Publicly we view hiking as a necessary evil in order to get down to the proper business of rock climbing. Secretly, though, we enjoy it by itself and although we have done very little of it in Ireland, we always dedicate time to it when we are travelling.

On previous trips we spent 3 days hiking on the Burmese border in Thailand and 4 days hiking up Vietnam's highest mountain, Fan Si Pan. Despite the fact that hiking would seem to be one of the safer activities from the list of our chosen sports, it does a minimum of competence in a wide range of skills; every thing from navigation and survival through to route finding. We had already completed a 2 days Mountain Skills course with Tiglin, however as we approached our departure date it had been a long time since we had practiced our skills.

We realised that if we hoped to do any serious trekking when we were travelling, we would have to brush up on what we knew and learn some new skills. So we decided to go on a trek up the mountains with CLUB CUALANN. They do easy enough treks up the Wicklow mountains every Sunday, so we joined them, with a couple of our mates, on the first Sunday in the new Year, along with everybody who had made new year's resolutions to get out a bit more.

Overall we had a very good day, however the sheer number of trekkers meant that the only navigational skill we learned was how to follow the person directly in front of us.

Read about Mountain Skills Two