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The others slept in and decided to stay in the castle today but me being the active on the go person, I decided to climb St. Patrick's mountain. After getting directions from the front desk and finding out that the visitor center was only an hour and half away I took the car and headed off. The drive was a curvy winding road and the view was nice. I pulled off one of the side parking stops to take a picture of the lough (lake) with the small islands dotting it. Then continued on my merry way to Waterton where the visitor's center for Crough St. Patric is just on the outskirts of. I actually enjoyed driving on the wrong side of the roadway and after this trip I am so ready to tackle New Zealand alone!
Now me being me I decided to impulsively climb a mountain, not realizing the full weight of the task at hand! Let me digress and tell you a short story so you can understand the full folly I thought I had done. When I was 16 my uncle took my family with him on his daily jog through the Hollywood Hills. Now we thought it was just a nice easy hike on some path, not realizing that we would be going on a trail the width of a single person, steep paths and all uphill. I swore after that "jog" as my uncle told us that I would never climb a mountain again. Ha! But here I was pulling into the parking lot and thinking "oh this is going to be a nice jaunt up" what I should've been doing was looking up. Because when the lady at the front desk of the Castle tells you not to climb the mountain alone due to the triangular point, you really should listen to her. But I thought I would prove her wrong and show her I can too climb a mountain alone! So I walk up this paved path to the beginning of the mountain. There is a statue of Saint Patrick there and then you start on the rocky paths. These paths look like the streams from the mountain made them, it dried up and people used them now. So far a mix of dirt and rock goig up at a 25-45 degree angle, the road was winding but not too bad. You keep going higher and the view gets better. Then all of a sudden you see this steep 65-70 degree angle up and winding path. Well you want to quit at that point but then something happened. I saw these older senior citizens with their climbing stick passing me and hardly heaving. I couldn't stop now after seeing gramps and gram pass by so I kept going up. Finally you reach a plateau and you think you're on top of the hill. Oh no! This is just the first point and by this time the plateau I'm talking about is like the scene in 'The Sound of Music' at the end where the family is up that mountain. Yeah that was where I was until another older couple pass me by and tell me that this isn't the top of Crough St. Patrick that is and what they are pointing to is this steep straight up 70-85 degree slope where you see the triangle's point.
Did I quit? Nope! I saw four couples all over 60 pass me by and there was no way I was quitting till I got to the top. Slow and steady I continued to climb, though I had to get out of the way when some German school age boys would run up pass me. I swear they're part mountain goat! The closer to the top you get the windier it was but the wind helped cause you were pouring down sweat by this time. But the view from the top is spectacular! No words can describe the feeling one gets after climbing a mountain that was 2,500 feet above Bay level and seeing the views below you. I mean it was pure adrenaline, self confidence rushing through, the feeling of accomplishing something big and tears cause your legs feel like jello and they want to fall off. The crazy thing is I spent only 15 minutes up at the top because I wanted to beat this group of German school boys down.
So as I'm making my way slowly and cautiously down the mountain now I hear this rumbling noise. I'm panicking thinking it is a rock slide and trying to find a crevice to hide safely. It wasn't a rock slide it was the group of German school boys racing each other back down the mountain. Dude I was so amazed at how fearless and agile these boys were just running down the stones slipping and sliding! It took me 2 hours and 20 minutes to make it down the mountain after a 3 hour and 30 minute climb up. Overall it took me 6hours to climb Crough Patric and I was carrying about 10lbs of weight on my back. Why all that weight you may ask? Well I had my laptop with me since I very foolishly took it along hoping to have time to write in it at the top that along with the water bottle I took made for some extra weight. But it was so totally worth it! Of course I forgot to pack a lunch so as soon as I got down the mountain my first purchase was a t-shirt that said "I climbed Crough Patrick" and food. J
Needless to say I was hungry come dinner time. We had dinner at St. George's Restaurant in the Castle. OMW the meal was fantastic! I had Beef Chateubriand which is this really tender piece of meat in a white béarnaise sauce. Starters was vegetables and dessert was crème brulee. So delicious and I didn't feel guilty for eating all of that!
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