Topic: Mourne skyline trek (Read 5010 times)

Mourneman · « **on:** July 14, 2012 »

Back in the Mournes today as my daughter has a pending silver Duke of Edinburgh expedition soon & wanted to brush up on her navigation skills. With an early drop off at Bloody bridge our plan was to ascent chimney, stopping off on its Tor for some basic map reading, feature finding, understanding contours & grid references.

IMG_0958 by cue13, on Flickr

IMG_0976 by cue13, on Flickr

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Panorama382 by cue13, on Flickr

Panorama384 by cue13, on Flickr

Panorama386 by cue13, on Flickr

From chimney's Tor we followed the trail towards the Bog of donard where we crossed over the stile & onto the brandy pad, which for my daughter was a welcome change & some time on flat ground, as we circled donard we could see our next objective: The castles of commedagh, which are a great feature to orientate from, we scrambled up through the castles stopping for a few photos

Panorama389 by cue13, on Flickr

Panorama390 by cue13, on Flickr

Panorama393 by cue13, on Flickr

The ground above the castles is very loose so we gained a few feet before walking the along these majestic granite towers, once again we ascended towards the wall where we practised using a type 4 silva compass taking different bearings & following any such bearing walking.

IMG_1226 by cue13, on Flickr

IMG_1211 by cue13, on Flickr

IMG_1203 by cue13, on Flickr

IMG_1195 by cue13, on Flickr

IMG_1243 by cue13, on Flickr

Reaching towards commedagh's summit shelter the weather was closing in & the we felt the first drops of rain, shortly followed by a heavy mist ,with visibility down to twenty feet. We decided to try to wait this weather front out by listening to music & chatting with two other hikers forced in by the rain. Interestingly enough one of the chaps showed me photos of a shell from WW2 which can be found on commedagh's southern slope.

IMG_1272 by cue13, on Flickr

IMG_1293 by cue13, on Flickr

IMG_1301 by cue13, on Flickr

IMG_1312 by cue13, on Flickr

With the weather easing we ventured out of the shelter & made our way along slieve corragh, where we hoped to view the pot of Legawherry & its unusual granite forms, but mother nature cloaked it in mist so it was onto slievenaglough & down via diamond rocks back onto the brandy pad & through Hares gap.

IMG_1334 by cue13, on Flickr

IMG_1239 by cue13, on Flickr

After descending the boulder field at hares gap we joined onto the Trassey track & down to the cecil Newman carpark where my wife was waiting to collect us. Today was a very enjoyable trek with my daughter, who was not only great company but also a very good navigator

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Author Topic: Mourne skyline trek (Read 5010 times)

Mourneman

Mourne skyline trek

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