| Team Ireland 2003: Simon, Kim, Adrian,
Paul, Nicole, Tracy, Louise, Andrea, Tim See also the Ireland pictures
page for more and enlargable pictures.
Ireland picture
gallery
The trip started at my place on Good
Friday lunch time with a BBQ in glorious sun shine, unfortunately this meant
that Adrian managed to leave his camera at my place, which we didn’t
discover until Cardiff. No problem, I lent him my digital, I’d stick to my
35 mm. We arrived at Swansea for the ferry without a hold up on the M4, not
bad for Good Friday. Inside the caff I order 4 cups of coffee, “I’ve
only got two cups” says the guy apologetically, so we have to drink in
shifts. Anyway, we meet up with Paul and Nicole and the ferry trip is
smooth and pleasant.
Saturday
We arrive in Cork at 7:30 a.m., again
in sun shine. First stop is breakfast and the obligatory cash machine.
Another stop in Boots for films and disposable cameras. Tim gets a funny
look when he tries to pay in Swiss francs. Kim triumphantly pulls out
two 35 mm films for Tim’s camera, Tim says “its APS”. Fortunately
we’re still outside the shop so changing them was easy. Then into the cars
and head off to Killarney. On the outskirts of Cork we pass a sign “Killarney
83 km”. A mile further on another sign “Killarney 84 km”, we’re
in Ireland, what do you expect?
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| Given its such a nice day we head
straight to the Gap of Dunloe to get a spot of climbing in. We decide to
climb on “Bothan”, one of the half dozen or so crags in the Gap. Its
only a 10-15 minute walk from the car park at Kate Kearney’s Cottage and
we arrive just as the sun is moving round to hit the crag. There’s two
other guys climbing on the crag, it would have been packed if it was the
UK as it’s a nice single pitch crag with good rock and plenty of routes
in all grades. |
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| Finding routes was easy from the
guide book description (a free internet download as it’s long since out of
print). The Irish grades are the same as the UK and the routes were graded
well. Everyone had a good time, the weather was spot on and the views were
great. |
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| As evening approached we headed off to
Killorglin to find the cottage. And what a place it turned out to be.
Absolutely first class, all mod cons and two of the rooms were en-suite.
Look out one way and there were Macgillcuddy’s Reeks, look out the other way
to the Slieve Mish range, if you looked carefully you could just about see
the sea. And all this for a princely sum of 355 Euro (~£200) between nine
of us. |
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Tracy and Louise soon arrived, they’d
flown out a couple of days earlier and had spent the day out on
Macgillcuddy’s Reeks. Now Louise had said she wasn’t in to scrambling, so I
was somewhat surprised to find they’d just done the Reeks horseshoe as the
section between Lackagarrin and Knockapeasta is a fantastic scramble, just
as exposed as Crib Goch but a fair bit harder. |
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Sunday
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| Plan A was a long walk over Mt Brandon
but this changed to a shorter route up Carauntoohill (Irelands highest peak) as not everyone was feeling up for a long day out. This
changed to plan C as we drove to the start as it was windy at sea level and
the cloud base on the Reeks was 500 m. There was a great looking low level
ridge to the west of the Reeks (Derryfanga) which we decided to go up. Not
a bad day out actually with a nice little scramble to start with. We came
across an upset Peregrine as we descended through some cliffs. It was
wheeling about and making a right racket, if it had kept quiet we wouldn’t
have had the faintest inkling it had a nest in the cliffs. The first proper
Guinness of the trip was in the Climbers Inn in Glencar where the
entertainment was provided by the ****ed up locals staggering out of their
car to the bar. After another pint he seemed to sober up a bit. |
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| That evening we had a team dinner in
Murray’s in Killorglin. A high class joint with great food and cheap
prices. It worked out at about 30 Euro a head for three courses and
drinks, and the waitresses were really friendly and helpful. |
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Monday
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| The team splits into two. Me, Paul,
Nicole and Tim head for Mt Brandon the most westerly Munro in Europe, the
others head for Dingle via Inch beach. |
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| The plan is to have a go at Brandon
via the Faha ridge, I have no idea how hard it is other than a very few
words in the guide book “…experienced scramblers may like to …”. We
assume it’s a hard scramble so take harnesses, rope and a little rock gear.
We park at Cloghane and head upwards. It’s a true 3000er as Cloghane is at
sea level. The first thing we come across is the Irish signs, the path
might be well marked but the arrows all point vertically upwards. After a
couple of km we come to Faha village (if you can call two houses a village)
and discover that a little local knowledge is very useful, there’s a car
park here at the end of the track. But what the hell, it was a pleasant
walk. Off up the ridge we go, passing a rather large grotto in the middle
of nowhere. Again the path (The Pilgrim’s Route) was exceptionally well
marked but once we gained the ridge crest we headed straight up whilst the
path contoured round. We were now in the mist and there was no path to
follow, however, you’d need to be a complete idiot not to be able to follow
the ridge, just keep going up. After a minor top at 800 m things started to
get interesting and the scrambling started. Also a path started to emerge.
The scrambling was very similar in style and difficulty to the Anaoch Eagach
ridge, you could balance along the very crest if you wanted to or follow a
path to one side. Some rock steps were steep and unavoidable, about the
same as Tryfan N Ridge. We dropped down one step then …”****ing hell”
a perfect arête loomed out of the mist, 45º sloping slabs to the left,
vertical precipice to the right. It didn’t look hard but the exposure was
such that a rope was essential. The path very obviously skirted round to
the right. We decided not to have a go as we had no idea what was at the
other end. Wise decision actually as its an abseil and it would be tight
doing it in one go on a single rope. |
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| There then followed some more
scrambling, then we popped out on top of a plateau in the mist. Time to get
the map and compass out. 15 minutes later we’re on the top of Brandon.
Unlike the UK on a bank holiday, there’s only two other people there (Brits
in trainers), similar to the UK there’s no view but the cloud is definitely
getting thinner. |
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We set off down and then almost
immediately the cloud lifts and there’s the view, unfortunately this lasted
not quite long enough to get a camera out. We hang a right and go down the
Pilgrim’s Route. This is a bit grotty at the start but soon improves as you
get into the valley and the path is so well marked its unbelievable (we
later learnt that its well marked because once a year several hundred
pilgrims all traipse up it). The rock and lake scenery is really
impressive. |
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| Now we’re below the
cloud, the sun is out and heading east we can look out over Brandon beach,
the golden sand stretches out for miles (5+ actually) and the end is lost in
the haze. We soon catch up with two locals, Jimmy and Tim, actually they
weren’t local, they were from the Limerick mountain rescue team and we
walked down with them. A great laugh, they even told us loads of Irish
jokes. At the Faha car park (where they’d parked) they tell us of the short
cut back to Cloghane, we tell them that that was the way we came up. The
reply was “It’s no shorter on the way down.” Back in Cloghane we
meet them in O’Conners the local bar. |
| Tracy and Louise flew back to the UK but
this simple action involved drama, nearly missed flights and a 80 Euro
speeding ticket for Tracy. Good effort girl, we were listening to the radio
and they were going on about how its almost impossible to get caught
speeding or drunk driving in Ireland. |
Tuesday
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| The day starts with a traditional Irish
breakfast cooked by Andrea. Excellent. It’s Andrea’s and Tim’s last
day so the rest of us have a leisurely start and head off to the Gap of Dunloe for another day’s cragging. This time we climb on Brennan’s
Leap, which we drive right up to and park underneath. No walk in here,
you can belay from the car. |
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| Again it’s a single pitch crag, good
rock, great views, loads of routes and bolts at the top for belays. We
were the only people there all day. Dinner was in Kate Kearney’s
Cottage, not quite as good as Murray’s and slightly more expensive but still
excellent food and really cheap. In fact I must point out that Kate's
must get a highly recommended, you will be impressed, its just that Murray's
was just that little bit better. |
Wednesday
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| The big one. Carauntoolhill, at 1039 m
(3409'),
the highest peak in Ireland. The plan was go up via Beenkeragh, do the
scramble along the ridge to Carauntoohill and then go down via Caher, making
a fine horseshoe. The weather forecast was good, in fact it was the last
good day before some fronts were due. The route started at only 100 m above
sea level and the first part was a walk up a track to the hydro scheme at
Lough Eighter, then it was trail breaking and heather bashing on the way up
to Breanlea. It’s amazing that on such an obvious day trip on Ireland’s
highest mountain there’s no path to follow. In the Lakes or N Wales there’d
be a veritable motorway eroded into the hillside. Anyway, once at the top
of Breanlea (747 m), we could see the ridge ahead stretching off into the
distance and it was obvious that the hard work on the ascent was now behind
us. All we had to do was follow the ridge over Skregmore and onto
Beenkeragh. Great views out to the left over the fields of Kerry and the
steep precipices of the north face of Caher to the right. The sun was
shining but the wind was brisk, it was an absolutely glorious day to be out
in the hills. |
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| In seemingly no time we were on the top of Beenkeragh,
Ireland’s 2nd highest peak. A quick snack stop and photo
opportunity followed as we looked out along the narrow Beenkeragh-Carauntoohill
link and the imposing north face of Carauntoohill, falling 300 m straight
down to the “Eagles Nest”. So, off we went along the ridge, which didn’t
turn out to be that hard, just a grade 1 scramble. |
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There is a well trodden
path to follow, which we did, as scrambling along the true crest was a bit
iffy in the prevailing wind conditions. Once the ridge finished all that
remained was a quick scramble onto the top of Ireland. And what do you find
there? A concrete caff? No. Multitudes of people having lunch? No. Just a very
large metal cross, a wind break, 4 Americans and 2 Brits. |
| We had lunch and
then set off for Caher. Unfortunately the weather had other plans, the wind
had picked up to such an extent that the gusts were blowing us clean off our
feet. This was definitely not the weather to go along a narrow ridge (we
had no idea how narrow though). The guide book said that the route we were
on was not escapable unless you continued on over Carauntoohill and down the
Devils’s Ladder into Hags Glen. Utter tosh. On the way up I’d noticed that
the slopes going down into Coomloughra Glen (the glen in the middle of the
horseshoe we were going round) were a perfectly feasible escape route all
the way to Carauntoohill, although the north face of Caher was a different
matter. Off down the scree slopes we went to get out of the wind. Under
normal circumstances I wouldn’t recommend this route unless you have a scree
slope fetish, but for bailing off, nothing wrong with it at all. So, all
that remained was a walk round the loughs and back to the car. |
Thursday
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The forecast for Thursday was showers
and given the exertions of the previous day a short route was in order,
although for Kim and Adrian a trip to Dingle had to be made so they could
pick up wet suits for a swim with Funghi, the Dingle Bay dolphin. Myself,
Paul and Nicole headed off 10 miles west and did a walk over some lower
hills: Coomreagh, Teermoyle Mountain and Knocknaman. This was an easy route
but it did involve crossing some “peat crevasses” where weird erosion
patterns left 6’ high vertical steps in the peat. |
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| The way down off Knocknaman was also rather steep and involved scrambling down between grass
terraces. We found a rather large boulder on the way down for a spot of
bouldering practice as well. Finally, on the walk back down the road to the
car we came across a whole hedge of fuchsias. What we didn’t find was “stone
art”. It’s marked on the map in several locations and we were literally
within 10 m of where it should be on several occasions but what is it? We
still don’t know and couldn’t find anything. Oh, I forgot to say, the
weather guessers got it wrong, it was dry all day. |
Friday
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| Friday started with a 7:30 departure in
order to catch the 8:30 boat trip from Dingle. I had originally planned a
walk but given the weather (wet and windy) decided I’d go out on the boat
with Kim and Adrian instead. Unfortunately, we were greeted by the boat
master with the bad news that it was too rough to go out. Poor Adrian, he
was really looking forward to swimming with a dolphin. We headed up over
the Connor pass and went down to Brandon beach. After two hours of walking
along the golden sand we still hadn’t reached the end of it, it’s a truly
amazing place, beautiful, remote and unspoilt. We met 7 other people on the
beach which works out at 0.8 km of beach per person. The headwind walking
back was a little stiff and two showers dampened us a bit but the sun soon
dried us out again and the views were just outstanding. Next it was a short
drive to O’Connor’s for a Guinness and a sandwich. |
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| In the evening it was in to Murray’s
for some more excellent food followed by Guinness and a good laugh as we
listened to two locals massacre well known songs. |
| Well, that was it. After a week in
Ireland we came back with sun tans. Loads of rock climbing, walking,
scrambling, outstanding scenery, whole ranges of mountains, world class
beaches, uncrowded, cheap, what more do you want? Oh, and they sell
Guinness out there. And as for the weather, check out the photos
yourself, these were all taken in April. |
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