Tim Mackey's Weblog - Outdoors

Hillwalking in the Lakeland Fells

Tim Mackey — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:49:34 GMT

Just back from a two week trip in the Lake District in England, what a discovery. this photo was taken at sunrise at 500m on the last day. unfortunately the first 10 days were mostly torrential rain, but it was worth it in the end. i want to go back next year. i posted some more info on the trip at the wainwright society forum where i got some good advice before going.

Hiking Dingle

Tim Mackey — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 18:59:18 GMT

i'm just back from an 8 day hiking trip to the dingle peninsula in co. kerry (ireland). it was really amazing, i kept a short (and very amateur) video blog (below). if you're doing the trip, i would recommend getting the Ordnance Survey maps 70 and 71, and follow the map route rather than the hillwalker signposts. in some places the signs were diverted to what seemed like an easier/more boring walk. i camped in a small 2 man Vango tent, the ultralite 200 which was very light and quick to pitch, which is great when you are hiking on your own and you might be tired and cold by the time you stop walking for the day and pitch the tent. a word of advice on this tent would be to face it into the wind so that you get a good airflow through the vents, if it gets too cold you can always throw on more clothes or close up the vents a little, but the worst thing is getting too much condensation inside and then stuff gets damp. the tent was really great though, and i had the vango ultralite 100 sleeping bag to match, which was not the warmest but very adequate and most importantly very light. the trail was easy enough to find your way around, crossing over brandon/masatiompan mountain was the only difficult part, especially when the mist came down, but there were signposts every 10 or 20 metres to guide you down the mountain. the only time i needed a compass was to get out of tralee town!

more info on the trail is at http://www.dingleway.net/
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 4:
Day 6:
Day 7:
Day 8:

MTB: Excellent trail in Limerick - Keeper Hill + Slieve Felim Way

Tim Mackey — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 09:23:40 GMT

hi,
i went exploring on a new route yesterday and it was by far the most exciting trail i've been on for a long time. Map and Stats below.

Stats

Route length: 76k from Limerick city (Ireland)
Time taken: 8 hours including about 7x5-min rests, a half hour nap at the top, and about 10 camera stops. so you can easily knock an hour and a half of this time.
Climb: 700m to Keeper Hill Summit
Terrain: About 50km of this trip is road, but it's the fast part and i think the 20k on trails is really worth it. you could drive to newport and cut out the boring leg between limerick and newport.
Water needed: 2.5l energy drink was just about enough for me
Food needed: 3 snickers + banana + raisins

Map

click for full size

Directions

The map has red arrows marking the route i took for the way up, and pink arrows for the way down. In case they don't make sense, here are the english directions:

From Limerick, take the N7 dublin road out as far as the roundabout on the new dual carriage way stretch. Take the second exit sign-posted newport.
Go straight through newport and keep on the main road and go past the entrance to Tooreenbrien woods. After that, take the next left up a small road. (marked on map with a red arrow).
Keep going and turn right near the end of the road (down a hill) and you should link up with the Slieve Felim way, marked with the hill-walker signs.
Then just follow the hill walker signs up and across, and over the hill.
There is an extremely fast (and mucky when i did it) descent to Toor (a village apparently).
Go right on the main road for almost a kilometer. you get a good view of Keeper Hill from there. Turn left just at the handball court, following the hillwalker signs.
The Slieve Felim way doesn't actually take you to the summit, so follow the map to choose one of the paths that leads there. I had to walk the last 150m because the path was very loose and stoney.
I choose the quickest way home once i had reached the top, and it is the fastest descent i've ever been on. the quality of the paths was pretty good when i was there, so i was able to clock 58kph.
you can see with the pink arrows which route i took home.

if you have any corrections suggestions, post your comments below.