Killarney and the Top of Ireland

Dave at the start of the walk

After our week walking in Switzerland we were enthused for something a little harder.  The whole walking between hotels and not carrying any backpacks was nice, but we felt we could go a little harder.

The highest mountain in Ireland is in Killarney national park, in the south west of the country, near Cork.  It's Carrauntoohil, at 1038m high, and that is the relative height as well, since it's so close to the sea.

We planned a weekend adventure to Killarney to climb the might Carrauntoohil (don't ask me how that is pronounced).  We had the idea that we should try and climb the highest mountain in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England.  Not that any of them are very high, the one in Scotland, Ben Nevis, is the highest, and that's only 1344m.  Basically if you are over 1000m you'll make it on to the wiki page of mountains in the British Isles.

Looking towards Carrauntoohil from Beenkeragh with the scary Beenkeragh ridge in front

The usual ascent is along Hag's Glen and then straight up Devil's Ladder (the name should give you some idea as to how steep that is).  But that sounded a little unpleasant, and short, to us.  It's weird that so many people walk that way, as an out and back, since this mountain lends itself to a great loop of a day walk.  In the first photo Carrauntoohil is hiding off to the back left.  But if you look to the right of that you see the ridge carries on.  What you have is this amazing ridge walk in a horseshoe above the lake behind Dave.  It's 15km long and you get to climb Ireland's three highest peaks in one go.  And you never have to retrace your steps.  Perfect.

About to climb Beenkeragh, our route so far was along the ridge in front of us

We started in bright sunshine, there wasn't much of a path for the first part of the horseshoe, it's just scrambling up a fairly rocky slope, gaining a lot of elevation pretty quickly.  About 30 minutes in we got caught in a torrential downpour.  The rain was literally coming in sideways, it was that windy.  The storm only lasted about 15 minutes but it was enough to be completely drenched.  Lucky this was back in summer, so we weren't going to freeze to death, we did have our raincoats on, it was just our boots and pants that were soaked.  It was quite incredible.  I only had one leg get wet because the rain was so horizontal.  It did mean our map was destroyed though.  Lucky the walk is incredibly easy navigationally wise.  Though it would have been pretty tricky in mist or cloud.  Only because there were sheer cliffs which could be easily missed.  And that would have ended badly.

The lake we were walking around the whole day - this is after we had summitted Carrauntoohil

This first section was probably the most unpleasant section of the whole walk, there was no track, the wind was incredible, at some points I had to crouch down to stop being blown over, and the rain had made the rocks like ice.  But the sun soon came out again and started to dry up the rocks.  In hindsight we were lucky that the rain hit us then, and not later in the day, since the route got seriously dicey in an hour or so.

Looking back at Beenkeragh ridge, we came over the ridge in the middle - and there is no path.

Once we had reached the top of the ridge, it's then a simple matter of keeping upwards in a gentle curve.  We reached the top of Beenkeragh, at 1010m it's the second highest mountain in Ireland. The route from the top of Beenkeragh to the base of the climb up Carrauntoohil was pretty scary. I think the snow walking in Switzerland was scarier, but I think if it had been windy, icy or wet then this section would have won that contest.  There was no path to speak of, just a knife edge of a ridge, covered in boulders, and sheer drops to either side.  Because there were so many rocks it actually made it easier though, since the whole way along you are just clinging to the rocks, so it's not so much walking, as crawling.  I wouldn't recommend that route unless you had a good head for heights and were a confident scrambler.  But it was definitely fun!  Though it did mean there were less photos from this section, since I needed both hands wrapped around rocks at all times.  If the storm and wind had hit us whilst we were crossing this section, I'm not sure what would have happened.  I think we would have ended up taking a lot longer, and there may have been a few tears shed.

Climbing Carrauntoohil - looking back at Beenkeragh mountain and the scary ridge

After traversing Beenkeragh ridge the rest of the walk was actually really easy.  I'm guessing the last half of the walk is what everyone else does.  On the first half we literally saw nobody, it was just us and the mountains.  Then you hit the main track and suddenly there were heaps of people.  The climb up Carrauntoohil was easy, though I have to say the route most other people took looked pretty unpleasant, the Devil's Ladder really did look vertical.  I much preferred our route, even with the scrambling.

Carrauntoohil and the ridge we came along to the left

 After Carrauntoohil the walk just keeps getting easier, we had one more climb up Caher, at 1001m it's the third highest mountain in Ireland, and then it's all downhill along the other side of the lake, back to our starting point.

I can't recommend this walk highly enough, it has everything you want from a great day walk, no back tracking, great views, easy navigation and a touch of danger.

Back at the lake, with the horseshoe in front, we walked from left to right.