Ireland day 0956. Saturday 11 May 2024- Glendasan DWC

Today’s summary	Drove down to the Hero mines in Glendasan to meet up with four fellow walkers from the club to do the Brockagh-Tonelagee-Wicklow Gap-Turlough-Camaderry circuit. This time unlike the recce 8 days ago, we had perfect weather. Still a challenging but rewarding walk, as it took 7½ hours to do the 17km. Exactly the same time as the recce. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Today’s weather	Another dry bright and sunny day. Light to moderate south easterly wind. Appx 17c

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Glendasan Tonelagee loop DWC

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

I was kicking myself as I read the news this morning. There had been a magnificent display of the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) over most of the northern hemisphere last night – and I slept right through it all.

Anyway my annoyance was relatively short lived as I saw that the sun was shining outside and the auspices were very good for our Club walk round the Glendasan hills today.

Val, recovering from her whirlwind tour of the UK, elected to stay in the flat today so I set off on my own down the M11, ready to meet the rest of the crowd at the Hero mines car park in Glendasan at 10am. The crowd turned out to be a small but perfectly formed group of five – which is actually a good size as there enough people to chat with but not so many that you get slowed down.

We were repeating the walk that my friend and I had recce’d eight days ago: up to the Brockagh ridge, along and up to Tonelagee, then down to the Wicklow Gap, back up to Turlough hill, then along to Camaderry. But what a difference a week makes! Whereas last time we had driving rain, fog and a freezing gale to contend with, today we had near perfect conditions. Warm, dry and sunny, with magnificent views in all directions.

It’s a great walk. Not too long, at “only” 17km. Interestingly, it has taken us 7½ hours to walk it, give or take 10 minutes, on each of the three occasions I have done this route. There’s a lot of up and down, and quite a lot of the route is absolutely or almost pathless, so you can’t rush. In case anyone is interested, the ascent from the car park at Hero mines to the Brockagh Ridge took about 1 hour, then the trudge along the ridge to the top of Tonelagee 2 hours, and the loop from Tonelagee (where we had a brief lunch stop) to Camaderry three hours. And a final 1½ hours to descend back from Camaderry to the car park again.

I thoroughly enjoyed the excursion today – I ended up feeling that I’d had a good all-over workout. My only regret was that I hadn’t taken enough water with me. After so many cold wet winter walks when I hardly drink anything at all, I have rather got out of the habit of packing lots of drinks. Still, lesson learned and I compensated by drinking gallons of tea when I got back to Malahide

We were gifted with some magnificent and memorable views today – including a good perspective from the flanks of Tonelagee over to the Turlough-Nahanagan pumped hydro scheme, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

Well – it’s getting dark now so I’m going to stop now and head out to see if there is any atmospheric magnificence on display. To miss it once would be unfortunate, but twice would be sheer negligence.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


On the top of Tonelagee – but minus the “normal” Tonelagee weather!	Descending the flanks of Tonelagee to the Wicklow gap, with the crags below Lough Firrib catching the light above the King’s River

At last – the end of the road which climbs up from the Wicklow gap to Turlough Hill (the reservoir is behind the embankment on the right of the picture). Its a stiff but easy climb, which normally takes about 40-45 minutes from the gate at the bottom to the fence at the top	Looking back on Turlough Hill. The upper lake is contained by a circular grassy dam which looks like an unremarkable hump in this picture. Actually that’s just an artefact of the lens because in reality it’s huge – 20 metres high and half a kilometer across

The bogs and hags on Camaderry haven’t gone away – they are just a bit less squelchy than last time we came	Near the journey’s end. St kevins Way branches off our path near the mines and carries on down to Glendalough

Bliss! Cooling off in the Glendasan river, back at the mines