Mourne Mountains - Slieve Donard conquered

[andreww18]

After an epic fail on Ben Vane on Oct 7 due to lungs not powering legs sufficiently and driving winds and rain, a family trip to County Down for a few days meant that Slieve Donard was in my sights.
I've long wanted to scale it, sitting proudly as it does, high above the main street through Newcastle, Co Down, and providing a stunning view as it comes into vision on the road from Belfast to the Down coast.
Donard is the highest of the Mournes and it literally does sweep rather majestically down to the Irish Sea. There's no bad view of this mountain - at its most spectacular from the beach at Newcastle or a little further back up the coast from Murlough. On a clear sunny day the view is breathtaking.
The weather during this particular trip wasn't looking great but Thursday morning looked the best option of our short hop overt the Irish Sea.
This would also be my first solo outing since starting climbing earlier this year. It was also as much as to get me back in the frame of things after struggling with Vane the previous Saturday and feeling really low about walking off without summiting.
Setting off at 10am from Donard Park car park at the south end of Newcastle's main street, the path immediately to the left (at a right angle to the football pitches) disappears into a corner of the woods. It's not signposted clearly although there is a fairly delapidated sign just as the path enters the trees.
You can hear the Glen River rushing towards the sea and it's the river you follow upwards, staying to the left hand bank before meeting a bridge higher up and switching to the path on the right bank. It's fairly steep but not difficult by any means and there's a fair amount of clambering over rocks and tree roots which makes it a really nice walk in itself. The river sits in a deep-cut gully and there are a few waterfalls to catch the eye.
Eventually the path breaks through the Donard Wood treeline and winds up into a corrie (very similar to Corrie Fee in Angus) with Thomas's Mountain and Eagle Rosck to the left, Slieve Donard out of sight and her slightly smaller neighbour the bulky Slieve Commedagh high up on the right. A really good stone path winds its way from the tree line and up to the wall at the back of the corrie. It's fairly relentless and it gets steep towards the back.
Just as it begins to let up some, the Mourne Wall comes into view, firstly sweeping up the east flank of Slieve Commedagh which for the duration of this walk was almost entirely in mist and cloud.
Coming off the path you are met with this extraordinary wall extending east up Slieve Donard and looking west up Commedagh. There's a large style over the wall and heading over this takes you deeper into the Mournes. Slieve Bearnagh remained out of sight in the cloud but Cove Mountain, Slievelamagan, Slieve Binnian all look mighty impressive to the south.
A few minutes' breather at the wall, chatting to a guy who was carrying out survey work for the NI forestry service (his pals were up near the summit doing some wall maintenance) and off up the pretty daunting looking slope towards Donard summit. It remains out of view until virtually the top. Keeping the wall to my right, the worst of the wind was kept at bay. Looking back, the view was ever changing. Cloud flying across the saddle between Donard and Commedagh, the mountains to the south shrouded in cloud one minute, and then looking tantalisingly climb-able the next.
I made the summit by 12 noon, around 2 hours walking; the path up the north side of the wall is a mix of muddy track and stone steps however i found it quite hard-going and stopped every few minutes to catch some breath). No view at all to speak of at the top, just the giant cairn, the various memorials and the corner of the Mourne Wall with another huge style bridging it. I didn't hang about any longer than to have a quick bite to eat out of the wind. Heading off around 12.30 retracing my ascent, again the view of the wall, Commedagh, Hare's Gap and the western Mournes really just confirmed that this is an exceptional area worth exploring more.
As i descended the path up was busy with various groups of hikers of all ages and experience. Making it back to Donard Park by 2.30pm, a satisfying burn in the legs and the knowledge that the weekend's Vane disaster was a 1 off, and a peak i'd long wanted to climb to the top off had been achieved and my first solo hillwalk was in the bag.