Following the totally soggy trek last week, we decided to repeat the entire route that we had originally intended to complete, this time in glorious weather. Again we parked at Turlough Hill. We followed the summit route for about 500 meters where we veered off to the north west.
As you can see we did a spiral route to a point between Stoney Top and Tonelagee. This is actually easier than slogging straight up to the summit of Tonelagee. From our point on the saddle it was only about 200 meters to the summit. We then headed back to Stoney Top and veered down north east to the edge of Lough Ouler. Since the weather was so warm we stopped for a while at the edge of the lake near the outlet where we enjoyed a wonderful swim in the reasonably warm lake water. There were quite a few people enjoying the lake water and another group had set up a family tent on the raised western outcrop. It is only hoped that they were responsible enough to leave the place as they found it!
We followed the defined track from the outlet down north east to join Glenmacnass Brook. There was another encampment down here conprising two large family tents. We then followed the brook south east to Glanmacnass Waterfall passing a couple of more tents. Everyone seemed to be camped out this weekend. There was also a group of 10/12 lads that had formed a camp under cover of the pine trees just up from the brook on the south western side before the actual waterfall. We only spotted them because we took a shortcut up to join the track back to Tonelagee. By the debris and amount of crap that was scattered about the group of tents it was obvious that there would be no cleaning up before they departed. They also had a large camp fire burning within a circle of rocks but no water nearby in case of need. Suffice to say that I decided not to tackle this boozed up group about their slovenly nature and the need to respect what they come here to enjoy.
We tracked south west back up over the ridge to just where the track starts to climb up to Tonelagee summit. Here we veered south south west and contoured down to join our outward track near the carpark.