Galway - Benbaun

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The following account of walking on this mountain written by Dad appeared as a comment on Mountain Views where there are several other accounts of this and other mountains available to read also. This can be a great way to research if you are planning any of these climbs. We also found Kieron Gribbon's High Point Ireland website to be a useful source of information for our 32 County High Points challenge. Definitely worth checking out if you're planning to do any of the High Point challenges.

Walk Date: 29 Jul 2016. Dillon and I attempted this climb on 10 July 2016 on a very wet Sunday. Following what we regarded at this stage as the "Bible" of the county High Point guides, Kieron Gribbon's book "Ireland's County High Points - A Walking Guide" we parked on a small road off the R344. The showers were coming and going as we set off on the track but after just 20mins we were at a spot that required the crossing of the Kylmore River but we found that due to all the rain it was unsafe to cross. After searching up and down the bank hoping for a safe crossing we turned back for the car in disappointment but it just wasn't to be on this occasion.

We returned on a much better day towards the end of July following the same route and crossed the river Kylemore without any issues this time. Apart from a small bit of mist and cloud that moved on as quick as it came, the views were great, even at the top. The bare surface on the approach and on top and the vast amount of mountains surrounding you everywhere you look gives the impression that you are in another world. It takes a while on the decent before the green returns again under foot. We were under no time pressure for this one so we took our time admiring all the views spending almost 5 hours before getting back to the car. This route up and back was 9.5Km climbing just over 680m.