Ireland mid Winter

 It is safe to say the winter weather in Donegal in the last 10 days has been truly outstanding with mid summer sun and bright blue skies. And so, it would have been rude not to venture forth and have a wee play while the sun shone.
 Met up with Josie McGee and we paid a visit to one of the most remote places in Ireland, Glenlough Bay at the far sea ward tip of the Slievetooey Peninsula. We arrived at the An Port Road End at an unsociably early hour and walked for an hour over the monster sea cliffs to arrive at the viewpoint overlooking Glenlough Bay.

Glenlough Bay

Slievetooey Peninsula

 Our cunning plan was an ascent of Donegal's highest freestanding tower, alas this unclimbed tower sits in one of the most inaccessible locations in Ireland and as such the emotions were forecast to be high.

 The next stage in our plan was a steep descent to sea level and from previous visits we follow the only sane way to the beach down a huge steep gully.

Descent to Glenlough Bay

Shambhala

 Once at sea level we coastaleered our way south for about 600m through a moonscape of house sized boulders and ever increasing wave action. We finally arrived at a very deep zawn and raging white water to a place where you are about as far from the real world as it is possible to be in Ireland. An outstanding and slightly scary location surrounded by giants and angry white water. Our tower was a no go and we retreated back to the storm beach and went for a play on Tent Stack.

Donegal's highest free standing tower

 And sho, we coastaleered our way back to Shambhala and continued to the base of Tent Stack. Tent Stack is a 60m sea stack with a short tidal approach, it's only been climbed once before in December 2008. The detail are in the Donegal Sea Stack guidebook.

Donegal Sea Stacks

 Alas by now, neither time nor tide was in our favour and we boulder hopped onto the stack and made a very quick ascent of the 90m Diff route up it's landward face, in two pitches.

Coastaleering in Ireland modeled by Josie

Tent Stack Summit

 Our exit from the stack was a little less stylish as we were now surrounded by angry white water and so a very choppy swim was the order of the day to land us back onto terra firma. 

 An outstanding day out in the winter sun. :-)

An Port Western Donegal

Glenlough Bay

  

Donegal Winter Adventures

 And so, Donegal has had it's 5 days of winter conditions and the ambient air temperature has shot back up to low teens and it seems very unlikely that the snow and ice will return to the uplands of the county, this winter. Just before the end of our short winter I ran a mountain skills course in Donegal and caught the last of the snow and ice in the North West of Ireland.

Donegal Winter Mountains

A Frozen Glenveagh

Ireland Winter Mountains

 As soon as the mountains were back to being green again, it was over to Cruit Island to run a mid February, weekends Rock Improvers Course. Since 1st January 2013 we have been on Cruit four times leading routes up to HVS in glorious sunshine and on one occasion it was mentioned it was beginning to get too hot. :-)

Donegal rock Climbing Course

 It is also the time of years to stand in front of large groups of people and talk, this winter I have did talks to the Irish Mountaineering Club in Dublin and at UCC for Kerry Climbing. Doing talks is a surreal activity and pretty much as scary as soloing a sea stack. The sponsor for the Cork talk was Alpine Sports.ie, have a wee look at their site for very competitive prices their huge range of mountaineering equipment.

Cork Mountaineering Talk

 No sooner back from Cork and it was into the Donegal hills once again, this time spring was very much in attendance.

 Ran a Mountain Leader Training Week based out of Ardara with 5 troopers on the course and a huge mixture of weather in the five days of training. 

Mountain Leader Rope Work

Mountain Leader Client Care

Mountain Leader Group Management

Mountain Leader Steep Ground

ML Expedition Campsite

Tormore Island 

 All in all a very varied two weeks in the great outdoors and with the diary pretty much full for March there are a few perhaps more unusual activities in the pipeline! :-) 

  

Ice Climbing in Donegal, Ireland

 After 5 consecutive days and nights of sub zero temperatures in Co Donegal, the large snow dump from the previous week was showing signs of good consolidation and the high reaches of the counties north faces were beginning to show signs of the promise of ice. Alas the forecast for next few days was for a warm front to move in and for the rains to come in abundance.
 The obvious solution to the crisis was to get out and have a wee look for ice before the weekends rains arrive.
 And so, Kevin McGee, Patrick McDermott and myself went on a wee quest up the north face of Muckish Mountain in search of ice.

A film of Ice Climbing in Donegal, Ireland

Donegal Winter Mountains

 Kevin and myself arrived and set off up the last 500m of hard frozen iced road to the Muckish North face road end, things were indeed very wintery. We headed up towards The Hog's Back buttress where with it's North East aspect, minimal drainage and only partially frozen turf, it was not in a climbable winter condition.  

Muckish Mountain Ice

A winter walk in

A scoured snow scoop 

Donegal Winter Mountains

 We contoured around the coire staying as high as we could passing through many outstanding winterised mountain features inc 8 foot ice chandeliers, ice pillars, walls of drifted spindrift and a cave with an icicled roof. This was an outstanding full on winters journey and it took us to the base of Balor's Buttress, where Kevin had a very cunning plan and out of the cloud, winds and mist Patrick joined us for a wee play.

A winters day on Muckish Mountain

 Balor's Buttress has a much more northerly aspect and has many drainage lines running down it from the turf covered summit slopes above it. As we arrived at the base of the buttress, it was in outstanding winter condition thick iced drainage lines, deep hoar, plenty of windslab deposits and thousands of hoared icicles running the length of the buttress.  

Kevin and Patrick Rack up

 Kevin's plan was to climb a new route up the left hand side of the very steep and ice covered buttress. He led off and climbed a new 25 meter pitch of grade V winter mixed ground to an exposed ledge half way up the buttress. 

 The 2nd pitch above us looked a lot more involved and a tad trickier ie MUCH harder, thankfully Kevin led off up the overhanging groove above. For the next 45 minutes he inched his way up to within a move and a half of the summit and off he came in a find display unexpected airtime as he fell 12 or so foot to be caught by a shallow peg and good camalot. 

 As Kevin stripped the pitch and arrived back on the belay ledge in the growing early evening darkness a retreat to civilisation was called for and we abseiled off the buttress back to Terra Firma. HURRAH!   

Winter Climbing in Ireland

 A most outstanding day of winter climbing and mountaineering in the rare winterised Donegal mountains, alas as we arrived back at the car the temperature had already risen and the icy approach road was now bare tarmac, and then it rained. :-)

Donegal Winter Climbing

 Early January 2010 six hardy souls left the road end at the old church in Dunlewy and entered the the winter wonderland that was the Donegal mountains. After nearly six weeks of almost continual sub Zero temperatures and arctic tundra driving conditions the mountains of Derryveagh Donegal were in immaculate winter climbing condition.

Poison Glen in Winter 2010

 We split into three pairs of climbers and with each of us donning a full winter climbing kit each team picked a prime unclimbed route up three different faces in the Poison Glen. Alan Tees and myself climbed a 450m ice fall up the Bearna Buttress, with several grade IV ice pitches this route was an outstanding winter monster up one of Irelands highest mountain crags. 

Donegal winter climbing Guide

Pitch 5 Poison Glen climbing

Pitch 7ish 

Topping out in Poison Glen

 Anyways, three years later to the day, Jan 2013, four young (and not so young) men arrived on Cruit Island for a days winter climbing. This time there was no technical axes, no G14 crampons, no sub zero temperatures and no down jackets, there was outstanding summer sunshine.

Winter Climbing in Donegal

Traderg Wall, Cruit Island

Cruit Island Rock Climbing

Donegal Winter Sun

 And so, a day of warm Granite, lapping blue seas and sunny skies was the order of the day! The same day three years apart and at polar opposites of winter climbing conditions! :-)

Seasons in the Abyss

Just back from a very spring like Scotland and have a couple of talks lines up. 

Teachers Club in Parnell Square, Dublin for The Irish Mountaineering Club on 31st January 2013 at 9pm

Boole Theatre, University Campus Cork for Kerryclimbing.ie on 7th February 2013 at 7:30pm

 Following on from last years talks in Belfast, Dublin and Cork, this years talks will focus on a continuing mid life crisis, a mild compulsion to being truly alone ideally in mildly terrifying situations and off course the continuing journey deeper and deeper into the Realm's of Chaos.

A wee look over the Edge

 A couple of wee adventures,

 First Ascent of The Sturrall Headland  in South West Donegal and at 750m long this outstanding sea ridge is Irelands longest recorded rock climb. 

Sturrall Ridge Film

 First Ascent of Tormore Island at 160m high this is Ireland's highest sea stack.

 The second ascent (41 years after the only other ascent) of Eagles Rock in Glenade, Leitrim at 330m high this is Ireland's highest free standing tower

Eagles Rock Ascent Film

 First Ascent of Testament to the Insane, a new route up the UK's highest vertical sea cliff, this 477m long route was climbed in a continual 26 hr long push. St Johns Head in Orkney 

 Making the first ascents of over 60 previously unclimbed sea stack off the coast of Donegal. Have a wee look at The Donegal Sea Stack Guide.

 These are just a few wee adventures, I have been involved in other moments of mild concern include swimming with bull seals, paddling alongside a killer whale in Donegal, being blown out to see in a wee inflatable dingy until I lost sight of Ireland, conversing with an angel after falling 20 m into the sea off an unclimbed sea stack and watching my climbing partner die at my feet. 

 But, what all these adventurous days out have in common is that they contained an enormous amount of fun whilst being mildy terrified whilst under the watchful eye of The Reaper. :-)

Donegal's Hardest Rock Climb.

 On a flying visit to Co. Donegal at the end of the summer 2012, Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll and Ben Ditto climbed Donegal's first E7 graded rock climb. Their route takes the huge roof crack and bulging head wall on the Mindcrime Wall at Muckross Head in the South West of the county.
 Muckross Head has traditionally been thought off as Donegal's home of hard rock climbing as most of the routes are in the extreme grades and almost all the rock climbs being overhung or containing roof sections.  Muckross has been home to two E6 graded rock climbs which were first climbed in 1993 by local climber Paul Dunlop.
 Professional climbers Sean Villanueva and Ben Ditto are no strangers to hard rock climbing in locations all over the world with many first ascents on major big walls worldwide. Both climbers won the Piolet D'Or in 2011 for their Vertical Sailing Greenland, Greenland Vertical Sailing adventures.
 Check out the superb landscape and climbing photography on Ben Ditto's website at Ben Ditto photography.

Sideswipe E7 6c

Muckross Head Donegal

 The Muckross Head guide section has been updated and can be downloaded at,

Muckross Head Climbing Guide 

Donegal Winter Climbing Guide

 And sho, Winter is almost upon us once again, it came and went last week with minus temperatures and a couple of inches of snow fall on Derryveagh's Slieve Snaght summit, and in the flash of a downpour it was all gone again.

Errigal from Maumlack Plateau

Winter in Donegal

 Donegal's winter climbing history stretches back to the 1970's when several routes where climbed in the Horseshoe Corrie by Lough Barra, unfortunately the details of these have disappeared into the ether, though I strongly suspect they were in The Morbid Angel falls area of the Horseshoe corrie. Since the 70's less than a route every decade was recorded in the county until 2009. In the winter of 2009/2010 the big freeze hit Ireland and with Donegal resembling a Scotland in miniature and with an almost unlimited supply of previously unclimbed gullies, cascades and ice smears covering the entire county the troops went out to play. With Donegal deep frozen and the road taking an Arctic Tundra appearance travelling by road around the county was an epic undertaking.
 Download the current and up to date Donegal winter climbing guide below.

Donegal winter climbing guide

Slieve Snaght summit, Derryveagh

 With the Donegal roads pretty much undrivable, two teams were out climbing as much ice and neve as possible in this period. Kevin McGee and Patrick Tinney stayed at the Northern end of the Derryveagh range hoovering up a multitude of lines on Muckish, Maumlack and the East face of Errigal. I was trapped at the Southern end of The Derryveagh range and did a similar hoovering campaign in The Poison Glen, Maumlack, The Horseshoe Corrie and Errigal. Many, many outstanding new routes were climbed in all these locations up to and breaking into the winter climbing grade of IV for the first recorded time in Donegal.

At 300m pitch 5, The Poison Glen

The West Ridge of Errigal, Donegal

Scardangal Falls, Derryveagh

 This superb winter cold snap culminated in a weekend visit to The Poison Glen by a group of six from The Colmcille Climbing Club led by Alan Tees. First Ascents of Gullies No1 and 2 high on the Castle face and the 450m long Sruahn na Bearna on the Bearna Face were climbed by separate teams on the first day. The following day a mass ascent of the massive and immaculate Castle Gully was made in outstanding winter conditions.

 Alas, this brought an end to the best winter climbing conditions the county has ever seen as the following day temperatures rose and the mountains returned to their green, brown and damp normal condition.      

 All that was left to do was haste to Scotland where the winter continued for several more months.......

Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis

 Curved Ridge on Buachaille Etive Mor

The White Room on The Cairngorm Plateau

High above Glen Coe

The Immaculate Cairngorms Summit Plateau