back in the US of A
Actually I've been back since Sunday but I went up to MA on monday and then back to ny tuesday where i didn't have internet for a few days while i was staying at my cousins and then I went back up to MA thursday and now its friday.
Ireland was incredible. It's a great country and everything actually worked according to plan, including the plan that said that aron and I were going to get along really well for 10 days. This is as much a record for me as for anyone else because I was really bad about writing in a journal this trip, mostly because it was so wet most of the time....
Saturday: landed in Dublin, took a walking tour of the city that involved castles, went to a camping store to buy me a rain coat, realized that one euro was worth approximately $56, fought off jetlag and managed to stay away until the late hour of 5:30
Sunday: packed up our backpacks and walked around dublin, found a pick up ultimate game, played for 2 hours, got beers with ultimate players who are awesome, got on a 4 hour train to Killarney in the southwest of ireland
Monday: One of the best days ever.... 3 hour guided horseback ride in killarney national park to a castle with a really nice swedish girl and beautiful weather. So then we wanted to spend the afternoon getting to a campsite at the start of the trail we were going to climb the next day, but the closest bus only went to a town about 6 miles away. 6 miles didn't sound like much in the US but it sounded like more when we were actually in Killarney thinking about walking it with packs. After looking into all the options, we were like "fuck it, we'll walk" so we got on the bus to the nearest town (Kilorglin). We were just getting off the bus and getting our packs on when an older english couple started asking us where we were going and how we were getting there. When we told them, they volenteered to give us a ride even though it was out of their way! It was such a warm, fuzzy moment and they were so unbeleivably nice and they dropped us off at our remote campsite that overlooked mountains and lakes and we were the only ones there. It was pure joy. And then aron found out he passed qualifiers. Best day ever.
Tuesday: Climbed the tallest mountain in Ireland. Which was a terrible idea but really fun at the same time. It wasn't raining much at the bottom but when we got up around 500 m we were in the mist. There was no trail up the first part so we were going through bogs and following sheep trails and our feet were soaked. Despite our map, compass and altimeter, we climbed the wrong mountain. Finally we got on track and started really climbing and the mist increased and everytime we thought we were getting to the top, another ridge would appear. Finally we reached one summit and I started having intense virtigo because there was just white and nothing on all sides and the rain was starting so the trail was wet and treacherous.
Despite that, we kept going along a ridge that led to the tallest mountain, mt carentohil. It was much farther than we thought and it was along a ridge with drop offs on both side into pure white. Scary. About an hour later, we made it to the real summit at 1071 m and took a picture near the huge cross at the top. Then we started walking down. The wrong way. 300 m down the wrong way. Oh shit. It's getting late, its getting dark (or more misty) and we have to climb back to the top of the mountain to find the right trail. So we climbed the highest mountain in ireland twice. I was freaking out. We had left aron's pack at the first summit so there was no question of just picking a side and going down. We had to retrace our steps.
Obviously we made it down alive but we probably wouldn't have without a map, compass, altimeter and dumb luck and we didn't see any other hikers all day. I'm glad we did it, but i was terrified for about 80% of the time.
Ok, my chocolate chip irish cream pound cake needs to come out of the oven and i need to clean this house because levitation holmes it staying tonight and tommorrow while we play easterns but i'll continue the story later.
Ireland was incredible. It's a great country and everything actually worked according to plan, including the plan that said that aron and I were going to get along really well for 10 days. This is as much a record for me as for anyone else because I was really bad about writing in a journal this trip, mostly because it was so wet most of the time....
Saturday: landed in Dublin, took a walking tour of the city that involved castles, went to a camping store to buy me a rain coat, realized that one euro was worth approximately $56, fought off jetlag and managed to stay away until the late hour of 5:30
Sunday: packed up our backpacks and walked around dublin, found a pick up ultimate game, played for 2 hours, got beers with ultimate players who are awesome, got on a 4 hour train to Killarney in the southwest of ireland
Monday: One of the best days ever.... 3 hour guided horseback ride in killarney national park to a castle with a really nice swedish girl and beautiful weather. So then we wanted to spend the afternoon getting to a campsite at the start of the trail we were going to climb the next day, but the closest bus only went to a town about 6 miles away. 6 miles didn't sound like much in the US but it sounded like more when we were actually in Killarney thinking about walking it with packs. After looking into all the options, we were like "fuck it, we'll walk" so we got on the bus to the nearest town (Kilorglin). We were just getting off the bus and getting our packs on when an older english couple started asking us where we were going and how we were getting there. When we told them, they volenteered to give us a ride even though it was out of their way! It was such a warm, fuzzy moment and they were so unbeleivably nice and they dropped us off at our remote campsite that overlooked mountains and lakes and we were the only ones there. It was pure joy. And then aron found out he passed qualifiers. Best day ever.
Tuesday: Climbed the tallest mountain in Ireland. Which was a terrible idea but really fun at the same time. It wasn't raining much at the bottom but when we got up around 500 m we were in the mist. There was no trail up the first part so we were going through bogs and following sheep trails and our feet were soaked. Despite our map, compass and altimeter, we climbed the wrong mountain. Finally we got on track and started really climbing and the mist increased and everytime we thought we were getting to the top, another ridge would appear. Finally we reached one summit and I started having intense virtigo because there was just white and nothing on all sides and the rain was starting so the trail was wet and treacherous.
Despite that, we kept going along a ridge that led to the tallest mountain, mt carentohil. It was much farther than we thought and it was along a ridge with drop offs on both side into pure white. Scary. About an hour later, we made it to the real summit at 1071 m and took a picture near the huge cross at the top. Then we started walking down. The wrong way. 300 m down the wrong way. Oh shit. It's getting late, its getting dark (or more misty) and we have to climb back to the top of the mountain to find the right trail. So we climbed the highest mountain in ireland twice. I was freaking out. We had left aron's pack at the first summit so there was no question of just picking a side and going down. We had to retrace our steps.
Obviously we made it down alive but we probably wouldn't have without a map, compass, altimeter and dumb luck and we didn't see any other hikers all day. I'm glad we did it, but i was terrified for about 80% of the time.
Ok, my chocolate chip irish cream pound cake needs to come out of the oven and i need to clean this house because levitation holmes it staying tonight and tommorrow while we play easterns but i'll continue the story later.
posted by influx @ 3:45 PM
1 Comments:
At 12:06 AM,
Gabi said…
your trip sounds so awesome!!! I want to climb things like you! I can't wait to hear more. When are you coming back to NY?
Post a Comment
<< Home