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| Click on this image to see our track in Google Maps |
Our first public foray into Inishowen.
Inishowen is nice. However we took a gamble and we lost. This is why we don't gamble.
I bet you've been asking: "But Pete, what happens when the weather is not that great and you still want to go for a hike?"
What happens is, because this is Ireland and bad weather doesn't tend to persist for very long (or at least, if it does, it's not gonna lock itself on top of a specific location for aeons as opposed to what's the case on the continent — I literally remember spending weeks in Paris without ever seeing the sun once!), you try to pick a place where conditions are likely to fare better than others, which, in the case of county Donegal, is often a matter of shifting your destination a mere 20 km further east, west, south or north.
In that respect, coastal areas are usually a good gamble. Especially, I know for a fact that, while it may rain cats and dogs around Glenveagh, you may be enjoying dry, if not downright splendid weather, in Fanad.
So, what you do is: take a look at the precipitation map for the last few hours, and, from the general trend, try to estimate which area is likely to clear out first or fare better than the rest.
At least that was the plan. I mean, the outlook for the afternoon didn't look so bad: There had been rain, yes, but it wasn't persistent and clear skies seemed to follow in tow by the time we left home. As such, Inishowen, where we haven't been for some time, didn't seem like that poor a bet. Besides, it is a coastal area, and the rain clouds, coming from the south-east, were supposed to have plenty of obstacles in their way, to ensure (we hoped) that they'd shed much of their payload, before they got to where we'd be walking.
Furthermore, we almost got no rain during our drive around Lough Swilly, so we arrived pretty optimistic around the shores of Lough Turk, as parked to proceed with our programmed climb of Slieve Snaght from the south. Surely, the worst of the downpours had already passed, and the skies would clear out by the time we got to the top, right?
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| Looking back at Lough Turk, as we start our climb |
We still had plenty of reasons to believe the showers wouldn't last long, even as a second, more pronounced one, came over us while we were about to hit the ever-soggy area that one must to go through to reach the ridge (See those "Slieve Snaght Bogs" on Google Maps? Yeah, they extend way further west than the map would make you believe — but we know that from experience already). Our thoughts were that it would only a matter of time before the rain stopped around these damp slopes and, with a little luck, we'd get clear skies before reaching the top.
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| Slieve Snaght, hidden by rain clouds, that are about to become a lot more active... |
However, by the time we reached the area of small mounds, that needs to be carefully negotiated so as to avoid the muddy trenches in between, our optimism started to dampen at about the same rate as our clothing, especially as the rain also seemed to intensify along with the wind, preventing us from taking more pictures.
The issue here is, there's only so far our rain gear will go and, by the time we were only halfway up our climb, and close to reaching to the ridge, we were pretty much fully drenched already, especially the shoes, without this continuous rain giving us any hope that it was about to let up anytime soon...
Please understand: I am not complaining about the rain here. The fact is, I don't really mind rain. What I'm bothered about, however, is that modern technology still hasn't given us a waterproof coating that'll last more than a few months of frequent usage, with provisions for cleaning up your gear... Gore-Tex my ass! Of course, the gear I use is quite a few years old, and far from the most expensive kind, which doesn't help. Still, why can't this stuff be usable for more than 5 or 10 years (or even 3 years, in the case of hiking boots)?
So, yeah, with my feet a bit too damp for comfort, and clouds obstructing the view, you'll excuse me if I press on, and reduce the pictures I'm going to take to a bare minimum, even as we are finally reaching the rocky area that marks the beginning of the summit...
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| The ghostly standing rock army of Slieve Snaght |
Besides, unbeknownst to me yet, because of the overall dampness of my pockets, some mist has started to find its way between the lens of the camera, and the UV filter, which make for even ghostlier (or should one say ghastlier) pictures as we progress. I guess, this is a good representation of how we feel, alone on the summit, with the various standing rocks and mounds as silent grey companions...
In these conditions, even the round stone hut, that adorns the east side of the summit, looks a lot more ominous than usual:
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| The stone "hut" |
Considering the great views it normally enjoys, in any other kind of weather, we're pretty sure that hut feels about as miserable as ourselves, on this isolated top.
With the persisting rain, there is no chance of the clouds breaking through which means I'm not going to be able to deliver the gorgeous panorama of Inishowen I had hoped to share with you today. We therefore leave the top about as quickly as we got there, and begin our descent through the eastern ridge.
I'm not going describe that climb down much. It went from "soggy" to "very soggy" all the way to the road, by which time we couldn't wait to be back at the car, to get out of our wet socks and dry our feet. At least, the rain stopped when we were about a quarter of the way down, even though the cloud cover didn't seem to want to move away one bit. All in all, it looks to me like our trickster friend Snaght got a firm grab of the clouds, and proceeded to squeeze them in a long firm grasp, so that the resulting persistent rain would discourage even the most endured hillwalker.
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| More rain in the horizon as we are climbing down |
"You win this round, Snaght, but I'll be back soon enough, and then we'll see who has the last laugh..."
Suggested Sound Track
Well, it was a miserable day, with miserable conditions for a walk, but we can only stay miserable for so long. Heck, if we couldn't smile at getting our dose of rotten luck on regular basis, we'd probably have jumped off Horn Head's cliffs a long time ago... And so, since it turns out this whole entry may be about luck, I'll go with the ever optimistic McCartney. We may tend to distrust overtly optimistic people (I mean, are they not seeing what we are seeing?!?), but we certainly don't mind their music:
Additional Pictures
