In December of 2016 while earning points for gribboneer-of-the-year http://www.highpointireland.com/gribboneer-of-the-year.html we returned to Knockmealdown on two occasions. The first was on Saturday 17 December just after 3pm when we set off from a point on the R668 near a monument to a plane crash. This is just after you leave County Tipperary and enter County Waterford as you travel towards Lismore. This was to avoid climbing Sugar Loaf Hill, as our goal was to get to Knockmealdown trig to earn the 12 points. Dillon (dillonkdy) found the going tough enough on this route as the heather was quite high with no clear path and he had already climbed Galtymore that morning. After about a mile and 300m of climbing we met the more common route at the Waterford/Tipperary border wall where we would normally just come off Sugar Loaf Hill and start the climb again for Knockmealdown. We turned right here and followed the county boundary wall. After reaching the trig and taking the necessary picture we returned almost by the same route as we came. Overall this route while shorter with less climbing definitely does take a bit of extra care and work with the heather, lack of clear path etc.
We returned again on 28 December, this time an 8am start. We parked at a bridge on the R668 at a junction for Cappoquin (R669) and Lismore about a mile on the Lismore side of Baylough car park, well described by Paul O’Connor here http://www.walkingandhikingireland.com/the-county-tops-number-5-knockmealdown-county-waterford/. The idea was that this would be the shortest distance to the trig but we expected a tough enough climb as a result. We found it easy enough at the start but soon enough the steepness of the challenge was evident. Compared to our last route the vegetation was not an issue as it had been burned probably in the previous year. Ferns may be an issue at other times of the year though. Again there was no distinct path but we didn’t mind that on this occasion and we followed our straight line route to the trig. We walked about 4.5KM up and back rising about 500m over about 1.5hrs.
For more pictures and details check out Dillon’s website at https://dillons32chpchallenge.github.io/progress/index.html Linkback: https://mountainviews.ie/summit/45/comment/18806/