The Sugar loaf Mountain walk in Wicklow is one of these mountains that we pass weekly and we always make false promises to hike it someday. We have previously hiked the Sugarloaf mountain but this was before Ourlittlehikers time. We must have passed it 10 times while doing our 32 Peak challenge and we always say the same thing, “our next free weekend we’ll climb that”.
We attempted to hike it once about 6 months ago in the middle of the 32 Peak Challenge. We arrived at the mountain car park early one Saturday morning and the car park was full with a race, we decided for safety reasons it was probably better if we didn’t hike up it.
The Sugar loaf walk car park is on the opposite side of the mountain to the motorway, N11 road. Coming from Dublin take junction 8 and drive toward Roundwood until you see a large car park on the left-hand side. Drive down the road beside this until you see the Sugarloaf mountain car park.
The Sugarloaf sits at an elevated height of 501m. The Sugarloaf has a distinctive look to it, similar to Errigal in shape. Thankfully it isn’t as hard as Errigal or as long of a hike. The hike up to the summit of the Sugarloaf consists of some gradual hill walking and a small bit of scrambling over rocks near the end, which is really fun. The views from the top of the Sugarloaf are pretty impressive, you can see the coastline from Bray to Greystones along with the Djouce mountain to your right-hand side.
The Sugarloaf mountain is a pretty easy out and back hike to the summit. IThe sugar loaf hike would be a great hike for beginners, as there are not any major cliffs and it’s a nice short walk if you need to turn back because of a toddler tantrum. There is a bit of scrambling over rocks near the summit of this hike, so be sure to wear the correct hiking shoes and if you are wearing a baby carrier try to avoid weekends and large crowds.
Over the previous 2 months, Ourlittlehiker had refused to get into her hiking bag and we taught that our days of hiking up mountains were finished. This was slightly heartbreaking, as we only have 3 mountains left to finish off our 32 peak challenge. We started to focus on lower looped walks and she started to look for her hiking bag again. We used the Sugarloaf as a trial run to gauge Ourlittlehikers attitude toward her hiking bag again. When we stopped the car and took out the hiking bag she jumped straight into the carrier. We both looked at each other and smiled. We were back hiking mountains again.
We now have a content Toddler in her Hiking bag so we decide to start our hike and get on the trail as quickly as possible.
The sugar loaf hike starts in the car park, we go through a metal gate onto a well-worn path that is slowly pointing toward the mountaintop. The path cuts between gorse bushes on either side. As we start getting further up the hill we see that some of the gorse bush was recently on fire. We pass some cows to our right, which Ourlittlehiker is now afraid of because they have big eyes and a nose (you have to love a toddler’s logic).
We can now see the bottom of the steep slope, which is also the end of the gently sloping footpath. We reach a Y junction with a waymark sign pointing left, we continue straight here and follow the footpath to the base of the mountain. At the base of the mountain, the path becomes far more rocker with large stones and culverts to navigate.
The path now cuts around to the left side of the mountain and the trail to the top becomes visible. At first, the route looks extremely daunting, as it is quite steep but the path is in very good condition so this helps a lot with the hike to the top. From this point, we reach the top within a couple of minutes.
The whole way up to the top of the Sugar loaf hike, Ourlittlehiker kept shouting “Big Rock” at least she understood what we were climbing. The scramble up the last 10 meters of this hike is very enjoyable and Ourlittlehiker kept shouting “more Daddy” so we presume that she liked this very small bit of rock climbing. This last section of this hike is the trickiest but the footing is good with very little Scree. If you take care on this section, it is perfectly safe and reasonably easy.
When we reached the top of the sugar loaf, we were very lucky that the weather was extremely good for the last week in October. There was very little wind and a perfect temperature on top to really soak in the amazing panoramic views of the Southeast coastline and the Wicklow and Dublin mountains.
We didn’t stay on the summit too long as we were afraid that Ourlittlhiker would want to get out of her bag to walk a section herself, we both knew this was impossible with the tricky descent below. We descended down to the bottom of the mountain pretty quickly.
We hiked up the Sugarloaf and had a small break at the top and back to the car in around 1 hour. This was a very enjoyable family hike and hopefully, Ourlittlehiker will allow us to complete the remaining 3 peaks of the 32 peak challenge when the weather improves.
Below is a map of the route up the Great Sugar loaf in Wicklow. We clocked it at 1.4km up to the Summit from the Car park.
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