Feohanagh to Cloghane 9/26/26

 What a fabulous day. No misty wetness like yesterday.

Today was advertised as strenuous, with an exclamation point. It lived up to that description and more. I might have added another exclamation point. And it was iver 16 nukes,

There it is, clouded in mystery, the mountain we must climb over to reach our night’s lodging. Today’s walk rated up there with some of the legendary Alps hikes. It might have been the steepest walk of all of my journeys.  No switchbacks, just straight up.  It is very hard to train for extreme uphill climbing in Louisville, Kentucky. Anyone who has trained on weight machines knows that the idea is to totally fatigue the muscle. Well, it was so severe that I exhausted my thigh muscles about halfway up, making the other half a challenge. 

That is a curious cow peeping over the stone wall at me.  Probably laughing.

A beautiful look back at the previous days.

Deep, sticky mud to slog through.The start of the “long up.”  Doesn’t look too bad from here.  Au contraire!  It was two hours of the most grueling steep incline that I have ever faced. 

Looking back at a fellow hiker..

And another one trying to catch her breath.

OMG!  Please let this be the top. It wasn’t! When I made a right turn, there was almost another mountain to climb.

The view from the top was absolutely stunning.  I will admit that I wasn’t so fond of that uphill, kill-my-thighs climb, but once I caught my breath, I wanted to plant a USA flag. I made it! Whoohoo!  It is amazing how much more fun a big climb is in hindsight.

The ewe is looking up at a Raven on the post.

The first part of the descent was just as straight down as the climb was up.  I actually had to get out my sticks, so I didn’t tumble on the wet rocks.  Then, hallelujah, there came a section that was more of a wide trail headed downward.

The scenery continued to be stunning.

Although these hydrangeas look fuchsia on my computer, they were red.  

On every walk, wild fuchsia lined the trails.  Oftentimes, they were mixed in with the continuous blackberry brambles. And I have eaten at least two sweet bucketfuls over the past week.

I had to walk across a field to get back to the trail.

Thank heavens, the last two miles were reasonably straightforward.  There was, however, about a 40 mph headwind.  But I was like a horse to the barn - I could smell the hay.

Look at those colors.

My humble B&B, O’Connors Guest House, is the purple one towards the end. It looked like paradise to me.

I ate at the restaurant pub, and it turned out to be surprisingly good. I had House Special Chicken Curry, which was a " fragrant, slow- simmered homemade special curry sauce, loaded with roasted seasonal

vegetables. Served with steamed basmati rice and a poppadom.”  

The longest walk this week is tomorrow, seventeen and a half miles, but not rated as strenuous and has no exclamation point.

I bid you Good Night and God Bless..