Cloghane, if i'm spelling that right

So we just got to Cloghane and all I can say is cool deal. Although I think today we traversed the most ground, in terms of ascent and all that, (I believe it was 2,450 feet) and had a fairly memorable decent, which was the probably the coolest thing I've done in the last 10 years of my life.

There we were, staring down at a mountain's clevage getting a serious high from the feeling of climbing the thing when we soon realized, (after a few steps down) that this was going to be a bit more tricky than we thought. Aside from the steep steeping down, (let's just say my quadracepts still burn) there was mud, well, not just mud, but bogs. Yes, bogs! A word that quickly entered our venacular via curses, screams, and the occasional call of "I lost my shoe to it!"

But I suppose I should back track a bit. The acsent was a bit slow going at times, but Kevin, the ever patient leader was really cool with helping out Melissa, Pam, Sarah and I (Tim took a really long solo tract and Beth, Jenn and Kyle got a taxi ride to the next village) up the mountain, always offering words of encouragement, and willing to keep up with our pace.

At certain points, the cloud cover was rolling in above us, and it mad a very dense like fog, which made it hard to see a literal 5 feet in front of your face. This looked particularly hardcore if you turned around to see if the person behind you was still with you, and for a second, you couldn't see them. They were lost in the dense, cloud-like fog. I spun around once, to see if Pam heard what I had said, and I couldn't see her. Quickly I turned around again, and Kevin and Melissa had gone too far and were too out of my visibility.

When we reached the top peak, we were in awe the view (see aformentioned mountain clevage) and went right ahead on down with our descent.

After we got to sealevel, (or something like that) we still had a bit of ground to travel over. But that was all good, as now the sun was out, and it was pretty warm. We rolled into Cloghane tired and VERY thirsty, muddy (mud literally was sloshing in my hiking boots for the last 5 miles) and dehydrated (okay I may have been a little confused when the owner of our B&B asked me a simple question,) but satisfied.

Although, I have to say...I did feel a perceptive shift in everyone's attitude that night at dinner. Everyone's nerves seemed to be a bit shorter, and little jokes weren't as quickly met with a laugh, and more often an exasperated expletative. (Okay we weren't totally hating on one another, but still) It was apparent that the proximity that we all had been inhabiting over the past week was getting a little too close for comfort. Now I love all of my friends dearly, (and enjoyed Jenn, Sarah, and Beth) but everyone needs their alone time.
So that night I stayed in, and the B&B we stayed at that night had a really awesome sitting room, were Sarah and I brought one another up to speed on our lives.

Then, it was to bed I head (ed.)