walking the walk

      So, two men and two women in their mid-seventies decide to walk across a skinny part of Scotland—from Fort William in the southwest to Inverness in the northeast.

      The Great Glen Way, the route is called.

      We now live, of course, in an age when people are willing to pay good money to exhaust themselves so thoroughly. And, sure enough, there are firms ready not only to provide the two couples with indoor and quite comfortable lodgings along the way but with someone to drive their baggage from one night’s stop to the next.

      Hence, all that is required of the two couples is that they schlepp themselves, along with an extra waterproof layer, a lunch and some water about seventy miles in six days.

      Good day: sun, eight miles or so of walking. Bad day: five unexpected miles more to reach their lodgings after they complete 12 and think they have arrived.

      Most days prove okay.

      Based on wrinkle evaluations and conversations, these four are the longest in the tooth of those with whom they have been sharing the trail. And various things on various of the septuagenarians begin to hurt: a toe here, a blister there, a bunion, a back, a knee. And one day there is a light but steady rain.

      But the sharper pains pass. And the weather, for Scotland, proves mostly fine.

      And the scenery is spectacular: high green hills, made more profound by purple-brown heather. And between them a procession of long, deep, dark lochs—in particular, and for the longest period of time, Scotland’s best-known loch, though no monster is seen.

      The odd thing, one of the four suggests, is that it has begun to seem natural to spend a whole day walking—even at this advanced age. None of them is an ace athlete or great physical specimen, but their bodies, their ancient bodies—designed, after all, for life on the savannah or searching for berries or tracking game or moving between encampments—seem to have adapted fairly well to a series of eight-mile or more days.  

      The walk into Inverness on the sixth and final day feels almost triumphant.

      The two couples toss around the idea of walking Cape Cod, Thoreau-like, next summer.