There are days when nature conspires to make the mountains so beautiful, she breaks your heart. Sunday 28th November 2004 in the Mourne Mountains, was one such day. A wistful, wandering way through a world of up-ended conifers at the hem of Commedagh’s petticoats; snap-dry branches amongst glistening holly and feather-down moss; draw clean blood on barbed wire and emerge on golden pastures to the Pots of Pulgarve: God’s amphitheatre on the Glen River, Dundrum Bay and beyond, where none but the ravens take their seats; so often black misted, but today every lethal rock pinsharp - all pointing down. To an ice-cold wall and drop along the ridge to Hare’s Gap - a canary-coloured winter sun like a match-head: suddenly blazing, suddenly cold as ash, shooting black shadow shafts into silken crags - and at all times the scent of snow in her wake. Meelmore and Meelbeg, from the North and East, grey-cold like wet newsprint and presenting fantastical scenes of ancient Dalriada, as fat satin ravens perform a last night before winter’s cold curtain comes down. Off Bearnagh and East - the root of a rainbow hangs like a huge kite between the lodge and Castewellan, breathing her fairy breath into the glen and suddenly the night looms, casting a palate of blues and lilacs over Binnian-to-Beg; the pace quickens to the saddle and blues melt to pinks and greens and a canter off Donard to the forest road. Night has fallen, the wood whispers; a wide sweep East and below, a carpet of fairy lights from Hilltown to Dundrum, from the Shimna River to Downpatrick. A warm car like a butterfly cucoon, on the Castlewellan Road, South the matt black silhouette of these stunning hills against an ink sky, North a full moon dozing between linen sheets. Linkback: https://mountainviews.ie/summit/63/comment/1345/