Connemara Round 17th July
| Author | Date | Message |
|---|---|---|
| Donal McMorland | Jul 15 2023, 10:04am | I'm going to give the Connemara round a go on Monday, starting at 3:30am. Looking forward to a long day out in the hills! http://live.primaltracking.com/connemararound23/ |
| Brendan Lawlor | Jul 15 2023, 10:30am | Best of luck Donal, hope the weather clears up for you ! |
| Niall Gibney | Jul 15 2023, 11:47am | Best of luck Donal !! Hard to beat a bit of dot watching on a Monday !! |
| Graham K. Bushe | Jul 15 2023, 12:03pm | Best of luck Donal. I hope all goes well. |
| Richard Nunan | Jul 15 2023, 12:35pm | Whoop woop, great to see you heading out after all the hard work gone into creating the route. Looking forward to tracking and really hope the weather cops on a bit! |
| Brendan Lawlor | Jul 18 2023, 9:17am | It looks like we have our first Connamara Rounder.. well done Donal who finished in a provisional time of 20 hours 31 mins (from the Tracker) History made and the Connamara Round is up and running (pardon the pun!) ! |
| Brendan Lawlor | Jul 18 2023, 9:24am | Connemara even .. |
| Eoin Keith | Jul 18 2023, 9:57am | Massive congratulations to Donal. Having put in a ton of work in the background to get this round established it's great to see him get the job done in style. That looks like a great time for what looks like a glorious challenging route. Terrific to see this. |
| Richard Nunan | Jul 18 2023, 10:07am | Yep, its a finish and the time is correct ! 20hrs 31min - much faster than originally anticipated. Massive Congrats to Donal on our our first successful Connemara Round ! |
| Conor McElroy | Jul 18 2023, 11:30am | Congratulations Donal, one hell of an achievement! |
| Avril Challoner | Jul 18 2023, 11:30am | Fantastic work Donal! Bravo. |
| Graham K. Bushe | Jul 18 2023, 11:42am | Great Stuff Donal, Well done! |
| Andy McGeady | Jul 19 2023, 11:44am | Brilliant stuff. Great to see it done! |
| Donal McMorland | Jul 19 2023, 12:49pm | Thanks all. Really enjoyed the day. Got lucky with the weather given how bad it has been recently. Many thanks to Shane Lynch for all the driving and providing support on the day. I will post a bit of a write to give some info on the route once I have a chance. Definitely a challenging round... looking forward to seeing the next attempt! |
| Andy McGeady | Jul 19 2023, 1:25pm | Was out that direction myself for the last few days - completely unscheduled sun, relatively little wind, and unbelievably clear light.. Look forward to the write up, and I’m looking forward to doing the 12 Bens part of your route sometime. |
| Donal McMorland | Aug 11 2023, 5:05pm | Really enjoyed the long day out on the Connemara hills. Many thanks to Shane Lynch for the driving and support on the day. Bit of a long report ahead but hopefully it will help ignite the spark for the next attempts! We travelled down the night before and stayed in the Old Monastery Hostel just up the road from the start/finish point so there was no rushing in the morning for the 3:30am start. Was up shortly after 2:30am and force fed myself a bowl of porridge, got the ankles taped and was ready to go. From the centre of Letterfrack it wasn’t possible to see the surrounding hills with the street lights, but it was raining so I assumed they would be likely covered in fog. The start of the round is an easy 3km on road from Letterfrack towards the first hill of Currywongaun. It’s a nice gentle way to ease into what’s to come (sort of reminded me of the start of the Art O’Neill Challenge) and probably the fastest 3km covered all day! Shane passed in the car after a couple hundred metres and shouted out that he could see the silhouette of Diamond Hill and DuCruach so it was a pleasant surprise to learn I was in for some favourable weather. As it turned out I got really lucky with the weather given how bad it had been recently and ended up with fog on only a handful of peaks and only a few showers of rain for most of the day. Other than that it was clear, dull, not too warm and with only a light breeze. I knew I would be in darkness for the first hour at least. I was looking forward to getting through the first couple of peaks as it would take a bit of navigation in the dark and possibly fog. The first climb up Currywongaun Hill is a handy enough first peak that set the confidence right for the day. I had recced this earlier in the year before there was much growth, but the bracken for the first 500m from the road was now chest deep in places. Heavy going, with plenty of stumbling and was completely soaked through but was out of it quick enough and could see the outline of the summit off to the right. At the summit I could see DuCruach ahead to the east and could see fog starting to cover the summit. I could also make out the larger of the two lakes below me between the two hills. I wanted to hit the edge of the smaller one which wasn’t visible, so took a bearing and set off down the hill. The ground was very wet and slippy from all the rain in the previous days but the mudclaws did their job on the descents. Heading up DuCruach it was still dark and I was into fog shortly after half way up. I knew I should hit the small lake at the top from where I had planned to ascend, and the summit would be to the north side of it. The South Top is almost the same elevation as the summit so knew I had to be careful to find the lake. Luckily there was a steady flow of water coming down the hill nearer the top so followed it which led me right to the lake. I was relieved to have found this ok in the dark and fog and knew I’d passed the first navigation test. I took a bearing from the cairn towards the saddle below Garraun and headed off. It was starting to get bright heading up towards Garraun but still needed the torch, and was back in fog so I took a bearing heading up the hill to hit the north end of the small lake at the top of the slope. I ended up south of it and nearly missed it entirely however. I made my way around to the north end of the lake and took another bearing to contour around the east side of Garraun South Top. The compass was sending me down the hill to the west instead of following the contour and I realised that, because of the fog, I was holding my head torch low in the same hand as I had the compass and the battery had been throwing off the bearing. I realised also this is why I had nearly missed the lake earlier! Glad to have had the slope to spot the error, could have been worse. I had wanted to be descending from Garraun in daylight. One of the recces on this bit had ended up on a steep rocky section to the left of the gully on the descent and had to back out. I didn’t want to be navigating this in the dark and possible fog. This time I headed for the top of the gully from the cairn and got to the right hand side of it from the top which ended up being a nice steep grassy descent with no rocky sections. In hindsight there was nothing to worry about and I would have been better off doing this section in the dark and finishing the round in daylight. At the road below I grabbed a bottle and headed for Letterettin which was entirely clear. It was just over 2 hours in, and fully bright by now and fog wasn’t on most of the hills ahead. There was a nice gentle ascent up the first part of Letterettin. From the summit I could see the bend in the small side road joining the N59 and headed for it. There was a nice gentle runnable descent off Letterettin and was nice to be running for a while. I was glad the first section was behind me and knew regardless of whether there was fog or not ahead, the next section along the NW ridge of the Maumturks from CPs 5-7 wouldn’t require much navigation as there is a fenceline to follow. Just under 2 hours 50mins to get to the N59 so I knew I was moving ok based on the recce runs, and the effort felt manageable. The ascent up Búcan was a bit of a slog but was rewarded with a nice long (7km) runnable grassy/boggy ridge all the way from CP5 over to CP7 - Cruach a'Doirín. There was a great view over towards the main ridge of the Maamturks and the 12 Bens in the distance. Also a constant reminder of what is ahead of you later in the day! But was relieved to see they were mostly clear with only small bits of cloud on some of the summits. The descent from Cruach a'Doirín was wet and slippy and was full of green, grassy tussocks near the bottom. This was much easier to run earlier in the year when the growth wasn’t there and you could follow the animal tracks through the dead grass and tussocks. There was about a kilometre of crap that took a lot longer to get through than in the recce. Seemed to take forever to get off the hill. The river crossing near the road was also trickier than on recce run after all the rainfall. I finally made it out onto the road and then had 2.5km of road running towards the start of the Partry Hills and probably one of the hardest climbs of the round in Bunnacunneen. 5hrs 15mins to here. It was head down and on all fours crawling up for most of it. It was definitely the longest, continuous steep grade of any of the climbs of the day. From the summit, there is a long, (3.5km) grassy ridge run with only a few small climbs and a fence to follow over to Cruach Breac before the long, steep descent towards the road near Maum. Bit more growth towards the bottom of the hill near the road than earlier in the year but nothing too bad. I changed into Hokas before the start of the Maamturks as I knew the rough, rocky terrain of most of the next 45km would be punishing on the feet. I also knew the Hokas would be a trade-off, giving a bit more cushion on the rocks, but losing traction on any wet, grassy descents - but figured it would be worth it overall. It felt like the round was only really beginning here, starting up Corcòg, with 42km and probably 3000m plus elevation already in the legs! I still felt strong though, and checked the watch and time was just at 7 hours. I knew what was ahead was going to be much slower than what I had covered so far, but was starting to think about a finish time and knew if I kept it going I’d get close to 20 hours. I stocked up for the expected next 5.5 hours across the main ridge of the Maamturks towards the next road crossing. I had only recced the full length of the main ridge once in decent weather, and had another aborted (after Binn Mhór) attempt in poor weather. I knew this would probably be the toughest section to navigate if the visibility was poor so I had spent a fair bit of time going through the route on the map in the days before. On the day however, it was clear for the most part except for a few rain showers and some cloud on 2 or 3 of the peaks so only really needed the map and compass at a few points, but still had them out and was using them the whole way just to be sure. Probably lost time with this approach, checking and rechecking myself when it wasn’t really necessary, but could have had a costly mistake otherwise. I can’t really remember much from the Maamturks as a lot of it looks the same – rough and rocky. Also, having gone through the route on the map so much beforehand, and it being clear on the day meant it wasn’t nearly as difficult to navigate as I had been expecting and it was fairly uneventful and seemed to fly by. Ended up with only a couple of small errors but was probably as clean a run as I could have hoped for! It took the 5.5 hours to travel the 24km from the start of Corcòg to the road crossing in Inagh Valley (compared to 7 hours for the first 42km of the round!). The descent off the last peak, Maumturkmore, down to the road was a nice long grassy/boggy run that was a welcome change from the rocks. I hadn’t recced this section and had no idea what the Tooreenacoona River was like to cross. Turns out it was deep, I got in at the edge and it was waist deep straight away and looked to get deeper so I had to back out and run downstream a few hundred metres to find a place to cross. Lost a few minutes here but nothing too bad. A quick restock of food at the road and then it was up Gleninagh towards the first of the 12 Bens – Bencollaghduff. Just over 12.5hrs in. Near the start of the road section I had my head down, walking, and sorting out my bag, and when I looked up there was a ram with a big set of horns standing on the other side of the road staring at me. I edged by him thinking I’d not have the energy to deal with it if anything was to happen! The climb up to the first of the Bens from the road crossing dragged on for ages. I had recced the Glencoaghan horseshoe once in fog and probably didn’t learn too much from the recce, so it was great to have full visibility on the day. At this stage I was looking forward to getting to the next, and final road crossing as I knew I’d be turning for home from there. The Bens were fairly uneventful also and seemed to fly by even though it took 2.5 hours to get to the road crossing between Derryclare and Benlettery. The decent weather was a big factor in this uneventfulness! I stocked up for the last time and made sure to bring my head torch. The time was just at 15hrs 10mins leaving the road as I aimed for the saddle below Benlettery and started off across the boggy ground towards the river. I reckoned it would take about 5 hours to the finish but since I hadn’t recced parts of this section I wasn’t sure how it would go and also knew I’d have a couple hours of running in darkness to finish. Benlettery was the last real long climb of the day and found the last push up by the fence to the saddle between it and Bengower tough going but at least it was short. I had found the descent off Bengower tricky enough in the recce run in the fog and with wet rocks, and had wanted to be reaching here in daylight. It was completely different on the day however, with full visibility and dry rocks and it seemed straight forward. The next few peaks over towards Muckanaght all passed relatively easily. The climb up Benbaun was another slog but relatively short compared to some of the previous. There was a nice runnable section from Benbaun towards Muckanaght as the ground underfoot became less rocky. I could see a band of rain coming in from the Atlantic for the last hour before it got dark so knew it would be a wet finish. I opted to do an out and back to the summit of Muckanaght instead of dropping north off the top towards Benbrack. It looked like a very steep grassy side which I hadn’t recced, and didn’t fancy the sliding and falling at this stage of the day. There was also a nice run along the NE face of Muckanaght towards Benbrack. It was almost dark, with heavy rain and fog by the time I was two thirds up Benbrack and I needed the compass out to find the summit. There are a couple of similar looking bumps but finally spotted the one with the cairn through the fog. From here I took a bearing towards Knockbrack and then went rooting for something in my bag. I decided I better recheck the bearing once I got sorted, and when I did I must have done something silly because when I set off I ended up on the NW side of Benbrack. I was very disorientated here for a few minutes, tired, still in fog and it was fully dark by now. I knew the slope shouldn’t be the way it was. I had to settle myself and drop elevation a bit out of the fog and see if I could figure out where I was. I could see the outline of some of the hills and also hear the river in the valley below and was fairly confident of where I was. Had to climb across a fairly steep, and slippy rocky bit to correct myself. Lost a few minutes and had a scare but finally got back on track. I had recced Benbrack to Diamond Hill by making a beeline for the Diamond and going straight over Knockbrack. This adds an extra bit of unnecessary climb so instead, on the day I had planned to drop from the saddle before Knockbrack and aim for a point upstream on the Polladirk River that would be easy to cross. The sides of the river are very steep in places further downstream. Because I hadn’t recced this though, and with my nav error a few minutes back I decided that when I dropped from the saddle and came around the SW face of Knockbrack and could see the outline of Diamond Hill, I would ‘play it safe’ and head directly for it. What I couldn’t see in the dark and rain was that I was heading for a terrible place to cross the river. I had checked the contours on the map, which didn’t look that bad. The ground is rough around here anyway, with heather and tussocks on both side of the river, but this combined with the very steep slope and river crossing was torture. The climb out the far side for the first few metres didn’t feel safe. Probably wouldn’t feel as bad in different circumstances, but would definitely avoid crossing here if I was revisiting. The last climb up Diamond Hill from the east is rotten at the best of times and was probably the worst of the day. Heather, tussocks, rain, dark and tired body combined for a rough time but I knew all I had to do was keep climbing and I would eventually cross the walkers path to the summit and from there it was plain sailing home. It is a fairly long descent off the summit and having never ran this before either it probably felt longer than it really is. The steps shook my quads and was slow going until I got to the gentler gradient – also wasn’t chasing any time at this stage! It felt like I lost a lot of time in this last section from Benbrack to finish – possibly up to half an hour I’d say with the nav error on Benbrack, the poor line towards Diamond Hill and slow descent to the finish. Finally made it back to the crossroads in Letterfrack at 20hrs 32mins. 5hrs 22mins for the last section. Delighted to get it done and looking forward to seeing the next attempts. Definitely the toughest of the three Irish rounds! |
