Training - Moylussa

So Sunday morning 6 of us set off to climb Moylussa, the highest point in Co. Clare. It’s a 10km up and back route which consists of a gravel trail and boardwalk at the top. 6am was our start time as a number of the lads have kids and needed to be back for father duties. Hiking for me these days has nearly all been under the cover of darkness to accommodate the dads of the group.

We did have one or two that were new to the hiking game so instructions were sent out to bring head torches, wet gear as the weather forecast rain up to 6am and changes of socks, etc. Of course not everyone followed the instructions. I was asked how long it would take us to get up to the top and I said an hour (typically for someone with little hiking ability it would take an hour and 15mins). I wanted to prove a point.

So off we set. It’s a steep climb initially up Moylussa through some narrow trails. I set the pace and it was a quick one. Indeed the lads behind me were wondering why I was bolting ahead and not talking much (I am all for chatting but feel like speaking especially hiking up tough parts uses up a lot of energy). The rain was still pelting it down but not as hard as it was before we started. The water running down the steep trails made it awkward as did the couple of trees that were down on the trails.

Once we got through these narrow trails the hike levels out a bit and makes hiking easier. We caught up on chats and laughs during this part of the hike. It’s a great group of lads that are doing the 4 Peaks challenge. We walked until we got to the base of the toughest part. It’s about 10-15mins of very steep hiking on a zig zag trail. 5mins of a break, a sip of water and off we set again. It’s an absolute blow out climbing this part. I would usually say to people that we can stop once or twice along this part to catch their breath but I wanted to see how fast we could get to the top. I have climbed Moylussa a lot of times but I have never seen as much water flow down this section as I did on this hike. We stayed going till we got to the start of the boardwalk. We took another 2min break here. The boardwalk section is fine except you’re exposed to the elements and by god those elements were tough. On we trekked till we got to the top. 55mins in total it took us to get to the top. A quick break, a selfie and bolted back down again.

The steep part going down was somewhat tricky due to the water and also my centre of gravity being non existent. once we navigated this it was plain sailing going down. We walked, proud as punch with ourselves, with what we did…. that was until we met 2 people running against us up Moylussa. But no point in comparing what we did to what they were doing “Comparison is the thief of joy” 😂

Anyway training hike 1 is done. Many more to come