Getting to Slieve Donard

We drove straight to Slieve Donard after summiting County Armagh’s highest point, Slieve Gullion earlier that morning. The start of the hike up Slieve Donard starts in the seaside town of Newcastle.

When we arrived in Newcastle the car park was full, so after doing a few laps in the car we spotted an overflow carpark in a field just behind and to the right of the main car park. A vintage car show was just starting with some lovely minis as we were leaving to hike up Slieve Donard.

We parked beside a lovely big tree which was where we had a picnic after our hike later that day.

The start of our hike up Slieve Donard

We instantaneously knew that there was going to be a big crowd on the hike, as we could see floods of people ahead of us on the trail. It’s so good to see so many families getting outside and enjoying the great outdoors. This is the first mountain that we met so many people on while doing the County High points (32 peak challenge)

From the carpark, we walked uphill into Donard Forrest, which was amazing. It was full of Mature trees which provided nice shade from the sun. We kept right of the Glen river and then we turned left onto a gravel forest track across the first bridge, from here we immediately turned right onto a cobbly track which ran on the left side of the river. It was so peaceful walking alongside the river and waterfalls. Once the track disappeared we followed a well-worn footpath southwest beside the river to join a second forest track. If in doubt while walking through the wooded area keep walking uphill following the path beside the river.

The forest was covered in a thin layer of fog but the sun was starting to break through. While walking up the hill out of Donard Wood it felt like we were walking through a scene out of the Lord of the Rings movie. We continue climbing up out of Slieve Donard scrambling over rocky areas while still walking parallel to the Glen River. As we walked out of Donard Wood we got our first glimpse of Slive Donard mountain but it was only the bottom section of the mountain as the peak was still covered in fog, but we still knew it was a big one.

About 100m after the top picture was taken the fog cleared and we could see the scale of the mountain that we were about to climb. We continued walking along parallel to the Glen river but the wooded area was now on our right-hand side. The footpath was in excellent condition with stepping stones in all the boggy places and river crossings.

After we left the last section of woodland we could see that we were walking towards the end of a valley and that the Mourne mountain trail swept up to the left to meet a Col between Slieve Donard and Slieve Commedagh. We continued walking up along the valley ascending slightly the whole time but it just felt like a pleasant uphill walk at this stage. We could see the hike was about to get much harder as the trail followed a very steep section at the end of the valley that walks up over the Col between the two mountains.

We eventually crossed the river that we have been following, at this point it was only a small stream. This was the first point of the hike that it became a steep hill. The footing of the path was excellent, every vertical step seemed to have a perfectly placed stone to form a safe position to place your feet. The ascent from the valley to the Col looked worse than it actually was and we hiked to the passing in 15 minutes.

This was our first glimpse of the wall that runs up over the top of the Mourne mountains, if we are being honest we didn’t do much research on this hike beforehand, but when you see this wall and you don’t expect it to be as big as it is, we were just amazed at its scale at such an elevated height. Just as we reached the wall, Ourlittlehiker was starting to nod off and we know now from previously stopping on other mountains when she is like this, that it can upset her and disrupt her sleep. We still felt in good walking form, so we took a left at the wall and continued up the toward Donard’s peak, but the sight of Slieve Donard up over us was very daunting.

I imagine there have not been many sleeping babies up on Slieve Donard, she was having such a good sleep while her Mammy and Daddy were sweating buckets but loving the challenge and views ahead of us. At this stage, the weather was getting very warm but if the wall was not there we would need our coats as the higher we walked the colder and stronger the wind became. It was a hard pull up the final section of the mountain but we eventually got a view of the Carn on top of Slieve Donard and it looks amazing. The cairn is built up on top of the wall on a raised platform.

At this stage of the hike we were starting to get slightly tired but Ourlittlehiker was still asleep. We were starting to get a small bit of attention from other people wanting to see the baby in the bag and unfortunately, they woke her up. This gave us an opportunity to take a few extra photos and have a small break and a quick snack. We were amazed that so many people were on top of the mountain, we usually see 2-3 people on top of most other mountains but there must have been over a 100 people up on the summit and maybe double that were still walking up the mountain.

We didn’t stay long at the top as it was very windy up there and at this stage, we were considering hiking another peak (this did not happen). On the way down the steep mountainside, we kept away from the path as it was slippy so we walked down on the grass zig-zagging to help our poor shakey knees.

We quickly descended back toward the saddle between the two mountains but we saw a number of people with running shoes falling from rushing and having poor footwear on. The descent from the saddle down to the top of the valley was a lot easier as the large stepping stone provided good footing for our tired legs. At this stage of the descent, we are still considering climbing Slieve Foye, the lack of accommodation has us slightly worried.

We noticed that we lost one of Ourlittlehikers spare hiking coats on the way up to the peak of Slieve Donard, we taught we lost it at the end of the woodland so we were keeping a keen eye out for her coat. We spotted her coat nicely placed on a rock exactly where we taught we lost it. We were so happy we found the coat as it was a present from a very generous friend.

When we reached the bottom, and the end of the hike, the overflow car park that we left empty was now full. We had a small picnic when we got back to the car, we left Ourlittlehiker in her hiking bag when we all ate our lunch. She loves just sitting there eating and looking around, it also helps us keep her safe from randomly running after dogs and cats.

While eating our picnic on the grass carpark, we tried to get accommodation near the next mountain but every hotel and Airbnb was booked in advance for the bank holiday weekend, so we decided to stop rushing and drive home after this mountain. After our picnic, we changed out of our hiking gear and went for a walk around the Car show, Ourlittlehiker loved all the cars and the noise they were all making.

Our Verdict on Slive Donard, Co Down Highest point

After walking 3/4 of the high points in each county of Ireland we were well used to walking on our own and being on top of all the mountains on our own. It was a bit of a shock to the system when we saw the large crowds walking up to the top of Slieve Donard.

We loved this hike, the footing on the way to the top of the mountain is very good and the path was very busy. The mountain trail is very steep in certain sections but when you reach the top of the mountain the views are amazing and well worth hard pull. This has been our favourite hike so far out of the 32 counties high points.

Advice for climbing Slieve Donard

• It is very steep so bring good hiking boots.
• We hiked it on a bank holiday, go on a weekday if you want to avoid the crowds.
• Bring lots of water as this hike will take over 4 hours.

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We should have parked where the black car parked

After our lovely night Glamping in Carrowmena, we were feeling refreshed and ready to climb another mountain. Approaching the Sperrin mountains it was becoming evident that hiking conditions on a mountain of this size were not great. We parked our car up at the base of the mountain on the Sperrin road and assessed the situation. We always vowed to think logically and not do any hiking if there was ever any sign of danger.

When looking out at the mountain we could not see any further than 200m. We decided to put on our hiking gear and wrap Ourlittlehiker up really well in her backpack and to go for a small walk to test the conditions. The day was not cold but mainly foggy, we consulted our maps and guidebook and knew that we were going to be following a fence the whole way to the summit of Sawel. So we decided to start hiking and if the weather starts to deteriorate we would return back to the car.

Parking at Sawel Mountain

There is a parking spot about 50 meters away from the start of the Sawel mountain hike. The parking spot looks like it could accommodate, maybe 3 cars. Don’t be a fool like us and hamper the farmers that are good enough to allow us to walk on their land, use the proper carpark area.

Hiking to the top of Sawel Mountain- Tyrone and Derry highest point.

When we drove down the Sperrin mountain road we got slightly disorientated and taught we were driving the opposite direction. This meant that we started hiking the mountain on the wrong side of the road. Thankfully we were keeping a very keen eye on the map and we only walked about 25 meters before we realised that we were on the wrong side of the mountain. We quickly returned back to the right side and started on the correct mountain this time. Thankfully, that is the very first time we got lost on this challenge.

Wrong Mountain Gina!!!

The initial start of this mountain crossed a flat marshy area before we started climbing the higher sections. This area is slightly boggy but we aren’t hiking in it for too long, so it won’t have much of a bearing on us. We felt that the fog was lifting slightly, as we were increasing our elevation height pretty quickly and we could still see our car perfectly, so we decided to continue hiking to the summit of Sawel mountain.

The main fence that we started following basically runs the whole way to the summit of Sawel Mountain. We had to cross a couple of fence stiles but they were easy enough to navigate even with a baby on our back.

After climbing to the top of the first steep section, the mountainside seems to nearly level out and the ground conditions seemed to get very boggy again. We even had to try to cross a wide stream, well about 1.2 meters wide, this didn’t go to plan but it was fun watching Gina run up and down the bank trying to get encouragement to jump over to the other side.

I don’t think she is going to make it…

We must have just missed a running race, as there were still signs hanging off the side of some of the fences (at least we know were on the right mountain this time).

Just as we were climbing the final section of Sawel mountain the fog got very heavy but we were sticking close to the fence for guidance. It is safe to say we would never have attempted this hike without the fence to guide us to the summit. Just as we reached the highest point of the fence it veers left, we knew that Sawel high point was in front of us but the fog was too dense to see it. We took out our Viewranger app on our phones and we could see exactly where we were and where the county high point was, so we walked in the right direction and found the Cairn in seconds.

Unfortunately, all our pictures are pretty poor from Sawel Mountain high point because when we reached the cairn the wind had also picked up and we only wanted to spend a couple of seconds on the top, as the weather conditions were against us. We took our photos and descended quickly to get shelter from the wind. Thankfully the wind was blowing from the opposite side and the mountain and it blocked us instantly when we descended a couple of meters.

As luck would have it, the fog started to lift on our descent and we eventually got some of the views of Sawel mountains and the Sperrin mountains and the valley below, they looked amazing, we were disappointed that we missed these amazing views on the way to the top.

Gina’s final jump of the day

Our thoughts on Sawel Mountain hike — Tyrone and Derry highest point

This was our first experience of hiking in fog with our daughter and we felt perfectly safe throughout the whole hike. This was a good tester for the fog as we had the fence as our guide to the summit of Sawel mountain.

Unfortunately, due to the heavy fog, we only got a very small glimpse of the views from Sawel mountain but it did look amazing from what we could see. We hope to return back to this county high point again in the future to get a proper feel for the hike up Sawel mountain.

Sawel Mountain Hiking Time

It took us 1 hour and 20 minutes to climb to the top of Sawel mountain and back down to our car.

Sperrin Mountain Information

For Additional information look here

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After doing all the above exploring, we decided we should really make our way to the mountain, after all, that’s the reason we were up in Northern Ireland. We plugged Trostan’s coordinates into Google maps and we were within 1-hour drive away from the mountain. The driving route to Trostan was very scenic and filled with small roads and lots of sheep.

The hike up to the summit of Troston follows the Ulster waymark trail signs the whole way until it meets a fence. We crossed the fence and turned left up toward the top of the hill until we reached a 3-way junction of fences where we crossed onto the other side of the field and hiked up to the county high point. We found this county high point a lot harder than it should have been, as we basically tried to cram too much into one day. The hike is slightly boggy so make sure your boots are waterproof and you have gaiters on.

Parking to hike Trostan County Antrim Highest Point

We parked our car in a small car park area on the side of the road just where the Ulster way cuts back in toward Trostan mountain. Just as we were packing our bags and preparing Ourlittlehiker in her backpack, a local farmer drove up beside us for a chat. The local farmer was interested to hear that we were from County Carlow/Wicklow, the farmer had never heard of Glendalough but surprisingly enough he knew a village right beside our own village that had a tiny population because he had delivered cattle there previously. It’s a small world!!!

The parking area that we used to hike Trostan is very small, you would be lucky to get 2 cars here. There was a large H Sign monument made out of stone on the other side of the road. This is where we started our hike up Trostan.

Hiking Trostan Antrims highest point

We walked down beside the H sign and followed the Ulster waymarkers. We could see that the hike was heading towards a footbridge over a small stream about 200m away. Straight away we noticed the ground conditions were very damp and boggy. Under every footstep, we seemed to sink into the bog.

The footbridge was a nice little addition to walk over the stream, we don’t see many little features like this. We crossed the stream and nearly immediately the ground became even wetter if that was possible. The boggy ground was starting to make this mountain feel a bit like a slog. Every step we took it felt like we were sinking even further into the soft peat and we had to lift our knees even higher to clear the ground level.

We quickly became good at spotting soft spots, these were generally a bright green colour. We walked into one of these at the start and nearly went down to our knees in it.

We crossed numerous little streams and waterlogged sections of land, while still following the waymarker posts. The trail was gradually rising to meet the bottom of Troston. When we reached the bottom of Troston, the trial rose up to the right and thankfully out of the boggy section of the hike.

From here our increase in elevation started at a gentle pace. The path skirted up around the hill but the hike seemed a lot easier as we weren’t tackling the boggy heavy ground conditions anymore.

We eventually reached the section of the hike where we left the Ulster way hike. The Ulster way hike turns right at the fence but we cross the fence and continue up the hill following the fence and keeping it on our left-hand side. We didn’t follow the exact line of the fence, as the ground near the fence is very poor. We kept an eye on the fence on our LHS but we cut through the heather field, finding better walking ground.

We then came to another fence T junction, we crossed the fence here again in the direction to walk up toward the peak of the hill. This fence did not have a Stile, so care should be taken here not to do damage. We could see an arrangement of stone in the distance, from here and we taught it was Antrim county high point but unfortunately when we reached it was only old stones that looked like ruins of an old house.

From the Stone ruins, we could see the Cairn of the county high point in the distance. We had about 300 meters to walk to meet the cairn. The ground conditions on the top of Trostan were barren, to say the least, and even resembled a moon-like surface. We enjoyed walking along the top of Trostan, as we weren’t walking in water anymore and the views were amazing. We could even see all the other county high points from the top that we had already climbed.

The cairn on Trostan is totally different than all the other county high point markers. It is elevated over 2 meters on a large pile of soil, it nearly looks like the soil was placed here to help with an elevation gain.

Our thoughts on hiking up Trostan Mountain

The hike to the top of Trostan started out bad for us, as we hate getting damp and dirty legs and boots. The ground conditions eventually improved and so did the views. Trostan was an interesting County high point, it gave us a taste of the Ulster way as we are essentially long-distance hikers at heart.

The summit of Trostan was a very nice area with lovely panoramic views but in the back of our minds, we were always thinking about our return walk along the same boggy patch of land that brought us to the top.

Which county Hight point after Trostan hike

We plan to hike Sawel mountain tomorrow morning. Sawel is the county high point of Tyrone and Derry. Sawel mountain is on the Sperrin road and is only 45 minutes away from our night’s accommodation.

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Cuilcagh mountain is the highest point in the counties of Fermanagh and Cavan. The mountain sits at an elevation of 665m. In recent years Cuilcagh mountain has become a very popular walking route with the addition of a new boardwalk, which leads very close to the top of the Cuilcagh mountain summit.

This mountain is one of the few mountains that we have hiked twice. We originally decided to try and reach this county high point summit in November last year for Ourlittlehikers first birthday. At this stage, we had probably hiked all the easy county high points and we were trying to progress to the higher stuff but in gradual increments, which would allow us to increase our confidence with a 12-month-old baby on our backs.

When we originally arrived at the boardwalk / the marble arch caves side of the mountain, we were greeted with a very foggy and damp day. We didn’t let this discourage us and loaded Ourlittlehiker on our back and put on our wet hiking gear. We were hoping that the sun would break through the clouds and clear the fog.

The hike up the boardwalk was very enjoyable and as it was midweek we didn’t meet many other people. We’d imagine walking on a tight boardwalk with a wide baby carrier on your back would be very tight on this timber structure.

We eventually reached the top of the boardwalk and the fog had become even denser if that was possible. We knew we were within touching distance of the top but we just couldn’t take that chance with a baby on our back and such large cliffs all around the summit. We turned around without summiting Cavan and Fermanagh’s highest mountain but we really enjoyed the hike on this boardwalk hike which gathers such large crowds to see the stairway to heaven.

Attempt 2 to hike Cuilcagh Cavan and Fermanagh’s highest mountain

After hiking to the top of the stairway to Heaven on Cuilcagh Cavan, we started to concentrate on all our local county high points. We classed all the CHP hikes within 2-3 hours as driveable (with a baby) and concentrated on ticking these off the list on free weekends. This was honestly an enjoyable time for all of us and we really loved making these amazing memories.

On one of our many bank holiday adventures, we decided that we were going to hike 3 County high points in the one day. Obviously, the county high points were going to be reasonably low. So we set off at 5 am and hiked Longford and Roscommon’s highest points. We then drove to Cuilcagh Cavan and Fermanagh highest point. This time we decide to hike the mountain from the other side. We didn’t want to hike the Cuilcagh stairway to heaven boardwalk again because we knew there would be massive crowds and we wouldn’t enjoy it because of that.

We parked the car at the end of a wooded forest road with a yellow barrier. It was now 2 pm in the day and Ourlittlehiker was getting restless. If she wasn’t in her car seat she was in her hiking bag and she wanted to walk herself, so we let her. This was the first time that she ever looked to walk in the mountains. We let her walk the first section through the wooded area, a section that would usually take us 20 minutes probably took us over 1 hour this time but we were loving her excitement. Everything was new to her, she was running and pointing at Bees, flowers, grass and puddles. It was like she was up in her bag looking at all this nature and beauty and was dying to get down and explore.

We eventually reached the end of the wood road which zigzagged up to the TV mast, just below the top of a steep hill. From here, we had to follow a wire fence up the hill to reach the top. When we reached the top, we could see the summit of Cuilcagh Cavan and Fermanagh high point. According to the OS map, we only had over 100 vertical meters left to the summit but we had to walk 3-4 km to reach it. There is a trail along this mountain but it cuts very close to the cliff edges, we chose to stay inland a bit more because Ourlittlehikers bag acts like a sail sometimes and we were afraid that it could be caught with a random wind gust.

This county high point was proving to be a real adventure, the route to the top cuts in through peat bogs, down through gorges and up along a very steep cliff, we were loving it. Obviously, there was loads of sheep and Ourlittlehiker was pointing out every one of them to us.

From this side of Cuilcagh, the mountain is shaped like a semi-circle or horseshoe and we were walking around the top edge to reach the summit. Just as we reached the last section we had to climb a steep slope to reach the top section, this is where the Cairn rests. When we reached the top of the steep slope, we could eventually see the Cairn. We walked over to the Cairn, which rests on a large pile of stones on the opposite side of the Cuilcagh Cavan mountain top.

We expected to see large crowds of people up here because of the stairway to heaven boardwalk but we quickly realised that most people don’t know that Cuilcagh is Cavan and Fermanagh amazing county high point after the end of the boardwalk. We only met 2 other couples at the top of the mountain. The views from the top of this mountain are pretty amazing, we were loving all the heather and cliff views.

At the top of Cuilacagh Cavan and Fermanagh high point, Ourlittlehiker was trying to get out of the hiking back, she was trying to stand up and take her arms out of the straps. We think that she had got a taste for walking and exploring for herself and wanted more. Unfortunately, the top of a mountain is not a place for a toddler to walk on their own so we re-adjusted her straps to keep her safe in her bag. She eventually saw the funny side of it after a small tantrum.

We traced our trail back toward the car but we became very tired, as at this stage we were all hiking most of the day. Ourlittlehiker fell asleep just as we left the summit and her Mammy and Daddy accelerated pretty quickly to get to the bottom before she woke up. Like all descents on the mountains, we made excellent time but going downhill is really hard on the knees especially with a snoring baby on our backs. We think we have perfected the art of swapping the bag between each other while she is sleeping without waking her up.

When we reached the car we all had a very quick picnic and we started our 3-hour drive home. Tomorrow’s work will not be the most productive but it was all worth it.

What an amazing day, we climbed 3 mountains and ticked 4 county high points off our list.

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Slieve Gullion mountain is the county high point (CHP) for County Armagh in Northern Ireland. Slieve Gullion sits at an elevation of 573m. To get to the start of the mountain walk we had to drive the “Ring of Gullion”, be careful not to pass the carpark for the mountain hike, as the road network only goes in a one-way direction and the loop around the mountain is pretty long.

We planned to hike two other mountains on the same day after Slieve Gullion, so we did not have much time to explore the area. The location of the mountain is steeped in historical monuments filled with Irish mythology and deserves more time than we gave it.

We woke up early on a Bank holiday Sunday morning (5 am) within an hour we were all bundled in the car fed and watered heading northbound. We left our house at 6 am with the intention to drive 3 hours and climb as many county high points as we could squeeze in, while in the area.

Hiking Slieve Gullion County High Point

We followed the signs for “The ring of Gullion” from the N1 motorway. We entered the parks small road network, not really knowing what to expect as we didn’t do a massive amount of research on the walk before we left home.

After driving into the park we passed a carpark area with a visitor centre and small shops. We continued following the road for about 10 minutes up the mountain until we reached Slieve Gullion mountain car park.

The carpark is pretty big with a large sign and information boards detailing all the information about the location. This was our first County High Point of the day, we left home at 6 am and reached the carpark at 8:30 am. We were the only people in the car park (apart from some sheep) but I assume this mountain gets a lot of attention in good weather, so come early.

We walked out of Slieve Gullion carpark up the road for about 50m,  the trail for the mountaintop was on the right zigzagging through the hillside. The pathway is pretty easy to spot and the surface is a mixture of stepping stones and gravel. We had a small traffic jam on the way up the mountain (Sheep) but Ourlittlehiker loved every second of being so close to the sheep.

After about 5 minutes of walking up the zig-zag trail, we reached a gate for the sheep, I don’t think the gate was working too well. We walked through the gate and past more sheep. We continued following the trail up to a stone shelter built into the side of the mountain. After leaving the shelter, the hiking trail gets a little steeper and muddier. The trail goes up around to the rear of the shelter.

The path to the top of Slieve Gullion is quite steep from here but the footing is in very good condition. We walked this whole hike without getting our feet dirty and that is a first for this hiking season.

We reached the top of the mountain in around 30 minutes at a very leisurely pace. The peak of this mountain is very accessible and a great County high point to start doing the challenge. From the top of Slieve Gullion, we could see Ulsters highest mountain, Slieve Donard our next mountain to hike in the afternoon. The Top of Slieve Gullion has 2 concrete high point markers which was the first mountain we have seen like this.

We were really lucky at the top of Slieve Gullion, the skies were clear, the air was warm and the cloud broke just as we reached the summit. The clouds resting in the valley below gave us some amazing views that we all stopped and admired.

We quickly did the mandatory pictures and video of the high points and started our descent back to our car. We followed the same trail back to the car that we used to ascend the mountain. The descent was very quick but we did stop a couple of times to chat to locals, who all loved Ourlittlehiker.

Our Thoughts on Slieve Gullion Hike

Initially, when we had to drive around the ring of Gullion to get to the carpark to climb the mountain, we were a little disheartened as we had a tight timeframe because we were probably trying to squeeze in too many county high points but this is a county high point that deserves more time to explore.

We loved Slieve Gullion, the path was easy to identify and follow, there were no navigation skills needed here. The footpath surface was very well maintained with gravel in most places and nice rocks to climb on slightly more tricky parts. The climb from the carpark to the high point is very easy and it provides a great viewing platform to look over County Armagh.

If you ever find yourself driving from Dublin to Belfast this is a great little hike to stretch the legs on.

What County High Point next

From Slieve Gullion, we drove to Slieve Donard which took us about 45 minutes. We felt very good after climbing Slive Gullion and the fog had started to clear in all parts of the valley, so hopefully, we could get good views from the top of Slieve Donard.

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