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Welcome to my personal diary of our tour of Ireland's 3000ft peaks in 1996 ....
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Day 5: Sunday 2 June
After breakfast, I opened up the Transit as we loaded our gear for what was to be our longest walking day. Ian managed to get in some warming-up exercise with the help of the dog before leaving. Then it was time to head for the range known as MacGillycuddy's Reeks, an area containing four 3000ft mountains and six associated tops.
Irvine Butterfield says in his "High Mountains Companion (1991)" that "Poor maps and misleading or non-existent mountain names make this range a nomenclature nightmare". We used the 1993 edition of "The High Mountains" in planning our route and these are the peak names and heights noted in order of ascent ...
Cruach Mhor (932m), The Big Gun (939m), Cnoc na Peiste (988m), Maolan Bui (973m), Cnoc an Chuilinn (958m), Carrauntoohil (1039m), Caher (1001m), Caher NW Top (975m), Tooth (959m) and Beenkeragh (1010m).
These may be different today!
Safely negotiating the hairpin, we headed through Killarney and out towards the Reeks. It was a warm and sunny day, and after paying our parking fee at the farm, we set off and I even had to stop to put on suntan cream. We got fairly spread out as we climbed the first top. Janet had a moment of panic as she had left her sack to fill up her water bottle from a nearby lough, and then had trouble finding it on her return! The top of Cruach Mhor was finally achieved by all and we had a quick break beside the cairn (complete with shrine). Dave brought up the rear and encouraged us to continue as he would make his own pace.
We continued along the ridge, scrambling across the 'pointy bits' as we ticked off the tops of the eastern Reeks. As we descended to the col marking the dividing line between the east and west Reeks, we were confronted with a sight seldom seen on the Scottish hills. Along the full length of the slopes of Carrauntoohil was a continuous line of people climbing to the summit and returning from it. Having hardly seen a soul on our previous climbs, it was quite a sight. It was an organised walk with 120 people. This was part of an annual walking festival .. walking against the tide you could get a sore throat saying 'hello' to all of them. With other groups, there must have been over 400 people on the hills that day.
We made it to the summit of Carrauntoohil, resplendent with an enormous cross, and then headed out to Caher. On our return to Carrauntoohil, we met up again with Dave. He was going to return by the valley while we headed back over Beenkeragh. We scrambled along the final part of the ridge and finally came to the last of our summits. We had now climbed all the 3000ft mountains in Ireland! Now it was just a matter of following the ridge down to the valley. This turned out to be not quite as straightforward as it sounded as the slopes weren't exactly easy to descend, but we eventually made the path and returned to the farm car park.
On our return, we had a slight problem as the minibus' battery was flat. A quick shove .. it was hard moving the steering wheel without power-assistance .. and we got it going. We then got changed and started back, stopping for a pint before arriving at Peacock Farm again. It was my turn to act as supervising chef, and my commis took turns to assist in the meal preparations, and of course in the booze drinking.
After eating and cleaning up, it was time for a tired group of bodies to head for bed. It had been the longest but most enjoyable day of the trip.
