The birds are still singing

The governments of the world are at their wits end, employers are dismissing staff, many shops are closed, there are limited transport options, food shortages and general instability. We are daily bombarded with coronavirus news casts. Conspiracy theories abound and it is sometimes hard to know what or who to believe.  Although on the plus side there are encouraging stories of altruism like Donegal chefs providing free meals for the elderly.

And yet I look up and see birds still flying. The sun is still shining. The mountains are still beckoning me. And life goes on, albeit restricted in certain areas. So far we are still healthy. I'm still barefoot running.  And so I did - my first foray this year to Church Mountain

My track: 15 miles, 822m height gain

I met a number of groups and a few single folk - more that I would normally expect even for a sunny Sunday afternoon. Lots of traffic on the Wicklow gap road. You'll see in my photos three groups in the cairn on the top. And the Gardai had to close Glendalough because there were two many tourists flouting the distance rule.

And the future... who knows?  Some say the world will never be the same. And we have to believe that God is in control.

Looking back on the way up

Almost at the top - our lake in the distance

Two groups on the cairn

A third group on the right

View from the top

More views

Our lake

Scalp aka Slievecorragh

My path turned into a stream

More cars parked at base than usual

St Kevin's Way, Hollywood

Saint Kevin wears sandals

Saint Kevin wears sandals. Or shoes of some kind. I know because I have walked the 26km St Kevin's Way barefoot with considerable chagrin, so either Kevin was mega holy and above pain or, as is more likely, human and shod. My right foot got minor punctured twice, adding to the discomfort of walking on sharp gravel and board walks liberally studded with staples standing some 3/4" proud of the wood (they do this to avoid the wood getting slippery when wet. It was not wet). All this suffering by my choice but the walk was in honour of Ryan who is leaving us in two weeks' time.

But we enjoyed the walk, the craic, and mostly a cider followed by dinner at the Hollywood Inn.

Our track

My track 16.3 miles (26km), average speed moving 2.9 mph, elevation gain 744m. Here are some random shots, in reverse order (it appears nothing can be done to re-order them apart from laboriously copying them one by one).

Ryan and his amazing (luke warm) tea making machine

David and Ryan stopped to do push-ups every so often 

Tiffin near Wicklow Gap summit

Historic mining buildings

The works

A screen shaker?

A stone crusher?

Lough Cleevaun

On this very hot Saturday afternoon the Others having gone to Glendalough for a walk leaving me with no particular duties, I decided to go on my own walk. So I drove to the small car park above Lacken and took the usual route via Black Hill to Mullaghcleevan mountain with Cleevaun Lough as the final destination.

the interesting part of my track

Total distance 9.29 miles, average speed 3.28mph (ok so I ran some of the downhill bits), elevation gain 655m, maximum elevation 847m.

Altitude with time profile

Having got so close it seemed a shame not to climb Mullaghcleevaun so I did, and followed that with its East Top before heading back to Cleevaun Lough which I therefore approached from a new direction. I met only one other soul - she was heavily equipped as hikers are c/w two walking sticks, so what she made of me, scantily clad and barefoot, I know not. After that I had the mountains and lake completely to myself and made the most of it.  The flat part of the altitude profile above is time I was at or near the lake.

As always you can click on the images to show them at full resolution.

Our lake from the car park, note the smoke haze

Black Hill summit, gorse fires at Sally Gap in the distance

There is an ongoing "gorse fire" in the Sally Gap area, with firefighters and even helicopters trying to contain it. This has resulted in smoke haze in our area for the last 48 hours or so. Today the gentle east wind was carrying most of it Blessington way and thus not so much our way.

Smoke haze meeting the gentle east wind before Moanbane

The final climb to Mullaghcleevan summit ahead

Mullaghclevan summit, note the distant gorse fire smoke

Strange terrain on the way to the East Top

There are "fields" of peat between the summit proper and the slightly lower East Top - all dry in this hot weather and wonderful for running barefoot on.

East Top summit, fire in distance again

Lough Dan in the distance looking towards the east

First sight of the gem Cleevaun Lough

One of the many riverlets feeding the lake

Lough Cleevaun is a glacial corrie lake. The photo above shows how it "hangs" on the north slope and it amazes me how it continues to hold water. But it does and for me it is a magical place. Not many come here and thus one can swim naked with reasonable assurance of not being Seen.

Looking down into the water

The lake in all its glory and it was truly glorious

The water remains quite shallow near this "beach" and the bottom is studded with rocks. Being peaty the water appears black once more than about a foot deep and it is therefore somewhat treacherous on bare feet. So I choose my "safe" swimming location along the steeper slope on the left and here I enjoyed a brief swim. I have never known the water so warm. I could have stayed in this place all day, but had to get back for supper at 6.

The beach

North-west end of the lake - my lens must be smeary

Back at Black Hill summit, overlooking our lake

And back at the car park

Adit #2

Having, in my last post, discovered an adit into the Glendalough / Glendasan lead mining complex I feel an urge to find more of the same, though I am too chicken and am not well equipped to explore very far inside.

Glendasan / Glendalough courtesy osi

The adit of my last post is approximately at the magenta square: the one I found today is at the red square. My route was up the inclined track visible in my map from "the rocks" layby.  There is a lode line running north/south between these two points see here and the tunnel I referred to cannot be far away.

The stream that exits from the adit

The entrance is less than a metre high

Taken from just inside: the water is maybe 0.3m deep

A couple of ruined buildings nearby

View from the buildings

Spinc walk and Lead mine

Mining village

This was my second time doing the Glendalough White Route barefoot, and this time we climbed up the scree from the mining village at the top of the upper lake.  Some history can be found here which says "The workings in the Glendasan valley (Wicklow Gap) were connected by a tunnel through Camaderry mountain into Glendalough" so maybe this was the tunnel I entered?

Another cave entrance is visible in the picture below, highlighted in magenta - but we had no time to climb up to it.  See here for  more details of the mineral lode lines.

The mines viewed from the Spinc - note the yellow rectangle
(click to enlarge the photo)

This is the yellow rectangle zoomed in,
this is the mine entrance we climbed up to

Looking into the mine entrance

I went about 20 feet into the tunnel to take this photo - standing in about 9" of chilly water to do so. The tunnel continued straight and level for as far as I could see.

View from the mine entrance

We descended down the path that the ore would have taken