I must be the only person who has come up here in bad weather and missed the views!

I came here from Knockavoe and intended this to be the second of three hills for the day.

I parked at the same spot as Aidy and Simon and started along the concrete path which appears to lead to a water service pumping station before striking off on the vague track between the two fences. This is very wet and boggy, especially the first 50m which seems to double as a sheep highway off and on the hill. The near ankle deep mud and water mixed with heather, grass and knee-high rushes had me cursing myself for not bringing my gaiters and walking poles.

The walk to the top was a bit of a slog. The forecasted rain had arrived shortly after leaving the car and by the time I was almost at the top it was quite heavy and I was completely in the cloud. The nearby windfarm was completely hidden but I could hear the windmills swooshing and clanking eerily through the mist. I almost expected to see the Iron Giant come stomping out of the clouds with his glowing eyes. As it was the nearest windmills were quite spooky appearing and disappearing as the clouds were blown through by the strong wind.

I found the summit difficult to find. The whole area is pretty flat with nothing shouting out as the highest point. Having left my GPS in the car I was depending on Google Maps to locate the summit and my phone GPS really struggled with the conditions. I did find a cairn but it didn't feel like it was in the right location. Back home I looked at my track on mapping software and found that I had wandered over the summit and that the cairn was approximately 45m from the mapped coordinates. No idea who or what the cairn marks but it was close enough for me this time!

I headed back down the same way. By now I was cold and wet and navigating the boggy section at the end left me mucked to the knees. With the cloud base sitting below 250m I decided to give the 3rd hill a skip and leave it for another day. It was into the car, crank up the heater and head for home.

If I was doing this hill again I'd probably use the windfarm approach. It's longer but better terrain with tracks until the last few hundred metres.

Trip Report on my blog: https://idlecyclist.wordpress.com/2021/10/06/talking-and-hiking/
. Linkback: https://mountainviews.ie/summit/839/comment/23300/