Slieve Bearnagh’s Tors

I’d always loved being outdoors, in the woods and hills. But for most of my adult life that love had been abstract, a matter of words rather than deeds. But as I came to the end of my forties I realised I lived in a beautiful place, with sea and forest and (small, but in their own way awe-inspiring) mountains all within at most an hour’s drive.

So, on Easter Monday 2014 I kept a promise to myself and my daughter home from university, and climbed into the Mourne mountains for the first time in more than thirty years. We clambered up to the Hares Gap, and once we saw that that hadn’t killed us, we swung down alongside a stream to the edge of Ben Crom reservoir.

After lunch to the sound of water gurgling over the big stones, and not a sinner near us, we trudged to the Mourne Wall along the shoulder of Slieve Bearnagh – the summit was a bit beyond our abilities, why wasn’t I warned how steep these damn hills are?! – and down to the Hare’s Gap again. A great day, surpassing our expectations – even if the sun did burn the nose off me!

A year later, after a more or less serious effort to build my strength and stamina through regular walking, she and I attempted Bearnagh again. This time in rain and low cloud, visibility so poor I feared we were lost at one point - though I’d been practising my map-reading skills too.

My ex-smoker’s lungs were agony. My thighs and calves cramped and spasmed.

But we found our way to the alien landscape of the mountaintop’s tors.

Once we’d caught our breath, we explored the wind-carved granite stacks.

And then down into the vertiginous col between Bearnagh and Slieve Meelmore, glimpsing the Irish Sea through the slowly-clearing cloud. At times, the hillside was so steep we dropped to our backsides and shimmied down the scree.

But finally, sunlight sparkled on the streams that followed the path back to the Hare’s Gap, the riverine Trassey Track, the car, and home.