For me, climbing Mweelrea would mark my successful summit of the highest peaks in all four provinces of Ireland. Not exactly an amazing achievement by any standard but as an Irish hill walker it was something I wanted to tick off the list. On my Himalayan trip last year I met a lady called Elaine from County Mayo, the county where Mweelrea is. We agreed that we would organise a weekend to meet in Mayo and climb Mweelrea. I travelled over to Mayo with my wife Fionnuala on the day before the hike and stayed in a hotel in the small village of Louisburg, about 20 minutes from the mountain. There we met Elaine and her husband Dan who were staying in the same hotel. We had a quick drink and planned the arrangements for the next day.

When we awoke shortly after 7 the next morning the weather outside was absolutely horrendous. Gale force wind and heavy rain was beating against the windows of the hotel. At that stage the hike appeared to be in question. I was, however, still confident that there was a window of calm weather coming in the next few hours, so we got ready to go anyway and went to a small cafe where we had a full Irish breakfast each; the perfect breakfast before a good hike. Thankfully by the time we had finished breakfast the forecasted weather window had arrived so we set off for the mountain.

We had decided to climb Mweelrea from the west as this appeared to be the most direct route to the summit. It began with a short lane with some space at the bottom to park the car. At the top of the lane we passed through a gate into open grassland. Due to the huge volume of rain the day before and throughout the night the ground was absolutely saturated. This was the case for almost the entire route but thankfully we had all come prepared with waterproof boots and gaiters. There is no beaten track or recognisable path along the route. Instead we made our way across the open boggy ground until we reached a river which we then followed. There were some beautiful views on the way up looking west toward the Atlantic. The ascent was gradual to begin with then became steeper as we approached the ridge. Once on the ridge we turned right and followed this all the way to the summit. The ground in places was very slippy due to mud. We were just beginning to get into the cloud at this point so at times we were able to see the view from the summit and the very dangerous drops to the south east. We enjoyed a few minutes on the summit to snap some photos. The wind was light so conditions were not unpleasant.