Carrantuohill March 2005
Standing
at 1,039 metres, A
party of six of us, Steve Bennett, Bob Lister, Ian Merther, Steve
Popple, Paul Read and myself thought it would be a good test of our
durability as mountaineers to combine a weekend in a pub in Ireland
with its ascent. So,
using the internet to the full we booked the flight from
Birmingham to
Shannon
with www.flybe.com a hire car with www.budget.ie
and bed and breakfast accommodation at www.climbersinn.com
ready for a mixed weekend of mountain climbing and beer drinking www.guinness.com
. Driving
the 100 or so miles down to our destination we passed through many
gaily coloured small towns and villages, each trying to outdo the next
for their quotient of pubs and bars. The one big regret of the weekend
was that due to the tightness of our schedule we never had the chance
to attempt a pub crawl. A single high street would have needed a week
in itself. We
arrived at the Climbers Inn in Glencar to find a building acting as
pub, shop, hotel, post office and petrol station. Unfortunately it
could also have added ‘morgue’ to its list of services, so cold
and cheerless was its interior. The place had only come out of winter
hibernation that weekend and we were the only guests. A single peat
burning stove was trying in vain to warm the place up despite our
sneaking extra logs onto the fire at every opportunity and the
Guinness, being served at room temperature, was cooler than it should
have been to be enjoyed at its best. Saturday
morning dawned grey and damp but we headed off on our attempted ascent
undaunted. Ian and Paul opted for the more challenging horseshoe route
up over Beenkeragh and back via Caher, while the rest of us contented
ourselves with an ascent via Caher to return by the same route.
Fortunately the rain held off but we soon found ourselves walking in
dense cloud, sometimes through snow just a few degrees the wrong side
of freezing. Upon reaching the summit we took a few very ordinary
photos and then headed back down. Thankfully as we were descending the
cloud did begin to rise so we were eventually granted some fine views
of the mountain. Those prayers on the summit must have done the trick. We
found a good place for a meal on the Saturday night, Kate Kearney’s
Cottage which served excellent food and drink with the added bonus of
traditional music, and their Guinness slipped down a real treat. As
is often the way with mountaineering we awoke to cobalt blue skies
next morning and were able to admire the beauty of the surrounding
scenery as we journeyed home via a ferry trip across the And
so we left
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