GI/SM trip planning

Jimmy - you do not have bad knees - the view may be nicer from Slemish but for anyone with a knee replacement it is hell on earth. Tristan has an amazing summit - like a lunar landscape!
It was also very windy here today in Northern Ireland and Slemish is a nightmare in wind. But then of course I was only born and bred here and know nothing about these mountains apart from climbing many of them since my childhood!! :grinning:

Esther GI0AZA

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That is a fair point Esther, I can understand how Trostan GI/AH-001 may be a better walk than Slemish GI/AH-007 for someone with bad knees. Slemish GI/AH-007 is best being approached via the longer way round towards the south of the mountain rather than directly up the steep bit, but still that can be very steep, it is worth it though for the summit and the views up there. We did Trostan GI/AH-001 on the once and for me and my dad Tom M1EYP, we found it tough going through the bog on the ascent to the summit, but I know what you mean about the lunar landscape on the summit. Unfortunately when we were on this summit, it was very windy and we ended up getting a heavy hail storm, so we could not enjoy the lunar landscape much. Given our experience of Trostan GI/AH-001, this is a summit that we will never repeat.

Jimmy M0HGY

It’s very nice a sunny here in Macclesfeild Neil and just as good as the first few days in Lanzarote, but better than the last few days in Lanzarote as these last few days were not as warm, it was windy also and rained heavily quite often as well.

Jimmy M0HGY

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We did Trostan in deep snow as well as in the summertime and it was amazing- made it easier as the ground was frozen solid. The descent from Slemish for me was a slide down - i couldn’t bend the knees enough to walk!
Esther
Gi0AZA

Sounds to me that Trostan GI/AH-001 is best being done only when the bog is either frozen or dried up.

Jimmy M0HGY

We ended up doing both Trostan and Slemish and were glad we did Slemish second as by the time we got there the cloud that had obscured all views from Trostan had lifted giving lovely all round views from Slemish.
Good views from SM-012 Balix Hill today but our attempt on SM-011 was thwarted by the locked gate, high fences and intimidating no unauthorised access notices on the wind farm road. So we made a late decision to do SM-020 instead.

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Hi Caroline,

Great to hear that you enjoyed Slemish GI/AH-007 yesterday and you got good views from it. We did Owenreagh Hill GI/SM-011 from this locked gate 2 years ago that had the no unauthorised access signs on, but we were under the impression that you could enter it at your own risk and also to the right of the gate on the main road was a lowered bit of fence with no barbed wire on and we just stepped over this fence to get onto the wind farm track. It seemed this fence was lowered so that walkers could get onto the track. Also 3 vans passed us while we were on this walk and none of them stopped to talk to us and to what I remember, the driver of one of these vans even waved at us. I don’t think you’ll have any problems walking up Owenreagh Hill GI/SM-011 on the wind farm track as we had no problems at all. People have also approached this summit from the south west of the summit, ascending it with a forest to the left of you, but I believe this route will be boggy though.

Jimmy M0HGY

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The fence wires there were slack, as if people had forced their way through, but as far as we could see the fence was still barbed wire everywhere. The vegetation beyond seemed rather impenetrable. I dare say we could have got through if our lives depended on it, or if we had been confident that it was an unauthorised blockage of a right of way. We couldn’t see anything that was intended for walkers to use.

Maybe they have tightened up security since you were there :frowning:

Martyn M1MAJ

There was clearly an established and tolerated walkers route to the side of the gate when we were there. Also, the smallprint on the sign did say something about if you do walk on the site, you do so at your own risk. As Jimmy says, we got friendly waves from the service personnel on site.

We did Mullaghash today parking with permission at the farm by the Sweat house sign. Followed the increasing wet track until we spotted a faint boggy quad bike track heading up the hill. This helped cross some of the rough ground but the final ascent was rough. Top was tussocky with some boggy bits but pleasant with good views when the sun came out. Useful fence post for VHF antenna support.

We can recommend “The Dairy” at Magheramore. It proved to be a good base for doing some of the northern Sperrins and Antrim Hills.

We managed to do two summits a day despite two seriously wet days; detailed study of the weather forecast enabled us to avoid some of the worst rain. We did 17 summits over the expedition, including Mynydd y Cwm on the way out to Birkenhead of which 16 were uniques. The only repeat was Big Collin which was an easy final summit it fit into the limited time we had before heading to the ferry.

I’ll try to write some more detailed reports later, but I also need to plan our next expedition to Mull. Many thanks to the chasers who enabled me to qualify all the hills except Slievekirk on 2m FM, and 8 of them on 70cms FM, and especially to Esther GI0AZA for help on routes, and for rounding up chasers for me.

Caroline.

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Well done Caroline and Martin. I know from my own experience that is some considerable effort you’ve put in to land a haul like that from your trip. Are you getting close to completing the GI association now?

No we’ve still got a long way to go. We had hoped to complete GI/AH, but didn’t have time to fit in Cross Slieve before the ferry, doing Big Collin again instead because we knew it was a nice hill with an easy route, and not far to drive to the ferry afterwards. We haven’t done any GI/CA, and still have a few summits in all the other regions to do. Given our tendency to book a cottage for a week at at time I expect we’ll need another couple of expeditions to get all of GI done.

Swings and roundabouts. Cross Slieve GI/AH-011 is a drive-to-the-top near enough, but a bit of a long diversion from your driving route back to the ferry port. Big Collin is a bit boring and a bit of a slog - but only a short one, and more logical for heading back to Belfast. So I understand your decision.

The GI/CA summits are fascinating. Really unusual, and the whole feel of the area is quite unique.