Derryclare

While on an extended visit to West Ireland, I joined the local walking club on what
they call a Hillwalk. Being from Colorado, and being a frequent hiker of the trails in
the Rocky Mountains, I feel confident an Irish hillwalk is something I can accomplish.
But to be sure, I introduce myself to the walk’s leader and ask his thoughts. He
encourages me to join them the following Sunday and advises me to bring walking
sticks. Later, while at the local outfitter store purchasing a pair of walking sticks, I
also get a topo map of the Connemara area, which includes the hill we are planning
to walk: Derryclare. The closely platted concentric circles on the map defining the
steepness of the ascent give me pause. I ask the young store clerk his thoughts about
me attempting Derryclare. He assures me I’ll be fine.

The day of the hillwalk, I ride in a car for nearly an hour with three other hillwalkers
to where the walk will begin. The two women in the back seat appear to be about my
same age, as is Pat, the walk’s leader, and our chauffeur. My confidence is buoyed.

Our five cars are the only cars in the open space that leads to where we will begin
our walk. As there isn’t a trail to follow, I am hard-pressed to call it a trailhead. Everyone
makes quick work of getting their packs on and poles out. Then it is a twenty minute sprint
down a dirt road, under one fence and over another, before the hillwalk officially starts. My
day pack is already feeling heavy and my brand new hiking poles are being very
uncooperative. They keep collapsing into thirds whenever I try to use them. I hand them to
one of the group’s other leaders to see if they might be able to figure out what I am doing
wrong.

“They’re shite,” he says after a few minutes of fiddling with them. He gives them back to me, still separated into thirds and dangling from the errant bungee cord that should bind them together. There is no time for me to take off my pack and put the poles in it. I am resigned to sprinting while holding my un-usable poles in one hand. I regret purchasing the least expensive pair in the store.

Just then, the solid ground gives way to mushy, marshy bog. Ireland’s peatland.  

In all of my mental preparations for this day, I focused on the ascent portion of the hillwalk. I completely disregarded how the hill was preceded by something called a bog. Bog. I never saw, encountered or understood what a bog was, prior to this day. 

Bog is where peat comes from. Peat is what the Irish burned as fuel for centuries to heat their homes. Many Irish adults still share a common memory of having to cut bog into bricks during the summer, in preparation for the cold winter. This rich earth is abundant in fuel because it consists of densely decomposed organic matter. The soil itself is very acidic and serves as a preservative, of sorts. Entire, intact human bodies have been uncovered in the bog. The acidic soil essentially pickles their flesh, keeping the unfortunate victim’s last facial expression intact for centuries. Human bodies from as far back as the Ice Age, and as recent as World War II, have been discovered while harvesting peat from the bog. These bodies are referred to as Bog Bodies.

In addition to being a pickling agent and a source of fuel, bog is also abundantly sticky, having the adhesive properties of Super Glue. The wetter the bog, the more tenacious of a grip this dense earth has on my boots and the sturdy (aka: more expensive) walking stick one of the group’s leaders loaned me when we reached the bog. 

“Here. You’ll need this,” he said, shoving his walking stick into my one free hand. And he was right. 

The drier portions of the bog support my weight and I am able to step from uneven mound of grass covered earth to uneven mound of grass covered earth. But when I step on a wetter portion of the bog, my boot sinks ankle deep (sometimes deeper), bringing the lower portion of my body to a full stop, while my upper body continues in a forward fashion. I quickly learn to use my borrowed walking stick to prevent my face from also falling into the wet, sticky earth. Then, I must wrestle my boot, and stick, from the baboon-like grip they are in before resuming the walk. My progress slows as I try to carefully assess each step. Is that wet or dry? Will I stay atop the grass, or sink? Step, step, step. Schloop! Stuck again. This happens every five or six steps. My walking companions, however, move like agile deer, leaping from one clump of grass to the next. I am woefully unskilled at reading this terrain. No sooner than I think I have figured out where to step, my next step sucks me in.

Finally, the bog gives way to crushed rock which, all too soon, gives way to sheer slabs of quartz jutting straight up the hill side. Pat pauses the group long enough on the crushed rock for me to catch up. I welcome the brief minute or two I am given to free my one hand of my unusable sticks, drink water and to collect myself. Then the group begins climbing straight up the rock face. Yes. Straight up. No meandering back and forth. No gentle, hairpin curves. No following of animal tracks. Shy of one small toad I came face to face with while struggling to extract myself from the bog, I have seen no sign of animal life here. The bleating of sheep can be heard off in the distance, but no chipmunks, marmots or squirrels. Not even a bird. The bog and this rocky hillside appear devoid of any life other than me and my hiking companions and some very persistent mosquitos. (I later learn it is rich in unseen bog life, in particular, eels. I am grateful I was unaware of the eels at the time of this outing.) My now-wet boots are like water on ice when trying to find a foothold. For every three feet up I manage on this slippery rock, I slide back down another two.

The group pulls further and further ahead of me. The two men who were behind me in the bog, are now at my side giving me words of encouragement. Eventually, the older of the two who volunteered to be, “The Sweep” when the walk first started, tells the younger one to go on ahead and let Pat know he will be with me for the remainder of the walk. It appears, to me, that our summit isn’t too far ahead. The Sweep and I slowly make our way to where the group waits.

But this isn’t the top. There is another summit looming in the distance, not visible until reaching this faux summit. My lungs are sucking in air like I am a three pack-a-day smoker. My leg muscles are screaming. I ask The Sweep (who I later learn is named Jerry) if the group will come down the same way we are going up. I intend to ask if I can wait for them here to return. “No,” is his unwelcome response.Then the group begins moving uphill again.

I start walking with the group, but don’t hold this position long. I begin to lag further and further behind, with Jerry. We see the group reach the next summit and continue on down out of sight.  Then it is just me and Jerry. Many long minutes and painful strides later, Jerry and I finally reach this second summit. The group is so far ahead now that they are almost indistinguishable from the dapple-colored schist of what Jerry assures me is the real summit of Derryclare.

I am done, and Jerry knows it. As we rest, Jerry gets out his compass and begins plotting a different way off this rock. While he plots and figures, my cell phone rings. Yes. There is cell service in the vast bog and rock-covered  lands of Connemara. It is Pat. I give the phone to Jerry who tells Pat that we are going to head down from this second summit and catch up with the group down below. Pat says he will look for us there.  

Before beginning our descent, Jerry hands me a tube of energy gel and tells me to have some. Then he hands me his water bottle and tells me to drink. As we descend, I realize I have become “that person” who shouldn’t be where I am. Jerry’s prime directive now is to get this American woman safely off the mountain without having to call the search and rescue team. Even more unexpected, I embrace my new-found role of hapless, adventurer. I not only allow Jerry to tell me how to walk, where to sit, when to drink, and how to breath, but I welcome his direction.

Once down and back in the green lush grass I eyed lustfully from above, I realize that the walk is far from over. I now must traverse the bog again all the way back to the road. There are several times while extracting my jelly like legs from the earth’s grip that I want to sit down and cry. I do bitch and I do moan. But it is with a small degree of pride that I say: I did not cry. 

Much to my surprise, the group is all still waiting for Jerry and me back at the cars. We spotted them crossing the last bit of bog below us while we were still up on the rock. I know they were waiting at least forty minutes for us, but no one complains. Instead, they greet us warmly then we all drive to a nearby pub to talk about our day. Upon arriving at the pub, I re-introduce myself to the others as, “that American woman,” and we all have a good laugh.