| Arthur's Seat from
Queen's Drive Arthur's Seat |
| Estimated net time | 1 hour |
| Difficulty | No difficulties. |
| Drinking water | No access to drinking water. |
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (October 2009). |
| Parking | Room for many cars at car park at trail head (£1 per hour per 2009). |
| Start height | 33 metres |
| Vertical metres | 220 metres for the roundtrip. |
| Trip distance | 3.0 km |
| GPS-file | X |
| Map |
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| Route photo |
From Edinburgh city centre follow signs for "Dynamic Earth". Park at the car park for Holyrood Park by Queen's Drive.
Walk east from the car park by following the pedestrian road on the opposite side (south) of Queen's Drive. After approximately 400 metres you will have a good view of the summit up to your right, and you will see a number of paths going south towards the summit. Pick any route you fancy and follow the path of choice all the way to the summit. A few metres below the summit the path forks and you should stay right in order to get to the summit.
The descent can be done via your ascent route or any of the other paths.
After my hike to Carnethy Hill and Scald Law earlier this Friday I drove to Edinburgh city centre for some shopping (I needed a new pair of Inov-8 shoes). Navigating around Edinburgh took more time than I had anticipated, so by the time I was able to get across to Holyrood Park for a quick visit to Arthur's Seat it was already starting to get a little dark. But I knew the hike wasn't a long one, and that I would be able to get back down before it got very dark.
In order to play safe I kept a good pace up the hill-side, and when I saw a guy coming running up from my right I decided to speed up even more to make sure I kept this guy behind me ...
By the time I got to the summit it was too dark to be able to get a good view of the surrounding area, but it was obvious that you could see a large area of land from this nice hill. So after taking a few poor photos I head back down to the car in order to drive to my hotel at Dunfermline.