Inishowen way - Donegal

[Kayakgirl]

Hi All,

Took a group up to Donegal today for their practice expedition for silver DofE.

We started at Butlers Bridge just outside  Clonmanny and walked up Butlers Glen to the waterfall and ascended from there onto the hills. I was keeping an eye on the four groups but walked with two groups on different sections.
I must admit I haven't been on a good hill walk in yonks and was kind of hesitant that the youngins would show me up, especially since I had been running up and down Scrabo tower setting up an Abseil, believe me that was a killer!

Anyway.. It wasn't long till I got into the swing of things.. Until we made towards Mamore hill and then the wind picked up.. The coastline was stunning, and so were the hills, I made a judgment call with the group to keep low as it was extremely hard to walk in and I was concerned how they would cope on higher ground. We contoured round to the Urris hills and struggled to keep upright as the wind was knocking  myself and the group off their feet.
After pushing hard up the hill we eventually made it to the top and rested. It was tough going but we descended back down towards the main road at Milltown and walked the road to Dunree Hill/fort.
All in all a good day.
Learning curves for the group, they thought they would do the walk in 3 hours but didn't take into account the terrain (heather and bog) height (2 min extra per contour) and the weather.
They thought they would be walking 3k an hour, but obviously that wasn't the case when walking up hills and tramping over gorse.
Now having a well deserved beer, and back up to Donegal on Sunday for round two with group B.

[whoRya]

Great to hear what you have been getting up to.  Might have a bit of that action down the line, you'll be a good source of information 

[Kayakgirl]

I've also a map that you can use..

[Wolf_Larson]

That sounded fun !

Well done on keeping the groups together in that bad weather.

[Kayakgirl]

Yeah it was a bit hairy.. No chance of putting waterproofs on due to it being windy, got soaked, dried and then got soaked again lol..

[Kayakgirl]

Some pics of the day

[Kayakgirl]

And a few more

[Kayakgirl]

The route

[specimanYak]

Good stuff KG, that's a great photo with the rainbow.

[whoRya]

Raghtin Mor - Urris Hills looks like a great spot on a nice day, it's been on my list for ages!

[Kayakgirl]

Fancy doing a road trip??