I would like to add a few details to Wicklore’s comment on walking around Lough Bray (Upper and Lower), which may add to the interest of exploring this area. The massive outcrop between the two corries is known as the Eagles’ Crag (although the name does not appear in the OSI map). It is recorded that eagles did, in fact, breed here into the 19th century, when they were finally hunted to extermination. It still isn’t unusual to see a peregrine falcon or kestrel rising on the thermals created by the corries, but you are just as likely to see today colourful paragliders doing the same when the weather is favourable. The corries themselves were formed during the last Ice Age and marked the head of a glacier that flowed down the length of Glencree Valley, with, I would surmise, minor tributaries coming from Raven’s Rock glen (east of Lugduff) and the little glen at Powerscourt Waterfall, each of which has its own modest cirque. The lakes that formed behind the moraines are quite deep and do not seem to communicate above ground, which has led to speculation that they may nonetheless be connected underground, with a flow from the Upper to the Lower. The water is acidic and low in nutrients, so aquatic life is rather poor and you will see that waterfowl are infrequent visitors. I read once that whooper swans have been known to descend here in winter, but I have never myself seen their white beauty on these black waters, despite many a visit. There is abundant plant life around the corries, I am assured, but the names that leave some botanising friends of mine ecstatic, like woodrush, cowberry and quillwort, are rather lost on me.

Parking close to the roadside cottage by Lough Bray Lower is very restricted, but this does not prevent, at weekends, a lot of cars from parking there anyway, and on both sides of the narrow road at that. It can be hard to get by, if you are travelling through. Add to that the madness of tour operators who have begun to send big coaches over the Military Road in recent years, and you have all the ingredients of a bottleneck worthy of the Red Cow Roundabout. Linkback: https://mountainviews.ie/summit/73/comment/3536/