Decided it was time to find some mountains and see how out of shape I was, and there is little like a mountain for showing you just how unfit you are. Since we don’t have none of those big city boy mountains here in the west I headed for the Sperrins. Loaded the basic belt kit then figured I would also take a small pack of everything that one should take to avoid being an eegit at the end of a helicopter rescue rope. This also mean taking a 3l camelbak, not a nice load but in this weather I was taking no chances.
Started things off at the old (didn’t know until today) Sperrins heritage center, seems someone decided that there is no heritage at this part of the world. The center was locked up getting derelict and had what sounded like a motion alarm going off for who knows how long.
Lucky for me someone either hadn’t locked all the bollards or had cut one of the padlock so I was able to let myself into the car park and close it behind me. Kept the car nicely out of sight off the road.
Had a rediculously hard slog through a couple of farm fields mainly due to some highly overgrown reed grasses and such. I can be glad it wasn’t wet otherwise I would of been crawling through bog up to my knees. So eventually came out on to more normal mountain terrain at the top of a spur with the rest of Dart mountain in sight.
After some more hard work on this steeper side of the mountain I hit a rest top for a few snaps around first with Sawel mountain in the background and then the final push to the top.
The top of Dark looking back over towards Strabane , Omagh and so on, and on, and on……
At this point it had taken me around three hours to reach here. The heat was just oppressive, it became quickly clear that most of the small streams were dry and unless I could find extra water after climbing Sawel then my day would be over. Bumped into a family at the top of Dart and had a chat, the father informed me that the Eagle rock down the eastern side of Sawel was actually a spring, and the source of the river Faughan.
With this info I happily slurped up on water and rationed enough to get to Sawel with a tiny emergency and pushed on. Along the way the bog cotton was out in force all over.
After a very hard hot slog the top of Sawel was reached, climbing mountains in 25c just sucks it out of you( or was it the lack of fitness…).
From here you have a clear view of almost everything west of Lough Neagh, you have a clear shot to Limavady and Binevenagh, on a day like today you can also see Lough Neagh, and unless I am mistaken you almost get a tiny speck that could or could not be Errigal (or one of the seven sisters).
Stopped for a bite to eat then made my way towards Eagle Rock, sadly the sheer heat for this long had meant the spring was reduced to a trickle that made gathering any real amount of water a task impossible in under an hour. As it was now near 5pm I decided to call things a day. Headed towards the Sperrin road then a few mile walk back to the car. By this stage the phone battery was on legs almost as last as my own and so I could only managed to snap one quick view of the eastern side of Sawel from the car on the drive home.
All in all a good day but theres nothing quite like a couple of mountains to humble you on just how unfit you are, even in a cooler day I know this would of been tough. Well at least I have a bar to lift for fitness.
