Easter Egg Rolling in the Mournes!

Happy Easter everyone! 

In the mountains we decided to celebrate easter with a bit of egg rolling, but first we had to get to the mountains. Drew Bradley decided that he needed to get some multi discipline training under his belt and so cycled to the Mourne Mountains.

He was absolutely delighted to see Oonagh Thompson and Dominic Ruud Berry on the way. It gave him a massive boost. Something that will be very much needed on the Challenge! After 30 miles on the bike in a good time of 1 hour and 53 minutes, Drew arrived here...

Slieve Donard was covered in beautiful sunshine, apart from the top which wrapped itself in a damp blanket of cloud. Something for the team to look forward to later in the day. 

The mountains were teaming with people enjoying the long weekend and getting some fresh air. We decided to climb Slieve Donard, the largest of the Mourne Mountains. Hopefully the above photo shows just how busy the mountains were. This is the view from the saddle looking up Slieve Donard (which is steeper than any of the photos do justice to).

After a stop for tea and a sandwich we continued up. The cloud wrapped us up and a steady drizzle clung to us. 

It was lovely to have so many people out on the mountains and to hear everyone encourage each other so much. There were lots of 'nearly there's to be heard and plenty of 'not far now's floating around too!

The team decided to celebrate Easter with some traditional egg rolling. After a hotly contested bout of egg rolling Ruud emerged victorious with Oonagh a close second and Drew a distant, distant third. We then ate the eggs, free range of course! 

 

A great day and the team is feeling really good about the challenge!

Laura Bradley and Sarah Beale visit the Mournes!

'I'm going to do this in style' said Laura Bradley...

'Are you heck!' replied Bealie.

We decided we wanted to do a short but steep climb... oh hello Slieve Bearnagh! You look steep but short, you'll do just nicely.

We set off from Trassey car park and enjoyed the warm, dry conditions as we'd come out expecting to be very very cold. So that was a bonus!

It wasn't really warm enough for a t-shirt, but apparently Sarah Beale has antifreeze in her veins. The uneven ground meant we each found our own path but were close enough to have a chat as we went.

When we arrived at Hare's Gap something strange and magical happened...

But then we got cold and I got told in no uncertain terms to put the camera away... we had a mountain to climb! But the camera came out again just a short time after...

Slieve Bearnagh is a great walk and it's part of the Mourne Challenge... www.mournechallenge.com ... hope to see you there!

Fairly short write up this, but this walk was great! Weather so much better than we thought it could be in February, great chat, stunning views and a sense of tremendous well-being being back in the mountains!

The 3 Peaks Challenge in August will be tough, extremely tough but when the outdoors is this much fun there's bound to be an upside to all that hard work. More information about the charities to come soon!

I hope this photo of Oonagh Thompson , Laura Bradley and Sarah Beale does justice to the severity of the slope!

The final trek of January

After a few weeks of missed training we decided to seise the opportunity for a long walk in the mountains. The weather was dull but warm enough and no significant wind this time, much better than the last outing! We decided to climb Slieve Commedagh starting at the Trassey Road car park. Following the Trassey trail and as we parked we met this lovely looking fella. He didn't seem too bothered by us and even posed for a photo.

We were surprised to see so much snow on top of the mountains and even more surprised at how dry the trail was, sure that'll change in the next few weeks when the snow starts to melt! Well in the mean time, time for some fun with the camera ...

Having topped Commedagh in a time of just over 2 hours we were literally knee deep in snow, wonderful crispy snow.


Having spent some time playing with the camera I decided to go a bit quicker to catch up. The result... a 13 stone Brummy running down a mountain in Northern ireland screaming 'I've built up a head of steam!'. Shortly followed by a bone crunching thud as said Brummy over balanced and clattered to a stop in deep snow, which remember, covers rocks. Guess which one stopped me? Yeap, rock. The rest of the hike went by with a failed attempt to slide down the mountain on our backsides and little else other than beautiful scenery and great trails to walk on... with a sore knee.

Luckily it wasn't this part that I fell down! Still goes to show just how much snow and ice was clinging on up there.

Oonagh found the ice formations truly entertaining ...

Still a few greats photos and even met a guy from the tele! Another great day!