A Well-used Path

The path was rather exposed. To our left, vertical rocks towered over us; to our right, a vertical drop of several hundred feet to the sea. I’m not very good with heights at the best of times. But the ground was firm, and the path was wide and level, and the weather was fine.

The cliff curved gently rightward, so we could see a mile or more of the path, following the same ledge all the way around the curve until it disappeared around the headland. We knew it was a well-used path.

As we got further around the curve, the ledge got progressively narrower. Here and there there were short stretches where, rather than a level surface of solid rock, there was a grass surface sloping steeply towards the sea, with a narrow muddy track incised into the grass. But by then, we weren’t all that far from the headland, and we could see the path quite clearly all the way – there were a few more such stretches, but they didn’t look any worse than this one. We could see the notch in the skyline where the path went around the headland; the path was wide there and on solid rock. And we knew it was a well-used path.

It really didn’t get any worse all the way to the headland.

Then we reached the headland. The view from that wide rocky platform at the point was superb in the sunshine, back to the village along the path we’d just walked, and across the sea to the next island, where clouds were playing around the tops of the mountain.

The path continued wide and level around the headland. After a hundred metres or so we could see into the next bay – another cliff face curving gently rightward, very like the first. Except that here there wasn’t a single ledge all the way around to the next headland. There were several parallel ledges, five or ten metres apart vertically, and none of them extended all the way from this headland to the next. The ledge we were on gave out around three hundred metres around the cliff, and we could see how the path was a steep scramble down to the next ledge, fifty metres or so before the end of our ledge.

When we arrived at the vertical scramble, we could see that it was a man-made stone staircase, partly chiselled out of the rock face, and partly built up onto the lower ledge with large stone blocks. Grass was growing in the cracks in the stone, and the surface of the stone was smoothed and indented from the wear of hundreds of years of foot traffic. It was clearly safe enough, but very exposed. It was hard to overcome my fear. I was very careful descending that short staircase.

This second ledge was longer, but wide and safe feeling, and took us within fifty metres of the next headland. At that point, there was a very similar staircase twenty metres upwards to another ledge. Going up wasn’t so difficult, even though the stairs were longer. The next ledge was mostly a transverse grass slope with a narrow muddy track, but it wasn’t very far to the second headland, and another wide platform.

From the headland we could see another curve of cliff to yet a third headland. Far beyond the third headland we could see the coast curving rightward again, but much lower, a wide grassy area with a low cliff down to the sea, and a surfaced road well back from the cliff edge. We realized the next village must be just around the next corner of the cliff.

But this curve of cliff looked far more menacing than the first two. The ledge was much narrower, and there were more places where we had to climb up or down from one ledge to another. Halfway around the curve, a narrow cleft cut into the rock, and the ledge disappeared into it. There was no corresponding ledge coming out the other side. We couldn’t tell from the headland whether the path continued on a lower or a higher ledge. But we knew it was a well-used path.

Before we got to the cleft, the sun disappeared behind a cloud. Then the top of the cliffs on our left disappeared in a shroud of mist. But the path was still clear, and we were well below the cloud line.

It wasn’t very light inside the cleft, and the rocks were damp and a bit slick. The cleft curved slightly to the left, so we couldn’t see how far into the cliff it went, and we still couldn’t see whether we went up or down to the next ledge. The ledge below us on the far side of the cleft didn’t look to have a path along it, really, so we assumed we must go up somehow.

We rounded the curve. The path went down another staircase ahead of us. Further on, the cleft continued, but there was a wide rock bridge joining the sides of the cleft, with a ledge on each side of the cleft going both ways, deeper into the cleft and back out to the open sea. We could hear the waves crashing between the rock walls far below us.

The ledge on the far side of the cleft, back towards the sea, didn’t appear to have a path along it. The path seemed to go back along the ledge below the one we’d arrived on, but that made no sense. We set off along the ledge that obviously went the way we wanted to go. It was wet and narrow and there was moss growing on it, and it really didn’t feel safe at all. But it was the obvious way forward. In places we had to go on our hands and knees.

It became impossible. It was simply too narrow. We had to turn back. Turning wasn’t easy, we had to reverse a few metres before we could. At the rock bridge we pondered our next move. Should we admit defeat, and head back to the village?

We decided to try the way the path seemed to lead on, however illogical a route it seemed. It was a much less dangerous ledge than the one we’d just been defeated by, and we could always get back easily enough.

We’d almost reached the end of the cleft before we saw the solution to the conundrum. The path went down another set of stairs, and then someone had built an arch across the cleft to a ledge on the other side. It was a very solid bridge constructed of large stone blocks without mortar – but quite narrow, especially at the summit, and with no parapet. We went over on our hands and knees. Descending the far side was terrifying.

Round the final headland, the path descended in a series of staircases and ledges, zigzagging back and forth across the face of the cliff. This cliff didn’t descend all the way to the sea, but to a grassy cirque with the village nestling at its centre. The road we’d seen ended at the village.

The sea cliffs had been pretty solid rock, but this cliff was crumbling in places. Some sections of the path had evidently fallen away, and been repaired. The repairs didn’t look nearly as sound as the ancient, original construction. Here and there pieces of rock moved slightly underfoot.

Then there was a section where the path hadn’t been repaired at all following what looked like a recent rockfall. We could see the path continuing five metres away, diagonally below us, but the only way to reach it was to scramble down the loose boulders of the rockfall, and back up the other side. It felt very precarious, but we managed.

It looked straightforward from that point – we could see the path ahead all the way down to the grass, and it all looked undamaged.

I’d been bringing up the rear all the way. As Mike, just in front of me, stepped onto a rock halfway down a set of stairs, it shifted under his foot. He grabbed at a handhold in the rock wall to his left, and a large stone came out in his hand. He jumped for the next step as the boulder under him tumbled away, and managed to grab hold of another bit of the rock face. Which held. He was safe.

But the tumbling boulder hit another rock below, and dislodged that. The second rock fell, and undermined a whole section of the cliff. I felt the staircase trembling beneath me, and scrambled back up to the top and onto the ledge we’d just come along just in time. My friends ran down the stairs onto the next ledge. The whole staircase collapsed, leaving a sheer drop between where I was and where my friends were. There was no way we could possibly cross.

There was no choice. They had to go on to the next village, and I had to go back. Three miles along all those ledges, and alone across that narrow bridge.

It was beginning to rain, and the cloud line was descending above me.