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Wicklow Diaries Part Three

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Day 5 – The Glendalough Skyline

My dramatic relationship with the weather would not be over yet but for this day at least I would have a reprieve. With most my gear drying out in the hostel I took the advantage to create a circular loop of the mountain summits of the Glendalough skyline. With seven mountain summits over a distance of 29km this would be a good catch up on time lost in the Tonalagee struggle. It also meant I could travel light and do some real running in these hills. The mountain weather forecast I had been following seemed to be remarkably accurate at predicting weather once it had passed but a little more vague when it came to future weather forecasting. In fact it seemed to be updated several times a day to reflect what the weather was actually doing rather than accurately providing any kind of advance ‘heads-up’. If the weather forecast for ‘tomorrow’ didn’t transpire it would be reforecast for the following ‘tomorrow’. By this point the best thing seemed to be just to look at the sky and generally expect to get wet at some point.

Incoming shower…

Today looked like a mix of sun, cloud and heavy showers which was a massive improvement on the story so far and after a moody start it turned out to be a great circuit, with only the section in the middle full of the peat hag assault courses I was becoming accustomed to. With wonderful views of the sea, coastline and valley below it seemed a shame only to see two other people in the mountains all day. When I joined the Wicklow Way back down to Glendalough and reached the valley floor with its jaw dropping views however, I discovered that’s where EVERYBODY was.

The very photogenic Glendalough valley

This stunning glacial ‘Valley of the Two Lakes’ is very famous and extremely popular with an estimated one million visitors a year to the valley and particularly busy on an August Sunday afternoon. The contrast between the solitude of the hills and the bustling crowds in the valley was entirely overwhelming and several smartly dressed, camera toting visitors tip-toeing along the edge of the lake gave me quite a wide berth as I ran down the hill soaked with sweat and walked straight into the cooling waters of the lake with my shoes still on! “Clearly a madwomen” they were probably thinking. It’s true that the more time I spend outdoors in all the elements the more, almost feral I become. Usual inhibitions seem to fall away as I become relaxed and at home in my outdoor surroundings and I sometimes have to remind myself that things I might do in the mountains are just not socially acceptable when strolling around Tesco!

Day 6 – Big ‘ol mountain day and the (almost) forgotten valley of Glenmalure

After a more than arguably generous day yesterday, todays skies promised much the same – a bit of sun, a lot of cloud and those ever present highly localised furious downpours. At least you could see them coming from the mountain ridge and be prepared for impact! After losing so much time with the river crossing shenanigans I would have to cut out four outlying mountains in order to complete my Wicklow Round in the time remaining. Frustrating, but it meant it would possible to complete the route with three big days over 15 mountains. And the mountains would still be there another time! Today included Lugnaquilla, the highest mountain in Ireland outside of Kerry and yet the straightforward grassy plateau made this possibly the easiest summit to reach during my whole time in the Wicklow Mountains despite the nasty weather that hit as I was heading up.

 Lugnaquilla provided an easy and gentle summit despite looking uninviting from below!

After another seven summit day over 29km with 1500m of elevation I crossed a stream – easy enough on this occasion and found a decent camping spot sheltered though still fairly waterlogged. However, I was a bit torn because close by in the valley bottom was Glenmalure Hostel, a simple mountain lodge described as ‘basic’ on account of having no running water, electricity or indoor plumbing of the toilet variety. It was really a cosy bothy where evenings would be spent in candlelit conversation around a roaring log fire and was quite famed for a warm welcome and its idyllic location…oh, and of course, its resident ghost, ‘Scary Mary’ who apparently is a kleptomaniac for cosmetic accessories!?

The welcoming cosy hearth of the Glenmalure Hostel…..and no sign of ‘Scary Mary’

The valley has seen many battles over the centuries and some of the trails are said to be haunted by marching ghosts of deceased soldiers. Despite the spooky stories I felt it would be a shame to miss out on visiting this legendary place. It was just 4km down into the valley although that would mean a 4km climb back up in the morning, but it seemed well worth it and I could hang up my wet things again overnight.

Down into the peaceful Glenmalure valley

I arrived just in time for dinner which was a very unexpected and welcome surprise. The hostel is cared for by volunteer wardens and as well as a wonderful welcome they prepare delicious hot meals. It was a great evening as we put the world to rights over a glass of wine or two by the fire as the river raged by outside the window. During the previous rough spell of weather the track over the river here had been impassable too and they had been unable to get out for a couple of days. Seemed the storm had caught many people out. Not a bad place to be ‘trapped’ though. After a hearty meal, great conversation, feet warmed in front of the fire and that glass of wine I had the best sleep of this whole adventure!

The Wicklow Diaries Part One – my first Irish Mountains.

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In august an off-grid week of wild camping and mountain summitting in the desolate beauty Wicklow Mountains, my first foray into the Irish summits had all the makings of a fantastic adventure. Things certainly didn’t quite turn out as planned but nevertheless, an adventure it certainly was! Here is Part One of the four part drama!

I had plotted a 220km route looping from Dublin to include the 39 mountains in and around Wicklow National Park. With over 8500m of elevation gain, very rough terrain, notoriously fickle weather and the surprising remoteness of the area I looked forward to a week long, fast-packing, wild-camping adventure which in reality turned into the toughest mountain week I have experienced to date! It was definitely NOT a week of instagrammable camping sunsets but more of a special forces training expedition for one!

The Wicklow Diaries : Day 1 – The Calm Before…

Just under 10km through Dublin city from the Ha’Penny Bridge over the Liffey is Marlay Park, the official start point of the popular ‘Wicklow Way’, a 127km upland trail. I would dip in and out of a couple of small sections of this route as it doesn’t visit any summits but skirts mostly along the eastern side of the range.

Fuelled on a small Guinness I began following some easy paths of the Wicklow Way and soon the first mountains gave a hint of the nature of the terrain in this region. Though granite at their core these mountains are blanketed with peat bog which on many summits and cols form the impression of a ground that has been stretched and ripped resulting in boggy mazes of peat hags and channels.

It’s really surprising just how remote and desolate these mountains can be when you consider they can be reached on foot from the bustling capital city of Dublin in just a few hours. Heavy, intermittent rain showers were the order of the day but my only real challenge on this ‘warm up’ section was the uncustomary weight of my pack – a hefty 17kg – I was carrying a weeks food as my route would not pass any place to restock after the second day. This was quite something to contemplate hauling up and over 39 mountains but at least it would gradually get lighter as I munched my way through the supplies!

Day 2 – Closing in….

Setting off, my pack must have easily been 500g lighter after last night’s dinner and a hearty porridge breakfast! An ambitious 20 mile route over 10 Mountains was the plan and I made good ground through the morning, even dumping that monster pack halfway up a hill for a quick ‘out and back’ on Kippure – after all, (a)there was nobody around and (b)if anyway did try to hoof off with it they would not have been making a very fast escape under that load so I was confident I could give good chase!

After six summits I was a bit behind schedule having been slowed by the bogs and was yet to cross Barnacullian Bog – an expanse of peat bog generously described in guidebooks as “complicated ground”. This desolate landscape is an obstacle maze of peat hag islands, black holes and channels deep enough to be described as crevasses, all ready to swallow the unsuspecting hill goer.

Distracted by the task of navigating over the saddle to begin the climb to my last three mountains I had barely noticed the bad weather closing in and thick dark clouds dropping to smother the mountains as the wind began to rise. Heavy weather and high winds were forecasted but not until the following day and I had been planning sensible shelter for the Friday night but this was 24 hours early and suddenly looking grim. It was 6pm and at the speed I was making it would take some time to get over the next three mountains and down to more sheltered ground. Not knowing the terrain ahead and with Tonelagee summit looking less inviting by the second I made the decision to start scouting out a camping spot amidst all the bog. Dropping down off the main ridge in the lee of the increasing winds I found a pretty good spot sheltered by some large rocks and on well drained ground. Putting up the tent in double quick time I just got everything thrown inside including myself before the downpour began.

And so began a very long night as my tent was tested for the first time in torrential rains, high gusting winds and then to my absolute horror, a thunder and lightning storm. The lightning was an unexpected and un-forecasted additional worry factor as I was a little higher than I would have liked to be at 590m elevation and next to some pointy rocks. But I was off the ridge and perched on my air mattress (for all the good that would probably do) and had even formulated an escape route should my tent blow away so I curled up inside and nervously watched the lightning illuminate the tent as menacing cracks of thunder drew ever closer and louder…suffice to say I didn’t feel like I slept at all but (spoiler alert) I obviously survived the night, yet as I peeked out from the comforting bubble of the tent as daylight grew the weather was not improving and it looked certain it would be a challenging day ahead…

Making a Right Hash of it!

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A Quite Unusual New Running Experience

For many years I have noticed runners with ‘Hash House Harriers’ on their running vests prefixed with nationwide locations to their name. Bizarrely, despite having an occasional momentary wonder about the meaning of the name, I had never yet discovered it…….until……

The hashing ‘hounds’ hareing off “On On” the trail…

A spontaneous visit to Tamar Valley’s weekly ParkRun which was having a takeover week by the Tamar Valley Hash House Harriers resulted in, not only my premier ParkRun experience, but also an invite to join the ‘hashers’ for their next weekly ‘hash’ ….I had it on good authority that the ‘hares’ this week were particularly excellent – a bit worrying as I mostly follow a vegetarian diet!

Be sure to give the ‘Chalk Talk” your full attention!

To clarify my confusion a little the enthusiastic Harrier recruiters explained some background. The Hash House Harriers (which from here on I will refer to as HHH or H3 in an effort to avoid repetitive strain injury from all the additional typing) is an international group of non-competitive running social clubs, with a strong emphasis on the social. So social in fact it is jokingly said that they are a drinking club with a running problem! ( I say ‘jokingly’ 🤔?!) An event organized by a club is known as a hash, hash run or simply, hashing, with participants calling themselves hashers or hares and hounds. The important thing to understand is that these are merely titles and there are no actual animals or indeed ‘hash’ involved!

A Dark Disappearance into the Depths of Dartmoor

It was all originally formed in Malaysia in 1938 when groups of British Military Officers and ex-pats began meeting on Mondays to run in the style of a British ‘paper chase’ in an effort to run off the indulgent excesses of the weekend. After fading away during World War II it restarted during the late 1940’s and in the 1970’s did the equivalent of modern day ‘going viral’ and gaining huge popularity.

Back in the day setting up a group constitution it was stated :-

Apart from the excitement of chasing the hare and finding the trail, harriers reaching the end of the trail would partake of beer, ginger beer and cigarettes.

Perhaps NOT the best healthy lifestyle advice, though the objectives of the Hash House Harriers as recorded on the club registration card dated 1950 were :

  • To promote physical fitness among our members
  • To get rid of weekend hangovers
  • To acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it in beer
  • To persuade the older members that they are not as old as they feel

There are now over 2000 3H groups globally so a member can get their fix wherever life takes them.

The Tamar Valley Hash House Harriers ready for the off!

So… how do you hash?

The best thing is you don’t have to have a clue what goes on the first time you show up, just follow the madness and soon you will be picking up the meaning of the flour symbols scattered around what seems to be a ridiculously erratic course, understanding the loud cries of ” On On”, probably getting poked in the eye by an errant tree branch and before you know it, sitting in the pub looking dazed and confused and wondering what on earth just happened! A fundamental point of the hash is to be fun and to never be taken seriously. There are zero cares for PB’s or Split times on this run. But they are certainly getting something right as some of the Tamar Valley H3 members I spoke to had been hashing for over 30 years.

Always expect to get your feet wet….and possibly your hair!

A word of jovial warning – levels of ‘wildness’ can vary from group to group with some groups considering themselves “one of the tame ones”. If you are of a more sensitive disposition it might be prudent to find a tamer group for your first experience to avoid potentially being traumatised for life. The course is often no holds barred and forget about sticking to paths – crawling under low overhanging trees through woodland is deemed fair game and watercourses and rivers perhaps just cause for a mere, momentary pause, simply to confirm the route you understand – no one cares about looking for a bridge! I got lucky this first time, returning safely back with ( relatively) dry feet and all my limbs still attached, an outcome that is not entirely guaranteed.

Getting a bit side-tracked on the annual ‘red run’ – and this is BEFORE the pub!

A couple of people whom, it may be insinuated, have slightly sadistic tendencies will volunteer as the ‘hares’ – their job being to lay the trail for the group to decifer and follow. Symbols with various meaning are made on the ground with flour, sawdust or chalk. Then the whole group dart off chasing this trail of floury ‘breadcrumbs’ shouting fairly indeciferable instructions in code back to the rest of the group. . If i had remembered amid all the excitement to start my Strava recording I have no doubt the route would have looked something like this….

As clear as a ball of string!

However, within this madness true genius lies for the creation of the course enables everyone to participate, from super fast cross country sprinters all pepped up on sugar to ambling walkers stopping off for a nice cup of tea along the way. The course plays out so that the speedy spurters get sent off around a big old loop to meet back with the steady shufflers who were on a more direct trajectory. False trails are laid to further fox the eager beavers and give tentative trotters a chance to catch up thus ensuring the whole group stay relatively close together for the duration. Furthermore, though there is some very basic and extremely minimal guidance to hash etiquette normal race rules do not apply and shortcutting , far from being punished, is highly encouraged, though may receive some additional ribbing in the pub if it becomes a common and, more annoyingly, successfully tactical habit. To give you an idea, an example from the Tamar Valley H3 ‘rulebook’ reads as :-

Always try to keep at least one hasher between you and anything which looks at all fierce such as bulls, pit-bull terriers, landed gentry, geese and pigs.

In the interests of safety a ‘scribe’ is elected to act as mother hen, noting all hashers and checking them all safely back in at the end of the hash . H3’s NEVER leave a hasher behind! However, if you do intend to join the group at the pub afterwards you are then on your own so be sure to plan ahead.

Hash House Harriers : Never to be taken seriously!

There is also some unique hash code lingo to get to grips with. As a “Virgin” or “Just John” who doesn’t know their “shiggy” from their “dead trails” listen up to the “chalk talk” before the off, so you can correctly negotiate a “check”, avoid a “check back”, respond appropriately to an “RU” and most importantly keep “On On” to “On home” so you may go “on down” to the “circle” where there may be a “down down” afterwards. Easy for me to say,

Nothing better than a bit of a sing song and a beer after your daily run!

Remember, it is all a bit tongue in cheek and regulars are known by cheeky ‘hash names’ which can be a bit risque to say the least – likely harking back to hashings’ beginnings in a more politically incorrect time. Hashing newbies cannot name themselves but will earn an appropriate name by some head nodding achievement or wild stupidity demonstrated along the trail. Indeed, new hashers should beware of trying to influence their own hash name for risk of being re- christened with a more offensive or inappropriate name. In contrast, any rebels trying to gain a shocking monica will more likely be awarded a softie hash name such as “Twinkle”.

A tea ‘naming’ ceremony?

The highly prestigious Toilet Seat Award for some well sustained hash longevity

Personally, the elements that I enjoyed most about the hash ( aside from “on down” at the pub after ) was being able to run around after dark with no concerns about navigating or worrying where I was, just following the group ; the stop/start nature of the run and the fact that there was so much to focus on that there was none of the ‘this is hard work’ feeling which often accompanies a more convential run ; and that it was just pure, childlike, adventurous, fun!

Hashing chapters also don’t confine themselves to just two feet. Following roughly the same principles you can join a group Hashing by Bike or even Snorkel Hashing – I would be VERY wary of this latter malarkey!

It was lovely to see Charlotte , aka “Footloose” receive her tea pot celebrating 100 hash’s

I can absolutely and heartily recommend visiting one of these fun, mad, highly social events. Look up your local H3 chapter, leave any inhibitions at home and go along and have a fantastic “virgin hash”. If you have been a little alarmed by what you have read here don’t loose hope as there do exist many levels of H3 and very ‘family friendly’ groups are out there if you would rather avoid too much innuendo strewn banter. Checking out a charters website and having a read of one of their hash mags will give you a full ‘heads up’ of where they sit on the scale of Carry On style cheekiness.

See you at the ‘On Down’ 👍🍻

Huge thanks to the Tamar Valley Hash House Harriers for making me so welcome and introducing me to this zany pastime as well as their very kind donation to the Running the Summits fundraising for Mountain Rescue England and Wales, the Mountain Rescue Search Dogs and Fix the Fells.

⊙Photos (mostly) courtesy of Tamar Valley Hash House Harriers. Small disclaimer : apologies for any slightly risque double entendre phrasing in this blog – I can only put it down to the bad influence I have been under. (Ooo’err)