The 32 County High Point challenge resumed in earnest this week and it did so with a bang – or perhaps more accurately, with a shiver! Galtymore, that shared summit between Tipperary and Limerick, reminded me that mountains don’t care about forecasts or optimistic hikers. They simply stand there, in all their magnificence, waiting to teach you a lesson if you arrive slightly undercooked.

What made it stranger still was how familiar this mountain felt before I even put a boot on it. The last time my wife and I passed beneath the Galtees we were on two wheels rather than two feet, swooping gently along the floor of the Glen of Aherlow as part of our Malin to Mizen cycle in 2021. Then, the mountains were something to admire from a distance – the sheer green north face of the Galtee Range is a majestic sight on a summers day. Back then they were scenery. Now they were my problem.

Expectation vs Reality

I had done the sensible bits: checked forecasts, looked at maps, reassured myself that the day looked promising. Cold, yes. Wintry, yes. But manageable. Unfortunately, my sense of competence didn’t extend to the basics: I left home without gloves and without snacks. Thought I’d pick some up in a shop but I didn’t pass one all the way down from Carlow! Clownish behaviour in winter. On a mountain. It’s the sort of lapse I could excuse if I was a novice, not from someone nearing the end of a 32-county challenge. You live, you learn… preferably not the hard way.

At Clydagh Bridge car park, I made the decision which shaped the day. Instead of heading for the Lough Curra stile – the established, friendly, sensible way up – I followed the sign to Galtymore Stile, confident that a sign surely couldn’t lie. But it did that quietly Irish thing: it pointed you in roughly the right direction and then left you to figure out the rest!

The path wandered out of forest and onto open commonage and then disappeared… no markers. No poles. Just vast, cold mountain ahead and a stream tumbling off the northern slopes. I followed the water, then committed to a small gully. Luckily (and there’s nothing like meeting fellow strays on a mountainside!) I encountered a couple who’d made the same mistake. We formed a little alliance of misplaced optimism and agreed to stick together, promising to turn back if it became foolish rather than adventurous. There is no way I could have completed this climb without their help and support. Hopefully they felt likewise!

Onto the Rough Side of the Mountain

This is not the tourist side of Galtymore. No lovely trodden track easing you gently toward the skyline. Instead, you get steep, frozen ground that demands attention and respect. Lough Diheen lurked off to our left beneath cliffs that we wisely avoided. The terrain pitched up savagely as we climbed – from about 450m to the 918m summit in a brutally direct line, a gradient that feels closer to a wall than a hill, a ladder wouldn’t be out of place.

The surface was iron–hard with frost. Grip was sometimes good, sometimes treacherous, but always tiring. I was also using poles which I found really helpful, once adjusted for the terrain. The kind of climbing where your legs burn, your breathing goes ragged, and you realise just how far removed this is from admiring mountains from a bicycle saddle in the sunshine.

Near the top, winter arrived properly. Cloud swallowed the summit, visibility vanished, snow swept across us, and strong gusts battered the ridge. Around the Lough Curra cliffs on the descent the wind became something wild – the sort that makes you lean your whole body against it and still feel unsure.

My hands had, since the upper parts of the frozen slope, decided to make their presence very much felt. Without gloves, they reached that sharp, screaming pain stage where you’re not entirely convinced you’ll ever feel your fingers again. Salvation came thanks to a borrowed pair of work gloves near the summit – agricultural by design, miraculous by effect.

A Race Against Darkness

Reaching the summit wasn’t the triumph I usually feel; it was relief. We didn’t linger. We took the sensible route down – the one we should have gone up in the first place – but the mountain wasn’t done. The ground was frozen, snow covering underfoot, light began to fade, and my phone battery slid perilously toward empty. Every modern comfort we rely on – navigation, weather info, timekeeping – all were quietly evaporating. A trail runner passed and gave us some directional advice for the best way down.

When I eventually reached the trailhead, tired, cold, hungry, and very aware of my own stupidity, I found myself thinking of the Glen of Aherlow again. Of that peaceful cycle in 2021. Of pedalling past farmers tending their livestock, the slow rhythm of rural life, the mountains watching silently above. The Galtees are stitched into local identity – songs, stories and folklore, Sunday drives, family picnics, history layered onto landscape. Indeed my first memory of the Glen was cycling through here with Tom Cullen all of 45 plus years ago! And then there’s us modern wanderers, arriving with apps, gadgets, performance fabrics, and occasionally… no gloves.

From Ireland to the Desert

All of this felt particularly vivid because only a week earlier I’d been scrambling in Wadi Al Dhahir in the UAE. There the landscape is heat-sculpted, bone–dry, dramatic in an entirely different register. Sun on stone, sand underfoot, heat shimmering off rock faces. You carry water like treasure. The danger is dehydration rather than frostbite. Yet the lesson is surprisingly similar in both places: the landscape demands respect, and complacency is never rewarded.

Standing on the Galtymore ridge in driving snow, I couldn’t help smiling at the contrast. One week baking in desert canyons; the next being sandblasted by frozen Irish weather. Two very different worlds, one humbling truth: nature is always in charge.

Lessons (Firmly) Learned

This was one of the hardest climbs I’ve done, less because of difficulty and more because of my own mistakes.

• Bring gloves. Always. No excuses. Irish mountains are treacherous and changeable in an instant.
• Bring food. Hunger is no badge of honour.
• Don’t blindly trust a sign – know your route. I left my guidebook in the car….
• Batteries die faster in cold. Plan for it.
• The hardest-looking way up is rarely the wisest.

But Galtymore also gave back: companionship, resilience, perspective, and renewed respect for Irish mountains. Five county high points remain. I’ll face them with humility, better preparation… and a firm promise to myself never again to stand on a winter summit wondering where I left my gloves.

And somewhere along the way, as I often do, I’ll think of that quiet day cycling through the Glen of Aherlow, knowing that sometimes it’s okay to admire mountains from below – because sooner or later they will insist you meet them properly, and they’ll make sure you respect them and remember the encounter.