came when I turned toward Stob Bàn, a quartzite peak that called to me like a flame. The climb was steep, sun-scorched, and swarming with midges — tiny, relentless creatures that drove me forward even when fear tried to hold me still.
At one point, I froze. The valley dropped away beneath me, the sky expanded above, and I was overcome by a raw awareness of my own insignificance. Panic surged. I clung to the slope, unable to move.
And yet, I did move. The fear passed. The midges thinned. I climbed higher.
Years later, I read Kerouac’s account of Matterhorn Peak in The Dharma Bums — his terror, his awe, his trembling pause just below the summit. I knew exactly what he meant. The mountain is never just a mountain.
At the top, I laughed aloud. There had been a tourist trail all along — winding gently to the summit. I hadn’t known. I hadn’t needed to know.
I inscribed a message into a flat stone and left it there: “Nothing worth doing was ever easy.”
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