Cookies. This website uses cookies, which are small text files that the website puts on your computer to facilitate operation. Cookies help us provide a better service to you. They are used to track general user traffic information and to help the website function properly.

Click to hide this notice for 30 days.
Welcome to MountainViews
If you want to use the website often please enrol (quick and free) at top right.
Overview
Detail
Zoom: ??
For more map options click on any overview map area or any detail map feature.
Find Suggested Walks
Find hill, mountain, island, coastal feature.
Videos

Recent Contributions
Get Notifications

Ballykildea Mountain: A walk in the woods

Ballykildea Mountain: A long approach from the north

A long, meandering route to Ballykildea

Glan Mountain: A Glan rocker......

Easy walk, with nice views towards Eagle Island

Sea Hill: Surprisingly good sea views from this hill

Muckish: Muckish for the Summits On The Air (SOTA)

Beenbane: Borreen to heaven

Typical wet North Mayo Coastal Hill

Slieve Fyagh: Gaiter day out

Carrigshouk: Lovely loop

A Cone with a view

Conditions and Info
Use of MountainViews is governed by conditions and a privacy policy.
Read general information about the site.
Opinions in material here are not necessarily endorsed by MountainViews.
Hillwalking is a risk sport. Information in comments, walks, shared GPS tracks or about starting places may not be accurate for example as regards safety or access permission. You are responsible for your safety and your permission to walk.
See the credits and list definitions.
Video display
CaptainVertigo: Track 3291 in area near Knocknadobar, Iveragh NW (Ireland)
Knocknadobar-Kells Summits
Length: 13.5km, Creator time taken: 5h 5m, Ascent: 1043m,
Descent: 998m

Places: Start at V4809882955, Knocknadobar, Knocknadobar North Top, Kells Mountain, Kells Mountain East Top, end at V5260583543 4.5km E from Start
Logged as completed by 1

Looking towards Knocknadobar from the South West
Sometimes you are presented with dozens of mountains and you have to figure out which ones to walk .There can be so many combinations and permutations. But the Kells Knocknadobar massif , with its four sub peaks, pretty much stands alone, so the summiteer is inevitably going to put all four together in a single route. What is required is a sane running order.
Don't Turn Your Nose Up at the Pilgrim Path!
I parked at the little car park at the western end of Knocknadobar and headed up the Pilgrim Path. I'm glad I did. People who work on mountains rarely go straight up. Neither do sheep. They zig-zag. Zig-zagging adds length to a walk. The ascent stays the same. Crucially, to state the obvious, the gradient is reduced, and this has a remarkable easing quality on the human body. The Pilgrim Path represents the ingrained wisdom of decades of ascent. I strongly recommend it. You get close to the final ascent in a reasonably fresh state. Hare up in a straight line if you want to. You will pay the price.
Looking back southwest along the Pilgrim Path shortly after dawn
The Harbour Descent Option
You will see that I went up the PP to Knocknadobar, waltzed across to its North Top, doubled back up the main summit, but curving east towards Kells Mountain and its sister, then back towards the col but dropped off before I reached the col and went down by the forest to my waiting bike. I believe that a more elegant route (although it would add to the overall ascent because you would have to go back up Knocknadobar) would involve:
  • Pilgrim Path to Knocknadobar;
  • Straight on to the Kells sisters;
  • Back up towards Knocknadobar and
  • Head to its North Top and descend to the harbour
Track 2709 (simoburn) shows that there's a way to the harbour but I read dbloke and felt that the area around the harbour is simply too well fenced and built up and you might be embarassed. The only real possibility would arise if the tide were out and you could drop off to the shore well back from the harbour. Then you could walk the shore to the harbour without annoying people.
Descent from Kells Mountain to corner of forest south of KNDR
My Descent
I descended off Kells Mountain to the western side of a rectangular area of forest to collect my bike and cycle back to the start. I felt that permission would be needed to go down anywhere to the Ring of Kerry road. To ease the optics, I made a point of avoiding the obviously good track on the eastern side of the forest (there's a house nearby). The track to the west was completely overgrown with briars and all manner of horror and eventually I simply went into the adjacent field. That annoyed me because the whole point of getting to a forest was to avoid any contact with farming activity, and while there were no cattle or sheep in the fields by the forest that day there were substantial deposits suggesting recent digestion.

Uploaded on: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 (20:48:00)
Linkback: https://mountainviews.ie/track/3291/  
To download GPS tracks you must be enrolled and logged in. See "Login or enrol", top right - quick and easy.


COMMENTS
No comments uploaded yet.

NOTE: ALL information such as Ascent, Length and Creator time taken etc should be regarded as approximate. The creator's comments are opinions and may not be accurate or still correct.
Your time to complete will depend on your speed plus break time and your mode of transport. For walkers: Naismith's rule, an approximate though often inaccurate estimate, suggests a time of 4h 27m + time stopped for breaks
NOTE: It is up to you to ensure that your route is appropriate for you and your party to follow bearing in mind all factors such as safety, weather conditions, experience and access permission.

* Note: A GPS Height in the elevation profile is sourced from the device that recorded the track. An "SRTM" height is derived from a model of elevations for parts of the earth. More detail

OSi logo OSNI/LPS logo
Some mapping:
Open Street Map
(Various variations used.)
British summit data courtesy:
Database of British & Irish Hills
(Creative Commons Licence)
MountainViews.ie, a Hill-walking Website for the island of Ireland. 2300 Summiteers, 1460 Contributors, Newsletter since 2007