“We find that the Romans owed the conquest of the world to no other cause than continual military training, exact observance of discipline in their camps, and unwearied cultivation of the other arts of war” – Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus (circa 4th century AD)
Today was our day for a circular walk of 7 miles. After the intensity of our trek the previous day this became a circular taxi ride. Best 10 pounds we ever spent lol.
We first went back to the end of our trek from the day before to hike to the Sycamore Gap. The tree is often the symbol for Hadrian’s Wall. I climbed the first crag, roughly a sixty degree ascent, my quads screamed with every step as I pushed myself up. I had hit my wall. My greater concern was the descent with my thigh muscles at near failure. My thought was to complete the ascent walk over to the edge of the crevasse and take a picture of the damn tree but when we got to the top we realized that the gap was a hike of roughly another 1/4 mile over the crag plus a descent into the gap. I raised the white flag and told the crew to go on without me I’d meet them on the return. It was then that I recorded this:
I found a little draw out of the wind and became the greeter for the panting people who reached the top of the climb. I don’t mean to go on so but this is truly a climb that once you start up, or down, you don’t get to change your mind.
Rich Wemstrom got a picture from the top. The ruin you see at the bottom is only about 200′ from the start of the ascent to give you a feel for the steepness.
However, a fellow hiker pointed out a lower road ( there truly are high roads and low roads in Scotland) so, I got down and got this shot this morning as we drove by in the cab:
From Sycamore gap we went to Fort Vindolanda a Roman Fort and active archaeological site. We were informed that there are 9 forts buried on the Vindolanda site. There is so much to tell I honestly would recommend, if interested, to first check out Vindolanda on Wikipedia and then go from there. I will do my best to walk you through the fort with the captions under my photos.
That’s enough for now. More later.
Lou Hikes? 