Sunrise, Sunsets and Paintbrush Skies
Sunrise, S unsets and
Paintbrush skies Adrian Hendroff captures the magic of the Irish mountains in words and images. Photos by Adrian Hendroff
I ARISE from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low And the stars are shining bright: I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Hath led me - who knows how? To thy chamber - window, Sweet! - Percy Bysshe Shelley
I
stared up the treadmill of scree that lined O’Shea’s Gully. Its loose rocks glinted tints of silver-grey under the brightening pre-dawn sky. The smell of rock in the air was strangely intense, intoxicating me like sweet perfume. The mountain had cast its spell and I felt part of its rocky arm that surrounded me in a wide semicircle. Hours earlier, I had spent a benign night camped under a starry sky near a lake at Cummeenoughter, a hanging valley nestling under the shadow of Carrauntoohil in the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks. But now, I grew in anticipation as the promise of a new day beckoned. As I arrived on the top of the gully, a section of sky near the horizon flushed an intense pink and vibrant orange. The rest of the Kerry sky scintillated a whitish shade of purple. These colours uplifted my spirits and I felt my cheeks glow as I negotiated rocky ground that led to Ireland’s highest mountain. I arrived on Carrauntoohil’s summit just before 5a.m., with its cross and stone shelter silhouetted against the dawn sky. Out of my many ascents, this one was special: I stood on the summit and watched the mountains come alive. The rising sun over the Reeks blessed the Iveragh hills with a delicate dawn quality; melting away layers of clouds that wrapped the shadowed valleys below.
Of late, such are the moments I cherish in the mountains. These ‘magic’ or ‘golden’ hours at dawn and dusk when the sun starts to rise or sinks low in the sky is quintessential; the quality of its light nonpareil. Such are moments that I wish would last an eternity. But they do not: each moment is unique to the place, the season and the time. It will never repeat itself exactly always a different cocktail of ingredients of infinite variety. I have been lucky to have witnessed such moments of beauty in the Irish mountains during the making of my book From High Places. To me, the book has been a labour of love for the good part of the last decade of my life. The seeds of passion for our high places was not borne overnight, but planted in me over time from the day I decided to climb all 212 of our mountains over 2,000 feet while descending towards Hare Gap’s in the Mournes in 2002. I got there in the end in November 2006 on Croaghgorm in the Blue Stacks of Donegal, and was enjoying it so much that I went on to do the remaining ‘tops’ of the 600m Vandeleur-Lynam list, culminating in the ascent of the south
summit of Aghla Beg in August 2009, ironically also in Donegal. That was my own personal holy-grail, a ticklist of 268 peaks, achieved. I had quenched an obsession, satisfied my innate curiosity of ‘what lies beyond’ and the view of the world from thisor-that summit. Often during my ‘quest’, I wondered what was left to do or see in the Irish mountains once I climbed my final 600m peak. I was wrong: there is plenty. Over time I realised, the mountains are not all just about summits. It’s also about remote valleys, tranquil lakes, captivating ridges and savage crags. It’s about different routes to these wild places in which each excursion lends a unique experience or a new discovery. It’s about the appreciation of the history of each mountain area; its geology, fauna, flora and folklore combined. We are lucky in Ireland that we can also add the proximity of the sea to most of our mountains. With the delicate interplay of light and shadows amongst them, we are left with a truly fabulous arena of haunting beauty. Not just at sunrise and sunset, but of the paintbrush
skies that occur between cold fronts, typically after blustery showers of rain and hail. It is then when clouds sweep across the sky in belts, followed by clear sunny spells between showers that often create momentary dream-like images of ethereal grandeur. The beauty of sunrise, sunsets and paintbrush skies are one of the sheer delights of hill-walking that I wanted to share in From High Places, both in images and words. In a sense, such rare moments make familiar Irish mountain scenes look unfamiliar to the eye. Here are some such moments:
Adrian Hendroff's book From High Places (The History Press) is on sale nationwide from good booksellers. A full review will follow in our next issue.
Sunrise, Sunsets and Paintbrush Skies
Slieve League, south Donegal
Out of all my ascents to this fine summit by the edge of the sea, one stands out above the rest. Late one February afternoon, having earlier climbed Slievetooey, a mountain range west of Ardara, I found myself ascending the flagstone path leading up to Slieve League from Amharc Mór. Lapping Atlantic waves beat against the cliffs thousands of feet below as I ascended toward Scregeighter, Crockrawer and negotiated the sharp crest of Keeringear. Later, moving on at a canter along the broad One Man’s Pass, I reached the trig pillar on the summit of Slieve League. And then the fun began: as the evening sun dipped westward below the horizon, I witnessed a dazzling display of colours on cliffs to the south-east, its rocks bathed in a warm vermillion glow and stained with purple-pink shadows. For photographers, this is an opportunity to work with the natural light. At sunset, as the sun dips to the west, shoot anything but west (in this example I pointed my camera south-east). Similarly, at sunrise, shoot away from the rising sun. If the sky is clear to the east, point the camera west. Better still, if there are wispy clouds to the west, these will pick up the colours of sunrise, resulting in an interesting composition.
Urris Hills, Inishowen
There are exceptions for shooting into the sun. I once ushered in the darkness on the rough ridge-line of the Urris hills. The final hour of winter light was fast approaching as I negotiated ground high above Crunlough and Lough Fad and soon the sun was a glowing ball of bright-yellow above Lough Swilly. Its rays parted the waters of the Swilly as a royal-yellow carpet that rolled from distant Derryveagh peaks, with orange glints at the carpet’s edge sparkling like diamonds. I took my chance with this shot by shooting into the fiery ball of the sun. Fortunately for me, it turned out well. However, there is no harm in waiting for the sun to drop beneath the horizon. As it does, the potential of flare reduces and the upper atmosphere turns a blaze of purple and crimson hues. Some scale to the composition is also a good idea; in this example the person standing at the edge of the ridge provides just that.
Mangerton plateau, Iveragh Peninsula It is believed that somewhere on Mangerton’s heights a Bronze Age gold lunula, a crescent-shaped metal ornament, was found. This is reminiscent of the golden light that enveloped the mountainside as I topped out a gully from the depths of the Horses Glen late one spring. As I wandered toward the northern rim of the plateau, the ink-blue waters of The Devil’s Punch Bowl and the snake-like ridge above the Horses Glen caught the dying embers of the sun. There were no echoes of the monster that is said to be imprisoned
in the depths of the Punch Bowl, or lament of the butchered McCarthy’s and Normans of 1262, but only silence: a powerful and uplifting silence of the mountains in its eternal evening glow. Sometime later, from high on the plateau, I stood and watched the sky above the Reeks and Iveragh peaks in the distance come on fire, as the evening sun burst through a gap in the clouds, with the silent world at my feet. Indeed a heavenly vision - nature’s display of explosive light!
Sunrise, Sunsets and Paintbrush Skies
Lough Belshade, Blue Stack Mountains, south Donegal
This image portrays Ireland’s mountain landscape at its wildest best. It is a classic display of ‘wild light’, a product of dense cloud coverage which filters and veils the sunlight, which endeavours to escape through layers of cloud. Here, the light was utterly absorbing as I descended toward Lough Belshade from the Blue Stack ridge over scores of snow-laced granite boulders and under the towering dark-grey buttresses of Binmore. The evening sun caught the cliffs on the back of the lake with striking intensity, lighting up its crags in a yellow fluoresce. The cliffs and all its dazzling colours were reflected off the wild ice-scratched basin of Belshade, itself cast in a purple-blue glint under rolling clouds. The landscape voiced a peculiar tone, as if a mystical vortex had opened up a time-warp into a Jurassic world.
Knockanoughanish, Beara Peninsula This image was taken in late summer, weeks after I had submitted the manuscript for From High Places. It is an inspiring panorama seen from the modest summit of Knockanoughanish, ‘the hill of solitude’, with shafts of sunlight piercing through billowing clouds behind the silhouette of Knockatee and illuminating the waters of Kenmare River below. The dark outline of rolling Iveragh hills in the distance adds an element of mystery to the scene as clouds scud across the sky in the drifting light and shadows, a moving testament to the power of the unspoiled landscape: nature’s own living hieroglyph. I wasted no time in submitting this image for From High Places and am glad it made the book! In such moments, I am humbled by the power of the mountain landscape; I feel overwhelmed and in complete awe. My spirit quietens and I lose myself in the landscape, almost becoming part of it. The scene reminded me of what the late Irish poet, John O’Donohue wrote: The echoes take us To the heart of the mountains. When the silence closes, You say: Now that they Have called our names back The mountains can Never forget us.
Galtybeg, Galtee Mountains
One winter, I found myself on the Galtee ridge in southeast Ireland, its steeper northern ramparts streaked with snow like a zebra’s stripes, whereas its gentler southern slopes were virtually void of any. As I approached Galtymore from Galtybeg’s summit ridge, I witnessed the softest gleam of light bouncing off the snow amidst an overcast but charming winter sky. It was a spellbinding scene, a magical halfway house between this world and the next. The magic of reflected light in the mountains, it filled me with a warm embrace on that otherwise chilly winter evening.
Sunrise, Sunsets and Paintbrush Skies
Paintbrush skies Here are two examples of striking clouds and paintbrush skies between cold fronts. Minutes before both images were taken I was soaked in an almighty outpouring of water from the heavens. The first image, taken early in the day from the flat expanse of windswept grass and wild heather of Reenconnell’s hillside above the town-land of Kilmalkedar in the Dingle Peninsula, showcases the entire sweep of the Brandon range on its gentler western side. The second image was taken late in the day from the summit of Knockpasheemore in the northern corner of the Twelve Bens in
Connemara, with the Glen Inagh River seen twisting along the broad valley floor. South of this river, steep mountainside soar upward ominously, complete with buttresses and crags, ending on its upper ranges to form a rugged massif of roller-coaster rises and dips. It is a fascinating view, dominated by Bencorrbeg, the ‘peak of the little corrie’, and Binn an tSaighdiura, the ‘soldier’s peak’. In both examples, clear spells between showers was the opportunity I used for photography.
Cloonaghlin, Iveragh Peninsula
The final image is another powerful example of the intricate play of light and shadows at sundown. It was taken on a cold winter evening above Derriana Lough from the spur that rises north of Cloonaghlin, deep in the western end of the Iveragh Peninsula. Over the following days, I had spent two nights camped in sub-zero temperatures and freezing winter conditions amongst Old Red Sandstone mountains in one of the wildest parts of Kerry. A small price to pay then, to witness nature at its poetic best: another sunrise, more sunsets and several more paintbrush skies in the days ahead. It’s a hard life, but a fulfilling one. I leave you to ponder on the words of John Montague, and perhaps you, like me will endeavour to ‘chase the light’ in 2011 amongst the mountains in our great outdoors: A feel of warmth in this place. In winter air, a scent of harvest. No form of prayer is needed, When by sudden grace attended. Naturally, we fall from grace. Mere humans, we forget what light Led us, lonely, to this place.