Dublin Mountain way

dubliner24

Ok... lets see what you guys think:

Tent (weighs 2.8kg.... I bought a new one today, weighs 1.7kg, so that'll be coming in future.)
Snugpak Sleeping bag
Vango self inflating ground mat.

Spare fleece
Spare trousers
Spare socks
Spare undershorts
Spare base layer tee shirt

Top layer jacket

3 litres of water (2 in camelbak, 1L water bottle)
food
trangia stove with gas burner
gas

First aid kit
suncream
head torch
leatherman
hat & gloves
map & compass
waterproof matches
water tablets
mossie head net
babywipes
foil blanket

I think 3 litres of water is the minimum to be heading out with? What do people make of taking water from streams and using water tablets?
I've done it before and it was completely fine, just wondering if many people do?

That lot comes to 18kg. As I mentioned above, I bought a new lighter tent today online, so that should shave 1kg of the weight, but I can't really see anywhere else I can make a saving?


Would be interested to hear anyone's advice...

FrostyJack

For a 1 nighter I would dump the spare fleece and trousers for a start. I walked some of the trail last Friday and I had a tracksuit top. It was overcast but on the uphill sections I was roasting. If trousers get wet or ripped you are a stones throw from civilization.

The rest is probably what I would carry. Water is a personal preference. The more you carry, the more you need. What Snugpak sleeping bag is it? Do you know the weight? Could you go with a smaller bag and get a liner to save weight. I got a silk one the other day but haven't tested it out yet.

Poncke

I walked the DMC for Barretstown. Tallaght to Three Rock. It was 24km, and I was knackered, but I am a novice. The others group walked 42km and did it all in one day. The parts of the trail past the reservoir and from Cruagh to Fairy Castle is fantastic. I didnt walk past Three Rock, but the other group walked to Johnny Fox Pub

dubliner24

Cheers for the advice FrostyJack...
I think you're right about dropping the spare fleece and trousers, I'll remember that for next time.

The sleeping bag is a good one, I think maybe the trangia stove is the next heaviest item, after tent and water!
I think I might swap that out for something lighter...

What do you guys do for food? That must add a lot to the weight!

Tabnabs

Three litres of water is 3kg (plus the bottles). Could you half this and carry one of these instead http://sawyer.com/products/sawyer-mini-filter/

Carry 1.5L, camp near a water source for cooking and then resupply in the morning before you head off again.

Also worth looking at your rucksack to see how heavy that is?

Where did you overnight as a matter of interest and how was it?

dubliner24

That's a great idea Tabnabs! I've never used one of those Sawyer filters before.. they look great! and they're surprisingly very cheap too! Do you use them? That's something I might go with...

My rucksack is a Lowe Alpine Horizon TFX 65 + 10L
I'd imagine there may be better/lighter packs out there, but I'll probably be sticking with this one for a while anyway!

Your water suggestion is very good. What's your best recommendation for food?

Regarding the overnight: we got a spot in Tibradden woods. Just like mfonline said, it's a nice spot but fairly high up and away from roads, so it's not overused! we left it exactly as we found it too. It's a great spot, I'd hate to see it destroyed.

Tabnabs

I'm a big fan of sandwich wraps. Reasonably light, can take up little space and you can shove anything edible into them to make a handy meal. I also like pasta and chorizo and if there's a campfire then hotdogs gives me an excuse to bring the firefork http://www.lightmyfire.com/products/products/grandpas-firefork.aspx. For breakfast I've been trying granola and it seems a reasonable choice. Powdered milk is an acquired taste, but they say that hunger knows no flavour!

Here's a great video about a weeks worth of grub suitable for backpacking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLAh77etv14

Just started to use the filter and it's great. A real sense of new possibilities and never being badly stuck for water. Get it from Amazon USA, cheaper again.

dubliner24

I LOVE that firefork thing!! How ingenious!

That's a really great video too.. very informative, thanks!

Just bought the water filter, can't get over the price of it.. €20 including delivery from Amazon! That'll cut down a lot on weight by no-longer having to carry any more than 2 litres. I'd imagine that filter would be perfect for rivers & streams.. would you risk it with standing water though?

Tabnabs

I wouldn't, for the simple reason you can almost always get running water in the mountains here, why risk it?

dubliner24

Yeh good point! I'll stick to the lovely mountainous streams we have!

Completely out of curiosity.. the rivers you come across a little lower down in the mountains.. would you be worried about run-offs from farmers fields? fertilisers etc? obviously not a problem higher up.. but I don't know if the filter would remove that kinda thing from the lower down rivers?

FrostyJack

dubliner24 wrote: »

The sleeping bag is a good one, I think maybe the trangia stove is the next heaviest item, after tent and water!
I think I might swap that out for something lighter...

What do you guys do for food? That must add a lot to the weight!

I use the Trangia as more of a novelty, in the summer you may not need to cook food, as Tabnabs said a sandwich is handy. I have taken up a loaf of bread and tins of fish or the likes and just used that, or just wrap stuff you made at home. Mars bars are handy too as they pack small and have lots of calories. If you want to eat healthy or gluten free etc there are other options but for 2 day hike and one night I don't think some junk food will kill you. In winter cooking the food will be more needed, eating a warm meal before bed can help raise your temp before sleeping. I put any food I bring in one of the cooler bags. Nothing worse then a steaming hot sandwich or melted bar during a warm days hike. As an alternative to Trangia, you can get the MRE's with the self heating bags in them, just add water to start chemical reaction. They usually work well and very handy and light. Not gourmet but some are nice. They sell them in 53 degrees north etc.

dubliner24

Cheers FrostyJack! I've seen those self heating meals before and wondered about them... Must give them a try!

Yeh the Trangia's great, but maybe a tad too heavy!

BarryD

Petrol stoves are/were the business for lightness versus power. Don't think they sell them much anymore due to safety concerns as they go literally 'like a bomb'. I have a little Svea 123R http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svea_123 that I picked up in a second hand sale years ago. Great for overnights, you fill the wee tank, there's no pressure pump. You use the heat of your hands to warm the tank and petrol being volatile will rise through the jet. Trick is lighting it and the petrol spurts as liquid at first before it starts vapourising and burning as a gas. Once it's going, the heat from the burn, heats up the whole unit and pressurises the tank - a very neat concept.

The more recent MSR stoves approach the idea as well in a different way. You use the fuel bottle as the tank, there's a lightweight pump and burner unit. http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves/simple-cooking/whisperlite-international-2012/product

dubliner24

Those liquid fuel stoves are great for knowing how much fuel you have left! I find that's the single biggest drawback of gas stoves.. It's nearly impossible to know how much cooking time you've left... only solution really is to carry an extra canister!

The MSR whisperlite looks great BarryD, not cheap though!

BarryD

Nope, not exactly cheap but well enough engineered to last a long time. The one I have has plastic parts in the pressurising pump, I suppose to keep weight down, but it works well enough. I've changed the seals, that's about all. I'd burn mostly 'essence c' in it - this is the Coleman like fuel you can get in French hardware shops and supermarkets. But it runs on unleaded petrol or paraffin as well.

FrostyJack

http://www.dublinmountains.ie/filead..._threerock.pdf

I did the guts of the walk for the first time the other day, starting in Marley though and joining DMW at Fairy Castle. It was the hottest day of the year but wasn't too tough. Took me 3 and a bit hours to do about 18km that was with a reasonable sized pack, including a long stop on Tibradden Mountain for a sandwich. I planned to cut through Massey Wood and come out at the Hellfire Club to be picked up but after jumping over some fallen trees I came across a pair of horses blocking the path. I didn't know the protocol to dealing with them (if I would scare them or they would trample me) so I turned around and walked the rest using the road. The majority of either side of the route taken seems to be mainly road walking which doesn't appeal to me, so don't think I would bother doing the whole thing. Going through Cruagh Wood the DMW trail seems to go left and takes a longer route for some reason (possibly better views), I just went the straight route and probably saved 20 minutes.
There is a shop at Zipit at the base of Tribradden Pine Forest (Western side) if someone was stuck for supplies mid-trip. Don't know when it opens but image whenever there is people booked into zip lines.

delta_bravo

Resurrecting this thread as I did the full route again about 3-4 years since the last time I did it. Going from Tallaght to Shankill I had a lot of difficulty finding a waymarker after the masts at Three Rock. I remembered from before that I had to continue past the masts and eventually swing a left through the woods to get onto the Ballyedmonduff Road but there was no waymarker I could see at all and the woods were bounded off by this private bmx track that wasn't the most welcoming to walkers and was wired all around (although some obvious signs of people getting under the wire in places) Even then after finding a way through there were lots of "No entry" signs along the road I think due to logging activity but no mention of an alternative route. When we eventually got to the stile that leads onto the Ballyedmonduff road there was a notice saying to use the main entrance to the BMX track (although no mention as to where this was).

Overall the route was good but the above issue was an annoyance and also there seemed to be a few missing waymarkers around Carrickgollogan that delayed our travels.

dogmatix

I was up at the ballyedmonduff area and wedge tomb recently and there is definiatley a lot of new work going on in that area with regards to BMX trails. Plus lots of tree felling going on there also. It looks like the golf course there has been given over to the new trails - the course looks abandoned and overgrown. But I wont be sheding any tears for a defunct golf course! But I was still able to access the trails and the wedge tomb from the main road however, and had no trouble with the people felling he trees or bike trail contruction crews (there is a white van belonging to GAP bike trails driving around the woods).

But I was coming from the main road - I would not be surprised if there are difficulties regarding access when coming down from the three rock. I dont think walkers are being excluded intentionally but that area might be a bit difficult for the next year or so until the tree fellers and bike trail crews are finished. I did notice some missing waymark posts myself.

Alun

Looking at the trail map on their website ...

https://www.thegap.ie/trails/

it looks like the DMW is being rerouted through the bike park away from the road.

delta_bravo

Just saw on facebook there is a new segment of the DMW opening between Johnny Foxes and the Scalp. Anyone know the new route? It would be excellent if they cut off a lot of the road parts there as that is by far the worst and most dangerous part of the route coming down into Kilternan from Glencullen.

Alun

Interesting ... apparently there was a guided walk last Sunday following the new route. Wish I'd known about it else I could have recorded a GPS track

dogmatix

delta_bravo wrote: »

Just saw on facebook there is a new segment of the DMW opening between Johnny Foxes and the Scalp. Anyone know the new route? It would be excellent if they cut off a lot of the road parts there as that is by far the worst and most dangerous part of the route coming down into Kilternan from Glencullen.

Does this mean they have finally sorted out the right-of-way difficulties at Ballybetagh woods? I believe the DMW had originally intended to take this route (there used to be a number of blank DMW way posts along that road). It would be a huge boon if they have - the stretch from Johhny foxes to Kilternan was always a bit dodgy for road walkers.

BarryD2

dogmatix wrote: »

... the stretch from Johhny foxes to Kilternan was always a bit dodgy for road walkers.

Dodgy is a mild description for walking that road

copacetic

There was a route change that took about 1k more off road, but pretty minor. It’s been on the website since August, Is that the change or is there a more significant one since?

JazzyJ

copacetic wrote: »

There was a route change that took about 1k more off road, but pretty minor. It’s been on the website since August, Is that the change or is there a more significant one since?

Presumably that's the change that brings it through the GAP mentioned above.

I've seen some photos of boardwalks in the woods close to the ski slope, so they might be related to a newer route.

Stark

I volunteer at the ski slopes on Sundays and noticed a load of walkers in DMP jackets hanging around last week. Got talking to them and yes indeed it seems like the new route passes by the ski slope. Haven't had a chance to explore it yet, maybe next Sunday.

delta_bravo

Just wondering did anyone try out the new route yet?

cnnc

delta_bravo wrote: »

Just wondering did anyone try out the new route yet?

I walked from Shankill to Three Rock on Friday. I saw no indication that the DMW route had altered to go through the grounds of the Kilternan Hotel or Ballybetagh, but I'll admit I wasn't really searching for clues. The Facebook page of the Dublin Mountain Partnership mentioned in October that this new section of the Way would be announced "soon". I suspect there'll be movement in the next few months. The stretch from Kilternan to Glencullen is not ideal for walkers.

Alun

Yes, I don't think it's been officially opened yet.

happyfriday74

I had another crack at the way from Shankill. Instead of following the trail along the road( we got led astray and ended up going for a few in the Golden Ball last time we did this) we walked toward Enniskerry and went through knocksink wood.

The trail in knocksink goes a bit cold eventually so it got a bit wild but we did eventually push through all the way up the riverbank and came out at Bridge Road which is only a quick stroll to Johnny Foxes.

It would be great if the trails in knocksink were added as this would give a much more rural route to Glencullen but the talk of rerouting it past the ski lift or Ballybetagh is really positive.