Silent Valley: Return to Slievenaglogh

Binnian

Saturday August 14: A glorious summer day in the Mournes with the Spartans. Starting from the Head Road and wall-walking to escape the impossible tangle of grose and brambles by the road - slightly terrifying. Binnian looking splendid on the right.

Then up Slievenaglogh, and that's a particular pleasure. Slievenaglogh was the first hill I ever climbed with the Spartans. Six years ago that was, and the start of what has been a very enjoyable association. This is the first time I've been back since then. It was beautiful that day in September, and it still is. It's one of the best viewpoints in the Mournes, looking down on Silent Valley and Ben Crom reservoirs and looking out on the ring of hills - one of the best viewpoints and one of the least known.

Round the top of Silent Valley, fording streams, fighting off midges - my arms are rough today. Back down to the dam and across. Silent Valley was once known as Happy Valley, before it was turned into a dam. Now that title has been transferred to the pleasant valley between Meelbeg and Meelmore. Silent Valley is silent - and awesome.

And back to the wall, Slievenaglogh and Binnian behind us. In the August afternoon sun you could imagine yourself in the Rockies or anywhere else you wanted to be. But it's the Mournes, and it's pretty good. I just need to remember the insect repellant next time. 

A Visit to the South Pole?

I went to the South Pole a few days ago. For a pint. I was hill-walking in Kerry with the Spartan Red Sox, and one night we went to the South Pole Inn, the Annascaul pub which Tom Crean opened when he returned home after years of Antarctic exploration. There's a statue of him on the village green now, across from the pub, holding several husky pups, based on a photograph from one of his voyages. It's a nice old pub, and you can imagine him behind the bar, pulling a pint and smiling gently as the locals complain about the weather.

Back home this week I've been reading 'An Unsung Hero', Michael Smith's biography of Crean, and a good read it is too. The conditions he and others coped with – months struggling over the ice on what became Scott's last journey, seasons in the dark of the long Antarctic winters, weeks in an open boat, the desperate journey to save Shackleton’s Endurance expedition - well, it was a different kind of life, and puts a different perspective on complaining about the traffic. Frank Hurley’s superb photograph of Crean, on the Endurance expedition, says it all - the woollen jumper and hat, the gaunt face, the pipe, the piercing eyes; a man you won't meet every day. The picture is in the pub and on the cover of the book, and it has to be one of the all time great portrait photographs.

Crean was an authentic Irish action hero who never harmed or threatened anyone or made a fiery speech or a fuss about himself in his life. In these days of 'celebrity'- and worse - we could do with more like him.

I look forward to going back to the South Pole - the pub that is. I think the Antarctic will have to wait. Global warming? EasyJet?