Climbing the highest point of Ireland's 32 counties

I hike because we all need some form of exercise and I've noticed that the older I get the more important that becomes. I've also discovered that no other exercise makes me feel as good or keeps my head as clear as hiking. However, hiking also provides me with great challenges and a sense of achievement. And I've come to learn that I love challenges! Ever since I started hiking, I've set different hiking goals for myself. In general, I'm very good at getting excited about new things and starting projects with clear goals in mind, but I am just as good at moving on to a new project without ever completing the old one. I have never been afraid of starting something new but if my excitement doesn't last, I find it nearly impossible to finish what I've started. This is something that I have struggled with in my professional life as well. As we all know, sometimes in life you should do things that you don't enjoy or that you find boring. However "should" doesn't work for me. My heart is definitely dictating my brain and reasoning has no role in my life. And because that is the case and I've so often failed at achieving the goals that I might have set for myself, I never saw myself as an ambitious or determined person.

But then I discovered hiking and learned that I can be very determined after all. And I do have ambition in me! I admit that I've become somewhat addicted, which makes it easy to continue and stay focused. It also helps that, as long as you've gotten yourself into the mountains, you generally cannot stop unless you want to stay in the mountains. You cannot decide halfway through your hike that you actually find it boring and don't want to continue. Afterwards you feel so great for completing yet another hike that it encourages you to attend another one and so you're hooked—not just to hiking but to the sense of achievement. But nobody forces me to get up at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning and drive for nearly 3 hours to get to the mountains. Yet I do it, week after week. I could also just hike for no other reason than health reasons, but I've decided that I don't just want to hike; I also want to challenge myself and to achieve things that require hard work and determination.

So hiking is the one area in my life where I have excelled, set myself goals, and consistently reached them. My first goal was to hike a thousand miles in 2017, which I reached in October after starting the challenge the same year. Once that challenge was completed, I felt I needed a new one. I can't remember why I decided to climb the highest peak in each county, but since I already had some of them climbed, I decided to continue with it and tackle all 27 of them (some peaks are shared by two counties, as in total there are 32 counties in Ireland).

I joined my first hiking club in 2017, and it was with the club that my hiking really took off. The club led me to the highest peak of County Kerry (and Ireland) in 2018, which was my first time on top of Carrauntoohil. With the hiking club, I also climbed Galtymore for the first time, which is the highest peak in counties Tipperary and Limerick and the third tallest peak on the list. The second highest peak on the list is Lugnaquilla in county Wicklow, which I climbed on one of my few solo hikes (well, I did have my fluffy hiking buddy with me). It took me three visits though before I finally managed to reach the top. Back then I was very inexperienced and unprepared, and Lugnaquilla was having some of her bad days. They say that Lugnaquilla is the place where the weather goes to die, and that definitely was the case on my first two attempts. On my second attempt even the Mountain Rescue was needed for some hikers because of the weather but I got down safely on my own. Lugnaquilla was definitely a hard one to beat but on my third attempts I finally managed to climb it and was able to tick the highest peak of County Wicklow off my list.

The real game changer for my county peak challenge was meeting my adventure partner in spring 2018. To this day, he is still my trusted hiking buddy and the one I adventure with. With him, we went on a 9-day road trip around Northern Ireland and the North of Ireland and, in 9 days, tackled 15 peaks (and ticked 16 counties off my list). It was a very efficient and productive road trip, and still one of the best holidays I have ever had.

I don't really plan my life, but when I go on holidays, I love making plans and having everything organised. Normally, that means that not only are all my hikes planned, but also the accommodation is booked in advance. For this trip, though, we didn't make any bookings in advance. I would have, but my then-new boyfriend said that we should be spontaneous and just go and see what was available. And so we did. The hikes were planned in advance (although we changed the order just before the trip because of the weather forecast), but that remained the only pre-planned part of the trip. It turned out that by giving luck a chance, it decided to be on our side, and despite our trip taking place in late September, when sometimes the weather might turn, the weather didn't ruin any of our hikes. Also, with the accommodations, we got very lucky, even though the decisions were made very spontaneously. We also happened to be in County Meath when the autumn equinox took place. The highest peak in Co. Meath, Slieve Na Calliagh, has a prehistoric tomb on top of it, so many people gathered on the top when the sun rose on the autumn equinox. And we only happened to be there because we changed the order of our climbs at the last minute. Talking about luck and coincidence!

I really only have good memories from this trip, even when I needed to crawl on top of Mount Errigal, the highest peak in County Donegal, because of the wind. Or even when it was nearly impossible to know which was the highest peak of County Monaghan as the highest peak is not really the top of a mountain, but one part of the bog is just slightly higher, and it is nearly impossible to recognise it. One of the most memorable peaks was Slieve Foye in County Louth. It was the third and the last climb of that day, and we were already a bit tired but wanted to get one more peak done. You don't hear people talk about Slieve Foye much, but it's the most beautiful little peak near the coast. Another beautiful mountain was Mweelrea in County Mayo, which became my favourite on that trip and to this day is still one of my favourite mountains in Ireland. You don't get views much better than those on top of that county peak. I also have fun memories of Benbaun, the highest peak in County Galway, as the climbing was such an interesting experience. The route that we took brought us over a very eroded part of the mountain that was not just eroded but steep, and it sometimes felt like we were taking one step forward and sliding down two. But we made it to the top of that mountain and finished our amazing road trip by looking over the beautiful peaks of Connemara (known as the 12 Bens). So all in all, the road trip was a great success; it helped me tick many peaks off the list and made me fall in love with this beautiful country even more.

With the help of the road trip, I got most of the county peaks done in September 2018. In December 2018, I only had one county peak left. In my future posts I'm certainly going to write more about the most beautiful place on Earth, which is West Cork. That was also the place where I finished my county-top challenge by climbing Knockboy, the highest peak of county Cork. And so, on the 8th of December 2018, I finished another hiking challenge. It took me a year, but I followed the plan that I had created and completed what I started.

It's not a massive challenge to climb 27 peaks, especially when some of them are so small that there is hardly any climbing involved. Also, the island of Ireland is relatively small, so nothing is more than a 5-hour drive away from where we live. However, completing this challenge still feels very special for a few reasons. For one, I'm pretty sure that I'm one of the very few Finns (if not the only one) who has completed this challenge. I have also been to every county in Ireland, which not even many Irish people can say. So yes, it feels great to have done something that not that many people have done. But most importantly, I proved to myself that I do have ambition and that I can finish what I've started. I guess I'm one of those people who is fueled by passion and can only push limits if the passion is there. I didn't really find that passion in my professional life but in hiking I certainly have. And that passion brought me to the highest peak of each county, just like I planned.