Climbing Maumeen, Sunday September 19, 2010

 

It was a Sunday, like any other Sunday, but without the Sun. The merry band of fearless climbers included Peter, Brian, Peter, David (my 11 year old son) and my (sometimes) good self, all with a combined age of two hundred and something. Despite the portentiously pregnant cloud cover and spritz-spatter on BMW's best wiper-blades, we drove at pace through Connemara's wetlands, back past Maam, to the old school-house at Maumeen and after girding our loins with garish goretex, we made the climb through mist and sweat which oft obscured the stunning scenery as it emerged in our wake from the clearing cloud-covered vista, on and on, to the tip of Maumeen, and having passed alongside turbine-strength torrents of turbulent waters gushing arterially from every crevace and gorge of the beautiful landscape, we came to the mysterious reflective corrie lake just under the misty summit, whereupon to our surprise there was a coffee vendor and a roasted chestnut stand! Hmmm...well not quite, more like we discovered in Livingston-style, that there were folks already there before us. Two trolls emerged dripping from the languid lake, newborn in their guise as sylph and nymph, while far above on the rocky ridge, a band of brothers and sisters made their way, mountain-goating their way off the precipitous peak, as they hummed the tune from that classic film, snow-white and the seven horny toads. Not to be caught with my pants down, I leaped headlong into the dark waters and lo, a moment later, the sworded arm I had raised, froze mid-stroke and then, yes, shrinkage, there was shrinkage, while all the while, my comrades ate egg sandwiches, banannas and mars bars. Ahhh lads, you had to be there.

Then on the way back home we listened to the last spurts of Michael O'Muireaheartaigh as Cork beat the Red Hand Brigade and took the Sam Maguire to Collins-ville and we naturally had to toast the victors in a wee pub in Oughterard with a stunning American girl from San Diego, over to shoot a Range-Rover advert...even Peter took notice! Aaaah yes, another walk spoiled, by beauty!

Translation;

Truth was, we had a horrible start to the day...rain and wind...low, low cloud...no mountain, no view, nothing only damp, dense mist...we persevered tho' through the showers to the bottom of the mountain, when miraculously, the rain stopped, and it began to clear....slowly, so as we walked up the hill it cleared in front of us, a magical smorgasbord of layer-unveiling Connemara vistas and rugged, damp-weathered rugged nature, rock, and moss, a single marauding crow, several frogs and many red-arsed scrawny sheep, dying-off ferns, withered heather, long-abandoned famine-era lazy-beds, a possible passage grave...and a half-dozen heart-stopping cascades of white water...surprisingly random, delta-ing the bog below, and thus we were accompanied to the heights of the valleys by the constant traffic roar of joyous torrents... really amazing..a delight, spume and foam and power, awesome forced-downward fountains of cascading white horses, while the sky blued above us for a full hour of mackeral cirrus against an azure firmanent.

Brian and  Peter had found a dripping gorge on the previous trip.....well a chasm really, a chimney, soaring 40 feet above us and who knows how deep below us into the bowels of the rock, though today, the whole sluggah was struck vertically through with a smoking column of falling water...stunning...a white angry gash against the black rock, awesome, the raw energy of natures throbbing veins.

So after David found a horned sheeps bleached skull (that Brian refused to put in his rucksack), and after some poor choices of route, we made it to the top of, or more like the shoulder of Maumeen...not as high as The Reek, but high enough to render me speechless and red...beetroot shades, as we crested the last rise, only to be confronted by a totally unexpected corrie lake, maybe 300 metres diameter, reflecting the dark sky and the crags above, so when I saw the 2 other climbers dressing, as if after a swim, (one does not ask these questions), I togged off...to the buff and dove in...it was like diving into a champagne ice bucket...but what a feeling, cool, exhillirating, raw, enough for an echoing shriek after surfacing in the black pool...then it was I saw the other 8 walkers, male and female, coming across the opposite shore, having traversed from the top, 500 feet above us at a determined industrious pace....a mixed group, not old, ...none of whom had the sense of humour to stop and be amused at the 'shrinkage' as I dried myself with a single sheet of Downie from Davids pack. The climb down was not as tiring as the ascent, but we were facing the sea, albeit 14 miles away, and a stunning Twelve Pins view towards Carna and Cashel.

We did then adjourn to the car, change out of our very damp gear, while enjoying a beer and a hip-flask brandy-swig each, listening to the exciting tail-end of a pendulous all-Ireland football final, then off to the pub in Oughterard ...where indeed we did meet a gorgeous San Diagan, a long-limbed lass and her Irish beau...but that's another story, as is the wedding invitation we got for next year, but on that I'm sworn to secrecy, and so, 7 hours later, tired and sated, we arrived home, another walk 'ruined' by beauty.