North Atlantic Skyline » mountain

Hiking in Mweelrea

John Smyth — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:37:46 +0000

My fellow walkers pausing before descending “The Ramp” towards Doo Lough, on the northern face of Mweelrea mountain range.

A year ago today, I got married on Inishbofin island. We eschewed a return visit to the island this weekend to do something which, for me, is quite literally rarer than a first wedding anniversary – a full hike of Mweelrea and Ben Bury (Mweelrea’s sister peak in the range) without any cloud whatsoever¹. And from the very top of Mweelrea – the highest point in Connacht – Inishbofin shimmered in the sunshine a few miles offshore. We will visit it soon.

¹As the photo above shows, cloud had begun to appear in the sky overhead as we started our final descent from the mountain. But it was at least another 1000 metres above our heads, and it didn’t look quite so dramatic in the original, colour version of the photograph.

Mweelrea Rescue

John Smyth — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 22:37:26 +0000

The north face of Mweelrea mountain.

I live beside the University Hospital in Galway and the helicopter pad is only a couple of hundred yards from our back garden. This morning, the coastguard helicopter swooped low over our house and landed – another delivery to the Accident & Emergency ward. Only later did it emerge that the helicopter was delivering a hiker who had been injured on Mweelrea mountain. He sustained his injuries yesterday, but the weather meant that he could not be airlifted to hospital until this morning. Luckily, a team of volunteer rescuers from Mayo Mountain Rescue found him, camped with him overnight and assisted in the airlift this morning – the Irish Times reports that the team spent twenty hours on Connacht’s highest – and least forgiving – mountain.

Binn an tSaighdiúra

John Smyth — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:51:34 +0000

A walker (just visible as a dot on the skyline) descending the snow-covered summit of Binn an tSaighdiúra today. Winter has officially ended in Ireland since the beginning of March – and it has been a very mild and wet winter – but a drop in temperature over the weekend resulted in some snow and hail showers in Connemara. It won’t last – much of the snow visible in the morning had melted by the time we had finished our hike in the Twelve Bens mountain range.

One Hundred Highways

John Smyth — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 01:03:06 +0000

On Sunday, a group from the Galway Hillwalking Club climbed Shannavara (Seanadh Bhéara). It took us all day despite the fact it is only 358 metres tall. To be honest, most of us could not have found the hill on a map unless it was pointed out to us. The reason we were there was because of a challenge. The Mountain Views website has a facility where one can enter your home location, and it will produce a list of the 100 closest peaks. The challenge is to climb them all. On Sunday, one of our group had climbed 99 so he was going to finish the year by climbing the last one. Last Sunday, there was a scheduled flat walk (the club alternates between flat and hill walks ever other week) and there is a very bitter friendly rivalry between flat and hill walkers – particularly over the speed of the walks. As it happened, we had to pass the flat walkers on our way out to the start of the Shannavara walk. Because it was the last Sunday of the [walking] year, there was mulled wine and mince pies waiting for returning walkers in Kelehan’s pub back in Galway. And who came back first ?

The flat walkers had been and gone an hour before we arrived back, though they had left a few pies for us. We had been so casual that we could have walked half the Maumturks in the time it took us to walk what was essentially a natural rockery. And to add insult to injury, Shanavarra used to be a flat walk route.

Though it isn’t very high, it does have an unrivaled panoramic view of every single mountain in Connemara [click here to view picture]