Croagh Patrick

One cool thing we were able to do was to attempt a climb of Croagh (Mount) Patrick just outside of Westport. This mountain is where, in the 5th century, St. Patrick spent the 40 days of lent. It stands a bit over 2,500 feet high overlooking Clew Bay. I'm not much of mountain climber, or really these days, even much of a workout person, but when I heard that St. Patrick had actually stood there some 1600 years ago and that pilgrims climbed it each year, I was hooked.

Depending on how you look at it, the nice thing is that you start at sea level. Nice because you get thick air, but not so nice since you really are climbing every foot of just under a half mile of elevation. Middle brother and I set off shortly after 10am, having left best friend to do some shopping and avoid the flare-up of a hip injury. We stopped for breaks along the way but pushed essentially as hard as we could because we realized about half an hour into the journey that the "one hour up, one hour back easy climb" that one guide book said was way off, and we had agreed to meet in town based on a 2.5 hour round trip.

It was challenging, as the first third of the climb ends with about 500 feet of climb at about a 45 degree incline. The second third is quite easy - they call it the saddle and you walk a basically flat section along the top of a ridge to reach the base of the summit itself. The last third was quite tough. I'm pretty sure the grade was over 45%, I'd guess about 750 feet of climb, the terrain is made up of a pile of softball-sized boulders, and the wind really starts to pick up. Here we were forced by the terrain to take it pretty slow.

We reached the summit in about an hour and twenty-five minutes, which seemed like pretty good time (our round trip was about 2:30, not until we reached the parking lot again did we see the sign saying average round trip was 3:30). On the summit is a large white chapel, which unfortunately was closed. And, we think, the final resting place of St. Patrick. I say we think because the grave was marked in Gaelic, and none of the guide books mentioned that he was buried there. At any rate we said a few prayers, got some great photos, and sprinted down as fast as we safely could.

On our way down we encountered a guide who confirmed that we had gotten the best views of the year so far - no rain and a minimum of clouds. Check it out:







As always you can click on any picture to get a larger view.