David Herman - Hill Walkers Wicklow. Walks we have done.

PadraigL

David Herman - Hill Walkers Wicklow.

We have walked in the wicklow mountains and followed our own routes. This year we have used David Herman's book. The following are the routes we have completed and the difference in 12 years since the book was published.

Route 9 :Djouce and War Hill
Navigation has changed at the start of the walk as there is no car park where the book directs you to. You can park on the road but there is not much space. We parked at the first car park coming from Enniskerry. This seems to be the official car park for these woods. But we have since found that Coilte have a web site to print out the wood layout.
The rest of the walk is straight forward. The weather did come down going up War Hill, after a beautiful day up to that. Had to use compass and map but it cleared when we hit the river.

Route 16: Tonelagee and Scarr
Again navigation has changed over the years at the beginning but a fantastic walk on a roaster of a day.There is no real path down to Glenmacnass car park, a steep wet boggy decent.

Route 18: Carrawaystick and Croaghanmoira
Dreadful day. A few changes over the years. The start had a long wooded walk. There is no stile on the way down from Carrawaystick. There is some plastic path after the missing stile. Overall this has the most forest tracks yet.

Route 19: Carriglineen and Cullentragh
The start has changed. Took the 2nd gate on the left into 6ft to 4ft high bracken. Tough going but great fun to the top of Carriglineen. Reminded us all of our young days playing hide and seek. The last of the walk on the wicklow way is a little monotonous but overall a nice walk.

Route 20: Circuit of Glen Ow
Slight changes to the forest. Probably the wettest under foot walk we have done. After Aghavannagh mountain the track on the upland fields have disappeared. Watch out for the local dog at the beginning as he will follow you into the woods. Had a nice feet soak in the river at the end.

Route 27: Keadeen and Slievemaan
We know these mountains pretty well as they are our locals. The part after Carrig is a little hairy as you are in upland fields and the track is non existent. It feels like you are trespassing even though there are no signs saying so. At the "irregular line of houses" mentioned in the book we were told to get off (with a few choice words) the lane as it was private property (there was no sign to say so). We just apologized and walked about 1km down the road passed the bridge, climbing a gate into a rough field. Walking further on to the base of Lybach we crossed another fence and were met with the worse knee high rough grass and heather we have come across.

Route 29: Lugnaquillia and the upper Glen Of Imaal
This would have been one of our most common walks before we decided to follow the book. Quite straight forward for us. From lug to Camenabologue can be a little tricky especially in bad weather.

PadraigL

Route 21: Circuit of Upper Glenmalure
It's down in the book for 5.75hrs but it took us 6.75hrs. We have done the last few walks well before the time stated. We did go to Lugduff though, which was a slog after the steep climb to start. For some reason we did not follow the book after Benleagh and climbed down the south side of the cliffs. Anyway done and dusted and on to the next one.

dogmatix

I have a copy of this book from the early 2000's. I've done a few walks from it but I am always a bit suspicious that David will be leading me onto to private property - I regard him (rightly or wrongly) as a bit militant on the whole right-to-roam. So am I but when I head into the hills I just want peace and quiet and no confrontation.

I tried route 4 (rockbrook to enniskerry) a few times and this is a route in some need of updating as some of the features described have changed.

yamert

Hey guys, is there a company that enjoys hill walking and welcomes newbies?

I'm from Latvia, living in Dun Laoghaire now. I have been to few Wicklow mountains, the most interesting was probably Djouce. Irish mountains are gorgeous!

I'd be glad to join someone's company to visit more mountains :-)