Lugnaquilla, Co. Wicklow

Ken writes:
I went walking yesterday with Michael Gallagher and Izzy Jack from UCD and Niall Connolly, Gwen Murphy and Pål Antonsen from Trinity. We climbed Lugnaquilla, the highest mountain in Wicklow and the highest outside Kerry. I’ve already climbed Slieve Donard in County Down, the highest in Ulster, so with Lugnaquilla that makes the highest [...]

Hugh’s first proper walk

Ken writes:
We did a circuit around the upper lake at Glendalough today. The primary reason was that it looked like being a nice day and it is important to take one’s chances to get out of the city. I also wanted to see how long I can go carrying him in a front-fitting sling. [...]

Hugh pictures (lots!)

Here are some scenes from the recent life of Hugh (though of course all of Hugh’s life is recent).
Pictures taken by Ben, from the 8th to 11th December. Hugh was four weeks old.
Hugh with daddy and Auntie Meriel on the sofa.
The hand of Dad.
Stripes
Hugh presents his side of the case
The new chair grabbed his attention [...]

Dot has a thought not connected with babies

Dot writes: I’m reading Tom Holzel and Audrey Salkeld’s book The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine. This was published in 1986 but revised in the wake of the finding of Mallory’s body by the 1999 Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition. Although the Holzel and Salkeld book aims to investigate what happened on Everest in 1924 [...]

Storms of Silence

Dot writes: I’ve just had another little fit of climbing books: Heinrich Harrer’s classic The White Spider, about the North Face of the Eiger, and Joe Simpson’s 1996 book Storms of Silence. I’ll post another time about the former: it was excellent, in a slightly, stiff, old-fashioned way, with its glowing character portraits [...]

Back From Holiday

Ken writes:
Dot and I are just back from a four night stay at our old stomping grounds in North East Fife. It was a wonderful trip, although the weather prevented us from taking a ferry to the bird sanctuary of the Isle of May. We really enjoyed ourselves there. I managed to catch a one-day [...]

Tryfan postscript

Dot writes:
After we blogged about our Tryfan adventure, my sister rang up to say that she has climbed Tryfan twice, under strong protest both times, with her ex. My sister has tried and likes rock-climbing, but she isn’t keen on heights or on scrambling. The first time she and the ex went up Tryfan they [...]

Photos from Tryfan walk

Ken writes:
I thought I’d post a couple of the photos of our trip. First a view of our stoney adversary: Tryfan.

Next our huddled quarters below it.

And the awesome view of its aspect from our diminutive camp at the base.

But we did not flinch from our task

Almost there (on the saddle before the final push)

We did [...]

Leg transplant

Dot writes:
The title of the post is what I now could do with after taking a foolish amount of exercise at the weekend courtesy of our dear friends David and Zoe and a big scary Welsh mountain named Tryfan. I don’t think I’ve ever climbed such a difficult hill, not that that is saying too [...]

First Walk of the Season

Ken writes: It’s really embarrassingly late, but yesterday Dot and I went on our first walk of the season. We climbed Sugarloaf or ‘O Cualann’ just outside Dublin. The great advantage of our new digs on the southside is that it only took us twenty minutes to get to the start of the walk. The weather [...]