While having breakfast this morning, Sara and I visited with a lone hiker at the next table, an avid hiker on a solo holiday. He is an Irishman from the area of Cork, a big guy who called himself Moss (pronounced “m-ah-ss.” I think it’s short for Maurice, which the English and Irish always pronounce as “Morris”). Moss told us that when he sees good weather in the forecast, he takes a few days off work to hike. Since he was on the same path as we for the day, we talked about hiking together. Unlike us, he carried a large, heavy backpack.
But the B&B was surrounded by fog. This was too misty a morning for the day of our highest climb, over the shoulder of Brandon Mountain. Experts warned that the climb was dangerous in bad weather or poor visibility. Well, the visibility was terrible even after 9:00am, even though it looked like it would eventually burn off.
Should we go or not? We conferred, Sara, Moss and Evan. We had our doubts, but we wanted to do this climb. So despite our misgivings, we encouraged each other and trusted that the day would be safe. We started up the mountain.
An hour or two into the ascent, the mist began to clear. Blue sky peaked through at first, but soon we saw a bright sun and a clear sky above us. Turning back to look down on the way we had come, we realized that the fog had not burned off. We had climbed above the clouds. It was remarkable to stand on the mountainside, in bright sunshine with a blue sky above, and to look down upon the clouds. It’s like looking down from an airplane window, down over the billowing clouds. At the height of our climb, the day was beautiful, the sky a clear blue, but below us everything was lost in the clouds. We ate our mountaintop lunch sitting on rocks along the path.
We were not the only ones on the climb. Behind us, and then passing us was a group of six, from New Jersey in fact. We visited with them only briefly in passing since we were the slowpokes.
As we descended the slopes, we walked again out of the sunshine, into and then through the clouds. At the lower levels, the fog had cleared, but folks down here never saw the sun that day. Their whole day was overcast, grey, and cloudy.
On our way down we also saw workers establishing a stone stairway to take hikers like ourselves down a very steep section. A helicopter was used to bring bags of large stones up for the workers’ use. We passed the grounded helicopter with it’s crew standing around. They were waiting for the fog to clear. In passing we thanked them for their work.
Once on the roadway again, we made our way into Cloghane and found our Pub/B&B. O’Connor’s Pub is another long-established, family owned and operated institution, known as a classic pub serving great. food. We ended our hike with a drink on a table outside the pub. We were greeted by Michael O’Connor, the owner who pronounces his name more like “mee-HEAL.”
A highlight of this day was spending it with Moss. He’s a big strong guy who could have gone faster, but he stayed with us slowpokes with no impatience. And Moss had the typical Irish gift of gab, so we were always entertained. We told stories, shared politics, and enjoyed the “craic” with Moss all day long. Unable to get a reservation at O’Connors, Moss was at another B&B in Cloghane, but he came back to share dinner with us at O’Connors.
Of all the B&Bs along the way, our room in O’Connor’s was no doubt the tiniest. But this is a very old building, the food was good, and the hospitality was great.
