Croagh Patrick, The Holy Mountain, or Cruach Phádraig, in Irish (which translates to "St. Patrick's stack) is 2,533 ft. tall - the 3rd highest mountain in County Mayo.
the mountain has historical and religious significance to Celtic and Christian culture.
the short version: in the 5th century, St. Patrick (the patron saint of Ireland) built a church on the summit, fasted and prayed there for 40 days, and drove the snakes out of Ireland.
the view from our B&B window-------------->
anyway, the climb to the top is a famous Catholic pilgrimage. historically, the truly devoted would do the climb barefoot.
my mother, the hiker, has always wanted to make this climb, so.....
on Wednesday (June 30th) mom and i started our day with a homemade, traditional Irish breakfast at the B&B.
while mom maintains that she tasted the blood sausage, i didn't see it. but we'll let it slide.
we got on well with the B&B owners (i've adopted Irish linguistics) and we were the only guests that day so John drove us to the mountain after breakfast.
and this is where our journey begins...
our initial cab driver in Westport told us to "hire a stick" for the climb, so we rented a couple of walking sticks.
mom got two and used them like ski poles. i was pretty reluctant, but grabbed one anyway.
mom w/ statue of St. Patrick at the base of the mountain--------------->
this is only about 20 or 30 minutes into the climb, but it's probably my favorite spot.
you can see all of Clew Bay from this direction
and then you turn around and see the whole mountain ahead of you...
about 45 min to an hour into the climb, you could really see all 40 shades of green.
this is a view of the other side of the mountain..
this is also where mom discovered (much to her annoyance) that i was going to stop every 20 min or so to take pictures :)
the climb wasn't so much difficult as it was unsteady.
the terrain was made up entirely of loose rock.
as we got higher, the trail became steeper and steeper and the rocks got bigger and more unsteady.
we had to go through a few smaller mountains to get to the peak of the biggest one.
this is one of the parts where we had to go up and then down to go up again.
also, about an hour and a half into the climb (when we were approaching the steepest uphill to the peak) it started raining.
and then the mountain was almost completely immersed in clouds. let's just say it was quite windy and rather wet.
but don't worry! we made it to the top...
here we are at St. Patrick's Church at the summit------>
it has been radio carbon dated to between 430 and 890 A.D.
it's one of the oldest stone churches in Ireland.
even though we were basically sitting in a cloud, mom and i enjoyed our time at the top.
we had a power snack,
and tried desperately to take pictures when there was a break in the clouds.
this was the best we could do...
mom loved how close i got to the edge for this picture.
on the way back down, mom sort of got over it and let me take even more pictures...
i kept making her turn around, but she refused to smile
i decided this was a nice spot to catch some rays...
see how steep it is? this is the base of the highest peek
(where we felt stable enough to take the camera out again)
this is back at my favorite spot when we were on the way back down...
still mostly inside a cloud.
a little bit farther down, i took a video of mom.
it's really windy, but you can hear some of the audio (a lot better than in the video i took on the way up)
overall, i really enjoyed the climb.
it took us about 5 hours total.
(the average is 4 for this mountain, but i kept stopping for pics and we spent a long time at the top)
i'm not a big hiker, but i've sort of caught the buzz for mountain climbing...
and that has nothing to do with the glass of Jameson that mom and i celebrated with in the pub at the bottom of the mountain.
after some brief mingling with fellow climbers at the pub, we cabbed back to the hotel, covered in mud.
once showered, we went to the Asguard Hotel for Irish beef burgers and homemade onion rings.
(our B&B is 5 or 6 doors to the right on this strip)
then befriended the bartender at another pub where we enjoyed live music and Irish coffee.
it was a really great day. i kind of enjoyed the fact that it rained during the climb.
i like to get muddy
and as the cab driver said, "this way it's really penance" lol
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