Lost on the Binnian Loop

After a dramatic St. Patrick's Day, I needed some time to just decompress and sort out my thoughts after everything that just happened (don't worry! I won't be getting into it in this post). I decided on Slieve Binnian as it's a mountain that I've summited only once before many years ago though I had never done the actual Binnian Loop.

Not having done this trail before, I went purely of vibes of where I need to go with the bear minimum bearings of Slieve Binnian being to my left and that I would eventually reach it somehow. So I stuck on my audiobook and began the trek along the trail through the valley, the clouds covering the peaks of the mountains all around me.

As I continued on the trail, I finally reached the fork in the trail, terminating at the overview of Ben Crom reservoir. To my left was the North Tor leading to Slieve Binnian and to my right was Slievelamagan which I marked as a mountain I would like to summit in the near future due to the possible views through Silent Valley.

After finishing my lunch, I began the arduous 270m ascent up to North Tor as my surroundings slowly disappeared into the clouds, leaving me with around 5m of visibility all around. Being able to see almost nothing but clouds all around me was both eerie but also very peaceful as I felt truly alone up here.

The hike from North Tor to the summit of Slieve Binnian felt like an eternity due to a lack of service to keep me right and a lack of sight to see where Slieve Binnian was exactly! So I stumbled blindly along the trail until I mistakenly drifted off of in the clouds, leaving me with just a general direction of where I needed to go. Eventually I found a part of the Mourne walls and as I knew Slieve Binnian has some walls going up to the summit, I could safely follow these walls until they would eventually intersect.

Finally I was at the summit of Slieve Binnian, the clouds had completely cleared up and I could see the entire Mourne Mountain range from my vantage point or so I wish I could say it was so. Instead, it was even cloudier than at North Tor! However, again like previously it was peaceful and calming - providing an environment for introspection and reflection from everything that's just happened in the last 24 hours.

The walk back down to the original valley gravel trail took me down the wall I once followed when I first summitted Binnian years ago. Going down this way was definitely easier than from what I recall going up was like. However, the constant drops and impacts on my ankles and knees did slowly add up! [wow, I felt old writing that...]

 As I continued my descent, I noticed that the clouds were slowly clearing up especially around Slievelamagan which I previously couldn't see at all, so typical!