Famous Five on Muckish Adventure |
| Date: 26th May 2004 Submitted by: Pete Smith Someone suggested that Muckish would be nice and dry after all the beautiful May weather, so Bill, Alan, Margaret and I met at the lay-by straight from the office and beetled off in Alan's Land Rover to find some sport. We picked up Mikey McGinty in Letterkenny and headed north (away from the threatening clouds in the west). Luckily, Muckish was still resplendent in spring sunshine, so we picked our way up the miners' path with light hearts. Having suffered a bit of a ribbing in the car due to my (fabricated) reluctance to lead, I was stung into an optimistic bravado and decided to climb Thera HVS (see pic of a previous ascent). This was not entirely stupid because I figured, rightly, that the deep crack would eat gear and that my life would not be in much danger. Good job too, because I took two rests. In spite of my iffy tactics, the route offered quite a challenge and some great moves - worth all 3 stars. Bill and Alan were on An Phoucha VS while this was going on. They followed that with a top-roped ascent of Thera before shooting off to do another 4 routes. Mikey and I made a couple of poor calls: we tried and failed on HMS Wasp VS, leaving gear half way up (later retrieved on abseil) and backtracked on a mingy, muddy, grassy Winklepicker. Mikey did lead The Wizard VS, good value for a short route - some nice moves near the top. As the light faded we made the steep descent back to the car to join Mags and go for a quick beer in Letterkenny. Another brilliant Muckish night - shame there weren't more Colmcillers. |
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