Above: Galtymore (919m) as it was not seen on the weekend.

The 12th Annual County Mountain Pursuit Challenge was based on the southern side of the Galtee Mountains and took place from Friday the 29th of September to Sunday the 1st of October 2006. Organisers Colm Ennis and Paschal Guilfoyle had a bad feeling that we were due a bit of "challenging" weather this year after the superb conditions for the event in the previous two years.  The forecast also seemed a bit threatening with "showers, maybe prolonged, thunder, gusts" scattered about on www.meteireann.ie.  In the absence of the word 'storm' and the phrase 'prolonged heavy rain', the decision was taken to go ahead with the weekend.  After all it is supposed to be a mountain pursuit 'challenge' and there are also only about three weekends in the year when showers aren't forecast for Ireland. Friday was actually a beautiful day leading us to hope for the best - maybe we would actually see the Galtees bathed in sunshine?

Above: Sarah from the 3rd Scouts at basecamp on the County MPC.

Aidan and Darragh Maguire piled out of their mini at the den in Stephen Street at five to six with their gear strapped to the back and then with our full team of Cian, Aidan, Dean, Lisa, Sarah, Brian and Richard in place we left the County Venturers on the side of the road hoping for their lift to arrive. When we pulled into the carpark - Paschal and Kevin had arrived back from their run up to basecamp and on the way they had marked out the track with flags and tracking signs.  Roddy was there too to do the gear check and when that was done, the teams started to head off.  The groups present were the 3rd and the 7th De La Salle, St. Pauls, Sacred Heart Scouts and Venturers, Tramore Scouts and the Venturers from Middle Earth. St. Pauls as usual took an hour to get ready after they arrived in the car park - what do they be doing? - while Sacred Heart set out on the wrong track but were fortunately spotted or they would never have been seen again.  Meanwhile Cian had only gone about 200 metres down the track before he had to ring for directions.  To be fair the flags and the tracking signs took a little bit of finding but we couldn't make it too easy could we?

Above: Christophe not looking too bothered about his leaky tent.

Tom Casey guided us across the river to our basecamp which was near the ruins and trees below Knocknagalty.  Not to be slagging off St. Pauls again but why did they arrive at basecamp via the top of Carrigeen Mountain - were they looking for something up there? Did they find it? There were quite a few strong heavy showers during the night which tested out the new tents and unfortunately Christophe's 25 euro masterpiece from Argos didn't quite make the grade.  We had a leisurely enough breakfast and everyone was well fed before we tackled the ascent of Knocknagalty and Knockduff.  More heavy showers with "fat rain" spiced things up for the 300 metre climb to the first checkpoint which was manned by Aidan and Ian Grant. Paschal had told all the teams at basecamp what the bearing for the second stage would be - it was 351, but half had forgotten by the time they got to the lads - 251 from Tramore was just a bit off!

Above: A comfortable looking Billy Collins greets the morning at basecamp.

The next stop was the wall on the side of Galtymore which Colm discovered on arrival wasn't very easy to find, leaving him a nervous wait with Darragh in the kishu, fearing that he would never see the rest of the contingent again or that they would all head for home as the weather was so lousy.  Fortunately, it didn't take long though for everyone to appear out of the mist, stuff a mars bar into their mouths and head off on the last section of the climb up Galtymore.  The summit of Galtymore is usually fairly wild but there was good shelter under the cross beneath which a plaque says "Get thee up upon a high mountain - so sayeth the lord" and we had done so - Galtymore at over 3000 feet being one of the seven 'Irish' Munros. The summit was also declared the official lunch spot.

Above and Below: Members of Sacred Heart on the summit of Galtymore.

The col between Galtymore and Galtybeg was the next checkpoint and after the tough and slippery descent from Galtymore teams had a choice there of heading for Galtybeg or going direct to high camp.  Quite a few took the run up Galtybeg. While teams were at that, a call came through from a certain De La Salle leader who will remain nameless (it was Sid) - he was looking for the checkpoint at the col.  He reported that he had found the wall and could see into a valley with a large lake - where were we?.  There being no wall at the col he was informed that he had descended the wrong side of Galtymore and had in fact gone back down the way he had come up. It seems that between talking to Pat O'Connor and following Tramore he had become a bit disorientated (very understandable).  Back on the summit the mist was worse then ever - he had a bit of a compass he reported.  Sadly it had come from a Christmas cracker and mostly didn't point to north.  TC was dispatched from the col to guide him down which meant that they were the only two to have climbed Galtymore twice that day.  Well done lads.

Above: Tom O'Neill holding the diseased spine of a sheep (of course).

From Galtybeg the teams headed for the Burncourt river which would lead them down to our high camp near the forest. The rain hadn't stopped much all day which meant the river was in spate and that added a bit of spice to getting across to the campsite - Sacred Heart pioneered using a tree to transport across themselves and the gear while everyone else resigned themselves to getting a bit wet. To be fair most of the boots weren't going to get much wetter. The Venturers from Middle Earth and the County Venturers meanwhile had found a few nice pitches on the right side of the river in the forest although Tom O'Neill was reported to have rolled out of his tent after his sleeping bag or something like that and did in his back in as a result. Cian and Aidan were not amused at having to pull down their tent and repitch it in the bog on the other side of the river and to be honest you couldn't blame them. St. Pauls meanwhile had completed their ascent of Galtybeg and had disappeared.  Apparently they don't like to camp when it is a little damp and had headed for home (of course we won't slag them about that ever again). On the way back to their cars they did manage to hold their own bog long jump event though and discovered that bog jumping is best tried without a full pack.

Above: The leaders from Sacred Heart enjoying the rain.
Below: Dean from the 3rd Scouts at high camp.

It rained and rained and rained for a few hours making dinner a fairly damp affair for everybody. It looked like we would get a full twelve hours sleep although Oisin from Sacred Heart who is definitely wired to the moon kept us alert for a while. It must have stopped raining eventually during the night and the tents pitched near the river weren't washed away as we had hoped.  Sadly there were no sausages for breakfasts - only yet more nutri grains or Pasta Pesto for some - just not the job before the slog up to the col beneath Knockeenatoung. The mist actually cleared for a while there and we could see what we had been up and down the day before.  After a kilometre on the Galtymore path all that stood between us and the track to the cars were two nasty barbed wire fences,  a few boggy fields and a forest fight in the rain - but at least it was all downhill.

Above: Cian, Tom, Darragh and David with Galtybeg in the background.

It didn't take long for us to pack the cars with the wet, dirty and smelly rucksacks, boots, scouts and leaders and we were away out of Galtycastle Wood. It had been a tough weekend in the mountains but we had met the challenge well.  Next year - the Comeraghs and maybe sunshine.  From organisers Colm and Paschal - thanks to the Venturers from the Waterford Scout County, Middle Earth and Sacred Heart; to Aidan Ennis, Robert Windle and Tom Casey and all of the other leaders from all of the troops for their help on the weekend.

Above: The men at the back head for the finish.

>>> Check out our County MPC 2006 Gallery Page.

Click here to read the original event details and here for the original route outline.

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