Rhino wash

01 October, 2023 - Andy Keeling

We are a funny bunch of lunatics. I walk up from my house to my carpool rendezvous. It's 08:40 on a Sunday. I pass rows of houses. In those houses many are relaxing. Lying in. Perhaps waking and realising it's not a weekday and then rolling back into their pillows. But we're all awake, fed, coffee'd, geared up and travelling from our homes to Carrick mountain. A place known in IMRA lore for grueling, steep muddy climbs. And it's been raining heavily. And we have no clue what way we're going to be going. And it has twice as many trails, crags, nooks and crannys as a mountain of twice its size. Deadly.
Getting to the start I see the usual heads at these types of IMRA events. The slightly madder ones. All wired a little different to your usual "Wednesday nights and marked trails only please" crew. These ones are the offbeat ones. All here for 2 reasons.
#1 Because they want to challenge their navigation skills
#2 Because they all know that the post race spread of sandwiches and cakes is ALWAYS better at navigation races.
Liam gathers us for the briefing and then promptly the lists of positions are handed out. 9 out of 9 points to be visited for the full race. Everyone scrambles to mark the positions on their maps. Kneeling on the road, I do the same. I see John Bell start up into the forest and race mode kicks in. I decide not to double check my positions and run off after John. Following him up the fire road I look at my map. Luckily I twig that I have only 8 marked on my map. Woah. Back it up. Lucky save. I stop on the fire road as runners whiz past and double check all my positions. Not only have I missed one, but another is completely in the wrong place. Double lucky save. I set off again. The rough plan I have (not the best plan in hindsight) is to hit the two high points closest to the start/finish (4 and 1) and then continue clockwise and hit all the points. I get the first two fairly quickly and easily. But then the holes in my route plan start to show. The way to the next point (6) doesn't look like the best ground. First I have to get myself off the rocky, steep-sided high point, and then through some lovely bouldery, heathery, ferny, small Christmas tree-ey ground. It's tough, but my map tells me there's a trail leading off the hill to the north. I tuck my map behind the straps of my pack and push on, legs getting scratched by the local spiney flora. I get to the trail down and its quite over grown to start off with and gets worse from there. Like a natural car wash. Only this car wash could clean the crevices of a rhino. I duck my head and force my body through any small gaps in the foliage I can find until I finally make it down to the fire road at the bottom. Ah, sweet relief. I reach for my map. My map is no longer with me. I exfoliate myself back up through the rhino wash and find my map at the top. Then I go back on down the old rhino wishy-washy. Cool. Next, I meet Liam and Derek and we're all after the same kite marker. We fan out and work as a team. A highly trained crack squad of forest lunatics. Normal people of Ireland are rising. Putting the fry on. We splodge through swampy, eyeball stabby forest and find our kite with delight.
Next up, a position marked as a handball alley. Perhaps a craggy rock? Perhaps a penal law relic from when the catholics of Ireland just needed to sneak off up mountains, away from opressors eyes for their handball game? Who knows. Off I go up towards some rocks high up in the distance. Terrible ground but I'm the new local legend of the rhino wash now so it's no match for me. I find the "handball alley" and set off for the next point still none the wiser of its name origin. Finally, I find some runnable trails. I'm now on the nice side of the mountain and it's a breeze. Much more civilised affair on this side. But my plan means I need to run a bit back and forth to get the final controls. But before I know it, I'm bounding down past parked cars to the finish. Navigation heavy hitters John Bell and Mike Jordan have taken first and second and I'm informed I'm number three. Deadly.
Usual finish line craic and refreshments and then back to the real world glowing from the buzz of it all. Skin warm from a billion scratches. Lovely day with the lunatics. Thanks Rob for the lift. Massive thanks to Liam (head honcho lunatic numero uno) and crew for a great day out.