Then there was the day we set out to climb Ireland’s highest mountain, and didn’t make it.

Carrauntoohil (or Carrantuohill—pronounced "CARE-un-tool") is Ireland’s Matterhorn. It is the boss mountain in the Irish Alps, otherwise known as Macgillicuddy’s (or Macgillycuddy’s) Reeks. The Reeks are the east-west backbone of the rugged Iveragh Peninsula that juts into the Atlantic Ocean in County Kerry in far southwestern Ireland. At 3,414 feet (1,041 meters) above sea level Carrauntoohil is higher than all but 4 mountains in Wales and higher than any hill in England and would qualify as a serious Munro (mountains above 3,000 feet high) on the list of 214 such peaks in Scotland. Ireland has 13 peaks that would qualify on the Scottish Munro scale, and of these ten are located in the Macgillicuddy’s Reeks, including the eight highest mountains of Ireland.
        That said, Carrauntoohil has been conquered by so many so often that it is topped with an iron cross that had been outlined with lights run by a wind-powered generator—until someone swiped the generator. We have read that until recently a bicycle has been chained to the cross. Since 1987 there has been an annual race up and down the mountain (with three-quarters of a mile of altitude to be gained and then given back) by very fit runners. The race has been owned by Kerry’s John Lenihan, who has won the event 14 years in a row with times as fast as 1 hour 11 minutes 43 seconds.
        Despite—or perhaps because—of the popularity of the climb, hikers’ guides suggest allowing 6-7 hours for the approximately 11-mile hike from the car park to the top of Carrauntoohil and back. And those same guides are careful to warn you that Carrauntoohil is no beginner’s hill—every year the Mountain Rescue service is called to the mountain several times to save lost or injured hikers or recover their bodies.

My longtime friend and hiking companion Freddy Baker and I were in Ireland with our families last May. We had taken a week at one of our favorite Home At First cottages in Glengarriff in southwest Ireland, a region Freddy and I wanted to hike together. The hiking variety is endless in these parts: easy hills, high mountains, sea cliffs, streams and woodlands, and—with the possible exceptions of portions of Connemara and Donegal—the southwest is Ireland’s most remote and rugged country.
        The families had fun together in the Caha Mountains of the Beara Peninsula—the wildest part of County Cork and a spectacular and under-visited part of Ireland. We climbed some easy hills around Glengarriff, and some more challenging mountains out on the peninsula, and walked two sections of the long-distance Beara Way trail on headlands near the peninsula’s dramatic end jutting into the Atlantic. Freddy’s kids found the walking challenging fun. They’re both city kids with no real experience in the mountains or away from the organized activities of suburban life. Both of them scrambled joyously up and down the hills. They were surprised by the exhilaration of making it to the hilltops, and were initially made wary, then intensely curious, then elated by their discoveries of waterfalls, sheep skeletons, abandoned farm buildings, and bogs that could suck off their boots.
        But, despite the positive experiences of Beara, the kids were not ready for the challenge of climbing Ireland’s highest peak in neighboring Kerry. So it was decided that the kids would go pony-trekking with their mother on the day Freddy and I would climb Carrauntoohil.

At 9AM we formed a two-car caravan for the half-hour drive across the Caha Pass north from Glengarriff, Cork, to Kenmare, Kerry. We stopped at the helpful, well-equipped tourist bureau in Kenmare. There, Wendy, Freddy’s wife, made arrangements for a pony-trek in the Killarney National Park for her and the kids, while Freddy and I purchased Ordnance Survey Maps for our hike. By 9:45 we were ready to climb back into our cars and head north for our respective adventures. We agreed that we would meet back at the Kenmare Tourist Office promptly at 5PM. Wendy warned us not to be late or she would worry that Ireland’s highest mountain might have claimed us as victims. I figured we could get to the trailhead in an hour, do the climb in 5 hours—after all, Freddy and I are experienced alpinists, fit and properly outfitted—and drive the hour back to Kenmare and have 15 minutes left over for a celebratory Guinness. Piece of cake.
        The day appeared mostly cloudy and the predicted weather promised some sunny breakthroughs, little wind, and some scattered showers. Freddy and I were almost ready. We had our boots, rucksacks, maps, food, drink, gloves, compass, raingear, even—we’re optimists—sunglasses and shorts. What we didn’t have—and what no one at the tourist office could tell us—is how to get to the trailhead to climb Carrauntoohil. But, I reasoned, we had a quality Ordnance Survey Map (OSI Discover Series #78 1:50,000) and an excellent Michelin road map. Combining the two of them should put us on the closest road to the mountain at the earliest possible time.
        Then came a bad omen. I couldn’t find the way out of Kenmare. I took the wrong road off of the town square and within two minutes was already lost and at the end of a country road leading to nowhere. Wendy—driving the other car—showed no impatience with me when, at a gravelly U-turn point, she smiled and took the fore. Sheepishly, I followed her and the kids up and over Moll’s Gap and into the Killarney National Park. My study of the likely route to Carrauntoohil suggested that we should avoid the congestion of Killarney town. These days Killarney’s too full of traffic during the holiday season to be considered anything but a city. Carrauntoohil is due west of Killarney in a remote area of which it is the center point. This region is circumscribed on my Michelin map by roads of various color-coded grades: green roads to the south and west and red roads to the east and north. It looked to me like the green roads were secondary two-lane scenic routes and the red ones would be primary two-lane roads, which—because they went through downtown Killarney—could be much more heavily trafficked. I guessed that we would make better time getting to the trailhead by taking the green roads clockwise around Carrauntoohil rather than the red roads counter-clockwise through busy Killarney. Realizing that meant that we had already missed a key turn. We flashed a high-beamed good-bye to Wendy and the kids in the lead car and pulled into a lay-by on the mountain road so we could make our second U-turn of the day (Map point Œ). Then we climbed back up the winding hill to the intersection at Moll’s Gap.

At Moll’s Gap  our secondary (green) scenic route, the R568, drops away to the west, bound for the village of Sneem—did Dr. Seuss name this place?—and the famous Ring of Kerry road round the Iveragh Peninsula. Even better, a great valley opened up, plunging away to the west. From our perch at Moll’s Gap we could see the geography of much of the peninsula, and, to our ready excitement, Macgillicuddy’s Reeks defined the north rim of the valley. One of those high points to our right must be our goal, mighty Carrauntoohil.
        Our excellent Michelin map informed us that we must descend 6 miles toward Sneem into this valley as far as a place called Derreendarragh, where we must leave the R568 and turn north toward the mountains. This road, though unnumbered, should be easy to find—there should be no other roads to the right between Moll’s Gap and Derreendarragh. After ½ hour we arrived in Sneem Ž. Somehow we missed our turn and never saw Derreendarragh at all. We had gotten held up in a "road works" project—that’s Irish for "road under destruction". Maybe the dust of the "road works" had obscured our turn-off.
        Sneem seemed worth a snoop. There were three pubs and a village green. But not today, not if we were to climb Carrauntoohil. U-turn number three occurred immediately. We retraced our steps through the construction zone nine miles. And there, there at the very start of the "road works" where the highway crew had first flagged us, there was our unmarked roadway junction .

GO TO PART TWO