This Year

2 Oct

Boughaill

Story by Gavin Dillon

Sunday Morning, 7am. Managed construct a pot of coffee while spilling milk all over the place and lacing up my boots incorrectly. 8am.. now feeling much more energized and generally happier and more lively due to aforementioned cup of coffee, I set off to Gaol Cross to launch into the new fandango of a year with the mighty Mountaineering Club of University College, Cork.

Upon arriving I found some old familiar faces, as well as a few new ones, but as we all got talking and being generally happy about the promising looking day, we were accosted with multiple dozens of fresh new faces ready to face the day ahead, and then the buses arrived, the main one of which was resplendent with a mountain on the side. We were rather touched by this, and hats off to PJ Hammond, ever the transportation guru that facilitates us so merrily. Eventually, with a crew of 57, we set off in our bus, and extra car, to Kerry, the Kingdom itself. Stopping off in Daly's diner in Killarney as usual for something to eat, and the acquisition of biscuits, we set off through the stunning Killarney National Park in sunshine, with butterflies and deer and leprechauns on all sides.

Boughail. 3 groups ascended the piste: 1 long group led by the mighty Captain Seán O'Flynn, backmarked by Daithi Mac Cárthaigh, only slightly less mighty because he didn't have an impressive beard. Groups 2 comprised of Treasurer Ruaidhri Murphy, who is tall, and uber-experienced Susie Heck, who is small(er). The third and by far the coolest group of the day was led by dramatically gymnastical yours truly, morally supported by Askea O'Dowd (a by-now UCCMC institution) and backmarked by the fearsome Steven Twomey, once called the angriest and most hating, vicious man in the world. Of course the person who called him this didn't know him at all, and was undoubtedly on hallucinogens at the time. It may be safe to say the this third group had the most fun, and included such wonders as random dramatic falls into gorse, humorous anecdotes, gymnastic human pyramids, interesting facts of the day, chocolate and jaffa cakes. The day was beautifully topped off with a spot of relaxed and sweetly silent sunbathing, followed by some rather excitingly hardcore bouldering from those who could, and those who couldn't, who couldn't, but nevertheless gave moral support.

The interesting part about the end of the walk was that all 3 groups arrived at the bus at exactly the same time, to within 30 seconds of each other... a testament to the skill of the leaders involved, and the proficiency of the groups in general. Also certainly worth noting is the balanced mix of people we had out with us, including Irish, both new and old, Germans, French, Chinese and Canadian. Apologies if I left any out. So we loaded back onto the bus to descend en-mass to Den Joes take-away (or for those of us a little more sophisticated, Busy Bees Restaurant) and then into the Vintage pub, the eternal tea and coffee giver without charge. Valuable time here was spent getting to know one another, and plans for the future (such as Dingle Weekend Away) as well as tales of the past (such as Dingle Weekend Away :P ) were made and recounted with gusto and vigor.

And finally the club evacuated Killarney and went their way in a reverential silence facilitated by the day, all happy and content within themselves.

Or maybe they didn't. It may in fact have been a little more accurate to say that as the bus accelerated out of Killarney, the UCCMC could be heard launching into Plastic Jesus with about as much silence as something rather loud. Excuse my lack of a metaphor, but there are far too many to choose from... I deviate however... Many other greats in the singing tradition of the club were sung with style and soul, while many more were throttled to death and beaten to within an inch of their lives by people who shall go unnamed, yet there remained a passion and a soul. It was in this state of emotional high and singing frenzy that we pulled up to The Western Star, where our journey may have ended once and for all, except that we stayed on to revel further in the delights of new blood flowing into the club, planning and plotting and reminiscing all at the same time....

9 Oct

The Comeraghs

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

16 Oct

Gougane Barra

Story by Val

Having arrived back at my apartment only six hours previously, I awoke on Sunday morning and prepared to depart for Gaol Cross and the fabulous adventures promised weekly by the UCC Mountaineering Club. Dressed, packed (I remembered spare shoes!), and properly caffeinated, I arrived with Erin at Gaol Cross, our prompt arrival thus imparting to the venture the seal of WACish goodness, compounded also by Bree of Chestertown fame, whose banana later provided many long minutes of entertainment in conjunction with Sean's powerstretch pants. More on that later. (Actually, that pretty much says it all.)

After a quick trip to a petrol station that was closed, and a slightly longer one to one that was open, we arrived at last to the foothills of the Goughane Barra area. (Somewhere in that intervening hour and a half, a good five minutes were wasted trying to teach me to say "Goughane Barra.") We divided into three rocking groups (rocking...get it?), led by the amazing Susie, Gavin, and Dave. I decided to accompany the Gavin-led group, inspired in this decision by a sore leg muscle; I figured that since his hike was shortest, it would be the easiest. I will not be making this mistake again. (Although strangely enough, the half hour of scrambling it took to get out of one valley seemed to fix that muscle good and proper.) Our group was characterized by large numbers of Germans and drama majors. Which, needless to say, made it the coolest group of all.

And so we set off, our swift progress hampered only by a pit stop at the best bathrooms in Ireland. (Which nonetheless have no hot water...really now, people.) We followed the road and the trails through beautiful, verdant, moss-covered forest, whose beauty yet had no effect upon our rapid pace, because really, who cares for places where there's a trail marked out? Soon emerging from the lovely trees, we struck off into the hills of the Goughane Barra.

Now, I must mention that a certain perk to being in Gavin's group (aside from the terrible jokes--"What's this? A dead one of these!") is the astonishing amount of completely random factoids and trivial information that comes up. Today our lesson was that the very valley we were hiking through was once climbed by Irish rebels, driven there by the English, who thought that they could not escape once cornered in this valley. It was a fair assumption. That mountain was a sponge, leaking water wherever we stepped, making everything quite "slippy," as they say here. (In America, we use the actual correct "slippery," thank you very much, and thus our adjective avoids sounding like the name of a happy performing seal.) It was actually great fun trying to scramble up the mountainside with a creek running down over the very rocks you're trying to use as holds. But we all made it out of the valley, just like the Irish rebels of yore. And we were very proud. And very sweaty, too, because the humidity was not a happy thing that day, but cresting the hill we found a very nice breeze that pursued us to the other side of the mountain.

We reached the top of Goughane Barra after one minor detour (I thought it was fun, Helen) and a prolonged discussion about when lunch would be. Apparently, it's in ten minutes. And curiously enough, if you ask after lunch a while later, it's the same ten minutes away. In this manner our lunch was ten minutes away for at least a half hour, and we all dug into Jaffa cakes with much gusto and great joy when we finally found the rocks for which we were aiming.

We passed Susie's illustrious group after lunch, had a lovely break when the sun came out, during which Gavin tried to do some bouldering and greatly entertained us all. Then Gavin, in his role as the illustrious group leader and thus in ineffable wisdom, decided that acres of bog was the perfect terrain to hike through, and proved in his subtle but very effective way the reasons why quality boots and gaiters are a good investment. We found the road down, passed a stuck sheep which by the sheer force of our collective chi (for we did not lay a finger on it) we managed to free. But even more impressive than our powers of telekinesis was the bleach bright whiteness of the shirt of the German guy whose name I can't remember. Seriously. Half the day traipsing through a bog and it was spotless. Go figure.

Our group was the first back, and after a visit to the money tree (where there was, may I say, a shameful lack of poetry), we all retired to the restuarant and/or pub (on-site drinking? Baby, oh baby.) to await the arrival of other groups. Pints of Beamish for E2.85 made everyone happy, and we arrived back in Cork in various states of exhausted bliss.

23 Oct

Hungry Hill

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

30 Oct

The Horses Glen

Story by Val

The day dawned bright and hopeful on the morn of Sunday, October 30th. It also dawned an hour later than usual, thanks to the time change of the night before, and we all arrived at Gaol Cross all the more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for an extra hour of sleep. We departed for the Killarney region--stopping briefly for groceries in Macroom--and achieved our destination after a brief discussion betwixt the leaders about where the hell to park. Sean's natural charm, multiplied tenfold by his powerstretch pants, landed us the goodwill of the man whose house we parked in front of. (We could practically feelthe man thinking, "Is that guy wearing tights?" as Sean walked away.) The weather at this point began to look a little less than promising, with grey skies strutting across the horizon, mocking the young and fragile hope that maybe the good weather would hold. A rainbow appeared off in the distance, the first of many that day, meaning that rain was in the offing. Despite that ill but colorful portent, we divided into three groups, magisterially led by Gavin, Bradford, and Dave.

While Bradford’s group struck off to the left of the horseshoe for their super-long hike, Dave’s and Gavin’s (of which I was again a member) headed right. After a brief jaunt through a field of sheep, we arrived in a sort of river valley, whose rushing waters bore testament to the recent rain. Our group continued to follow Dave’s—having broken off briefly to try and cross the river (we failed miserably)—up and around the edge of a lake. The rough waters throwing up spray made me think it had started to rain, but it hadn’t. Yet. No, the rain waited until we’d made it into the foothills. And then an optimistic comment that actually, it wasn’t raining very hard at all led to a sudden lashing of precipitation. I’m still a little bitter about the rain, to be honest. This country is ridiculously soggy. Most countries don’t put up with this kind of shit from the weather. But the Irish? The Irish are resilient. Damp, but still resilient.

Our group of a dozen finally managed to cross the river by dint of hopping from one treacherously damp rock to another. Despite the chances, no one slipped; we all arrived to the other side quite dry and began to pick our way up the slope. (This being the point where the rain set in.) A little scrambling was in order, followed by a hell of a lot of good old-fashioned uphill schlepping. No cloud inversion today, just grey cloud and fog curling about as though it had nothing better to do. We got an unrivalled view of it, walking along the top of a ridge where the breeze really wasn’t as bad as it could have been—no one was blown off the mountainside, for example. Lunch was had in an abandoned stone house, right by a sign that said “Return to Car Park”… a singular sight after the hike we’d just had. The place overlooked the Devil’s Punchbowl, which was at that moment filled with cloud, but cleared enough for an impression of the sinister dark waters below by the time lunch ended. Jaffa cakes consumed, we were preparing to make our way onwards when who should appear coming over the ridge but Dave’s group? We all ended up going on together, the descent marked by several more rainbows as the rain began to push off and the sun made an appearance. The place where we parked was eventually found by dint of a marathon road walk and a few individuals with a sense of direction a hell of a lot better than mine. The day ended in Macroom, with a visit to the long-queuing, cheeseless chipper and the pub.

Or, if you’re in the mood for a slightly abridged version: Climbed another waterfall, fell down another stream, proved all my waterproof clothing wrong, carried down half the lakes in my boots, walked inside a cloud, watched curtains of rain descend to the lake like disapparating angels, crossed a river where there was no bridge and stayed dry doing it, looked into places where there were phenomenal views covered with clouds, saw the nimbus greyness curling just above my head as Atlas' breath held off the fog, was nearly blown down a hillside, had lunch in the ruins of an abandoned shepherd's stone cottage, saw half a dozen rainbows and a million raindrops. Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen...and next week we will do it cheerfully again.

6 Nov

Coomsaharen

Story by Val

It is a trial, I tell you, to wake up so early that you are afforded time to get to the bus stop at the Western Star by eight in the morning. It is even more of a trial is the bus thinks you're getting there at 8:30. Yet this is but a minor setback to those of the UCCMC, and in the company of Liam, Askea, and a French dude named Paul, I decided to answer this first challenge of the morning by walking to the Esso for coffee. Inexplicably, coffee was not to be had at Esso that early in the morning, and with time running short, we were about to head back to the bus stop when who should drive by but PJ Hammond himself? He recognized us--indeed, how could he not? No one but the Mountaineering Club is ever on the Cork streets at 8:00a.m on a Sunday--and pulled over. Bless that man. Thanks to him, we arrived at Gaol Cross in grand style. We were minus the coffee but plus two more members: Rich and Mehreen, who we met by the Esso. That's one happenin' Esso for an early Sunday morning.

Anyway, despite a slightly protracted start, we soon set out for Coomsaharen. We had managed to fit everyone on only one small bus, a feat we were later most grateful for. The road out of Killarney and into the mountains was very very curvy, and very very narrow, not a little scary, and would have been nigh impossible to navigate with a larger bus.

There were two groups, one led by Ruadhri, and one led by mighty captain Sean O'Flynn. Ruadhri's group promised to be small and just a little too extreme for me (it was the sight of helmets being strapped on to the back of your packs that scared me off, lads), and despite Ruadhri's tempting bribes of leftover Halloween candy, I decided to stick with the other group. For one thing, I was knackered, and doubted that even Ruadhri's half-kilo of chocolate would impart the blood sugar necessary for keeping up with that intrepid group. For another, rumors of Sean's prowess as a leader have been filtering through to my ears for ages. Would the man in powerstretch live up to the myth? Or was it only the beard that gave our mighty leader that imposing air? I simply had to find out.

We set out, heading across a boggy field, hopping a fence, hopping another fence, and then striking upwards along the right arm of the horseshoe. Rain started behind us, as evidenced by an amazing rainbow rising majestically into the clouds from just outside the lake below...whose awesomeness I lack the photographic evidence to convey, because my camera ran out of battery power. Sigh. Yet despite the failure of my trusty Kodak, our spirits remained high, and the peak was reached by dint of a rather steep incline with very slippery grass.

The wind was something at the top, edging its way towards the point where the descriptor "gale-force" would be appropriate. We found a more sheltered place to rest around half twelve-ish, but no one was very hungry, so after a short rest we continued on. Showers of rain came and went, clouds rushing by like they had someplace to be. The wind and rain prompted recounting among the group about the weather on Hungry Hill and the Coomeraghs, and which was worse. No definite conclusion had been reached when it started to hail.

Yes, hail. Yet a new trick for the meteorological system of Ireland. I just couldn't believe it. I'm really impressed with this country, people. If you manage either severe thunderstorms or tornadoes, it will officially be more eventful in terms of weather here than at home.

Lunch was had once we'd just about rounded the first bend in the horseshoe. The wind was still quite strong, and so Sean whipped out his kishoo. [Feel free to correct the spelling, Bradford] I didn't know what a kishoo was at first, and was a little afraid when Sean started talking about taking his out, but all was well when the action resulted only in the appearance of a bright orange storm shelter. Despite the fact that between the three kishoos that we had, everyone would have been sheltered, only Sean's made an appearance, and only Bree, Askea, Sean, Liam and I used it. It was quite cozy inside the kishoo, and the temperature rose very quickly, fogging the little plastic window. That heating up, mind, was most likely brought on by the entirely inappropriate Sir-Jasperish commentary between Liam and Sean. When we finally emerged from the shelter, we found the rest of the group facing us in rows, like they were watching some sort of show. I can't possibly imagine why they would have done such a thing.

As you may have noticed, Sean's leadership abilities were operating full-force during that lunchtime interval. I feel lucky to have watched. He jumped to provide shelter for us all, and lifted the spirits of those too stubborn to get in a kishoo of their own through his own individual brand of theatre. Not only this, but he dedicated himself to maintaining high morale after the hailstorm. The moment Bree suggested frolicking, he jumped aboard wholeheartedly. I shall never forget that inspirational image of him, frolicking down the mountainside with the joy of a child and the dexterity of a mountain goat, powerstretched legs twinkling away as he descended, shouting for the rest of the group to join him. That, my friends, is the true spirit of leadership at work.

We completed the horseshoe, descended once more to the boggy fields, and made our way back to the bus without incident. Thanks to Marcus' brilliant backmarking (and, of course, Sean's brilliant leadership tactics) we lost not a souI, although a charging sheep down in the flatlands definitely put that statement at risk. The other group, despite a trek of greater length, made it back to the bus before we did. Well done, troops. And we had no sooner collected ourselves and changed clothes than the skies really opened up and started pouring. We made our happy, warm, and drying way into Killarney, where there was Chinese food and free tea and good conversation, much of it focused in happy anticipation of the trip to Dingle this weekend. And on that joyous thought, I'll leave off this account. Mostly because I'm really looking forward to the next one. :-)

11, 12, 13 Nov

Dingle Weekend

Story by Gavin Dillon

Oh Well do I remember, it was a cold november, and each seperate, climbing member of our club was outside the door. The Western Star did lend, for departures' sake a hand (poetic license) in providing the area from which the UCCMC were to embark upon a weekend. And truly one like never before....

But my name is not Edgar, and I do have a tendency to cram too many syllables into anything I say or write but let that not deter you from entering into the world of yet another sordid tale from the UCCMC vaults. An Daingean Freshers Weekend Away 2005... featuring walkoffs, the captain in a mini skirt, pancakes, chocolate, the captain in mini skirt, suspiciously pink hats, Mt Brandon the most amazing mountain in the country, Germans, Captain O'Flynn in a mini skirt, French, Swiss, Italians, Americans, Polynesians, Chinese, New Zealanders (they may have been Australian... no offence intended!) Irish (one of whom was in a mini skirt at one point - ok ok enough is enough) sing alongs, stretching games, midnight frisbee, and just a little bit of drinking and debauchery to keep us all ticking over.

Oh, and the fun room, and Seán O'Flynn in a mini skirt http://www.ucc.ie/students/socs/climbers/season/year2005/pictures/07/target36.html

Western star pub on Friday evening was the inspired departure point for PJ Hammond's mountain and mountaineering club adorned bus ( yes we adorned it) that left with much finesse and jollity with people generally feeling just a little to excited for their own good. BUT NOT EXCITED ENOUGH!!! For they knew not what was waiting for them. Another group of people who did not know hat was in store for them were the good people of Daly's Super Value, who were suddenly accosted by 50 people running around buying as much drink and food as they could physically carry. Hats off to them though, they greeted us with smiles all round. This euphoriawas put under a slight gloom when we came across a broken-down car, belonging as it happened to a certain Helen Ryan, who with a strapping German lad in tow was in fact heading to the same destination that we were. Not that this stopped us for very long from enjoying ourselves, and amazingly they managed to get there before we did, even though we passed them out, and the certainly did not pass us again.

Ballintaggart Hostel was also accosted as it happens by this same group of people. This beautiful heritage-laden Victorian Hostel was well and truly perverted by our group, and as far as we can tell it loved every minute of it. We set immediately cooking some of the finest foods know to man, then launched royally into the construction home-made Irish Cream Liquer.. which admittedly may have been more liquer than cream, and more chocolate than liquer. Actually, now is a very good time to go into a bit more detail of this infamous chocolate, for we had a E25 2.5kg bar of 70% cocoa mass which weighed a ton (or more acurately 2.5 kg) and was graciously provided by Ruaidhri Murphy. Many approached were taken to breaking this slab of chocolate, from stabbing it vigourously, to hitting it with a pot, but all in all it was found that smacking it off people's heads was the most effective way of achieving usable pieces. anyway meanwhile some strange goings on were occuring in the common room, featuring young men called Eamonn pole-dancing with a branch, and licking cream off people. I was busy making Cream liquer, so i managed to miss this, and have only had scant reports of this debauchery filter back to me. All in all, the night ended very well, and went through a very energetic period of playing frisbee with tea-towels on our heads before wrapping up as the last embers of the great common fire burned to naught...

Saturday. Climbed Mountain.

Saturday night on the other hand was an opus of noteworthy activity. Ok fine... here follows a little fill-in on the mountain. Not just any mountain though, but Mount Brandon: pinnacle of Irish beauty, where land meets ocean, the celtic world meets its maker, sod meets sky and a person may meet the version of themselves that they thought was lost, and welcome them as an old friend. Such poetic things occur when you start off the hike with a friendship circle that incorporates a mexican wave. Sham Mo!! The hike I must admit was very pleasant, and not in a pansy Jane Austen way either!! When the clouds parted (which they did with uncanny sense of dramatic timing for poses) the views, as always on Brandon, were awe-inspiring, and I'm not going to attempt to describe them, except to say (oh I had to....) that they were nice.

So off the mountain and back in the hostel there was more cooking done, and lots of super ultra chillaxing in front of the fire while gently playing guitar. Birthed by this state of bliss was the creation of something truly marvellous; namely Liam's, Askea's and my attemp to create O Conaills finest quality drinking couverture chocolate, which we laced with cognac. While a little heavy on both chocolate and cognac, the potential for perfection inherent. Around this time, the ever-savvy Steven Twomey suggested that we should have a run into town to collect more drinks and also a certain young lady who wouldn't believe me that calling in sick to work so she could be there for Friday night was woth it. I won't embarrass her by mentioning her name. So she was picked up, along with numerous beverages for those who provided money to Steve before departure. Back to the hostel, where the word pancake was mentioned. And pancakes there were, by the hundred. seriously. About 24 eggs and god know how much else, and a good group effort on a whiskey laced chocolate sauce, everyone was satisfied, and I assume generally amazed by the sheer god-like cooking prowess that I possess, with 3 pans going at the same tme. Oh fun was had by all...

This is an extra paragraph in case the previous one got to long. So from there we went into games of stretchability (this is one word... seriously) involving becoming contortionists for the night, and some people got a little damp from cups of water. No more on that though, for the main event of the Weekend was about to occur. THE WALKOFF. Singularly the greatest and definitve competiton between powerstretch and manpants. Long have these two powerful forces clashed, and thee night presented the long-anticipated final decisive battle. More posing and power-moves were thrown into the mix than this meagre write-up can possible handle, but suffice it to say that sparks flew in all directions, with glitter make-up, multicoloured gloves, climbing gear to the max and the outcome is STILL being debated even among the very wise.... All I can attest to in this unbiased description of events is that some people were dressed a little to well as women, but others broke the stairs.... Cue the wind-down of the night with the happy fun room; a room of questionable moral standing with one to many mattresses being very close together, but anyhow, each to their own.

Sunday dawned more glorious than a metaphor I can't come up with right now. It was pretty though, and while some people went off climbing steep things involving ropes (not the steep things, but rather the climbing) others decided to chill for a while drinking tea in the early afternoon sunshine. Pleasant and warm it was, and now that I recall it fully, not unlike something out of a Jane Austen novel; a soothing alternative to the more Bronte driven weather of the previous days... Of course then like the bunch of lunatics we are we went and threw ourselves headfirst into the abominably cold atlantic ocean, pointedly wetsuitless!! Having returned from this again, while one group of people were still climbing, another splintered off into town, but those with a sense of duty gave the hostel one MOTHER of a clean-up. I would have eaten my dinner off the floor had it not been actually rather unhygienic, though clean nonetheless. In what seemed like no time at all after this opus of cleansing work, and all to soon frankly, the Mountain adorned coach arrived to take weeping little climbers back to Cork city, amid tears of frustration, devastation and hopes that a write-up this long would never ever be written, and then waded through in utter misery. I do apologise.

Home we went, with truthfully few tears, except perhaps one or two from Stefan, who cut his finger. Poor thing (Stefan not the finger, though perhaps also the finger). But a melancholy state of tiredness and introspection a la Edgar Allan Poe had descended upon us all (Oh wow the story has come full circle to Poe.. what an unexpected literary device ). We returned to Cork better friends than we left, with a few more memories than before, a little more understanding of the ways of cognac and hot chocolate, and a good deal more maturity. Ha ha ha ha... I was going to end with a closing quatrain, but I couldn't be bothered. Roll on the FRACK!!!!!!!!!!!

Apologies for putting you through this by the way, but really you enjoyed reading it, didn't you. please feel free to email me all thoughts and comments, perhaps to rant about my unnecessary extra bits of sentance and disregard for syntax....

20 Nov

Coomlaughra Horseshoe

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

27 Nov

Purple Mountain

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

4 Dec

Crohane / Stoompa

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

11 Dec

The Galtees

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

8 Jan

Knockmealdowns

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

15 Jan

Mangerton

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

22 Jan

The Comeraghs

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

29 Jan

Knocklamena

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

5 Feb

The Hags Glen

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

10, 11, 12 Feb

Lauragh Weekend

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

19 Feb

The Sugar Loaf

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

26 Feb

The Galtees

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

5 Mar

Mt. Brandon

Story by Jenna Williams

My day started at 7 AM yesterday. I rolled out of bed, stumbled into the shower, grabbed my bag full of gear and food. Then to gaol cross for another drive to some unknown mountain. Not sure of what's ahead... but surrounded by good people, so i figured it'd be a class day no matter what.

After a quick stop at daly's for more pasteries/coffee...and a 2andahalf hour drive, we arrived at Brandon only to find the rain had begun.

(I didn't want to get off the bus)

But after putting on my layers and rain coat, i wandered out. The beach down below was beautiful, the mountains above clearly covered with tons of snow. --maybe it won't rain the whole day, i thought.

We were given two options : a more protected hike, or a "more exposed". i didn't really know what exposed meant, but who cares? It sounded like a challenge.

Our group included four Americans, one Austrian, one Czech, 4 Irish. good craic. the snow stopped, the sun came out for a bit, and then it started pissing hail on us. I was getting soaked considering my rain jacket only cost me two euro. (oh well, that's my fault). But the higher we got the more snow there was.

Massive snowball fight number 1 : about 10 minutes into the hike. Massive snowball fight number 2: about 20 minutes into the hike. (Bog surfing the sequel -- this time it's snowing)

Okay, we were getting nowhere. must continue on to lunch! Made it to the top of a peak, stopped on a rock wall for a bite to eat. My gloves were frozen to my fingers. I ate a pb&j sandwich, then kept moving. Windy, cold mountains are never nice places for lunch breaks.

We traveled on to the ridge, a sort of skinny section with large rocks to climb over. Gerard and Spencer helped us sort of manouvre our way -- "put this hand here, put this foot here" (that's right, it's twister all over again -- this time it's rock climbing). I kept looking down -- realizing that if i slipped to one side or the other i'd definitely be dead.

In truth it felt like we stepped through some narnia portal, because this looked a miniature version of the alps as opposed to ireland. crazy.

We used ropes for one part that was a good 20 or 30 feet down. we had to lower ourselves slowly or we might have had some broken bones there. poor Ruaidhri was at the bottom to catch people if they fell, so he got a little beat up with that job.

We made our way past the ridge on to a steep sort of staircase (homeade my susie's footsteps). finally to another peak...couldn't see anything it was so foggy! we celebrated for a while with snow angels and crazy pictures.

On the way down the other group had paved a sledding path for us. we slid down on our asses for a good 20 minutes (yeah, mine's a little bruised now). When we got to the bottom we had snowball fight number 3 in our group, followed by snowball fight number 4 -- THE AMBUSH.

The other group had at least 20 people in it i'd say, and they waited for us to come down only to cream us with hundreds of snowballs all at once! It was really quite scary. I should work on my aim. And arm strength. I'm the ultimate in throwing like a girl.

There were some frozen lakes we ice skated on for a while. Jack took a video "these are members of the ucc mountaineering club walking on water..." I spent the rest of the hike back chatting with a sweet girl named Katrina, and then back to the bus at around 7:30 PM.

Stopped in killarney in "The Vintage" pub on the way back. We were all quieter than usual at the table, that cozy sort of quiet that only happens after a long day of hiking. chatted with a Canadian girl about the italian mafia, got back to the western star at 10:30 PM. had a pint of bulmer's cider, hung out for a bit, then passed out in bed and completely missed my set dancing class this morning.

And i'd do it all over again, in a heartbeat.

12 Mar

Cloon Lake

First person to recount their tale to
uccmountaineering@gmail.com gets to be famous!

19 Mar

The Reeks Ridge

Story by Conor Ryan

Starting out on the soul-destroying mother of a “road” that is The Hydro’, we were hyperventilating and sweating blood after the first 100 paces or so. The legs were beaten into submission and tiredness soon abated.

A wee bit of politics went on at the top of the Hydro as Ruaidhri and Rory tried to make their routes sound as appealing as possible… Ruaidhri was nothing short of telling people that it would rain chocolate on Beenkeragh, and not to bother going on Rory’s group up Caher. Seeing as Ruadhri’s took in a higher mountain and was that bit longer, I decided to tag along with his group for that extra bit of hard-coreness. Nous sommes treize persons, agus ba mise an backmarker. Jerry was conducting a highly important experiment: putting his kilt through its paces to see how it and his legs would last having been walked along the Reeks Ridge. Luckily for me (being back marker and all) he was wearing power-stretch underneath an refrained from trying out the traditional full-commando.

On top of Beenkeragh, we were given some sound advice by Ruadhri, something that had never crossed my mind as I looked along the ridge to Carrauntohil: “Careful not to fall off…because you’ll die if you do”. I thought it would be more technical, but it proved manageable, although I had a close shave while trying to eat chocolate peanuts while scrambling up some dodgy bit.

The highest place in Ireland was a good place to have sos beag. I had ambitions to climb the cross, but with no ropes I settled for just hugging it a while…not quite the same buzz as you get from tree-hugging. We had a chat with 2 fellas who had just come the ladder, and then 2 others came up Howling. Telling them we were going to Kate Kearney’s was satisfying – they gave us a kind of “sure god help us” look and headed on down towards Beenkeragh for a “stroll”.

The decent towards The Devil’s Ladder was grand, but the next climb was excruciatingly painful, I even felt a bit of sunburn coming on as we got to the top of the next peak. Here we caught up with the next group who headed off as we arrived. We crossed paths with Gerard who I think was walking with the Tralee Club then.

The rest of the walk was pretty cool as far as the ridge to Cruch Mhor which kicked a whole lot of ass. It was a tad difficult but all that had to be done was follow Ruaidhri’s trail of blood! A bit of a rest at the grotto and some food, and then we started our decent. There was a really impressive sunset, Carauntohil, Beenkeragh and Caher split the light into huge shafts of light all through the Hag’s Glen… final Kodak moment of the day.

A bit of Olympic Bogjumping and we finally got to the last “peak” of the day…the nipple. It was agonising. The view was great from the top though, all the lights in Killarney were visible… this compensated for the disappointment when I realised that the giant rabbit shaped rock looked nothing like a giant rabbit up close.

Sat 12th Nov

UCG, Galway

Sat 3rd Dec

DCU, Dublin

Sat 7th Jan

St. Colman's College, Midleton, Co. Cork

Sat 18th Feb

Outdoor Show, R.D.S. Dublin

Sat 4th March

Ozone, Belfast