A Touch Of Winter At Lugnaquilla

Happy New Year!

A long time since I posted – I’ve been a bit neglectful – I apologise about that. This post is also about a trip to Lugnaquilla I did back in November 2019 – I am quite far behind on my blogs because I have been up to Lug two more times since this visit!

It takes a long time to get a post ready and I just have not found the time! Usually the text portion takes a few hours but processing the photos (curating, focus stacking, fixing white balance etc) takes a lot of time. The photos I post here are not ‘instagram’ instant gratification photos where you fire and forget. A lot of time is spent on each individual shot, both in the field and in the digital darkroom.

That’s not to say I have not been hiking, I’ve been doing about 230 km a month for the last six months. That’s not just hiking, but also day – to day ‘steps’, mind.

So yeah, another post about Lugnaquilla today. The monarch of the east of Ireland.
And yep, there was snow, fog, leg pain and and a temperature inversion!

The last few weeks the weather here has overall been quite mild, but very wet. A few dry days here and there but the overall theme is of grey and wet.

The forecast for the day was high altitude clouds, low temperatures and light winds. 0°C at midday at Lugnaquilla, with a wind chill of -2°C. Not too bad. It was about -6°C at 9 am.
Given the frequency at which I visit the mountain, I am getting better at reading the weather forecasts and deducting exactly what sort of conditions might occur on the mountain. I had a strong suspicion that on this day there would be a temperature inversion. I was right! I’ve actually experienced five of these at the Lug now.
I always really enjoy the days at Lugnaquilla where there are high altitude clouds. I am not sure why but I think I like the mood of the place better than on sunny days.

Ascending Camara Hill in the dark, I look behind and observe a large bank of fog in the lowlands to the west, slowly inching it’s way towards my location.
I stopped for a shot of Keadeen, wide open with long exposure. It was still dark (the sun was not rising for another hour and a half). The fog had started to build on the valley floor and the lower slopes of Keadeen, but also the summit. The fog was also getting closer behind me, rising up the slopes of Camara hill.

As I climbed higher, the fog grew thicker in the valley but cleared off the summit of Keadeen. This was interesting, and something I would consider later.

This shot was a long exposure (30 seconds) shot wide open on my Zeiss Milvus 35mm (at f/1.4). Far from it’s optimal aperture for such a photograph but I was faced with a choice – stop down to f/8 and do a 16 minute exposure or use that 16 minutes to get (perhaps if I am lucky) one look at Lugnaquilla before the inevitable fog rolls in. I opted for the latter. Absolute image quality is nice to have of course but photography is all about compromises, and nice as the above image is, it’s not the reason I rolled out of bed at 3 am that morning.
Nevertheless, the light gathering capabilities of this equipment is amazing. All I could see with my eyes were the lights in the valley and a few stars blinking through the clouds – it was still pitch black.

I put the camera away and continued the ascent. Shortly after, I was completely engulfed in a thick blanket of fog. I had suspected this was going to happen.
As a glasses wearer, hiking in the dark with very thick fog can be quite tricky for me – there is a huge amount of glare from the head torch and this slowed me down.
I had suggested to myself that perhaps today I would just summit Camara Hill and then head back home, I was very tired (having only about 5 hours sleep the night prior) and the thought of hiking 20 km or more with only fog for views/company was not terribly enticing. Not when you carry a pack that weighs about 18 kg (due to photography equipment). I also had a sore hamstring and knee. I like to use the lemon system, 3 lemons and you go home. Sore hamstring/knee, one lemon, bad weather (the fog) half a lemon, fatigue (half a lemon). In my book, that was two lemons. The darkness was not a lemon, it was temporary because the sun would rise.
On I pressed, to the summit of Camara Hill. As I reached the top, it became clear that the fog here was very thick – I could see nothing. I sat on a rock for a while near the summit and zipped up my jacket. It was very cold. The sun was due in 30 minutes. I ate a sandwich, I was starving. I could see pretty much nothing outside of a 2 metre vicinity. I was looking forward to packing up and going back to bed, to be honest.
But then, something interesting happened.

The fog broke, and I could see that Lugnaquilla itself was not in fog – and also, covered in snow! I wait all year round for the white stuff at the ‘quilla. Looks like I’ll be going to Lugnaquilla today after all!
Better watch that hamstring and knee.

Pressing on, the fog came and went, but each time it went – I could see that Lug was completely clear.
The sun was coming.

Fire in the sky over Lugnaquilla.
This was a focus stack of 8 frames, quite a challenge – there was a bit of wind and the shutter speed was quite low (0.8 seconds per frame).
Another shot with a wider lens. Taken about ten minutes later, the colours are much softer here. You get much more sky with a wider lens, but also a lot more foreground.

Moving up now, and looking over to the west, the inversion is clear to see as Keadeen and the slopes of Ballineddan rise above the fog.

As of writing this blog (1st January, 2020) – I had hit my self set target in 2019 of visiting Lugnaquilla at least once each month. I have never been up Lug every month for a whole year before, and last year (2019) I actually went on average twice a month!

I wanted to press on here, because I was very excited to get to the snowline.

Looking down to Slievemaan with Mount Leinster in the far distance. Lots of fog in the lowlands!

The following shot is quite a ‘deep’ focus stack. I shot this using a 35mm lens but with very close foreground and because I wanted everything sharp from close foreground to infinity, 22 frames were required. I have a fast PC but focus stacking large TIF files is CPU (and RAM) intensive and it can take some time. If there are stacking errors, they need to be manually fixed using brush tools. This is literally a manual brushing exercise and it really can take a lot of time. By ‘stacking errors’ I mean, if grass shoots have moved between frames (due to wind) then you can get duplicates. So you have to paint in manually the sharpest ones. The below image took about an hour of retouching due to such errors.
The result is totally worth it. The full 36 megapixel image looks amazing full screen on my PC. This would print to massive dimensions flawlessly. It would be literally impossible to get such a sharp and detailed photograph with this particular composition with only one shot/focal point.

A long range shot now, of the Ow valley and river. Beautiful light at this time of year. Winter truly is my favourite season for photography. No focus stacking needed here, just a single frame. The joys of long lens distance shots!

Another long range shot, with the wind turbines on Ballycumber Hill rising above the fog (at right). The metallic look of the sky is very appealing. Heavy rain (snow in the higher ground) was forecast for the next day if I recall correctly.

Almost near the summit area now.
Another ambitious focus stack here. I didn’t think this would work out because of the extreme proximity of the boulder compared to the background. 15 frames worked a treat. Pretty cold here!

A very snowy summit. High altitude clouds totally obscuring the sky, and low altitude clouds obscuring the low lands. Cool!

A shot of the cliffs of the south prison, not far from the summit. What a day!

A shot of Lugcoolmeen.

A different angle of the cliffs.

Another optimistic focus stack here. Using a long lens I wanted to emphasise the cliffs but also I wanted the far background sharp. 10 frames was enough for perfect sharpness at 36 megapixels. This was not a problem with the light winds on Lug this day, but with even moderate winds – this sort of shot would be frustrating to capture.

A couple of single shot long range shots now.
Croaghanmoira says Hello!

A shot looking over to Mullaghcleevaun, Tonelagee and Turlough Hill. I was grateful for the lone hiker in the foreground!

Heading back now, but I will descend near the north prison. It’s much steeper than the way I ascended the mountain but it’s very scenic and usually there is a lot of snow on the north side of Lug.
Looking over to Lobawn and the Sugar Loaf of Imaal.

Above the clouds indeed on this day!
A view back to Camarahill, my descent route.

A view from the top of the north prison.

Another focus stack, down low to the ground this time. A lot of snow here.

A shot of the route back.

The cold north prison cliffs. The sunlight never hits them at this time of year.

Descending much further now, and below the snow line. I liked the colours of this scene, I think at the time I had been thinking that I had only seen a lot of white this day so far so the colours really popped out at me!

Almost at the descent of Camarahill section now. I took a look back at Lug. I’ve always thought it looked very impressive with a bit of snow.

Not long until sunset now, and I chose to descend Camarahill in the dark so I could capture this.

Two days ago I witnessed a spectacular sunrise from above the south prison of Lugnaquilla. Maybe in a few months I might get time to write a post about that! It was truly spectacular though, one in a million.

Thank you for reading!

If you like what you see here please feel free to browse my other blog posts where you can see lots more of my work, or follow me on Facebook here! I am also on Instagram now, as phillipjwells.

The images presented here are my intellectual property and must not be distributed without my consent.

Focus Stacking In The Forest

Something a little bit different today, and no mention of Lugnaquilla in sight ;).
I’m also going to only talk about one image this time, so something very new for readers of my blog!
This is going to be quite a technical post I am afraid guys, so if you are not terribly interested in the pursuit of absolute image quality then this might not be for you.

One of the age old problems in photography, especially with landscape photography is getting sufficient depth of field in a photograph. The traditional method is to stop down your lens. Most photographers understand that if you stop a lens down to f/11, you will get a larger depth of field, or zone of focus than if you shot the same image at say f/4.
So why don’t we just stop the lens down to f/22?
Well, because of diffraction – on my full frame Nikon D810 – diffraction is evident at f/11 but at f/16 its really quite noticeable and the sharpness loss and contrast reduction is easily perceptible, especially when viewing on a large monitor.
This is why I don’t tend to shoot at a smaller aperture than f/16 (most of the time).
Basically, diffraction is an optical effect which will limit the resolution of a photograph – why buy a high resolution camera and then limit it by stopping down too far?
Diffraction occurs when light begins to disperse or “diffract” when passing through a small opening (i.e. a lens set to a small aperture).

Life is all about compromise, and so is photography. If you have a near subject that you want sharp and a far subject that you also want sharp – the usual advice is to stop the lens down. However, high resolution photography magnifies the negative effects of diffraction.
So, a compromise must be made (unless using a tilt shift lens – but they have their own issues). You have a choice to make:

A) Stop down and accept some diffraction that will limit the resolution of your photograph. Sometimes though, especially with a very close foreground and distant background, no amount of stopping down will achieve critical sharpness throughout the frame.

B) Accept a blurred background but a sharp foreground (or vice versa) – sometimes this is desirable for artistic effect. Usually though, in landscape photographs we really do want ‘everything sharp’ and in focus. For some scenes, that is simply impossible – without focus stacking.

What is focus stacking? According to wikipedia:
“Focus stacking (also known as focal plane merging and z-stacking or focus blending) is a digital image processing technique which combines multiple images taken at different focus distances to give a resulting image with a greater depth of field (DOF) than any of the individual source images.”

Lenses I use for focus stacking include Zeiss Milvus 18mm f/2.8, Zeiss Milvus 34mm f/1.4 and the Zeiss Milvus 100mm f/2.

One of the many reasons I favour Zeiss glass is the power and control over exactly where the zone of focus can be placed. This, coupled with low aberrations (spherical, chromatic aberration and field curvature) means you have absolute control of where focus falls. There are no surprises.
The focus rings are extremely precise and have a long throw – most autofocus lenses have bad focus rings in my experience, with a short focus throw. It’s hard to describe but once you have used a Zeiss lens for landscape photography – there is simply no going back.
I’d like to add here, that all opinions posted on my blog (and my other content) are my own. Any conclusions I come to are after many hours testing various pieces of equipment. I am not affiliated with any camera/lens manufacturer and all of my gear is personally bought by myself (at my expense, great expense I might say!).

Zeiss Milvus 35mm f/1.4 at f/10, nikon D810 – 40 frame stack

At this low resolution (I don’t think WordPress allows high resolution uploads) there is no difference between the above image (a stack of 40 images, shot at f/10 each) to the one below:

Zeiss Milvus 35mm f/1.4 at f/10, nikon D810 – focus was placed on the large tree at left

So, to demonstrate this I will have to show some crops.
The following are 100% (pixel level) crops from my 36 megapixel Nikon D810.

CENTRE :: 40 frame stack

CENTRE :: single shot at f/10 – focus on the tree trunk

What might be already apparent from the above two crops is that whilst the tree trunk is sharp in both crops, taking a cursory glance to the right shows the power of focus stacking. Strong blur (insufficient depth of field) on the non stacked crop but the stacked crop is very sharp. Remember this was shot at f/10! I did a test shot at f/16 (the minimum aperture of the Zeiss Milvus) with the same focus placement and still the background was blurred.

Let’s look at another couple of crops.
This sequence is taken from the far right.

FAR RIGHT :: 40 frame stack

FAR RIGHT :: single shot at f/10 – focus on the tree trunk

As you can see, absolutely nothing is in focus in the single shot crop. The focus stacked crop shows a very high level of detail. I think the benefits of focus stacking largely speaks for itself in this particular scene but let’s see some more crops.

This sequence is taken from the far left.

FAR LEFT :: 40 frame stack

FAR LEFT :: single shot at f/10 – focus on the tree trunk

Again, a similar pattern occurs. The area where focus was placed is sharp in the single shot but the background is blurred. Compare with the focus stack crop above. It’s not really a competition if absolute sharpness is required all over the frame is it?

I want to show another crop here, this time taken from the bottom left – this was very close to the camera (a couple of feet at most).

BOTTOM LEFT :: 40 frame stack

BOTTOM LEFT :: single shot at f/10 – focus on the tree trunk

No way was this area going to be sharp in a single frame. No amount of stopping down would give sufficient depth of field for an area of the image this close (when focus was placed on the tree). This area is simply too close to the camera.
However, focus stacking as seen in the above crop proves its worth.

One final crop, this time of the bottom right of the image.

BOTTOM RIGHT :: 40 frame stack

BOTTOM RIGHT :: single shot at f/10 – focus on the tree trunk

This area is too far away from the focus point for f/10 to cover it in the single shot (f/16 didn’t either). The advantages of stacking are pretty obvious I think.

So, what are the disadvantages?

Like everything in photography, focus stacking comes with compromises. Some limitations of focus stacking that I have discovered are listed below:

• Wind and moving subjects pose a challenge for stacking. Any subject movement means extra time on the computer retouching ‘double images’ where the stacking software gets confused. For example, you may have two tree branches instead of one!
• Time and effort both in the field and at the computer. Stacking in the field requires time and patience. I usually focus on the nearest object in the image and the slowly rotate the focus ring as required to ensure that the furthest objects will also be in focus. In fairness, it only really takes about five minutes but if you do that for 10 shots that’s nearly an hour! I use Zerene stacker (Zerene Systems) to automate the focus stack frames on the PC but usually it needs ‘touching up’ to varying degrees. It’s great software but not free, I bought the ‘prosumer edition’ ($189 USD at time of writing) I believe. It’s really worth it. For the image in this post, I think I spent an hour over several evenings (at a leisurely pace, I was unfamiliar with the software) retouching. It’s really not that bad when you consider how striking the image is when viewed on a large screen at full size. It all depends on how much you care about image quality at the end of the day. If you really care about quality then it’s a ‘no brainer’ investment in both time and money. 40 frames are a lot, but this scene required it because I had very close elements in the foreground – most scenes probably only require a handful of frames. This was quite an extreme example.
• Storage – 40 images were used to stack the above. So that’s 40 images to obtain one! Of course, you can delete the ‘stack frames’ once you’ve finished building the stack to free up storage.
• Blur can be beautiful – ‘bokeh’ is very popular these days! Smartphone software engineers are working overtime around the world to emulate background blur in smartphone cameras (software blur) – they are getting good (they are not great to a keen eye) but optical blur is, and will be for some time – king. You don’t always want ‘everything sharp’, it really comes down to intent in the photograph and what it is you are capturing.

I am sure there are other limitations I have not yet discovered but if you are serious about landscape photography (or still life/macro photography) then focus stacking is a skill that you really need to add to your arsenal, especially as camera sensor size and resolution is ever increasing (and depth of field decreasing with it).

Thank you for reading!

If you like what you see here please feel free to take a look at my portfolio site where you can see lots more of my work, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook here! I am also on Instagram now, as phillipjwells.

The images presented here are my intellectual property and must not be distributed without my consent.

A Wicklow Winter Wonderland At Lugnaquilla

Short, sharp and sweet was the clearance of fog at Lugnaquilla last weekend (2nd Feb, 2019).
Leaving my home at 4 am, I was a bit concerned about the roads due to most of Wicklow’s high roads being impassable because of lying snow and ice.
Not a problem, if you start your hike quite low!
The roads were fine (I was mostly using national roads) until I arrived at Knockanarrigan, where it was a bit icy with some snow on the road banks.
I parked up at around 05:00 I think, and I got home around 20:30, from memory.
Long day!
The forecast was for clear skies all day except around lunch time, when some low cloud was forecast, so probably a whiteout at Lug. Ironically, this was the only part of the day (after the sun rose) where Lugnaquilla was actually clear! Well, a weather forecast is just that – a forecast – NOT a statement of weather!

Such a perfectly clear morning, a bit of wind but not horrendous down here in the glen.
Already some lying snow here, at the 200 metre above sea level mark. Lugnaquilla is 925m asl.

I took a couple of night sky shots, because it was so clear. Looking over to Keadeen with some obvious light pollution behind, presumably from Baltinglass.

I  managed to catch a couple of meteors in the below shot as well (near top right).
Looking upto Lugnaquilla just before dawn.

Ascending Camarahill now, and the snow on the ground is getting heavier, and in places has collected into deep drifts. Taken during ‘blue hour’ – the hour before sunrise, you can see where the name came from!

No joke getting up here this morning, tough work. Some of the drifting here is knee level, or higher. The fresh north-westerly winds of the previous day have left their mark in the patterns of the snow here. They were not light at this moment either!

Sunrise was soon, so at this point I pressed on up Camarahill a bit. It was tough going, the snow was deep and I was carrying heavy photography equipment (as always). I paused for quite a while for a breather (and some calories) at the top of Camarahill, where I was greeted by a (mostly) clear view up to Lugnaquilla.

Here I was overtaken by two hikers who found the tracks I left in the snow a great help on their ascent! You’re welcome chaps!
It was their turn to pioneer snow tracks now :).

Just after this, I met a follower of my blog who figured out I was who I am! Hi Jan, if you are reading this. Nice to meet you!

Oh no!
The fog moved in, just as I was ascending Lower Corrig. It looked temporary, so I took a shot and pressed on. The sun pretty much up now, the snow on the ground getting deeper still.

The fog is getting thicker, and lower – Ballineddan is ensconced now (at left) and it looks as though Keadeen is about to become smothered too. Whiteout soon, I suspect.

Just as I thought the whiteout was imminent, it cleared in an instant!

Here is a shot I took just after Upper Corrig (I took none there, because it was intermittently foggy). Pretty arctic looking up to Lug from this spot.

I knew the fog could return at any moment though. It always does at Lugnaquilla!
And yep, it did! Just as I was ascending the final slope of Lug, it came in thick.
I decided to press on. Fortune favours the brave, I was thinking. It also favours the prepared. I had a map and a compass – and I know how to use them.
Whiteouts are extremely difficult to navigate in, impossible without navigational tools.

Here is the summit, I found it without difficulty in the whiteout ( a well rehearsed routine!).

Suffice it to say, it was quite a challenge to read the army information sign this day.
However, that was not my greatest challenge that day though!
You can just about make out the summit cairn in the background too, right of centre.

The snow here is less deep than on the way up, presumably the strong north westerly winds would have blown a lot of it off into the south prison (which is really south east facing). Still, it was pretty deep in parts where it had drifted.
Not much to see right now, but it’s probably about -14°C including wind chill at this point. I was not cold though, I had my winter gear on. Even still, I could not hang around here for many hours (as I do in summer!). It was about 10:45 when I got here. Operating camera gear with heavy winter gloves on is difficult, my hands and fingers are quite large, clumsy and inflexible. This was when I felt the cold, to remove the gloves to operate the camera settings. This is one of the reasons that touch screens don’t impress me!
I have a strategy for this though, I always pack a hand warmer in each glove, so that after putting the glove back on my hand heats back up fast.

Well, the fog showed some signs of clearing, so I headed over to a spot I love just above the south prison. Still in mostly whiteout conditions at this point.
Still very foggy.

I sat (I was wearing ski trousers) and ate my lunch now. I was hoping the fog would clear. The mountain tends to reward patience, in my experience.

Less than an hour later, it started to clear.

A winter Wicklow wonderland is revealed!

Looking south east to the pyramidal Croaghanmoira Mountain.

And then further, to Croghan Kinsella, beyond the Ow river and valley.

A shot down over to Cloghernagh and Corrigasleggaun. To those who are not familiar with this view, that is a LOT of snow down there.

Skirting around an interesting cornice at the south prison.

Pretty arctic up here, and I have a strong (and cold) wind to my back. You wouldn’t want to be up here without appropriate clothing.

I was having a great time with some of these compositions. The landscape up here is remarkable right now, almost lunar.

My footprints above the south prison.

A (super) detailed shot of the tumbling cliffs of the south prison, taken with my 35mm Zeiss lens. The level of detail in this shot is pretty astonishing when viewed on a large monitor at high resolution.

So many interesting snow formations up here, I knew I didn’t have much time. I know how fast the fog rolls in up here. And I knew more would return.

Another composition.

Aw shucks. Just as I had anticipated, the fog came back in. Thick, rapidly and heavy this time.
I headed back to the summit now, figuring that the fog would be here to stay now. I was correct in this assumption, Lugnaquilla remained in fog for the rest of the day. I still had to get down though.

Although I was not worried, it pays to respect the mountain. And whilst I have descended Lug in whiteouts a few times before, always respect the mountain. Navigation skills are a must here.

Another world…

Descending the final slope of Lug now, and out of the fog (almost) and I bump into someone I have not seen for five years or so! Fellow landscape photographer and mountain skills guide, Adrian Hendroff.
Hello Adrian!

Photographer in action:

Another one.

I continued the descent with Adrian for some time but I wanted to shoot some long range shots and some snow drifts in the Corrigs whilst he opted to continue down to Camarahill. I would catch up with him later to shoot the sunset over the Glen Of Imaal.

Looking down to the artillery range with Lobawn rising above.

Such a clear day at this point. Perfect atmospheric clarity, cold winter days are best for that. Taken using my manual focus Zeiss Milvus 100mm – the resolution is truly outstanding at 100% on my large monitor here.

Looking over to a snowy Keadeen:

Some of the drifts at Lower Corrig.

The light started to get really interesting now, as the sun was dipping lower in the sky.

It enhanced the contrast on the drifts here.

The snow here started to take on a slight pinkish hue.

A challenging shot to achieve, but the high dynamic range of my Nikon D810 helped me out a lot here. I had to push the shadows 2 and a third stops in lightroom here so that I could save the highlights of the sun at capture time. The latitude for pushing shadows on the D810 is wonderful and when you couple that with quality glass (such as the Ziess 35mm f/1.4 used here) you can capture shots that would be very challenging with other cameras (in a single exposure). The Nikon does this, with minimal/non existent noise or colour banding.

A glance back at Lug, before I look down to the Glen Of Imaal. Yep, still in fog.

Beautiful colours in the sky above Mount Leinster in this long range shot.

The shoulder of Keadeen and a snowy Glen Of Imaal.

Looking over to Knocknamunnion. I captured the belt of Venus at the start of the day and at the end of the day this day!

One last glance over to Lug.

Now, for the descent of Camarahill. I always find this tough going after a long day at Lug. But at least I had some company this time! See you on the hills again sometime Adrian!
Adrian pointed out that I was the first on the hill this morning, and the last off it! Not unusual to be honest.

A beautiful day, but not without challenges :).

Fifteen and a half hours out on the hills (including driving) – time well spent if you ask me! It took about that much time to compose this blog post too!

Thank you for reading!

If you like what you see here please feel free to take a look at my portfolio site where you can see lots more of my work, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook here!

The images presented here are my intellectual property and must not be distributed without my consent.

 

The First Dusting Of Snow At Lugnaquilla

The first snow to fall at Lugnaquilla occurred last weekend – some of it whilst I was on my way up.
Howling winds and horizontal snow, with wind chill of -5°C in the morning – that’ll wake you up alright.
I have to say, I’ve been to Lugnaquilla many times but this day was the toughest that I recall. It was not purely because of the weather, I’ve been up in much worse – it was just a long day. I spent 12 hours out walking the area, carrying heavy camera equipment the whole time.
The Moon was slightly more than three quarters full, and on a clear, frosty morning illuminated the way enough that I barely needed my head torch – only in the forest was it dark enough to warrant its use.

The sun not up yet, but it’s not far off. I can see that there is snow lying on the lug already and it appears that it’s getting a fresh batch of it.

As I approached the north prison, the sun had risen and the winds were strong.
Northerly winds are cold too!
This was a very challenging shot, the wind was so strong that standing was a problem let alone trying to shoot a dimly lit landscape with a high resolution camera.
Camera movement ruins sharpness when using longer exposures – this was 1/30th of a second shutter speed – which sounds fast but really is not. Viewing the scene in live view, I could see how much vibration was being caused by the wind. My advice when shooting these scenes is either use a higher ISO (I don’t prefer this) or wait patiently for a drop in the wind and use a cable release (my preferred option). Obviously, sometimes you cannot wait – for example if it’s -5°C and howling winds you might not really want to stand around! Still, I managed to get a sharp shot at ISO 64 here, using a bit of patience and some grit!

Woohoo!
Some snow!
I wait all year for this!

The summit, with a light dusting. This would not last long – the October sun would later prove to be too strong, despite the freezing temperature up here at present.

The fog came in rapidly, and then blew past as suddenly as it appeared.
The sky was partly cloudy all day, with fast moving clouds, some low (hence the fog) and some higher – but all fast moving (due to high winds).

It’s already apparent in the image above that the snow was not going to last long, the sun had been up for a couple of hours at this point and the temperature is just above freezing (though it did not feel like it with the wind chill!).

There is a rocky outcrop slightly north west of the south prison that I like to sit at for a snack sometimes, so I headed over that direction – I was pretty hungry. Starbar time. Yum!
Yeah, the fog came and went, this is really not unusual for Lugnaquilla. Climbing the mountain without basic navigational skills is really not something I would advise.

On the subject of navigation, an important point here is to not store your compass near a mobile phone. If you don’t know why, put simply – magnets will depolarise a compass and thus cause it to become inaccurate (usually, completely wrong) – smartphones contain magnets.

A long range shot now, looking down to Aughavannagh with some nice sun rays.

It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post about Lugnaquilla actually, but that’s not to say I have not been lately – I’ve actually been once or twice each month this year so far. This would be my second visit this month.

At this point, I decided that I would hop over the other side of the mountain, to look down the north prison to the Glen Of Imaal. It adds a few kilometres to the trip but I thought it would be worth it.

I was glad that I did!
At this time of year, the sun never hits the cliffs on this side of the mountain, as is shown in the photographs above and below. The northerly winds were biting here.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am quite the fan of rock formations, and it wouldn’t be a real visit to Lugnaquilla if I didn’t shoot at least one!

Another take.

Beautiful autumnal light on this visit, although it was a challenge keeping the camera steady in the wind. Autumn and winter is where the good light really happens, everything else (other seasons) is just practice to my mind.

Where does the time go!?
Sunset was only a few hours away at this point and I had a lot of ground to cover to get back to the car. I started my walk at 06:00 and ended it at 17:48 – 22.94 km later! Taking lots of photographs to a high technical standard takes a lot of time, so it’s not that it took me 12 hours to walk 23 km – photography eats up a lot of that time.

So I started the homeward journey, along the cliffs of the north prison.

Another angle overlooking the great cliffs of the north prison a bit further down the mountain.

I’ve always liked the view over to to the west from here with Keadeen sitting in the distance.

Looking down to the Glen Of Imaal. Long way back to the car!

A wider shot, showing the distance I have yet to travel. The ridge leading to the middle of the image (from the left) is the Camarahill/Corrig ridge that is my return journey. Some nice light!

Gonna feel this walk in my legs for a few days I think.
Off Lugnaquilla now, and it’s like a switch was flicked – no wind at all!

I once encountered an unwanted visitor here at this small pond – a deer tick had attached itself to me. Lovely!
Makes sense really, it was late summer and presumably this is a drinking hole for deer so that’s where I would hang out if I was a tick! The DEET spray did not protect me much here, it would appear! No harm though, I have a tool for removing them with ease.

A nice skyscape.

The sun low in the sky now, about an hour and a quarter until sunset. My journey back follows from left to right in this image, with Camarahill the brownish bump at right with the wall slightly off centre.

As darkness comes nearer, I reach the top of Camarahill – the last descent of the day beckons. Taking one last glance over to Lugnaquilla – I was seeing a face in the shadow cast by the north prison of Lugnaquilla. It’s the BFG!

The last shot of the day, sunset on the way down from Camarahill.

A long day!

Thank you for reading!

If you like what you see here please feel free to take a look at my portfolio site where you can see lots more of my work, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook here!

The images presented here are my intellectual property and must not be distributed without my consent.

An Autumnal Evening At Tibradden

To dispel any myth that I only hike at Lugnaquilla, I decided that I would do a post about a short (but pleasant) walk to Tibradden Mountain in County Dublin.

Now that summer is over, we are coming into much more interesting times, photographically speaking. As readers of my blog will know, winter is my favourite season of all but autumn is certainly second!

Tibradden summit lies just above the Zipit forest adventure zipline area, it’s not a long walk, but a pleasant one.
Starting off just before the Zipit area, I took a steep shortcut I know that can offer some nice views over to the trees at Cruagh wood.

An excellent time of year to be in the forest.

The forest stretch at the start of the walk is pretty short – it’s not long until you hit open hillside, where you simply follow a rocky path (with occasional railway sleepers) to the top. Navigational skills are not required on this walk.

Above the trees now, a pleasant view over to Montpelier Hill, and the Hellfire Club (an old hunting lodge, with many supernatural tales surrounding it) emerges. A curious place, unfortunately a little spoilt by mindless graffiti.

At the summit now (it is a short walk!) – and nearby here lies a prehistoric burial cairn.
Though not terribly windy here, the clouds in the sky are indicative of fast winds in the higher atmosphere.

I opted to walk a bit further on from the summit – continuing even further would lead to Fairy Castle/Two Rock mountain but I had not intended to walk there this day.
The light and colours at this time of year can be amazing.

Clouds thickening here at one of the tors of Tibradden. Wind increasing too.
The clouds in the sky are taking all sorts of forms, lenticular/flying saucer shaped.
If you find yourself in the shadow of a lenticular cloud, then in the shade you shall stay if you do not move on. These clouds don’t tend to move much – they are continually reformed over the same location by new air rising up and over a mountain, condensing and producing the clouds.

Looking over to Cruagh, the sky is most curious.

I  decided to wait here for a while, near the tor – I am a huge fan of rock formations and I was waiting for the sky to show me some interesting patterns.

But, being close to Dublin – this is a popular walk so my patience was thwarted when a group of scouts came to look at the tor – more a fan of nature than humans, I opted to move on.

There is a nice view over to Howth and the sea from near the summit area, with large ferries and cargo ships toing and froing.

Heading back to the tor now, hoping that it was free of people – indeed it was, but the sky was becoming totally overcast. Looked great though.

This was a small taste of the display the sky would create a small bit later.
Back at the cairn now, and the light show really began:

Further down from the summit, this spectacle presented itself.

I have seen a lot of things when out hiking, sometimes nature puts on an amazing show like the above. I’d like to add, the images I present here on my blog are not ‘cooked’ up in photoshop – in the digital darkroom I prefer to do minimal work on my photographs to achieve a look and feel that was the same as what I observed, sometimes I might lighten shadows, darken highlights but really not much more than that. Analogue photographers would have been able to do the same with dodging and burning.
Of course, the high dynamic range of my Nikon D810 helps a LOT.

 

Thank you for reading!

If you like what you see here please feel free to take a look at my portfolio site where you can see lots more of my work, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook here!

The images presented here are my intellectual property and must not be distributed without my consent.

A Trio Of Visits To Lugnaquilla

Spring was late this year. It is almost as if it didn’t happen.
We had snowstorms in Dublin up until 18th March – this is very unusual for Ireland.
Not that I was complaining, I love the white stuff!

We did not have many bright days though (until recently), there have only been two days (on the weekends, so not including weekdays) where I had been out walking and the sun was out for more than an hour. Two… in four months!
And this day, the first visit to Lug this year for me, on the 21st April – was one of them. And it was one of the most beautiful days I have ever had at my favourite place in Wicklow.

Usual drill, 03:00 hours start, camera packed, batteries charged, lunch prepared, starbar packed (important, this part) and of course thermals on. I suspected it was to be cold early in the morning, and I was right. Very cold in fact, because there was no cloud cover for insulation.

I have neglected my blog a bit recently, not deliberately – I’ve just found it tricky to find the time. It does take several hours to go through my photographs of a day out and then several hours to put it all together in a post. I’ve had a few issues this last few months – car trouble, camera trouble, among various other things that do not need to be shared here. A very busy year so far. Well, here is a long post to make up for that!

Anyway, back to the first walk….
Usual starting point for me, Fenton’s Pub down in the Glen Of Imaal – I choose this route for a couple of reasons but most importantly because my car has always been safe at the journey start. Car break ins in Wicklow are a real problem, and on the rise I am afraid. With the ever increasing popularity of hill walking, I fear it will only increase further. I have been the victim of break ins a few times and I do not wish for it to happen to me again.

This would be my first ascent of Lugnaquilla this year, though I have spent a lot of time in the South Prison and surrounding area – I had not visited the summit so far this year.

A predawn shot, showing the ‘Belt Of Venus’ glow over the Glen Of Imaal from Camara Hill. A nice warm glow on a cold morning.

I had not realised it at the time, but I did not take any photographs since the above one until I paused for breath part way up the final slope to Lugnaquilla itself. I was on a mission!
Looking back over the shoulder of Ballineddan and the Glen Of Imaal. Nice, warm light – but I was cold! The sun rises beyond Lugnaquilla from the direction in which I approached it, so it would be a while before the sunlight struck the slope I was on.

Looking south now, over the shoulder of Slievemaan. Some very vibrant colours on display. Brilliant atmospheric clarity too, at this time. Early mornings often are the best for this sort of atmospheric visibility, also known as ‘seeing’ or ‘astronomical seeing’. When you shoot a high resolution camera with Zeiss lenses – the limiting factors in your photographs are the photographer, and the weather. Only one of these elements I can control!

The final stages of the approach, and here is my old friend – the ‘dice’ of Lugnaquilla. I rolled a 6 weather wise this day!

It is often desirable to get everything sharp when shooting landscape photographs. But not always.
I think blur can be very beautiful and subject isolation is a strength of fast lenses. I took several versions of the above, some at wide apertures, others stopped down. I preferred the wide open shot at f/1.4 above ultimately.

The summit cairn at just after 08:00 in the morning. I was the first up here on this day, I believe. It’d be a lot busier here later in the day! And yes, that horizon is straight – I use a digital spirit level and my tripod analogue spirit level to level all of my photographs – I do not level my camera ‘by eye’ because that is not an accurate method when shooting in the mountains. Using a more accurate digital spirit level shows the lay of the land much more truthfully.
Blue skies!

Moving over to the South Prison area now, the heat of the sun has started to affect me now. I was cursing my thermals!

A similar shot, this time using my Zeiss Milvus 35mm f/1.4 lens. I had to climb down a bit, on some steep ground, to get the composition I wanted here.

A few words about the Zeiss 35mm lens. It’s a lens I have not owned for long and I am still in the process of making my mind up about it. It has some distinct advantages over any other 35mm lens I have used before but it also has some caveats. Like anything I suppose! It’s heavy (over 1kg) and expensive (about £1700). It is also manual focus only – not an issue for me as I manual focus every single landscape photograph I take but some might not like that.
However, it has almost zero chromatic aberration which is a major, I repeat MAJOR advantage over any other 35mm lens I have ever used. The Sigma 35mm f/1.4 has very large amounts of lateral chromatic aberration in the edges. This is contrary to the reviews of many ‘experts’ online who only shoot test charts when reviewing new lenses.
I do encourage those who are looking for absolute image quality to research thoroughly before buying new lenses and try to seek out (multiple) honest opinions rather than just reading a lens review based purely on shooting test charts.
I prefer to shoot lenses in the real world and discover their characteristics in a method that is applicable to my own style of shooting. I don’t spend my free time photographing flat charts on walls, so why would I test a new lens that way? I am fairly certain that I am not in the minority here…
Photographing test charts in a studio can only reveal so much about a lens and while it can be worthwhile in some cases, I think it sort of misses the point a bit.
Also, quite often these ‘expert reviews’ do not state on which camera body (and thus how many megapixels) they are testing the lens with. A good performance from a lens on a 20 megapixel camera might be a totally different story when shot on a 36 megapixel (or higher) camera.
A high contrast scene such as the above would totally reveal the chromatic aberration limitations of the Sigma 35mm. This can be removed in Photoshop of course, but at the loss of sharpness, acuity and contrast – and that loss can be significant. The Zeiss has no CA that is perceptible to my very critical eye.
Don’t get me wrong, the Sigma is a good lens – but there is a vast league between the performance of it and the Zeiss Milvus in the edges of the frame. Why shoot a high resolution camera if only the middle pixels are worth keeping?
Well, as always – my honest opinions are my own and based purely on my own findings.
And of course, I am just an amateur photographer in my spare time so I am not sponsored or endorsed by any companies – thus, you can trust my opinion! I own both lenses.
I come from a software engineering background – so I am a very technical photographer and maximising image quality is important to me.

Back to the walk!
There were a few areas I wanted to visit this day on the mountain, and I ended up walking 21.49 kms according to my step counter.
the views of the South Prison are covered in the two images above, but my main area of focus for this walk was an area above a location marked as the ‘Green Corner’ on my map. Reading the contours on the map suggested that this was an area of very steep ground, on the north east face of Lugnaquilla. I suspected the views from here over to Fraughan Rock Glen and Benleagh would be quite dramatic.

And again, trust me – the horizon is straight. At left of the image, in the distance – are the higher mountains in Wicklow, and the hills gradually wane in height as we look more eastwards (to the right in the photo) towards the sea.
A large number of the hills of Wicklow are on display here! The rocky area directly beneath my feet (foreground) is an area of steep, shelving ground. A great place to explore I imagine. Just beyond that is an area known as Lugueer. I don’t actually know how this translates to English but I suggest the ‘Lug’ prefix means ‘hollow’. Perhaps someone can let me know in the comments section!
The steep rock face at left is that of Benleagh, with Bendoo opposite, casting strong shadows. I will leave it to readers of this post to identify other areas/hills here! To regular walkers, it should be easy enough!

One of the reasons I get up so early for my visits to the mountain is that in spring/summer there are often warm, bright days with lovely sunshine but shooting around midday is really not the best for landscape photographs. Early morning and late evening is better.
When the sun is directly overhead, the light is harsh and the angle of shadows can be problematic. When you add heat shimmer/atmospheric lensing into the mix – shooting satisfactory images can be difficult. I took this one at 09:46. Already there was some atmospheric lensing at play here but it’s barely perceptible in the photograph. This is caused by temperature differential. I must get here earlier next time!

Another, detail shot of the cliffs of Benleagh. I used my 85mm f/1.8g Nikon for this shot. A lovely lens, and light! Lens weight is a big deal when you hike 20+ kilometres!

I don’t tend to process my photographs much really but sometimes a tool is required for a certain situation.
So I added a small amount of saturation to this photograph, and used a small of amount of a ‘de-haze’ method I employ. The sunshine was a little hazy but I wanted to get as much detail as I could.

A wide angle lens of the same scene now, taken with my 20mm f/1.8g Nikon. Lovely blue skies. Amazing view here, much of the Wicklow uplands on display, including Tonelagee and Mullaghcleevaun.
That white patch at the right is a small patch of snow. It was due to be 20°C + in Dublin this day, so I don’t suspect it will last long (though it would be about 14°C here).

A fine lens indeed, and light! I appreciate Nikon’s strategy of light, plastic lenses.
Heavy metal lenses might seem more durable, but drop a plastic lens – it bounces. Drop a metal one, something has to give. And as mentioned before, weight is a consideration when hiking.
F/11 – f/13 sees to be the optimal apertures for the 20mm lens, when there are close foreground subjects and detail in the distance. Choice of focus area is far more important though, and this is a point often overlooked by many photographers I speak to. Focus stacking is an option of course, but in Ireland the wind would be an enemy here and to be honest – I am not the gentlest touch when it comes to moving focus rings! For focus stacking, you need zero movement in the camera.

My new favourite trio of lenses for walks is the 20mm f/1.8g Nikon, 35mm f/1.4 Zeiss Milvus and the unrivalled (my favourite lens) 100mm f/2 Zeiss Milvus. But, the Zeiss lenses are not light.

After a snack (a banana), I opted to head out to the next location before midday struck. This location was about 500 meters to the west of my position here, at the rim of the North Prison.

A portrait of the cliffs of the North Prison, with Keadeen looming beyond.

An unobstructed view now, looking down from the heights of the North Prison to Lugatroch and onward to Glen Imaal. Still some large snow patches here. 

The mountain is truly more than a summit indeed.
A lot of work done this day, From here I then climbed back to the summit and decided to have lunch at the rim of the South Prison.

A view that I have shared here on my blog before, but a favourite of mine – looking over to Lugcoolmeen from the South Prison of Lugnaquilla.

A wider shot of Lugcoolmeen, with the foreground falling away below. I do like to shoot a scene with different focal lengths (and thus different fields of view), I find that it’s nice to have options later and also it can provide a lot of context about a place.

And now, a narrower field of view using a portrait lens. You might be able to make out the small figures of people near the middle of the image! I wish I could upload higher resolution images but WordPress does not allow this unless you pay.

Crikey, this is going to be a long post. Sixteen photographs in and I am still talking about the first of three walks!

Still above the South Prison here, this is one of my favourite lunch spots. Looking down to Aughavannagh now – a hazy view but pleasant nonetheless. Croghan Kinsella sits at the rear at distance with what appears to be the smoke from a (presumably) gorse fire at right of the image. Also visible here, at bottom right – is the forest track I took when I took A Stroll To The South Prison Of Lugnaquilla.

Time to start heading back to the car now, I had done a lot of work already this day and there was more yet to do!
I headed back to the summit then took a track above the North Prison heading south west to start the descent of Lugnaquilla.
I tend to prefer to descend slightly nearer the cliffs than most people do. It’s not easier, but the view is superb down to the Glen Of Imaal. It is quieter!
I’d like to mention here, all of the areas I have visited at Lugnaquilla I have done so ONLY after talking to the warden in the Glen Imaal Army Headquarters (near Fenton’s Pub). I have had many conversations with various Army Sergeants in here, so I am well aware of where I can and can’t go.
Please do not stray off of the approved routes when walking at or near Lugnaquilla/the artillery range.

Looking over to Keadeen and Ballineddan.

Back at Lower Corrig now, and a quick glimpse back at Lugnaquilla.

A wider view, showing more of the route and the great hollow that is the North Prison.

The last stretch now, after the descent of Camara Hill. This is always torture. At this point in the walk – I am always exhausted and this rocky/potholed army road is killer!

Until next time, Lug…
Little did I know, that in the next few weeks I would get two more visits to this place!

The 6th of May was my second visit this year, and the day before my 34th birthday. I am getting way too old for this.
Another early start indeed! And another glorious day. Very hot though. Tough work this day.
05:12 am, and this was my view partway up the army road, at Camara Crossroad. A calm, humid and foggy morning, no wind at all.

A foggy morning indeed, at least here, in the valley.

Gaining height now, as the sun also begins to rise. As I ascend Camara Hill, it becomes apparent that the fog is hanging in the valleys/lowlands and that the hills are clear. I had suspected this might be the case because I have seen similar conditions before. Cool!

The Belt Of Venus above a fog enshrouded Glen Of Imaal and Ballyhook hill emerging above the fog.

A similar shot, with the shoulder of Spinan’s Hill at left. What a morning!

For this walk, I thought it might be a good idea to take the triple threat lenses of my Nikon 20mm, Zeiss 35mm and Zeiss 100mm. These are my favourite lenses and the above five photographs were taken with the 100mm. A flexible lens indeed, and my all time favourite.

A familiar tree to myself. This is where the real work begins – on open hillside now and the 20 minutes of purgatory that is the ascent of Camara Hill awaits.

Well, it took a LOT longer than twenty minutes to get up here on this morning. I was constantly pausing for photographs. It should be understood, that as a precise landscape photographer – the phrase ‘pausing for photographs’ for me means removing my heavy back pack, unstrapping my heavy tripod, setting up the tripod and possibly even taking out my metal lens case to switch a lens and then carefully composing my shot, dialling in my settings and taking an image. It is not a simple process of ‘point and shoot’. If life was that simple!
The Sugarloaf Of Imaal rising above the sea of fog. At right just beyond the tree is the command and control tower for the artillery range peaking above the fog.

At the summit of Camara Hill now, a quick shot down to Mount Leinster was worthwhile I thought.

And here it is, basking in the morning light – the target for the day. Lugnaquilla.

The fog did not last long, the May sun too potent. It started to break up at 07:45. A view back to the summit of Camara hill.

Ascending Lugnaquilla now, and the view south shows some fog still in the lowlands, and the Moon in the sky (near top right).
This photograph is interesting because it shows the nature of the final slope up to Lugnaquilla – a rock strewn affair. 

I did not pause much for photographs until I reached the point of interest – I had wanted to return to the location above the ‘Green Corner’. I was happy with the image I previously took here but I wanted to see it in earlier morning light. The atmosphere was much clearer. I was right to press on.

My plan for this day was much the same as my previous visit two weeks prior. From here, I headed to the North Prison and then on to the South Prison.

The North Prison, on another beautiful day!

The same, with my 35mm Zeiss. I particularly like the patterns of the water flows.

At the South Prison now, and my usual lunch spot facilitates. Miraculously, there is still a small patch of snow! Very hot at this moment in time.

A similar shot with the Zeiss 35mm.

The tumbling cliffs of the South Prison.

Walkers at Lugcoolmeen, with the peaks of East Wicklow beyond.

Whew. What a day. Super hot too. It was around this time (about 11:00) that I was wondering why I had left my sun cream in the car. I know why. It’s because I am an idiot.
Luckily for me, I don’t burn too much – being of slightly dark complexion – but leaving the sun cream in the car was not cool.
Heading back now, usual descent route besides the North Prison and I paused for this almost aerial shot of Lugatroch.

Inside the North Prison. I did a bit of scrambling to get this shot.
I always forget ‘arm day’!
Whew, getting really hot now in the midday sun. No shelter at all from it’s intense rays.

I enjoy rock formations, and rocks/boulders in general actually. I am not sure why. But I think it’s a metaphorical reason. I dislike change, certainly changes that are impactful that appear suddenly. I suppose that to me, rocks symbolize at least the implication of permanence – of course, nothing is permanent, including rocks. But within a persons short lifetime, rocks do not visibly change.

More granite.

A bit more granite.

Some more granite to chew on.

Almost off the steep slopes of Lugnaquilla now, and a shot towards the Glen Of Imaal.

What? How is it now 15:00? I was having so much fun scrambling around the North Prison that I completely lost track of it!

Back at Camara Hill now, I always take one last glance back at Lugnaquilla.

22.40 kms later! Time to stop off in the Glen Imaal store and buy myself a pre birthday treat of a giant cornetto! I believed that I had earned it!

P.S. I like trees too.

May 19th was the date of my third visit.
A very early start. 01:30, to be precise. Yep, I am mad.
A beautiful clear night, and light winds. This would change as the day progressed – gales were forecast past noon. I always forget (living in the city) how clear the milky way can be seen out in the countryside away from light pollution. Even in this shot, light pollution is evident.
The planet Jupiter and (I can make out four) some of it’s moons above Keadeen mountain.

05:00 , twenty minutes before sunrise just below the final push up to Lugnaquilla. Yep, a nice rock formation!

First light over Keadeen.
Streaky clouds in the sky like this can be indicative of high winds in the upper atmosphere.

The first rays of sunlight strike the North Prison cliffs not long after sunrise.

Already starting to get windy now, glad I brought my windproof jacket (not optional in Wicklow!). The forecast for the day was warm, with clear skies in the morning but increasing cloud and wind by noon. I had intended to be off the mountain by that time anyway – due to my 01:30 am start!
Climbing up beside the North Prison, I had no real targets in mind this day. I just wanted to visit Lugnaquilla. I reached the summit just after 06:00, 41 minutes after sunrise. Somewhat surprisingly, I was the only one here! <joke>.

I decided to potter about near Lugcoolmeen, to over look the great cliffs of the South Prison.

It was here, that I decided it might be a good idea to check out the great gully, labelled ‘The Big Troch’ on my map. Some scrambling awaited!

Winds picking up already, and it’s only 08:00. The beginnings of what appear to be lenticular clouds forming above Lugcoolmeen.

The direction finder on the summit of Lugnaquilla.

To find the gully from here, the summit – is not that hard actually, though most visitors to the mountain never see it. Head south, gently descending until you meet a large granite outcrop. From here, strike out south east and the ground starts to descend steeply. The gully will be clear in front of you. This is a dangerous area, the ground is exceedingly steep and falls away abruptly. Care required and bring a map, always.

A wider view of the gully, showing some nice context.

I wanted to do some detail shots of the gully, using my Zeiss 100mm, but this meant doing a small bit of scrambling so I took this shot as a precautionary warning.
It’s called “Don’t Slip!”.

Lovely rocks.

I loved this formation.

Getting very hazy now, and super windy. It felt strange, contemplating the walk back to the car at only 10:00. but it must be remembered, I started the walk before 03:00 am!

Heading back to my descent route beside the North Prison now, yep – this means climbing back up Lug to head down the other side. Easier than the alternative, which would be to contour around the southern slope itself. This is covered with small mica-schist rocks and progress can be slow and awkward (I found this out the hard way, of course).
Very hazy now, long range photographs are not going to work at all now – as the below shot of Glen Imaal demonstrates.

A final glance over to Lugnaquilla (as usual) from the top of Camara Hill, taken at 12:20 noon. It did feel strange to be leaving so early but at this stage I had spent 9 hours out here and still had an hour or so to go!

This shot is interesting because it shows a large part of the journey between Camara Hill (behind me, not in photo) and Lower Corrig, Upper Corrig and Lugnaquilla itself – along with the rough track that expires at the top of Lugnaquilla (when you are likely to need it most in fog!).

Another hot day, another 22.32 kms!

So, see you in two weeks, Lugnaquilla?

Thank you for reading!

If you like what you see here please feel free to take a look at my portfolio site where you can see lots more of my work, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook here!

The images presented here are my intellectual property and must not be distributed without my consent.

A Stroll To The South Prison Of Lugnaquilla

I have been walking in Wicklow for years, and I know many routes. Some secret, some not so secret. They are all fun though!
The walk I chose this day, I chose for a few reasons – the first reason being that I had not done this walk for years (the last time was 15th March, 2015) and the second reason was that I wanted shelter from the strong (65 km/h +) and cold north-westerly winds that were forecast for this day.
I also wanted to test out a 20mm lens that is ‘new-ish’ to me. I have had the Sigma 20mm f/1.4 for about a year now, and whilst I have been very impressed by the sharpness in the middle 75% or so of the image frame – I have never found the peripheries/edges of the image satisfactory on a 36 megapixel camera – for landscape photographs at least. And, yes – I tried multiple samples (three) and they all exhibited the same behaviour – troublesome forward arcing field curvature at the edges being the main culprit, and sharpness robbing lateral chromatic aberration. This makes planar subjects (and landscapes in general) quite troublesome to shoot when in the field.
The Nikon 20mm f/1.8g that I am currently using does not have this issue. The edges sharpen up nicely (and predictably) as you stop it down and it weighs about a third of the Sigma. When you are hiking 25+ kilometres this is a BIG deal. Yeah, I lost 2/3rd’s of a stop of light – but I rarely shoot landscapes at f/1.4 (but not never)!  It is, like the Sigma, also very sharp – perhaps a little less sharp in the centre of the image but more consistently sharp across the frame – this consistency is far more important to the type of photography that I do.

Weather forecast for the day was sunny skies and no fog on Lugnaquilla (this turned out to be false!). Strong north-westerly winds though. Trying to achieve sharp photographs at ISO 64 (the base ISO on the D810) on a high resolution camera with strong winds can sometimes be simply an exercise in frustration. And for me, walking and photography is a relaxing, leisurely pursuit.

Onto the walk!
The walk itself, at first glance, might seem quite unappealing and uninteresting. Starting from Aughavannagh, you walk for around 6 kilometres on forestry track until you hit a stile that you cross over onto open hillside. Just beyond here lies the provocatively named “Madwoman’s Brook”.

Parking my car at sunrise, I liked the colours of the trees as the sunlight broke through the mostly cloudy skies.

Moving on now, a bit of a climb to do today. Though most of it is on easy going forestry tracks, there is still ground to cover!
As I previously mentioned, I have not visited this walk for a couple of years and as much as I’d like to believe otherwise, things do change. The forestry workers (Coillte) have certainly been busy – large swathes of the plantations have been felled, and in their wake only rotting stumps and wasteland is left – and in some cases, new saplings. It does open up the views a bit though, where previously the trees were towering over you.
Windy enough here! I’d say that’s because the trees have gone :).

There was a lot of snowfall in the week prior to my walk here, but a lot of the snow has already melted in the hills unfortunately. It’s often the case that the lower hills get a few days (sometimes a week) of snowfall in winter but the snow also has a tendency to melt before your eyes. The higher mountains usually hold snow for most of the winter though (i.e. Lugnaquilla).

I do like to try and capture places that others might not usually see. This does take me to some of the less frequented parts of Wicklow, which I enjoy, and sometimes I find a gem!
I think this walk is one of those gems, and it’s very rewarding for a relatively straight forward walk.

Now that the trees in this area have been felled, a new view has opened up. Looking beyond the slopes of Carrickashane and Ballygobban hills towards Croghan Kinsella not long after sunrise. I like taking these type of shots in winter, when the sun is low in the sky and only the shapes of the hills themselves are visible – sort of a silhouette effect.

Walking on now, not much to see for a while – the trees tower over on each side where they are not felled.
White Stone Brook is in swell, from the snow melt water from the higher slopes of Corrigasleggaun.

Climbing higher on the forestry tracks now, and there is still some snow here in the sheltered spots. Not much though. Some patches remain on the north eastern slopes of Aughavannagh Mountain in the distance as well.

The view opens up a bit again, as I get nearer the south prison. Another silhouette style shot.

An interesting re-entrant on the slopes of Aughavannagh Mountain.

Finally, at the end of the forest track there are a couple of choices – one being to cross “Madwoman’s Brook” to follow a wet path up and into the south prison, (which was not preferable this day – due to it being in spate from snow melt) or the option I chose: handrail the brook on the eastern shore of the river, through a recently felled forest area (recently as in: probably five years ago!). The going is a bit tough here, there are dead branches, tree stumps and ankle breaking holes in the ground to negotiate. Also, on this day – some wet slushy snow! It’s also very slippery, Ireland is a wet country indeed. Yeah, progress was quite slow getting up this way and care is certainly required. Even slower going back down later!
Good to see that the sitka spruce saplings are coming along nicely. Aw, they grow up so fast!

It’s always curious that the forestry workers leave a few of the taller trees standing after felling an area. I have often wondered if this was so that the teller ones could protect the younger, less sturdy trees from future storms whilst they grow. Or, perhaps more likely – it’s so that the older trees can warn the younger ones of the peril of their ancestors. Leave some alive to spread the fear!

A hazy view of the ‘survivors’. I like this sort of hazy winter light, it adds a lot of atmosphere to a location. As usual in my photographs, little to no post processing has been performed on the images in this blog post.

Lunch time!
Ham sub and some clementines. Yum. I really love the clementines you can buy around the Christmas period. Lucky me!

Completing the slope of death (tree death, that is) and out onto open hillside now. The going should have been a bit easier now.
Alas! It was not!
Tussocks of heather, and bog holes hidden by snow (some drifting too) made progress very awkward. And I had fooled myself into thinking I had chosen an easy walk this day!

The first view of the great cliffs of the south prison emerges as the fog clears a bit. It still remained at the top of Lugnaquilla though, where it sat all day.

I used an 85mm lens for this shot, so there is a slight compression effect. The higher cliffs are strewn with icicles. Given that I was using a short telephoto lens here, getting a perfectly sharp shot was quite tricky – the wind was tempestuous! 

A wide angle (20mm) shot of the prison.

This looks great on my wide screen monitor at home. I wish WordPress would allow higher resolution images on the blogs so that you could enjoy the detail in this image.

After coming all this way, I did not actually stick around here for long. The wind was very strong, and it was very cold. I took a few more shots of the area and then I decided to head back to the car. Quite a walk back at this stage. My footsteps in the drifts, snow depth was almost to knee height in parts here.

Back past the ‘slope of tree death’ now, and I took a small detour to take a photograph of the decrepit stile you cross (or more safely, ignore and walk straight beside -this wood is very rotten) that takes you on to “Madwoman’s Brook”. I always like to take this shot when I am here, and it’s definitely in a more sorry state than when I was here over two years ago.

Walking back on the forest tracks now, and for a moment I look behind me as I pause for water.
This view was not here on my approach earlier!
The fog was much lower earlier, concealing the entirety of the mountain itself.

A closer view with a longer lens. Having a long lens is very handy for achieving different compositions.

Getting near sunset now, and progress on the forest track is slow. Not that I was worried, I have a head torch for such occasions!

I paused here for a few minutes, experimenting with different apertures. This shot at f/1.8 has a nice soft look to it, possessing an almost ethereal quality. A common mistake (one I also make) in landscape photography is the mentality that ‘everything has to be in focus’ – I think this is wrong, blur can be beautiful. Only about a third of the nearest foot in this photograph is in focus.

A nice warm tone to the sky at this time, as the sun was setting. Ironic really – it was COLD!

Back at the car and time to drive home now. A long drive on the N81, as I was not wanting to risk the mountain roads. A hard frost was forecast overnight, and by the time I had gotten into the car it was pitch black.

Thank you for reading and Merry Christmas Everyone!

If you like what you see here please feel free to take a look at my portfolio site where you can see lots more of my work, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook here!

The images presented here are my intellectual property and must not be distributed without my consent.

A White Lugnaquilla – Episode II

Ah!
The long awaited sequel (long awaited by me, that is!) to my earlier post – A White Lugnaquilla.
I’ve often said that Lugnaquilla is a hill in summer, but a mountain in winter – and I still maintain this view.
I am not going to lie, I found this day tough, it was very cold (high of -4°C, low of -8°C : not including wind chill), I was carrying a lot of gear and I was SUPER tired that morning!
For the last few weeks, there has been a reasonable amount of snow at Lugnaquilla – but the weather has been pretty poor on the weekends (nice in the week when I was at work of course!) and hill fog was the order of the day, until finally – a break!
High clouds were forecast, but few low clouds – I was not worried about overcast skies, but I was not interested in hill fog (low clouds).

So, taking my usual route – up Camara Hill, past the two Corrigs then up and onto Lug itself. A 05:00 start meant that I would have a reasonable amount of time on the mountains (sunrise was 08:30 and sunset 16:06). I think I got home (from memory) at around 18:30. A long day.
A route I have taken many times, and will take many more times – I love this route. It’s a constant climb all the way to the top, and I almost always see multiple herds of deer en route. There are many other route choices of course, and I have taken them all (except the technical ones) – but with this route you can usually drive to the start point regardless of the weather – the other routes require driving on the mountain roads. These roads are not treated in winter, and the typical advice is to stay away from them if there is snow and ice about. I am a proficient driver but I do not own a 4X4, and even then – it would appear that using a 4X4 only really gets you ‘further into trouble’ when the mountain roads are impassable due to snow/ice. I don’t like risks, otherwise I would play the lottery.

Heading up Camara Hill on this morning was a tough old slog. Lots of snow about, some ice as well. I was also super tired, due to a lack of good sleep the night before. My Dad refers to this ascent as 25 minutes of purgatory, but on this occasion it was more like 45 minutes of purgatory! Slow going. I had not done a walk greater than 10 kilometres for a few weeks, and this was most certainly felt on the ascent!
Near the top of Camara Hill now, and a pause for a pre-dawn shot of Keadeen Mountain was welcome.

At this point, I was overtaken by a ‘Lug regular’ that I had met a few times before, Kevin, and his mate – Simon. They both had ice axes and were aiming for the North Prison of Lugnaquilla. We chatted for a while, and then they moved out with haste! I would not have been able to keep up with them by any means – but, I was carrying about 5 times the weight of their packs I suspect!

A wider angle shot of Keadeen, just below the summit of Camara Hill.

The sun still not up yet, but I was under no illusions – the overcast skies meant there was not going to be a lot of colour as the sun rose. At this point, I did not know the ‘fog’ status of Lug yet, i.e. was it in fog or clear. I had not seen it yet because it is hidden as you climb Camara hill, and it was dark at the time I was at the viewing points of Lug prior to the climb of Camara.

Finally, at the top of Camara now, and the ‘fog’ status is revealed. Yep, it’s in fog. Not unusual! It’s always disappointing though – after the purgatory of Camara Hill. I had faith, however, that the fog would pass.
The sun is up now, though not much a sunrise due to the cloud cover. The ‘blue hour’ is over now.

Here, I saw a herd of deer running northwards over the saddle between Camara Hill and Lower Corrig. I often see a herd (or several) here, always moving north – near dawn. I found it curious that they always head this direction – north from there takes you into the artillery range. I suppose there would be no humans there at least!

Frozen grass tufts between Camara and Lower Corrig.

Shortly after the above shot, I turned to see a familiar Border Collie about 50 meters away. Another couple of ‘lug regulars’ – Damian and his dog! I walked back towards him, thinking to myself that he probably doesn’t recognise me in my new jacket! We walked and chatted from there up through Lower Corrig, and then up to Upper Corrig. He (like Kevin & Simon) also had designs on the North Prison, and came equipped with his ice axe. A funny coincidence, the last time I was in this area (a few weeks ago) I met both Kevin and Damian separately on ascent and ended up descending Camara Hill with the pair of them. On this day, I mentioned to Damian that Kevin was in (or more correctly, en route to) the Prison, and Damian started looking for footprints in the snow to follow! Lug regulars indeed.

Looks like Lug might clear of fog after all.

Continuing on the journey now, as Lug clears. Damian pointed out a herd of deer over on the slopes of Slievemaan mountain. Thanks mate! My longer lens was left at home unfortunately, but I like the image my Zeiss 100mm delivered here. Oh! For a 400mm lens! Perhaps I should take more risks, and start playing the lotto!

Damian & Dog parted ways with myself just after Upper Corrig – he wanted to drop over to the North Prison, and my route took me up a much gentler incline (no ice axe required) – though still a steep one.

Pausing for a breather, and some breakfast (a banana and a piece of shortbread), I liked the arctic feel of the rocks.

So tired! I was really feeling this hike this day. Punishing.
But I must press on, it’s so beautiful.

The final slope up to Lug is always a tough pull. But this day, it was something else. About an hour of quadruple purgatory, I reckon.
Breath pause halfway up, and a shot over to Ballineddan & Keadeen. 

Further up now, and the climate is a touch more arctic.

The jumbled mica-schist rocks that lie about the face of this slope tell a story of high winds and freeze thaw conditions the previous day.

Almost at the summit now, and much gentler work ahead. Looking back over to Slievemaan, Ballineddan and Keadeen again, higher this time!

No shortage of snow alright! Just how I like it.
A hazy and overcast day, but very light winds. A beautiful day really. You don’t always want blue skies in the mountains, after all.
This military post, however, shows signs of some serious winds on the previous days!

At the summit now, well worth the hard work!

A hazy view down to Aughavannagh from near the summit.

As I sit here scrolling through my images, and type this blog – I am reminded of the cold on this day! I am freezing! But I did not feel cold on the day. I have good clothing.
Time to turn the heating on, I reckon.

Brrr…..

The cliffs of Lugcoolmeen. It had started to get a bit foggy shortly after this, not unusual, and not a great surprise.

I sat here (in my ski trousers) and decided to have a nibble. Yum! Starbar! I love these. I only seem to buy them for my visits to Lug, however, and it has become a part of my ‘Lug ritual’ at this point. No Starbar, no Lug – and vice-versa. At a push, a Snickers or Double Decker will do, but Starbar is where it’s at.

The fog was thin, and short lived – it cleared up rapidly. Great news!
To get the following shot of the cliffs of the South Prison, I had to stand in a ‘less than safe’ place – but it was totally worth it.

A similar comment applies to this shot (i.e. standing in a dodgy spot!).

But then! Disaster struck! The great scholars of the future will write legends about the following event for millennia…
I went to open my rucksack using the ‘ease of access’ zip on the front of the pack, but the puller mechanism must have frozen so when I pulled to close the zipper (it of course, opened fine), the slider just disintegrated as I pulled it!
Great, now my bag is going to be open at the front for the rest of the day!
Ok, so they may not write about this event – but at the time it felt cataclysmic! I was now going to be worried about dropping things out of my pack for the rest of the day. Paranoid glances behind me for ‘lost luggage’ after every rough patch of terrain were ubiquitous after this!

Heading back towards the summit area now, not a busy day for Lugnaquilla, let me tell you. I saw only a handful of people this day.
I wanted to start my way back to the car now, but en route I chose to head over the North Prison, and descend the slope of Lugnaquilla hand railing it, in case the fog came down again. I know Lug well, so I know to never underestimate it.

Only a couple of hours until sunset now, and I didn’t relish the thought of descending the steep slope of Lug in the dark (although I was equipped for such an eventuality – always be prepared!).
I took another shot of the frozen post, I found this very interesting.

Above the North Prison now, and the sky is getting darker. It looks like there is some fog moving in actually. Chances of a whiteout are high (this happened to me last year – A White Lugnaquilla).

I love winter.

Some fog did roll in again now, but it too was short lived.
Heading down now, hand railing the North Prison. The views here were great.
Selfie!

Yes, it has been pointed out to me already that I look like a ‘minion’ from ‘Despicable me’. The thought actually never occurred to me! I did not go to fashion school, clearly.
Say what you like about them, but these clothes kept me warm! Bright clothes are generally a good idea when hiking, especially if alone.

Looking down to Glen Imaal.

Less than an hour until sunset now, and I am nearly at the bottom of the final slope of Lugnaquilla. Mount Leinster is prominent beyond Slievemaan in this photograph.

I also liked this scene, with the two walkers heading over to Upper Corrig as they continue their descent from Lugnaquilla.

The frozen Little Slaney river just below the source. Gentle tones in the sky, as the sun dips lower.

I didn’t stop for photos as I descended to Camara Hill because there was a spot I wanted to get to during ‘blue hour’, after sunset – and before it got too dark. I had planned to get a shot of the deer as they leave the artillery range and head south over the Camara ridge. It was just an idea I had – I suspected that if they travel north over the ridge at dawn, then perhaps they might travel south over the ridge as night fell (I had never witnessed this before, though).

My suspicion was correct!
I do hope they are visible at this resolution, WordPress does not allow high resolution photographs to be uploaded (unless you pay). They are just down and left of centre, three small dark figures.

Getting dark, and much colder as I took this final shot. Now, for the descent of Camara Hill, which I always dislike after a long (though wonderful) day at Lug!

Thank you for reading!

If you like what you see here please feel free to take a look at my portfolio site where you can see lots more of my work, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook here!

The images presented here are my intellectual property and must not be distributed without my consent.

Camenabologue Via The Table Track

I have not visited Camenabologue for years, and never from this direction.
The last time I was here was way back on the 20th September, 2013. For that visit, I started from the valley of Glenmalure.
This time, I wanted to approach it from the Glen Imaal side, to see the views from the south western side of the mountain.

It’s one of the more remote spots in Wicklow, and I was expecting to see only a few die-hard walkers on this trip (my suspicions were correct! I saw only one group of four).

The weather forecast on the day was for calm winds and partly cloudy skies, with a chance of rain. So, in the hills of Wicklow – an almost certainty of rain!
The route started at a regular starting point of mine – Fenton’s Pub in the Glen of Imaal.
From here, I would walk a couple of kilometres on the road, past the entrance to Leitrim Graveyard, and the ruins of Leitrim Barracks and up to the forest track at “Tim’s Crossroad” – a crossroad near the Knickeen Ogham Stone of Imaal. You can see more information about this area on my post about a hike to Knocknamunnion. I would be following the same journey for the most part, but I would be going much further this day – following the Table Track up and on to Camenabologue itself.

This route is one of only two approved routes near/within the Glen of Imaal Army Artillery range (the other route being the route up Camara Hill to Lugnaquilla – one I know very well!), so it’s best to check in with the warden office before planning to take this route. And of course, it cannot be done when the army are using the range.

Camenabologue ( ‘step/pass of the bullocks’) rests in a magnificent area, an area I am very familiar with and find fascinating personally. Camenabologue forms one of the high walls that cut off Glen Imaal from its neighbouring valley – Glenmalure.

A short walk down from the pub, at Seskin Bridge (passing over the river Slaney), the first view over to Lugnaquilla presented itself. In fog – not unusual for a September morning!

Autumn is just about here now in Wicklow, the leaves are turning all sorts of hues of gold and yellow but have not yet fallen at the time of this walk – but I am fairly sure the next winds will start to bring them down in earnest.

Moving beyond the crossroads now, I took a short detour into the forest to take a quick snap of the Ogham Stone. This stone stands about 8 feet high, with an Ogham inscription reading “Maqi Nili” – I think this translates approximately to ‘Of the son of Neill/Niall’. Ogham is an ancient British and Irish alphabet, consisting of twenty characters formed by parallel strokes on either side of or across a continuous line.

Leaving the stone now, there are a couple of kilometres to walk on forest tracks now, until we reach the first of two (rather rugged and worn) wooden footbridges.
From the forest track here, an interesting perspective of Lugnaquilla can be obtained. I used the equivalent of a 300mm lens for this long range shot of the cliffs of the north prison. A cloudy day, alright.

After these bridges, a steep (though short) climb up the northern flank of Knocknamunnion brings you out onto open hillside.
At a junction in the trail at Knocknamunnion, you are reminded not to stray from the approved route.

As the day unfolded, the weather showed small chances of hope in the form of clearing skies. However, it was drizzling over the Glen of Imaal as I climbed up the table track at Knocknamunnion. The view here is very pleasing, even in such gloomy conditions.

The table track itself is an ancient path that connects the valleys Glenmalure and Glen of Imaal. The name ‘Table Track’ I assume comes from the fact that the path gives easy access to ‘Table Mountain’ – the nearest northerly neighbour of my target for the day (Camenabologue being my target).
I have also heard of the track being known as the ‘Black-Banks Road’ – presumably the black banks referring to the large black peat hags at the top of the road. I also read somewhere that J.B. Malone referred to this track as ‘The Stony Road To Imaal’. I can understand why – further up the track, the terrain gets a bit rougher and comprises of mostly stones and wet peat. Here, it is nice soft grass though. Look! The sun came out!

Climbing higher now, and I have two choices. There is a junction in the track. I can head left and take the longer, less arduous approach to the high point of the track (between Table Mountain and Camenabologue itself), or I can take the stonier, steeper but more direct approach to the high point. Naturally, I chose the latter. I think the latter is probably known as the ‘Stoney Road’ and the former may just be a continuation of the Table Track itself.
As I reach the col between the two mountains, the name ‘Black Banks Road’ struck me as being a rather obvious choice for the track name. Place names in Wicklow often are purely descriptive as opposed to imaginative, it could perhaps be argued!

Mullaghcleevaun looms beyond at left, and Tonelagee at right – Wicklow’s second and third highest mountains.
Looking north at the col between Table Mountain and Camenabologue, here is the ‘dog leg’ track that I opted to skip in favour of the slightly more arduous approach. I love the yellows here at this time of year.

From here, the summit of Camenabologue is only a short distance to the south, so on I went.
As I ascend higher, the sky is gaining an almost chrome-like, liquid metal appearance. The weather in Ireland is very changeable, and swift in its transformation – blink and you’d miss it!
Heavy rain was forecast for the evening, and I did not particularly want to get caught out in it – a sense of foreboding arrived with these skies though.

Beyond the cairn in the shot above, sits Cannow mountain and Lugnaquilla itself.
Also visible from here, using a long lens is Cloghernagh Mountain and the Peat hags of Benleagh.

The north-eastern slopes of Lugnaquilla, before they plunge down to Fraughan Rock Glen.

Thinking about heading back now – back the way I came. Quite a walk back and the sky looks increasingly threatening.

Back at the col between the two summits now, and I take a shot looking over to the partially forested Lobawn and the Wexford Gap. I liked the rebellious trees that (presumably are self planted) sat higher up the slopes and chose to grow away from the ordered plantations below.

Further down now, and it started to drizzle a bit. Also, Camenabologue itself became enshrouded with fog.
Back down the wet side of Knocknamunnion and crossing a footbridge, over Oiltiagh Brook, places you back at the Coillte forest track, near the start of the journey. Some of the forestry has been felled here, providing a nice view over to Lugnaquilla in this autumnal scene.

Thank you for reading!

If you like what you see here please feel free to take a look at my portfolio site where you can see lots more of my work, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook here!

The images presented here are my intellectual property and must not be distributed without my consent.

The Five C’s

Multiple prehistoric megalithic tombs, four mountain summits, a clear weather forecast and great company, what more could you ask for on a Saturday?

The “four C’s” is a circuit walk in the north Wicklow/Dublin mountains. It is more popularly known as the Kilbride Circuit but I prefer to refer to it as the “The Four C’s”.
This moniker originates in the names of the four mountains that the circuit navigates – Seahan (also known as Seechon), Corrig, Seefingan and Seefin.

I opted to do this walk clockwise, starting with an initial attack on Seahan/Seechon.
The plan was to then cross the boggy gap between Seahan and Corrig, cross another (even boggier!) gap from Corrig to Seefingan – the highest summit of the day – and finally descend to Seefin – in my opinion: the superior summit of the four (hence saving it until last!). These are all places I have visited many times for their own sake, except Seefingan – it is a bit ‘out on a limb’.
Being close to Dublin, Seefin and Seahan make for great evening walks in the summer time however.

There is lots of interest in these summits, certainly from an historical point of view at least. The mountains themselves are generally quite featureless (we shall see the exception to the ‘generally’ clause later).
Navigation can be tricky in this area in poor visibility, due to aforementioned featureless terrain and there is the danger of the Kilbride rifle range that must not be strayed into.

This is a great walk, and by the end of the day my pedometer clocked in a distance of 15km – I did make some minor detours for photographs and I believe that usually this walk is around 11km.

‘But Phil, why is the title of the blog post “The five C’s”?’ I hear you cry…
Well, because I had my best hiking pal Casper the Bichon Frise with me on this walk! He made up the extra ‘C‘! We shall hear more about him later. But I will say this about him for now – he is a Trooper!

Anyway, on with this day’s walk. The start of the journey involves a gentle climb through a gap in the (ever maturing) sitka spruce plantations. I remember these trees being much smaller back in ’13. They grow up so fast eh?!

Further up the trail, and the sky is looking a bit dramatic. The forecast had said sunny spells, but when in the hills of Wicklow – all four seasons in one day is the norm!

Further up the trail, there is a great view west, beyond the shoulder of Cupidstown Hill over to the plains of Kildare. Cupidstown Hill is the highest point in County Kildare (though it is small – only ~380m above sea level) and named after Oliver Cromwell’s gun, I believe. Nice, clear weather for the moment.

From here, there is also a nice view over to the Poulaphouca Reservoir at Blessington.

Please stay like this – weather!

So, the first summit of the day – Seahan. According to logainm.ie, the Anglicised name ‘Seahan’ comes from the Irish ‘An Suíochán’ – in plain English this translates to ‘The Seat’. This is a mountain I have had a long relationship with. It is one of the first mountains in Ireland that I had attempted to climb (the first I actually climbed was Djouce mountain and then Kippure mountain – both on the same day in fact).
But Seahan was the first one that I had visited, I just did not get to the top on that particular day. That first time that I went here, Seahan was covered in deep frozen snow. I have memories of deliberately sliding down the slopes here because it was easier than walking down! That was all the way back in March 2013!
Ah, to be young again.
Casper has also climbed this summit at least five times before – he is most definitely not a ‘lap-dog’!

Getting near the summit now, and the view beyond the Kilbride Rifle range to Seefingan (at left, the highest summit of the day) and Seefin (to the right of Seefingan, in shade – the last summit of the day) is great.

It looks like a lot of ground to cover, and the second summit (Corrig) is not even shown in the above photograph. But that’s the thing about hiking – the appearances of distances can be very deceiving.
The sky is looking like it could go one of two ways : clear up nicely, or get cloudier. We shall see what the Weather Gods of Wicklow have in store for us!

There are numerous memorial plaques in the hills of Dublin and Wicklow – and there is one just below the summit of Seahan/Seechon – dedicated to an ‘Alan Nolan’ here. I do not know who he was but this is a wonderful place for such a memorial.

Switching to my favourite long range lens now (the Zeiss 100mm) and the view over to Seefin mountain is quite pleasing. The dark terrain feature slicing down the mountain is a re-entrant known as ‘The Slade’ according to my map (at centre). I whimsically refer to it as ‘The Slide’. But I am silly like that.  Rising above the top of the ‘slide’ is Mullaghcleevan, the second highest mountain in Wicklow and just right of that in the far distance is the Monarch of Wicklow herself – Lugnaquilla.
The small ‘bump’ at the top of Seefin is a large megalithic tomb. We shall see this up close later!

At the top of Seahan now, and atop one of the three (that I know of) burial cairns here is a rather battered looking Ordnance Survey Trigonometrical Station. Getting quite a bit cloudier, I fancy. It is warm though.

This cairn is about 2 meters high and 24 meters in diameter and all of the cairns on these mountains most likely date to the Neolithic period, more than 5,000 years ago. The tombs are believed to be the remnants of passage tombs, a type of burial tomb that appears as a large round mound of stones, encircled by large stones set on their edges to form a kerb structure. Parallel lines of upright stones created a passageway leading to a chamber which usually contained the remains the revered dead.
The view over the city of Dublin is notable from up here.

The other tomb (a shattered wedge tomb) lies a short journey to the west of here, but I did not take a photograph of it this day because it was unfortunately covered with the remains of some form of barbeque. Not terribly respectful of the local ancient ancestors I think you’ll agree.
The winds will blow it away, and the tomb will remain, I guess. I was not really in a position to ‘litter pick’ this day I am afraid as I was carrying a lot of camera gear and water for Casper and I. A shame though. I have taken many photographs of this tomb before, but I am trying only to share images I took this day on this post. There will be other posts about this walk in the future, I am sure :).

The first summit of the day for Little Casper! Seven years old and still rocking it! Top chap!
He is so fast but usually he opts to stay right behind me on these walks, he never leaves me – unless there is some good heather sniffing to be done of course. He might leave me then but soon realise that whilst he has stopped – I have not! At which point he frantically rushes towards me once I am more than 5 meters away!

Casper is a rescue dog, and as a result of his previous life experience, he has some anxiety problems. I would consider him sort of an ‘autistic dog’ if such a thing exists –  I do not know about that.
He does not like dogs that he does not know, he also does not like things that might be considered strange to a little dog, or things that disrupt his routine. Cyclists might be an example, loud noises or other ‘exciting’ things are also triggers for him. He has a habit of ‘stacking’ his anxiety, and doesn’t let things go easily. When the stack gets too high, it gets too much and he melts down.
He really loves hill walking though. When it is just me and him roaming the hills of Wicklow he really comes alive. He loves to barrel around the peat hags and he loves to sniff the heather, especially when it is in full bloom (wait another month for that, Cas).

A short distance to the east, is another tomb – this one is a passage tomb, over 21m in diameter, with a kerb of elongated granite stones. This one I find particularly provocative.

I could stay here all day, watching the light change on this tomb and the humps and bumps of Wicklow in the distance glow and dimmer with the passing clouds but Casper and I have a mission today.
From here, we need to head south east for a short distance to reach our second summit of the day – Corrig. It is only about 1km away, but the ground in the gap between Seahan and Corrig is awkward. It’s very wet and boggy and I once observed an abandoned army jeep stuck in the bog here. I imagine somebody was in trouble when they had to report back to HQ that they had managed to get the jeep stuck in the bog :-/.
“Not again, Private!”.

At this point, Casper and I were uncertain about what the weather was going to bring. My suspicion was for increasing cloud and possibly rain showers. Casper concurred.
We had hoped not, and I crossed my fingers, and Casper crossed his paws.
This would not be the first time that Casper and I had been caught out in the rain, and we have a strategy for this that I shall explain later.

Looking towards Corrig, with the pointy Great Sugar Loaf in the far distance and Kippure with its RTE broadcasting mast at right.

Casper has a habit of pausing for heather sniffing opportunities as previously mentioned, but also for another reason.
He loves taking selfies!
He puts his camera on the tripod, locks it into self timer mode and then scampers over to his chosen spot for the selfie.
A clever little dog really. Here he is, in the boggy gap between Seahan and Corrig.

Some of the heather that Casper enjoys on the eastern shoulder of Seahan. Not quite at it’s ‘purplest’ yet.

A curious find here between Seahan and Corrig, it is an old ‘War Department’ pillar, a fact revealed by the ‘WD’ inscription on it. I believe, though I am not sure – that this is a throwback to the British ‘War Department’ that used both this range and the artillery range at Glen Imaal before the Irish Defence Forces used them, as they presently do. These pillars were used to denote the boundaries of the Kilbride rifle range.

This particular pillar looks over to Glendoo mountain, Two Rock mountain (at right) beyond and Dublin Bay (at left). In the far distance beyond the sea is the Howth peninsula (slightly left of center).

At the summit of Corrig (‘Rock’ in English) now, summit two of the day. It really is the poorest of the four summits I am afraid to say. Not offering splendid views and having no megalithic cairns (that I know of). Not much to say about it really. I am sure that good views might be had by dropping down the eastern slopes, but that was not the mission for this day.
There is another ‘WD’ pillar here, resting in a boggy pool.

Not much wind this day at all – hence the reflections in the still pool above.
Another Casper photograph, at his second summit of the day – Corrig. He looks pretty clean still, surprisingly so – after the wet ground we just crossed.

Casper is a small dog (really small!) so I basically have to lie down to get to his level whilst he patiently poses for me!
After a pause here, for some water and some snacks we must start the assault on Seefingan. The highest summit of the day. Not a steep hike from here but quite a long (feeling) ascent from the boggy gap between here (Corrig) and Seefingan itself.
A gentle reminder en route.

Some really nasty wet patches on the way to Seefingan. Poor Casper is much lower to the ground than I, but he is well trained in the art of ‘bog dodging’, or ‘bodging’ as he calls it! 

Seefingan, our target, is at left above. The fingers (and paws!) crossing has done the trick for now, and we have some nice warm sunlight hitting us as we negotiate our path through this marshy gap. However, it does look as if cumulonimbus clouds are starting to tower up. These can produce sudden, and heavy rain showers. Keep an eye out, Cas.

Yes, definitely getting much cloudier now as we start the ascent of the northern slope of Seefingan.

Casper in the heather.

I shot this wide open (f/1.4) with my 35mm lens. Only the tip of his nose is in complete focus, depth of field (or zone of focus) is razor thin wide open at this distance. I like the effect of this, and it really helps make a subject ‘pop’.
I took another version of this shot but I focused on his eye instead (usually in a portrait photograph, out of focus eyes is a big no-no) but I actually preferred the ‘nose focus’ shot to the ‘eye focus’ shot – because his nose is nearer.
But that is why I took two shots with different focus areas- options are nice to have and in the field it may not be obvious where best to place the focus for the effect you want. Experience has taught me this.
As I say, usually the eyes win but every case is different and it costs nothing to ‘bracket’ the focus in digital photography.
He is starting to look at little bit muckier now!

Partway up Seefingan, and the view north shows our journey so far – Seahan (left) and Corrig (right). Beyond Seahan and Corrig lies the sprawling city of Dublin.
Yeah, time to put the waterproof jacket on I think. The sky is moody and threatening.

The actual summit of Seefingan (“Fingan’s Seat”) is marked only with a ‘Wicklow Mountains National Park’ post.
Casper at the summit of Seefingan. Man, it is getting dark now – the clouds overhead are thick, dark and threatening.

Looking over to Kippure from just east of here reveals a rather desolate area of eroded peat hags. Pretty gloomy looking, but interesting I thought.

A long lens shot of Kippure, with the communications mast visible at the summit and War Hill and Djouce in the distance at right. The mast itself is 127 metres tall, and sits at the top of Kippure mountain – itself 757 metres above sea level. Construction of the mast was completed in the summer of 1961.

Well, we cannot pick the weather on the weekends eh! Sun would have been nice, but if my photographs were always sunny that would be an inaccurate depiction if Wicklow. Most of the time, it is just not sunny.

A short detour from the summit to the west reveals another very impressive megalithic tomb. This one is over 25 metres in diameter and about 4 metres high. Visible on the top is another ‘WD’ pillar.

At this point in the walk it had started to spit rain, so Casper and I decided to move on towards the final (and superior) summit of the day – Seefin (“Fionn’s Seat”).

Descending the south-western slope of Seefingan, the sky looked ever more menacing – a downpour was imminent.
The view here is pleasant, despite the grey conditions. Sorrel Hill is prominent slightly up and left of centre, with the sprawling Poulaphouca reservoir just beyond (and also to the right – below Lugnagun).

My usual strategy for downpours when I have Casper with me is to wrap the little chap inside my waterproof jacket (whilst I am wearing it) so that he does not get totally drenched. He does own a nice jacket himself but sometimes the rain is just so heavy that he needs more protection. That was the case at this point – the heavens truly opened!
We took shelter behind a large peat hag and decided to wait it out. We thought it was never going to end! Casper insisted on poking his head through my jacket, despite my advice not to – and as a result he did get wet. But we tried to minimise this!

The rain fell straight down in vertical lines, as there was almost no wind.
25 minutes later, or so – the shower stopped and we opted to move on. Roll out autobots!
The sky was not clearing though, and looked to be darkening again.

The gap between Seefingan and Seefin is less boggy than the previous two gaps (between Seahan – Corrig and Corrig – Seefingan). So the going here was much easier, especially for Casper. The route took us to the mouth of the re-entrant known as ‘The Slade’ (or slide as I prefer!). At this point, it was only a trench a few foot deep but Casper had great fun launching himself over it – go rocket dog!

Approaching Seefin now, and a quick glance back to Seefingan (at right) also shows the first summit of the day (Seahan, at left). It looks like the sky may clear up for us as we arrive at the favourite summit of the day. Fingers & paws crossed :).

The cairn at Seefin is a passage tomb, measuring around 25m in diameter and about 3m high. You can see a number of large kerb stones around the base of the tomb defining its outer edge. The tomb has a passageway that is roughly 10m long and opens into a chamber with five compartments. If you are small, you can climb through the doorway portal shown in the below photograph. However, I am simply not small enough!

Towering cumulonimbus clouds in the distance and above the Poulaphouca reservoir at right hint at thunderous downpours in that area – I think this is the remnants of what previously passed over Casper and I earlier – the wind was easterly this day and we are looking west here.

A rather poor looking Casper, at his final summit of the day. He is a bit wet from walking through wet ground here but I am not worried, it was a warm day and he is pretty used to walking with me in the rain.
I think if you ask any dog, would they rather go out for a walk (and possibly get a little bit wet) or stay at home (but be dry) the answer will always be the same!
Well done Casper!

A colour shot of the tomb, with the view west on display.

The doorway to a forgotten world:

Heading off Seefin now, it’s been a long day for Casper and our lift is en route from Dublin – so we must not make them wait for us after the generous chauffeuring!

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