Silent Long Enough: Muckish from the south - "That wasn't part of the plan"

Click on this image for our track in Google Maps

Alright, I screwed up.

And the thing that annoys me most is, I still don't know how exactly I screwed up.

Oh well, better make and try to address mistakes early, rather than late...

You see, I recently purchased a GPS data logger, with the plan of using it as an excuse to talk about some of my hillwalking activities, as well as other stuff. Except that, while I was climbing towards the snowy summit of Muckish, I must have done something that stopped the device from logging altogether, a mere 20 minutes into the ascent...

Now, you probably don't care about following my every single step, but, at least for me, that sucks because I had been looking forward to using the data logged today to assess my navigational skills in the low visibility conditions from the top and now I won't be able to do that. Drats! All I feel like saying then is: "That wasn't part of the plan", which is the sentence you typically hear me utter when I get really annoyed at something...

But let's backtrack a bit. The other part of the plan, since it's been snowing a little around these parts (though much less than the rest of the country - one of the random advantages of living in the remoteness of county Donegal), was to enjoy a climb on a wintry Muckish, as the snow blanketed plateau is usually a sight to behold, especially on clear days. Two or three years ago, I had the great fortune of being able to perform such a climb in conditions that couldn't have been more perfect: gorgeous sunny day, with a snow cover that only started mid climb and a thick yet not too bothersome blanket at the top. I even got to meet a couple of snowboarders on my way up, apparently eager to try out their skills, which I couldn't help but find overly optimistic considering the amount of random rocks and boulders that I know to be lying in wait for people foolish enough to attempt a glide on these slopes... Therefore, I saw a replication of that grand day out as a nice way to open this blog.

The road access to the gap

And so, with the road conditions being okay enough for a south gap access (definitely wouldn't want to have tried my luck on the "Miner's Way" today, which is the other common route of climbing Muckish, as it is most likely inaccessible by car, due to being located on the north side), and with our brand new GPS plotter toy to play with, we set off for another merry winter hike.

Unlike last time however, the sky is quite overcast and as a matter of fact, the summit is entirely covered in clouds. These conditions aren't exactly as good as what we'd hoped for, which should preclude meeting adventurous snowboarders. Then again, we'll come back to Muckish in fairer weather soon enough, since it's one of our favourite places, and since we've never been adverse to walking in low visibility, it's no big deal.

In the clouds, what we're going to climb. We'll kindly also take that prayer for a safe journey, just in case...

Thus, as we park near the statue of the Virgin Mary (we could park further down, but I do prefer it there) there's something reassuring in the fact that we are the only person crazy enough to be willing to perform this climb in conditions like today's. I mean, on a bright Sunday, there'd probably be a couple of cars parked here, with a few hikers making their way up already. However, with the uncertain road access, slippery underfoot, chilly easterly wind, and overcast skies, I would have been genuinely disappointed to find, be it only a single other person, that happened to share my eagerness for that extra bit of wintry challenge...

As usual then, we go down the road for about 100m and take right into the "bog". I'll say, the one nice thing about the cold snap we've been experiencing lately, even if it has been less fierce than the rest of the country's, is that most of the small water streams that tend to make the conditions pretty soggy around these low parts, are more or less frozen solid right now. So there's no need to carefully choose where one places his or her feet. As it also happens, some of these streams have been frozen solid down the slope in a rare display of icicles, which also makes for gorgeous sights. We actually pass right next one of those frozen "waterfalls" as we start our climb in earnest.

Some streams, frozen into an icicle curtain

Once the higher gap above the streams has been reached, we go as far east as possible, towards what I call the "south core", accompanied only by the soft sound of cracking snow. Not that there is that much snow around this part (between 2 and 5 cm, with some accumulations here and there but also with vegetation that seems to have had no trouble shedding its blanket already) but at least this does resembles something akin to a wintry walk!

More frozen streams

Unfortunately, while we're still very much at the start of our journey, this is the part where our GPS tracker decides that it has had enough of our shenanigans while logging our progress, probably because we played with it a bit too much to check our altitude. Or at least, that's what I hope happened because if it simply stops tracking as soon as it can't get a location fix, or something else, we're not gonna be too fond of having to babysit that device during our hikes. This is even more disappointing as I do find this GPS tracker to be very well designed otherwise, with all the performance one can expect from such an appliance. Therefore, I'm really hoping that this is just a glitch, that we carelessly brought upon ourselves...

But moving on: now having reached the western edge of the south core, we start the real climb, and find that, while slightly more slippery than usual, we still manage to get a firm grip, a least in the places where there's grass or heather. As a matter of fact, even with the snow, it doesn't feel that much more slippery than what you'd get in the rain. However, after about 150m of elevation and as we are probably still three quarters of the way from the top, we get both into the cloud cover and the slightly more treacherous conditions of a snow covered rocky path, accompanied with a constant east wind that, while not that strong, is stingy enough to become a minor annoyance. On this exposed side, the wind chill is definitely making its presence felt... Now we're talking!

Slippery path + low visibility + wind chill: What's not to like?

As we reach the part of the path that should take us right to the large cairn that exists near the middle of the summit plateau, it so happens that the snow cover has hardened enough to make it too tricky to negotiate, because it morphs into something that is more akin to a sloped sheet of ice than anything else. So we abandon the marked path and cut due west, to climb onto another snow-ice sheet that we hope is more negotiable than the one we chose to avoid, to finally reach the south-west ridge, while being careful not to lose grip during the slippery last 20m or 30m of our final climb.

At this stage, we're more or less on the south-western end of the rocky plateau, where we find that there's actually a lot less snow than we were expecting. Perhaps this is because a good deal of it was blown away, or perhaps it is simply because it didn't snow that much here in the first place. I sure wouldn't mind to have encountered the 20 or more centimetres we had underfoot last time around, but outside of spot accumulations, there isn't that much to contend with. Still makes for quite the interesting landscape...

Typical display of snow at the submit

Plus, at the very least, it allows us to see were we can put our feet between the rocks... which is about the only thing we can see up there, since our visibility has now dropped to 20 to 30m at best.

A sample of our visibility on the summit plateau

Not to worry: I've been climbing here often enough to know this plateau like the back of my hand, so we press on, and easily make our way to find: the large cairn/middle mount, the geodesic stand and, right at the eastern edge, the cross. Even in these low visibility condition, I can't help but feel satisfied at how easily I manage to get to each marker, from almost dead reckoning alone. Granted, I did find footprints, left by a couple climbers who I guess also decided to give the summit a go before it got engulfed in the clouds, either yesterday or this morning, but I didn't especially try to follow those tracks. In fact, in these low visibility conditions, the top of Muckish feels a lot smaller than I recall it to be, which is a strange feeling. Or maybe it is because, this time, I haven't gotten sidetracked while walking towards each marker, to appreciate the views. Also, because of the poor conditions, I decided not to spend time, as I usually do, trying to locate the "portal door" that locals say allegedly links the top of Muckish with another enchanted door, in the mountains further south. But we'll talk more about this in a future entry...

Now, the further we walk towards the east part, the more we get to see interesting snow-ice accumulation patterns on exposed rocks. I guess if meringues grew teeth, and also became carnivorous, as a retaliation against humans such as yours truly being a bit too fond of devouring their siblings, it would probably look something like this:

"Do not feed the Meringues! (If you value your limbs)"

A little pause at the cross, which is also covered in these startling snow-ice patterns. Obviously, we step a little further east towards the ridge, in case there's a small chance to catch a glimpse of Lough Akeo. But alas, the visibility is simply way too bad for that today. In fact, we're not completely sure it isn't starting to snow. Oh well, we'll come back around these parts again, in fairer weather, to get another great view of our lake...

The frozen cross

Time to go back then. Of course, since we might be somewhat crazy, but not enough to want to risk finding ourselves in a complete white-out condition at the top, we did check the weather forecast to confirm that snow wouldn't be an issue before we set off. While the low visibility is an annoyance, more on account of not being able to see the usual stunning views than anything else, we definitely wouldn't want to have ventured here, if there were any risks of a snow storm. From having experienced temporary white-out conditions a few times, in much less precarious positions, and even if I have some reasons to trust in my orientation skills with a compass, I'd still rather avoid getting caught into anything that dramatic up here.

Now, this trip back is the one part where I was really hoping to evaluate my navigational performance, because the visibility did drop a bit further, and my dead reckoning, first towards the west ridge, then south, without looking at the compass, seemed somewhat more off than I would have liked. Especially, I feel like I went a bit too far west, towards the quarry, and was looking forward to evaluate how far of my expected path I actually strayed. Eventually though, I reached the south-western part of the rocky ridge, without coming across any traces of my earlier footsteps. Obviously, this is all because I pretty much followed the track I usually pick for the climb down in fair weather, by completely ignoring the walker's path and simply going down the southwestern slope. Although I have to say, this time, it was slightly trickier than usual. For one thing, the cold wind seemed to carry small chips of ice, which it probably picked on the slope, and which kept getting into my eyes, leaving me almost blind in the left eye for a good chunk of the initial descent. Plus, in this cloudy weather, I couldn't be entirely sure whether I was really climbing down the south tip as I was aiming for, or some other section, either more to the west or to the east, even more so as, despite the vegetation, this was certainly a more slippery descent than usual.

After a few minutes however, the cloud cover thinned at last, and the sight of the road in the distance allowed me to find my bearings, confirming that I was exactly where I wanted to be. At least here's something that went according to the plan!

Visibility finally restored

With visibility restored, it's an easy track back to the car. However, this is also where our satisfaction at a journey well conducted came to an abrupt end, once we realized that our GPS tracking had been interrupted way too early, and that the whole point of being able to track precisely how well we had performed, navigation-wise, as well as being able to provide you reader with a precise track for this first entry, had been cut way too short!

Oh well, nothing that a cup of tea with a good slice of that far breton we baked earlier isn't going to fix once we're back at home... Still, I wouldn't mind having an idea why the logging stopped so early. At the very least, it'll teach me to pay more attention to what my GPS device is doing, as well as being a little more philosophical that not everything has to go according to plan, to enjoy a whole experience...

Suggested Sound Track

Might as well give you some musical highlights, since I may also decide talk about the music I listen to on these walks, as a part of this whole "Silent Long Enough" package.
Besides, for this very first post, I can't resist the idea of suggesting as an accompanying track: