Slieve Donard– Co Down Highest Point

Slieve Donard is the highest mountain in the province of Ulster and County Down. Slieve Donard has a summit of 850m. So far Slieve Donard has been one of our favourite peaks, due to the great mixture of gorgeous woodlands, waterfalls, stone walls that run alongside the mountain and views that would take your breath away. Walkingni.com have a great map showing the route on their website, here is a link to the map. The route up Slieve Donard is quite easy to follow but if you have any reservations seek to get a guide to help you.

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.