Night Hike with www.tullowmountaineeringclub.ie

Not much could be said about last nights hike. Well to sum it up on one or two words , Fog and Lost .

The fog was unreal , thickest I've seeing in a long time , and needless to say we got lost . There was 9 of us from Tullow Mountaineering Club on last night's walk , and Kudos to Paddy Looney , who switched mode from "lets have a wander " to " Saving lives" in 2 shakes of a lambs tail.

Not that we saw any lamb's , did I mention it was very thick fog.

Well about a hour after starting  , as we meandered around the side of Mount Leinster , just below the mast's , we were expecting to come across a small forest trail , When we diden't it was fantastic to watch the more experienced guys pull out maps , compass and decide where we were , and where we should be heading to.
Paddy took lead of the situation and asked Clifford to walk on a bearing of 340 for 500 meter's , over that rough ground he expected it to be about 600 pace's , Tim( whose first night hike was a baptsim of fog)  was designated pace counter , Paddy continued to read his map , and Chris swept from behind as "back marker" and ensured that Clifford was walking on the right bearing.

I kind think Paddy got us lost, not on purpose , but lets just say it served 2 good purpose's . He did mention that he was knackered as we started off , he had being doing a litter run all day in Carlow, He also has planned map reading with the club , but not until mid April or there abouts..

However we got lost , we were on a bearing of 340 and needed to travel about 500 meters. Every 75 paces, Tim would call out and begin recounting. I was beside Paddy for some of this part of the journey. He was clicking his bead's each time Tim sounded off.

When we are at about 550 paces, Clifford let up a shout , "There is the road" Paddy and his compass / map reading skills were spot on . .

Kudos to Paddy,Chris,Clifford and Tim for counting / measuring where we were. Paddy even refused (cos I think he wanted to see how we got on with the map reading) a GPS bearing off several mobile phone's.

You really can't beat a map and compass and some great advice / experience.

I really enjoyed last nights hike. I daren't say it was short , cos no doubt Paddy will get wind of this post , and put us down for a 30km hike next Wednesday night