Mweelrea circuit (via Ben Bury east ridge)

Mweelrea is the highest mountain in the Irish province of Connach.

The most interesting popular ascent starts at the northern end of Doo Lough, goes up into the cirque of Glencullin (which even has some proper moraines) and follows a big ramp up the edge of the cirque to a saddle south of the secondary summit of Ben Bury. Though the ramp does not pose any technical challenges, it's a spectacular route which could get dangerous in bad visibility.

Dan Bailey's Cicerone guidebook "The Ridges of England, Wales and Ireland" describes another ascent from this side of Mweelrea, going directly up the Ben Bury east ridge. We follow his route.

You can pick your own way from Glencullin to a first mini-summit at ca. 560m. Using a little route-finding intuition, you should not encounter any difficulties here. The crags near the top of the mini-summit offer some nice possibilities for easy scrambling.

From the mini-summit, the Ben Bury east ridge looks daunting, but it will turn out a to be a lot easier than it seems. One rock prow has to be "cunningly avoided" (quot. Bailey) a little to the left (south) of the ridge. After crossing some 20m of scree to reach the foot of the prow, you can traverse left over a narrow grassy path to a depression of pale rocks. After a short, easy scramble up those pale rocks, you can traverse back to the ridge again, at the top of the prow. Apart from that, the Ben Bury east ridge can be followed directly. The terrain is enjoyable and offers surprisingly few challenges (T4-, I). All to soon, the ridge tops out onto the Ben Bury summit plateau.

The main summit of the Mweelrea massiv is some 2km further along. The terrain is easy, but the views make this a very exciting walk nonetheless. The Achill Island and the white chapel on the summit of Croagh Patrick are visible to the north, the ranges of the Maamturks and the Twelve Bens are stretched out in the south, and the amazing shoreline around Killary Harbour, with sandy beaches and small islands that look almost tropical, lies to the west.

After having lunch on Mweelrea, we return towards Ben Bury, traversing below the summit to the saddle where the ramp goes down into Glencullin. This would be the quick way back to the car, but we still want to continue with the Ben Lugmore ridge. This is a fine ridge walk without any noteworthy obstacles. In fact, the terrain only gets a little harder again lower down, descending along the Ben Lugmore east ridge. We have to cross some undulating craggy terrain around the 470m contour (T3), before finding a way down into the valley. The route with the lowest risk of complications (though fairly long) descends south towards Fin Lough (by the pretty green Delphi Lodge mansion) before following the upper fence line north again to the sluice gate at the bottom of Doo Lough. We have to walk along the asphalted road along the lake for the final 3km back to the car. Thankfully the traffic is really light here and the views make even this part of the hike enjoyable.