Rover Collab Camp
On the weekend of the 24th-26th of February 2023 Rover soc and the Club joined forces to go on a camp of epic proportions.
On Friday, 9 intrepid adventurers hiked up to Loch Mhám Ochóige where they camped for the night. Due to someone forgetting the hot dogs, we survived on some french toast or eggy bread as Johnny calls it. Joe tried to cook scrambled eggs with the leftovers but it took around 20 minutes until it was anything but a gooey mess. After a little bit of stargazing, we went to bed to prepare for the legendary day that lay ahead of us.
Despite our intentions of being up for sunrise at 7:30, we rose at 8 to a picturesque view of the Maamturks and the Bens. We had a delightful breakfast of porridge from a communal bowl before breaking site and embarking on our journey.
The first ascent up Cnoc na hUilleann was slow with many breaks as we were still digesting our porridge. We took in the views before continuing towards Binn Bhriocáin. We encountered two other hikers who were kind enough to take our photos on one of the peaks. We followed the spur north and then west past our campsite the last time we ventured to these parts. We had another tough but enjoyable ascent up to Binn Bhán. We rewarded ourselves with a fine lunch and an even finer view... of Niall <3. With this extra energy we began our descent in the Col of Despondency aka the Col of Radiance (we feel despondency is more apt). This gruelling ascent brought us to the very edge of sanity and a bit beyond I fear for some of us. It never seemed to end... until it did. We stopped and had another well deserved break before crossing the boggy hills above Leenane. We got a few more peaks before descending towards Killary through some steep slippy terrain. We topped it all off with a little road walk to Killary Adventure Company where we would be staying for the night. We hiked just under 17km in total.
Once we arrived, we began unloading the ranger and pitching the bungalow. The other 11 adventurers soon joined us bearing much cheese and other goodies. We had a delicious pasta bolognese cooked by the one and only Cian Mason before having a campfire an educating the mountaineers on the scouting songs into the night.
We rose once again at 8 to the sound of the bugle and pots and pans. The breakfast was a cooking and the site takedown had begun. Within no time all sleeping tents were down and a fry was being dished up. As the washup was being done the bungalow was disassembled and packed up. We got on the bus at 11 with the rest of the hike and headed off to Ben Coona and future adventures