EXPLORING the Mountain
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Go Ireland Do Atlantic mountains Limerick Brandon ▲ Mountain Beaufort Killarney ▲▲ Carrauntoohil Purple Cork EXPLORING THE Mountain Approaching the summit of Purple Mountain, with the dramatic peaks of EMERALD ISLE the Macgillycuddy's Reeks to the right. Trail grabs a fistful of euros and jumps on a plane to Ireland, where the mountains are jagged, the weather is wild and the walking is wonderful. WORDS OLI REED PHOTOGRAPHS TOM BAILEY 44 TRAIL JANUARY 2016 JANUARY 2016 TRAIL 45 Scrambling on the east ridge of Beenkeragh, at 1010m the second Ireland highest peak in Ireland. The prominent rocky turret in the background is The pyramidal summit of known locally as the Hags Tooth. Carrauntoohil dominates this route from start to finish. Above: hiding from the weather at Carrauntoohil’s summit shelter. Below: descending the steep and exposed connecting ridge between t was somewhere near the 952m Beenkeragh and Carrauntoohil. summit of Brandon Mountain, located deep on Europe’s westernmost peninsula and Isurrounded on three sides by an angry Atlantic Ocean, that I realised I was somewhere very different. Thin shafts of sunlight skimmed across the tapering ridgeline we’d been climbing for the past hour, pockets of blue sky fizzed past like speeding trucks on a motorway, and a thin film of misty vapour swirled around our boot laces. Above us towered an ever-thickening bulge of cloud the colour of a deep bruise, to our right a perfectly guide and long-serving Kerry Mountain formed rainbow sparkled above the ARRIVAL IN EIRE Rescue Team member John O’Sullivan, green valley at its base, and all the while whose deep-rooted connections to the 40mph gusts of wind pummelled into our area made him the ideal companion. left flanks like precision punches from a It had all started at Kerry airport 48 The O’Sullivans were the last family heavyweight boxer. As the first significant hours earlier (picture your local bus to inhabit the Hags Glen beneath chunk of the British Isles to combat station with a Ryanair plane parked Carrauntoohil – Ireland’s highest Atlantic weather systems, Brandon outside) after a short flight from London. mountain at 1039m – in the early 1900s, is notorious for generating its own Within 30 minutes of collecting our hire where they lived in a stone hut and grew microclimate, and today the mountain car we were sipping Guinness in the potatoes by the River Gaddagh. Although was flexing its considerable muscles. Like lively town of Killarney – full of pubs, the days of farming up to 800 sheep in the much of western Ireland this is somewhere restaurants and more pubs – with the surrounding mountains are now behind you can expect sunshine and clear skies dark pyramids of the Macgillycuddy’s them, John’s family still owns the eastern one minute then downpours and lacerating Reeks silhouetted against the afternoon half of the glen and he continues to live winds the next, but we hadn’t counted sun. Of all the airports I’ve flown to, just a couple of miles from its entrance. on battling every element at once. We none has provided such wonderful access The forecast for the following morning scrambled across exposed and slippery to its local mountains. Our plan for the looked favourable, so we arranged a slabs to the summit, arriving soaked and following three days was to explore the dawn rendezvous at Cronin’s Yard, shivering but charged with adrenaline. peaks of County Kerry, which – despite the historic starting point for climbing The views we’d been climbing towards for their close proximity to the UK – remain Carrauntoohil for over 100 years. three hours had been stolen from us, but delightfully low on footfall, while also “My earliest memories of Hags Glen the mountains of southern Ireland were ensuring we were treated to an authentic are farming sheep with my dad as a delivering everything we’d hoped for. Irish walking experience. Enter local boy,” said John as we began the long � JANUARY 2016 TRAIL 47 High in the Macgillycuddy's Reeks with Ireland the Hags Glen far below. The mountains peeping out of the cloud are known as Big Stack and Hill of the Serpent. Macgillycuddy's Reeks, also known as The Black Stacks, is the highest mountain range in Ireland with three peaks over 1000m. This route covers the western side of the range and the country’s two The scenery combined the highest summits. stature of Snowdonia with the wildness of Scotland, but with a personality all of its own. CaharCaher walk into its vast green amphitheatre. curved barrier of steep-sided mountains, make high-pitched wailing sounds that Carrauntoohil Beenkeragh see Carrauntoohil and stay away from “We used to sit on that hill to our left, all soaring over the 900m contour and get mistaken for screaming people,” John Skregmore the crowds,” John said as we descended drinking bottles of tea wrapped in socks topped by knuckled ridgelines that slice explained. “That results in Mountain through the angular slabs known as and eating squashed sandwiches out of into the sky like the teeth of a saw. We Rescue call-outs where we turn up to find Knockbrinnea Heavenly Gates and retreated to Galvin’s our jacket pockets. I didn’t actually climb passed two ‘loughs’, the larger of which goats instead of walkers.” Eagle’s Nest Bar in Beaufort for five (could have been Carrauntoohil until I was in my 20s. providing the drinking water to our B&B We dodged to the right of the Hags six) celebratory pints of Guinness. “Let’s Nobody climbed the mountain back then. in the village of Beaufort, with the north Tooth and began the long scramble up hope the next two days are just as good.” It’s only these last five years since the face of Carrauntoohil towering above like Beenkeragh’s east ridge – also known as recession that walking in the Reeks has an oversized church steeple. The sheer Hags Tooth Ridge. Scattered with slabs, Lough Gouragh EUROPE’S become popular. It’s turning into the amount of rock and the severity of the boulders, flakes, slippery vegetation and new golf. People realise they can have terrain took me by surprise. The multi- loose scree, this rocky obstacle course FINAL FRONTIER a great day out for a few euros.” turreted scramble of Howling Ridge that climbs for hundreds of metres towards Lough Callee leads directly to Carrauntoohil’s summit Ireland’s second highest summit. Never Hags Glen The following morning led us 50km JEREMY ASHCROFT JEREMY HOME FROM HOME dominated the foreground (don’t even narrow enough to freak you out but with Hags Teeth north-west to the Dingle Peninsula, a think about it without ropes), to our right enough exposure to demand skill and deliciously remote finger of land ringed was a giant protrusion of slanted rock focus with every movement, it trumped by sandy beaches and craggy cliffs; its The mention of the local currency was a known as the Hags Tooth, and away to any scramble I’ve experienced in England inner reaches packed with rolling hills, further reminder – as if we needed one – our left the likes of Devil’s Ladder, Hill or Wales for length and variety. The Lisleibane wild mountains and even wilder weather. that we were walking in a foreign land. of the Serpent and Big Gun completed trickiest sections can be avoided on easier “I think 87 As well as dreamy landscapes, Dingle is Everything in Ireland felt familiar, but a memorable set of landscape features. ground to the right, but we stuck with the times… this year,” dripping with Irish history and culture nothing was quite the same. We drove on crest all the way to the top. came the reply. Averaging – drawing tourists from across the globe the left, but the road markings seemed SCRAMBLERS’ We left Beenkeragh’s summit in around three or four ascents each to its prehistoric hill forts, picturesque alien. The TV channels were different, the thickening cloud, following John across a week – mostly as a guide, around fishing hamlets and coastal waters buildings had a distinctly non-UK design, PARADISE chain of greasy sandstone slabs towards 20 times a year in a rescue capacity, the crammed with exotic sea life. Standing the local accent was difficult to decipher Carrauntoohil. The lack of visitors to the once to re-erect the iron cross chopped Reeks, 952m high and visible from miles around, – even the Jaffa Cakes had an unusual The real uphill began with an ascent of area gives the mountains a secretive feel, down by protestors last November, and is so Brandon Mountain is the peninsula’s citrusy aftertaste. One similarity Ireland neighbouring Beenkeragh (1010m), with but also means the paths are less defined, and occasionally just for fun – it’s battle-hardened icon. Named after 6th century traveller does share with the mountainous regions the eerie calls of wild goats filling the the way ahead less obvious. I began to hard to imagine anyone has a finer by Ireland’s Saint Brendan, this is where the western of England, Wales and Scotland, however, surrounding corries. Having been warned feel grateful for such an experienced local knowledge of the ‘Inverted Stickle’. volatile weather that START/ frontier of Europe erupts in one final FINISH is the beauty of its scenery. I’d expected by a local shopkeeper to beware the companion. “How many times have you He can name the owner of each sheep he doesn’t own a pair of flourish before plummeting into the green hillsides akin to those of the Brecon “killer sheep” that roam the mountains, climbed Carrauntoohil, John?” I asked by the markings on its wool, speaks waterproof trousers (learn NORT Atlantic Ocean.