antonalyptic: Valleymount

Showing posts with label Valleymount. Show all posts

20240420

First warm day of the year

As Met Éireann reckoned it would stay at 12°C all afternoon together with it being the first day without any rain for so, so long and having finally recovered from the flu and it being Saturday, all this spelled the first bike ride of the year. Nothing special and not long enough to warrant the title Foray but all the same at my age even 33.6km and elevation gain 501m seems like a challenge. So it was off to the Wicklow Gap, a good practice run as it has plenty of ups and downs. I took some Galaxy chocolate with me as a reward at the summit.

My photo was taken on the return and shows my trusty steed, the Valleymount peninsula, blue sky and, oh how beautiful the gorse is when in full bloom.

20181111

Remnants of Autumn

Yesterday the weather was permitting so I ran round the lake shore, Kings River end of the lake. The lake is starting to fill but it was still possible to ford the river. Another foot or two and it would need to be swum and the water is getting a bit too cold for that. In spite of the cold water, the sun was warm enough for a brief sun-bathe on the sand bar just before the river enters the lake and where it is safe to ford (no rocks underfoot). Sadly I figure this might be my last circuit of that end of the lake this season.

This morning the sky was almost completely blue and my heart urged me to make one last encounter with Autumn which seems to have been rather brief this year. But we had a meeting (it being Sunday) and by the time it was over, lunch had been lunched and washed up, and a few other minor tasks, it had clouded over. Wunderground was still maintaining that rain was possible but unlikely so I set of intending to do Church Mountain. But within minutes it started to rain and it continued for most of my run which I swiftly curtailed to just the lake perimeter (Kings River end) by road.

Ominous weather over Valleymount, from Blackditches

Suggestion of rainbow over Ballyknockan

Atmospherics over the lake, from our bridge

20180604

Three peaks

Interesting part of my track

Track statistics
. distance 16.33 miles
. speed moving 4.65 mph
. maximum altitude 707m
. altitude gain 991m

The goal was to "do" the three peaks Silsean, Moanbane and Black Hill in one normal Sunday afternoon starting from and finishing at home, on foot and barefoot of course. It was tight - I got back to the kitchen after showering at 17:50 ready to cook chips for a 18:00 dinner. The mountain part of the run was glorious. You can click on the images to view full screen.

Altitude profile shows the three peaks

The terrain

Towards Blessington from Silsean summit

Towards Valleymount and home from Silsean

Silsean summit cairn

Moanbane summit marker

The bottomless pit

There are shallow ponds on Silsean, but the pond at the very top of Moanbane is awesome. It is quite small - some 10m long and 5m wide - but appears to be bottomless. Leastways I could find no bottom, but swam end to end anyway. It is hard to avoid swimming in such a unique place and the water temperature was quite reasonable.

Moanbane from gap between it and Black Hill

The lake from Black Hill summit

Descent via the "Green Road"

The Green Road descent from Black Hill is one of those magical places - how does it persist from year to year without being lost to the general mountain herbage? Stony in places, for the most part it is like I have depicted so it is good to run down at full belt. Half way down is this monument to a WW2 air disaster.

Black Hill behind the monument

Moanbane and Silsean in the background

And so back to Lacken and tarmac and the long haul back home - at the fastest my legs would carry me so as to avoid Trouble on getting home too late.

20170128

St Kevin's Way barefoot

St Kevin's Way is a way-marked trail that runs from close to where we live to what used to be a Christian settlement in Glendalough. They claim the trail follows the path that St Kevin and his cronies travelled - perhaps some of the pilgrims were unshod. At our end the trail bifurcates one head being Hollywood and the other Valleymount. My running track took me through Valleymount and along the upper St Kevin's Way to Ballinagee bridge (where we have sometimes baptised people) and then back along the lower trail but not all the way to Hollywood. Even so it was 15.6 miles, avg speed moving 5.5 mph.

My track, barefoot of course

Looking back to our lake

You have to pay to dispose of rubbish in this country: this is cheaper

In full view too, the location is behind Knockalt

The downhill looking forward to Wicklow Gap

From here you can access the mountains and Art's Cross

That's the path I have just run along

Looking down to Kings River, about here it started raining

The storm passed into the distance where it dumped hail back at home

20160423

Mountain barefoot

I've hiked parts of this route before but never tackled the whole as a "run" starting from base. Not that I ran up the mountain - I wish I could! Something went wacky with the GPS whilst climbing.

Stats: 10.55 miles (19km), 12:46 min/mi (4.7mph) time 2:14:46. Barefoot of course.

I followed the lake-shore for starters: it was sandy until the corner where it looks like I swam (I did not: the tide is out at present). But then it became increasing stony and I whacked my toes several times. I intended to join the road at "Jonathan's bay" but passed it without realising, so followed the next water course which involved several fences and other minor difficulties. Then past the Ballyknockan quarry and straight up to the cairn atop Silsean (698m), one quick loop around the cairn (hardly visible on the map) then down via the back road behind Knockalt.

You can enlarge the images by clicking on them.

The corner I cut

Ballyknockan from the corner, Silsean in the distance

The watercourse I followed

Ballyknockan from the quarry road

Doubtless an essential part of the quarry works

Looking back, a third of the way up

Half way up - can you see the hang glider?

I live somewhere over there

The hang glider is clearly visible at horizon level, centre

The cairn at the top, which I circumnavigated

On the way home

In Valleymount

20150426

13 miles

Just over 13 miles (click to enlarge)

This post is for Laura... I have carved a new route for you (this link should open in Google Earth) - through Valleymount to the Wicklow Gap road where you hairpin-bend right back towards Hollywood (R756), turn left off this road to follow St Kevin's Way through to Hollywood and then via the back roads home. Google Earth, which I used retrospectively to create the above track, reckons it was just over 13 miles. In actual fact it was probably a tad more, allowing for all the times I had to cross the road to follow Meg. So about half a Marathon. Barefoot of course.