St Stephen's Day Family Hike (Pics: Joe & Kevin)

Sunny dining

 

Anniversary Celebration

 TYNDALL MOUNTAIN CLUB CELEBRATES 40 YEARS OF CLIMBING

There was a large attendance of club members in the Kilkenny Castle Park last Saturday to mark the 40th Anniversary of Tyndall Mountain Club, Kilkenny. 

Chairperson Irene Burke welcomed Mayor David Fitzgerald, all present and made particular mention of some of the descendants of the Tyndall family who were there for the occasion. The mayor was then tasked with the cutting the ribbon on a newly planted Quercus Robur native oak tree. Irene thanked Colm Mangan of the OPW for his help, guidance and co-operation during the course of planning the event.

Next was the unveiling of a specially commissioned bench,

when Martin O'Reilly, first Chairperson of the club, officiated. He told us how the club formed in 1981 and regaled the crowd with anecdotes, the club's history and hiking exploits down through the years. Kevin Higgins, also a founder member, recalled the names of deceased members. The brass plaque on the bench is dedicated to past and present members and bears a quote from John Tyndall's 1872 book Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers:

"Should we not meet again, the memory of these days will still unite us"

It was then on to the Club House Hotel for a trip down memory lane, where Kathleen Tuite, club member, displayed a wonderful slide show of the activities of the club since its inception. 

An excellent dinner was then served. Special guest was Frank Nugent, experienced mountaineer, explorer, expedition leader, and published author. He was deputy leader of the successful Irish Mt. Everest expedition 1993 when Dawson Stelfox summitted. He spoke about his many adventures and praised the club for it's zeal and vitality and said  we were lucky to have so many scenic mountain ranges on our doorstep with an abundance of archaeological monuments. To finish, Frank sang the beautiful Ewan MacColl song The Joy of Living.

For information about the club email: tyndallmtclub@gmail.com

(Images to follow)

 

Wales Oct 2022

John Hickey led a group from Tyndall to the lovely national park of Snowdonia Wales, an auld haunt for Tyndall in years gone by.

Day 1

John had 3 walks lined up and he wasted no time for our first walk, hot of the boat and straight to do part of the “Snowdonia Slate Trail” (83 miles full trail) in Llanberis.  We started the walk from our accommodation and had our first glimpse of the famous scarred mountains of the past Slate Mining Industry and the Snowdon Mountain Railway.  We passed the National Slate Museum and Llanberis Lake Railway, after this we started climbing up to the miners hospital and had lovely views of the glacial lake, Llyn Padarn.  

We went to the Miners Cottages in the disused slate quarry where the miners were based each week.  They left their homes on Monday morning & returned home on Saturday afternoons.  Each barracks housed 4 men in a two roomed building with no amenities, closed 1948. 

Day 2

Snowdon

Early rise to catch the bus to Pen y Pass car park.  We took the Pyg Track with signs to Crib Goch (which is a steep ascent to Snowdon, we didn’t take that route!).  There is a track all the way to the top, so we met various levels of walkers on the trail.  On the lower part of the walk, we had lovely views of Llanberis and the other side Llyn Llydaw lake & the towering cliffs of Y Lliwedd.  We traversed under Crib Goch passing the stone marker for the Miners track which we would take on our return.  The summit was masked in cloud, but it didn’t take from the experience and joy of reaching the highest point in the UK outside of Scotland, 1085 meters.  

Crete 2022

 Such was the popularity of our past Crete trips, the trip planned for 2022 was booked out very quickly, so a second trip was added

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The first group of 15 went out in the middle of September for 9 days, the plan was to walk with our belongings Camino style for the first 5 days. Our first walk was down the spectacular Samarian gorge, making our way to Agia Roumelli for 3 nights. Day 2 took us by boat to Domata beach and we hiked back to Agia Roumelli over very challenging terrain. 

Day 3 we did local walk up to Castro. We hiked next day to Loutro, which is only accessible on foot or by boat, we stayed here for 2 nights. We got a boat back to Marmara beach for our hike up the Aradhena gorge, where our bus was waiting to take us to Kolymbari for the final 3 days. On our second last day, we climbed the highest mountain in Crete Psiloritos (2456m). This was the definite highlight of the holiday.

The second group of over 30 members, went out on the 30 th September. Their itinerary was similar, with the exception they travelled to Retymno for 2 nights from where they made their ascent of Psiloritos. They climbed up the Aradhena gorge where bus was waiting to bring them to Kolymbari, for their final few days. While in Kolymbari they met up for a social night organised by our friends in the New ross club who were also hiking in Crete. They also did some hikes around Kolymbari.

As always the excellent walking routes, weather the scenery and the local people make Crete such a great trip. Leaders as usual came from within the groups, with excellent input of local knowledge from our bus driver Manolas and Andreus in Hotel Tarra in Agia Roumelli. The organisation of both trips was as usual excellent with no detail left to chance. Thanks to Martin Brett, Anne Smart and Eamonn Costello for organising these trips.

Date for you Diary

 Commemorative Event on Sat 19th Nov

To commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Club:

Tree planting and 'unveiling ' of commemorative seat in

Kilkenny Castle Park at 15.30 Hrs.  

All present and past members are invited to attend.

18.00  Dinner in Club House Hotel, Patrick St., Kilkenny.

Club trip to La Gomera & Tenerife

 

28 members of Tyndall mountain club took part in our recent trip to La Gomera, and Tenerife. February 2022

We spent 7 nights on La Gomera, and 2 nights back in Tenerife. We did our own guided walks, the leaders made up from within our group. Martin Brett and Cyril Moriarty, our two main leaders, were on La Gomera a few days before the main group and had checked out routes in advance of our arrival.

We trekked for 6 days on La GOMERA from our base in Val Gran Rey, we had varied walks and all the group took part in most of the walks, our first walk was a real test from Val gran Rey to Arure in blazing sunshine we climbed 971m over 8.50km.

Other highlights were our walk through the spectacular rainforest which covers the centre of the Island, up to the highest point on the Island Graahanroy, also our walk up to the Mirador de Abrante, although the restaurant was closed the group could go out onto the glass bottom

for some spectacular views across to Tenerife and La Palma. John Hughes did a marathon 30.0km solo trek taking in all the high villages around Valle Gran Rey. Cyril took a group from Val Gran Rey all the way up to Las Hayas and then onto Arure a good 13km trek.

We travelled back on ferry to Tenerife, and on our second last day went up to the base of Tiede and walked back the 18k to Villaflor, again a lovely walk in glorious sunshine and a great trek to end our holiday.