Hiking With Wilderness Ireland

There’s so much to say about our vacation hiking with Wilderness Ireland! 🇮🇪

I’m going to starting with an overview and recap of our four “big” hikes.

Hiking With Wilderness Ireland

We signed up for the “Coast To Coast” itinerary which was graded moderate to intermediate. Even though it’s right there in the summary, I didn’t realize that we were going to be hiking to the summit of three of the highest mountains in Ireland. 🤷‍♀️

The itinerary had us staying in three different areas (for 2 nights each), alternating driving days with a short hike with long hike days. (I’ll share more about the accommodations over coffee.) Except for our next-to-last day, we barely had any down time, heading out right after breakfast and returning from our hikes with barely an hour to get cleaned up for dinner.

Hiking In County Galway

We met our guide and the rest of our group of eight hikers in Galway. From there, we drove to Connemara National Park, for our first hike: Diamond Hill.

It wasn’t a long hike, but it was pretty much straight up and straight down.

The hike gets its name from the granite rocks that glitter in the sun, but we’ll have to take their word for that. The weather turned absolutely miserable just as we started out.

We made it to the top.

The weather limited our views, but it cleared up a bit on the way back.

Hiking In County Mayo

Luckily we all managed to dry out our boots for our hike the next day— a bit further north up Mweelrea mountain in County Mayo.

This hike was about 8 miles.

It was foggy as we drove to the trailhead, but not raining when we started. We hiked through boggy pastures, along a stream, and then up into clouds and rain.

I’m not gonna lie, the summit was miserable. How miserable? This is us eating lunch under the “emergency shelter” (tarp) to prevent hypothermia.

Thanks to Stuart who crawled out and took this picture!

Luckily the weather cleared as we hiked back down. We  appreciate the views as the clouds lifted that much more.

That’s the Atlantic in the background!

Shockingly, thanks to the wind our clothes had dried out by the time we got back to the van.

Hiking Carrauntoohil–the highest mountain in Ireland

We had a day off between Mweelrea and our hike up Carrauntoohil—the highest mountain in Ireland. We picked up our lunch at a cafe at the trailhead (sandwiches, “crisps”, cookies, fruit) and enjoyed bright sunshine for the first 1/3 of the hike.

We passed a smug ram who knew what we were in for!

The first 1/3 of the hike was easy, along a wide path with bridges to take us over the streams.

You can see the clouds on the mountain top though ….

We enjoyed the views at the lake before we donned our extra layers for the climb up Devil’s Ladder.

This was the “scrambling” section that gave the hike a “red” grade difficulty rating.

I had followed the two “youngsters” in black up,
and they were about to head straight down. 😳

We still had a way to go to the summit. When we got to the top it was very foggy, but the rain held off until we were making our way back down.

Our hardy crew—four others spent a sunny day in Kilarney. 🧐

Instead of going down Devil’s Ladder, we took the ZigZags trail down, but that meant climing a second (shorter) summit first.

This hike was about 9 miles

The ZigZags were easier, but not easy as I had to carefully plan each step down.

Hiking in County Wicklow

We had a day off before our last big hike—up Lugnaquilla in County Wicklow. Because we were now on the southwest side of Ireland, it was warm weather that was a concern. We all agreed to an earlier start and finally got really lucky with the conditions.

This hike started on a logging road before heading up through fields of heather.

It was cloudy and windy at the summit, but we enjoyed our most relaxing lunch of the week with panaromic views.

This hike also got the prize for the most sheep.

The views down into the valley were stunning!

It was a great way to cap off a great week of hiking with Wilderness Ireland.

If you’re interested in a guided hiking vacation, you should definitely check them out. They have several itineraries of varying difficulty (including several “easy” ones), and also offer trips in Scotland. Our guide was awesome—very patient, kind, and encouraging, and knowledgeable about Irish history (which we quizzed him on) and folklore (he told us stories as we climbed!)—and our group meshed well.

---

A huge thank you to Deborah and Kim for hosting the Weekly Run Down link up.

Do you prefer an active vacation or do you want to relax and recharge?