A Walk for the Weekend: The Mourne Mountains

I like the Mournes. Youthful by Irish standards, these compact uplands have – unlike the Wicklow and Slieve Bloom mountains – yet to be worn down by the erosion of ages. And it is this relative immaturity that makes the Mournes special. A chaos of lofty peaks, deep- sided valleys, austere little lakes and granite tors, this lately reshaped and still spikily young landscape is designed to enchant even the most world-weary walker.

So, it was in high spirits that I roamed into the Ulster countryside and then pointed my wheels towards Carrick Little car park and the beckoning hills beyond. My lofty ambition was to summit one of Ireland's finest eminences; so alone with my imaginings I ambled up the Carrick Little track towards the heartland of the High Mournes as a great panorama unfolded over the high peaks of Commedagh, Donard and Chimney Rock.

Then it was upwards past Annalong Wood, the incongruously named hillock of Percy Bysshe to reach the winsomely attractive waters of the Blue Lough.

Adorning the hillside to my left was the great louring crag of Buzzard's Roost. This overhanging cliff is renowned for its challenging rock-climbs with "Divided Years" being its most renowned route. When first ascended by English climber John Dunne in 1994, it was regarded as the hardest natural rock-climb in the world.

Upwards and onwards now along a steepening track to gain the col between Slievelamagan and Slieve Binnian and an arresting prospect over the Silent Valley and the azure waters of the Ben Crom reservoir. Sweeping southwest from here, conveyed me up a rocky path that gave a surprise when it suddenly transformed itself into a stone staircase.

Roving onwards towards the north summit of the “mountain of the little horns”, the track became more informal as the slopes eased on the approach to a great tor of weather-worn granite. A distinctive feature of the Mournes, such edifices were originally nunataks, created when severe Ice Age frosts eroded softer landforms but failed to disrupt the hard granite of the tors.

This particular excrescence is easily bypassed on the right, but true to a hopeless new-experiences addict I scrambled to the top and was rewarded with a memorable 360 degree panorama encompassing virtually every mountaintop in the High Mournes.

My route now descended a little before rising again to gain the frost shattered granite of the Black Castles.

Here it was just a short ramble south to the next tor, which marks the summit of – you guessed it – Slieve Binnian, the most remarkable and from many angles most handsomely-crested mountain of the Mourne range.

I descended from Binnian by following the ultra-convenient handrail of the Mourne Wall. Ireland’s answer to China’s Great Wall meanders for 35km over some of the region’s most alluring summits. Constructed in the early 20th century to protect the water sources of the Silent Valley reservoir, its main purpose these days is as a welcome handrail for locationally-challenged walkers.

Snow was lightly falling as the wall deposited me safely on the Carrick Little track, and then, with lights twinkling in the valley below, I bade farewell to the beautiful Mountains of Mourne.

Startpoint:

Carrick Little car park is located about 4 km northwest of the south Down coastal village of Annalong.

Terrain:

short but fairly demanding outing. Walkers should be equipped to cope with the high, exposed terrain.

Time

: 4 hours.

Map:

OSNI, 1:50,000, sheet 29.