Ireland day 1306. Saturday 26 April 2025- Lugnaquilla 6

Today’s summary	Got up early and drove down to Glenmalure for a Club walk up Lugnaquilla via the Fraughan Rock Glen route. An excellent walk with great weather. Had refreshments in the Glenmalure Inn at the end then straightforward drive home. Val stayed in the flat and had an extremely busy day on admin. More lentil curry beer and mad men in the evening. My sixth ascent of Lugnaquilla since moving to Ireland
Today’s weather	Cloudy first thing in the morning after overnight rain. Cleared quickly to cloudless blue skies by evening. Dry all day. Light south easterly wind. Appx 13c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue 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): Lugnaquilla 6 via Fraughan Rock DWC

Commentary

We’ve had some pretty wet weather here in an Ireland over the last couple of weeks, so I was a little apprehensive about how things might pan out for today’s Club walk. We were planning a climb up Lugnaquilla, East Ireland’s highest summit (at 925m / 3035 ft) and it can be pretty miserable up there if it’s lashing down with rain.

But I needn’t have worried, as things turned out perfectly. After the clouds lifted after last nigh’s rain, the sun slowly came out and the skies cleared. It ended up as a beautiful sunny day without a drop of rain – even in up the mountains.

Val elected to stay in Malahide today, where she had an industrious day dealing with a tonne of admin work while still managing to fit in a run. Impressive! So I set off on my own to make an early morning dash down the M50 to meet the other four in today’s group at the Glenmalure Inn at 10am.

After a bit of consolidation to get us into fewer cars, we drove up to the start point for our walk, at Barravore car park. Nowadays, since the closure of the “ZigZag” path a few years ago, the Fraughan Rock Glen route is the only way up Lugnaquilla from this side of the hill. So without further ado, we set off up the Glen, heading for the summit.

It was a straightforward walk – very wet in the extensive bog, but with a bit of deft footwork, we were able mostly to keep dry feet. And while we weren’t watching our feet, we were looking at the view, which opened up and got more and more spectacular as we ascended.

Eventually we got to the top, which was pretty busy today with charity walkers and fitness class members. But everyone was in a good humour, having summited a decent sized mountain, and enjoying the good weather. It was my sixth ascent of Lugnaquilla since we moved to Ireland, making it probably my most-climbed mountain of all time.

We descended via Art’s Lough and then a forestry trail to the camp site on the Barravore Road (where we had left a car). There is a more direct route down from Art’s Lough to Fraughan Rock Glen, but it entails crossing the Brook at the bottom of the valley, and as it was in spate today, that could have been tricky.

Once we were all reunited with our cars, we reconvened at Glenmalure lodge for (non alcoholic) refreshments and then I drove back to Malahide. The M50 was thankfully not too busy so I was quickly back. I listened to a podcast along the way, which helped the journey go more quickly.

The rest of the evening was spent quietly, and in a well-worn routine. Lentil curry, a beer, and some “Mad Men” on Netflix. Another great outing, and a real joy to be out in the hills on such a beautiful day.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


By the ford at Barravore, at the start of the walk	From midway up the Fraughan Rock Glen, looking back towards the west slopes of Camaderry

Wilderness looking west from the summit ridge, over towards Kildare	Advisory notice about the continued closure of the formerly popular zig-zag path. A sad indictment

A wall of wood alongside the forestry road. Recent felling has completely changed the landscape	Waterfall by the forestry road. The waterfalls and streams were in all full flow today, after the recent heavy rain. Nice to see them looking impressive, whilst not actually getting wet at the same time!

With the Club on the top!