A big warning before trying this route!!

Starting from the entrance to the extensive windfarm on the hill (C (H423 972)) with plenty of room for parking at this high desolate spot. A large sign warns of deep drainage with the risk of drowning, the risk of falling ice, buried high voltage cables and high crosswinds!! It did make me consider for a few seconds before bypassing the gates where a wire fence had been unceremoniously torn aside.

The broad access road reveals a 6 foot layer of peat at its side as it climbs steadily to reach the first turbines. A couple of offshoots to the left should be ignored and the track soon reaches the summit area (20 mins).

The summit itself is obvious off to the SE over wet and boggy ground crossed by fences. Views reach N over river Foyle, Lough Swilly to the Urris Hills, Ragtin More and Slieve Snaght, NW to Muckish and Errigal and down to the Bluestacks and Bessy Bell and E to the Sperrins draped in an autumnal coat.

It was a beautiful clear day with blue skies and a cool breeze. Lunch was taken sitting against an immobile turbine from within whose bowels something was trying repeatedly to crank up and start. The turbines did give the impression of being a bit old and delapitated, with some clanking and clunking and others having old graffiti at their base.

Return was the same way with great views over the lowlands of the Foyle valley, where isolated showers where dumping their rain and creating rainbows in the low lying sunlight.

A fairly isolated hill with the opportunity to combine it with others in the area to make a full day. Not another soul about so maybe that warning sign does its job. Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/839/comment/6631/

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The mist comes dropping slow...

I'm paraphrasing Yeats (it's actually 'the peace comes dropping slow'), but I'm moved to verse because an otherwise unremarkable hill was enhanced enormously by the presence of low-lying early morning mist that stretched from the hill right across the Inishowen Peninsula. In the distance I could see the summits of Errigal & Muckish rising from a sea of white, not to mention several turbines poking up their heads. Incidentally, I encountered several wind farm employees in vans on my walk, all of whom greeted me, and so apparently have no issue with hillwalkers accessing their tracks. Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/839/comment/23609/

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Record breaking views?

After having just climbed Croaghan Hill in Donegal, I had enough time to include Owenreagh. I parked at the junction of Silverhill Road with Koram Road. Just opposite is another road which proceeds up the hill for a short distance to a dead end. A rough, overgown, boggy track can then be followed, between two fences, with a forest on the left, to the summit. On the short walk up, I had great views of Bessy Bell, and nearby Koram Hill. The television mast on Koram Hill is, according to Wikipedia anyway, the tallest structure in Ireland! I must admit that although it can be seen for miles around, when I stopped there on the drive up, it didn't look that big. I carried on over the summit, through the wind turbines, to the Eastern side of the hill for more stunning views of the Sperrins, the Foyle valley and North Tyrone. Definitely worth the very small amount of effort required for this hill. Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/839/comment/15261/

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simon3 on Owenreagh Hill

Viewed from the nw side of Owenreagh, the dying rays of a summer solstice sun break out behind cloud. The irregular flat backed summit on the skyline is Muckish in the Derryveaghs which is some 53km away - just 20 minutes earlier it was all but invisible in bluish haze.

How come we can see so far? There can be a period of curious clarity around sunset and sunrise where the sunlight is reddish.

Going a little deeper into it: haziness is caused by scattering of light and there are two main sorts of scattering: Mie and Rayleigh. This red-light clarity only works when the atmospheric conditions are such that there isn't much Mie scattering. Mie scattering is caused by larger particles and mist which affects red and blue light in much the same way. The Rayleigh or small particle scattering which caused the earlier haze mostly affects bluer light so when the light from the sun is mostly red there isn't much scattering and hence there is better clarity.

Whatever about the science it was a gorgeous view. Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/839/comment/3191/

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simon3 on Owenreagh Hill

From some quarters the windfarm on Owenreagh is visible as disembodied arms waving frantically above trees. From near in on the west the windfarm isn't visible at all. But from most quarters the appearance of the place is dominated by the turbines which are highly visible and often audible.

One way to go up Owenreagh is to start at D (H41211 95593) to the SW of the top. There's some not so great parking on verges there. A concrete road leads off the main road towards a corner of the forest that covers much of west of the hill. An obvious way of going up is simply to walk up the side of the forest. This was curiously difficult early on because of the roughness of the ground with overgrown rushes. Obviously people have been here before creating the forest and the windfarm but there is no path or sign of walking usage. But you won't have long to puzzle over whether this is a good thing or bad because the walk at 800m isn't far with a climb of around 111m.

The top area is made up of very eroded peat hags. There is no cairn as of June 2008. While Owenreagh Hill only just scrapes into our 400m list, its position on the west of the Sperrins gives it interesting views of Donegal from the east and of course of the Sperrins.
Visible also is Bessy Bell, 420m, 14k to the SW and also covered in wind-turbines. Near and SW is the oddly named Koram 372m. which has a high mast of some sort on it.

Your visit to Owenreagh Hill can be the Summitteer Stroll up and down or you can also do a circuit of the forest by going NW along the north of its side to a road which will lead you south and back to the summit. This makes a walk of around 3.6k. Although short you'd need boots because of the roughness of the ground.

Our photo shows some of the wind-turbines with the west end of the Sperrins beyond. According to a website I read (Jun 2008) some 6 further and larger turbines are to be added to the 10 already there. Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/839/comment/3194/

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