Glenlough Bay Donegal

 Living in one of the most remote locations in Ireland is Glenlough Bay, this huge raised shingle storm beach (An Clochán Mór) stretches for over a kilometer along the base of an amphitheatre of 250 meter high scree and sea cliffs. Easiest access is from An Port road end but an equally scenic way to the bay is by the nearly reclaimed by nature footpath into the two ruins at the east end of Glenlough. These ruins are where Dylan Thomas spent some quiet time over the summer of 1935, during his stay he wrote a collection of his best know works.
 " Ten miles from the nearest human being and as lonely as Christ." were the words of Dylan on his stay in Glenlough.
 Anyways, Glenlough Bay is a most outstanding location and from an exploratory rock climbers perspective it contains a huge amount of climbable rock. :-)
 The current rock climbers guidebook to this area is HERE.

Glenlough Bay Film

 The safest access to the beach is by descent down a huge funneled gully at the southern end of the bay. This gully is pretty much steep heather and scree most of the way, with a short rock slab at half height. As you walk along the cliff tops from the Cnoc na Mara viewpoint, the descent gully is approx 300 meteres from the view point. During the descent simply keep following the stream until you are approx 50 meters above the beach, from here trend right and follow the sheep track onto the beach.   

March 2013

 Glenlough bay contains five major sea stacks including Tormore Island, Ireland's highest sea stack. Tormore stands guard at the southern end of the bay and dominates this stretch of coastline from An Bhuideal to Glenlough. At the northern end of Glenlough lives the two most remote climbing locations in Ireland, "The End's of the Earth Crag" and "Beyond the End's of the Earth Crag." Both of these quartzite sea cliffs sit in very exposed locations and get hammered in big west to south west seas.  
 The End's of the Earth Crag is the huge stepped slab at the far north of the bay. Access to the base of the crag is by a short exposed scramble and an easy angled abseil down "Groovy Gully" at the seaward side of the crag. By far the best time to visit this crag is during huge South West motion as the entire crag is protected from sea motion by a huge roof  below the slab.
 Just to the north of Glenlough lives "The Beyond the Ends of the Earth Crag," a near vertical wall of immaculate quartzite. Again this crag is best visited whilst it is under very heavy sea conditions to feel the full effect of Neptune and the forces of nature.  

Access Gully to Glenlough

Donegal Sea Stacks

View from the summit of Tent Stack

The Land of the Giants

Glenlough Bay beach

The most remote location in Ireland.

 Sitting off the north coast of the south west corner of County Donegal in one of the most remote and sparsely populated areas of Ireland lives a collection of sea stacks and mini islands. This archipelago is collectively known as the Enchanted Islands and living at the base of the 300 meter high north face of Slievetooey and at a shade over 300 meters out to sea, these islands reside in one of the most remote, unspoilt and beautiful locations in Ireland.

Pyramid Stack Film 2013

 It was on the 29th of June 2010 I went for my first wee visit to this remote outcrop as I had a very strong suspicion that the highest point of this archipelago was still at that time unclimbed. As it was a very early morning start on a mid week day I could not persuade anyone to join me on this wee adventure into the then unknown. This was a successful ascent of the largest sea stack's highest point but not without a moment of mild concern as the wee dingy was visited by a family of intrigued bull seals.

Pyramid Stack   Severe   160m

 Grid reference G583920 This twin headed stack was first climbed as an East to West traverse(& return) Access is by a 5 KM cliff top walk from An Port, followed by a 300 meter steep grass descent and a 300 meter paddle around the grassy island which sits between the highest stack and mainland Donegal. It's location is mind blowing and is prone to massive seas. This is a very serious stack.

I. Miller 29/06/10

Donegal Sea Stack Guide

Slievetooey North Face

View from the clifftops

Looking from "The Unforgiving" Sea Stack

 Fast forward three years and a return visit to Pyramid Stack was made on 26th June 2013 with Andy Cronin during a spell of outrageously hot sunny weather and flat calm seas. We descended to sea level and paddled out from the same launch point as was used in 2010. We were joined by the same family of seals on the paddle to and from the stack. There was no sign of the great Skua which lived in the descent gully in 2010 and also gone were the dozen or so Fulmar nesting pairs on the west end of the main island. It may be my imagination but there seems to be a great deal less sea birds living on the western freeboard of Ireland than 5 years ago.

Pyramid Stack

 When the sun shines there are few places on earth that can compare to the natural unaltered beauty found on this stretch of coastline in South West Donegal. What this coastline provides for the perhaps more adventurous rock climber is the largest collection of adventure climbs and sea stack routes in such a small geographical area on earth. With Cnoc na Mara and An Bhuideal as equals in their adventurous status as the better known Scottish Cousins, The Old Man of Hoy and Stoer.  

View from the summit of Pyramid Stack

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