Weather/Conditions: Warm weather, and a bit windy on top. Very nice spring weather, though.
Distance/Ascent/Time: 4.0km / 300m / 3h 25m
Accompanying: Dougie

Following our Grey Corries walk the day before, Dougie, James and I spent the night in Fort William. We travelled back to Edinburgh on Sunday morning. James dropped Dougie and I at Inverkeithing and we took the train into Edinburgh.

Instead of going immediately home to Glasgow (as I'd planned) the weather was good, so we went up Arthur's Seat. We went up to the Salisbury Crags which has good climbing (although roped climbing is banned). We accessed the summit of Arthur's Seat by a rough track, a steep scramble up a less frequented and very overgrown route. We lingered on the summit for ages. People were smiling, accents on the summit came from all corners of the world, the sky was blue and the ground warm. It's not really a day for doing anything, just enjoying the passing of time.

Arthur's Seat was mega-busy, in the parks below, on all the trails to the summit and back. A guy was bagpiping, another sitting above the cliffs playing guitar.

We spent the latter part of the day bouldering and met a Polish guy who was bouldering on the walls at the Salisbury Crags. There is an ultra-polished wall here, marked by probably thousands of hands. It seems to be known as 'The' bouldering wall, here and is one of the few overhanging faces.

With the day wearing on, I got quite impatient to get back home, because it isn't a short journey. Edinburgh always feels like the other end of the Earth, it is so different to Glasgow. We'd left our gear at the bus station lockers, so we got it back, I walked to Waverley train station and bought a ticket for about £13. It was the first travel I'd spent money on this trip, having gone Glasgow - Fort William - Edinburgh for free. A stroke of luck I don't expect to repeat soon.

Salisbury Crags

Arthur's Seat

Descent to Edinburgh

(These titles make it sound like a real hillwalk ;-) )