Climb every mountain !

by Chris

Today was Kelly's second day at her new job (I'll let her make a post on that later), so anyway with the wife working, I did what any responsible husband would do.

I went mountain climbing.

Now we are using the term mountain loosely here. Although there is technically no height requirement to be a mountain, general consensus is that anything under 2000 ft is not a mountain. In Ireland there are 458 "mountains" of which 255 of them are actually over 2000 ft.

The 91st highest mountain in Ireland, and 7th highest in the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin is Djouce Mountain which is 725 meters tall (2378feet)

After having a large Irish Breakfast, my friend Tony & I drove down to Wicklow via the Sally Gap pictured above. Even though it was May 1st, everything is still brown up there.

We parked at the Wicklow Way trailhead at Lough Tay (pictured below) and set out for Djouce Mountain.

The weather was cool/cold, perfect for hiking...although it was very windy.

The views got better and better as we hiked up the south ridge. As you can see in the picture below, I took advantage of this scenic overlook.

Higher and higher we went as Lough Tay (Loc-tay) got smaller and smaller.

The mountain, as typical of the rest of Ireland, was clearfelled during the 17th and 18th centuries, mostly due to the need for wood for shipbuilding.

This resulted in the peat bogs becoming exposed and in some areas destroyed. The mountain management crew has marked off protected areas and installed boardwalks made of old railroad ties to protect the area.

You dont want to go off the beaten path up here....quicksand ! or just muddy bog...either way, don't mess with it.

As you can see from the picture below, the boardwalk covers a long distance.

Once we got to the shoulder of the south ridge we got a beautiful view of the Irish sea and the coastal farms

As always you can click on any of these pictures to see them larger.

Almost at the top now !

Wooohoooo we made it. Ok, its only 2400 feet but it was a nice hike.

above, Tony at the top playing his harmonica. Two great reasons to go hiking with Tony. 1) he has a car 2) watch the movie below

After our mountain trip, we drove down to the coast to meet up with friends...more on that tomorrow !