Lugnaquilla

Catherine, I, Conor and Donal went for a walk up Lugnaquilla recently on a fairly damp, gloomy day.
We took a fairly unconventional route – again thanks to Lonely Planet’s Walking in Ireland – starting at the footbridge in Glenmalure, up the road to the bigger car park and the youth hostel, up through Fraughan Rock [...]

Cardiff and Brecon Beacons Horseshoe Walk

Last weekend Catherine, Janina and I visited Vanessa in Cardiff.
Catherine and I went over Thursday morning and stayed in the lovely Vale Hotel in the Vale of Glamorgan, had a massage, wandered around the golf courses, ate, drank and generally just chilled out.
For the rest of the weekend we stayed in Vanessa’s place, close to [...]

Lately

What’s the most common mistake made by bloggers? Starting out with a flurry of posts and then letting them dwindle until there’s only one in a blue moon. Yeah, well …
Skiing
Early in March, a group of eight of us went skiing in Söll, Austria. As usual, we had a great week. Lots of skiing, lots [...]

Mountain Skills Course

Last weekend Catherine and I went and did Bren Whelan’s Mountain Skills 1 course in the bitterly cold Wicklow mountains. I was pleasantly suprised at the amount we covered over the two days and am much happier with my navigation skills now.

Concentrating Hard
The first day we covered different types of maps and their features, how [...]

Comeragh Mountains

Over the weekend Catherine and I went for a really nice walk in the Comeragh Mountains. We set off from Mahon Falls car park, climbed up alongside the falls themselves, continued on up to Knockaunapeebra and “792″ (the featureless high point of the Comeraghs) and onwards to the cliffs overlooking Coumshingaun Lough. From there we [...]

Mountain Meitheal

At the MCI lecture the other night there was a brief mention of Mountain Meitheal, a volunteer group who give up their time to help maintain some of the mountain and forest tracks (currently only in Wicklow, it seems).

Building the new bridge at Carrwaystick
They definitely seem like a group worthwhile volunteering for if you spend [...]

Valerie and Neil’s TMB Photos

Valerie and Neil just sent on their excellent photos of our Tour du Mont Blanc holiday.
They did a much better job of capturing what the walking itself was like.

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Wrap Up

Below is a journal I kept of our two week Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB) organized by Exodus. You want to start at the first entry and read your way to here in order for it to make any sense.
The TMB is one of the classic alpine walking trails, and I’d whole-heartedly recommend it to [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Getting Home

Time to go home! Up at 06:00, we packed up everything for the last time, loaded up the van and had breakfast. At 07:00, we left the campsite, said our goodbyes to Liz and got on the bus with Charlie and headed down to Chamonix to pick up the hotel group.
The journey to Geneva airport [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Rest day, Traversing the Vallee Blanche

Our last day, and supposed to be a rest day. Janina, Vanessa, Catherine and I were up at the usual 07:00 along with Liz and Charlie as we were all off (not together) to the glaciers for the day. After a quick breakfast, the three girls and I headed off to les Praz where we [...]