Last week, I took a walk up Derrybawn.  I’d been there before but figured that it might be a good route to get into the hills before all the snow had gone.  And it was a good route… more or less.

The route to the summit of Derrybawn – or, at least, some of the way – is a narrow, rocky track through deep heather.  Last week, with all of the melt-water, this was a narrow, rocky stream.  That is, the parts that weren’t covered in snow.

If you’ve ever walked over uneven ground, deep heather and sometimes-streams that have been covered in a thick blanket of snow, you’ll know that the going is slow and difficult. Although much of the snow had melted, there were still large drifts – some of which were hip-deep.  Not knowing what’s under the snow makes walking on it a bit nerve-wracking.

Still though, good fun.  I took a few photos along the way (mostly with no snow, oddly enough).  They’re on my Picasa page if you’re interested.  Like the day, the photos were mostly grey and dismal and I’ve played with them a little before uploading – mainly out of boredom.

Chalk up one for Gerry.  Gerry:1

Then, a couple of days ago, I attempted another trip to the mountains.

This wasn’t so successful.

Thick fog.  Thick snow.  The route I’d planned required crossing a large, de-forested patch and it was utterly treacherous while covered in snow.  No idea where I was stepping. Broken branches, tree-stumps, streams, mossy rocks, and many other delights made things very difficult – and a little dangerous.

In addition, the fog had reduced visibility to not much more than 50 yards.  With a lot of open mountain to cross, I called it.  It was a back-out.  I’m relatively confident in my compass-work but I figured it wasn’t worth the twin risks of broken ankles and getting lost in the fog.

Weather: 1

Rematch next week.  Hopefully.

So Monday should have been a reasonable stroll of a couple of kilometers and an easy climb to get back into hiking shape.  Park on the Military Road in the middle of the Wicklow Mountains, an easy walk to the top of Fancy Mountain (really, that’s what it’s called – also known as Luggala).  Spot of view-looking from the top of the cliffs over Lough Tay and back down.  That was the plan.

Couple of issues though.

Firstly, it was foggy.  Really, really foggy.  Proper pea-souper stuff.  As there’s a trail of sorts to the top, I wasn’t too worried.  It made for pretty poor viewing once we (the brother and I) got there though.  Then, the greenhorn decides that he’d like to take a stroll down to the brook – in the valley to the southwest – and follow that back to the car.  Reluctantly, I agreed.  This was a mistake.

Now the fog made things difficult, but we were armed with compass and map so that was ok.  The map was pretty much redundant as there were no landmarks to be seen but navigation back to the road was the easy part (any bearing roughly northwest would do it).  The hard part was clambering over and through the heather and gorse and marsh and bog.  Holes abounded – real ankle-breaking terrain.  At one point, one of the brother’s legs disappeared down a hole and didn’t stop until his arse hit the ground.  Wet boot – nasty.  Glad it wasn’t me.

We made very slow progress.  Stopped at a giant rock for a brew and a sambo.  Then kicked off again.  Eventually, we made it back to the road and the car.  Tiring day, but at least the brother is unlikely to ever want to leave tarmac again.  Looking over our route on the map, I’d estimate we spent three hours covering about five kilometers.  Slow going.  Good though.  I enjoyed it immensely, although the fog didn’t clear in all the time we were there.

Here’s the area on Google Maps.  Rough route: Car parked at A.  Walked southeast to that lump overlooking the lake.  Then a descent southwest before a scramble back northwest again.  Not far – just difficult.