King of the Mountains: Fergal reaches peak of league table

Mullingar man Fergal Hingerty, who conquered Europe’s highest mountain, Mount Elbrus just over a year ago, has reached the latest milestone of his relatively short climbing career by becoming Ireland’s top hillwalker.

Recently, the Dublin native and Ardleigh resident climbed a combined 28km of hills in north Cork to be crowned the undisputed king of Irish hillwalking.

Climbing such hills as Mullagheirk and the Sheehy Mountains in Cork on Friday and Saturday, August 19 and 20, meant that he has hit the 1,210-mark on the league table for hill/mountain climbers in Ireland. In total, he has reached the 2,946 mark for Ireland and the UK combined. He has also scaled a host of peaks in Europe.

The UK and Irish websites, www.mountainviews.ie and www.hill-bagging.co.uk, verify all of these climbs, and though there is a slight difference between the totals on the two websites, Fergal (known by his handle ‘fergalh’) is top of the table when it comes to hill climbing in Ireland, and ninth in the list for Wales, where he often visited during a spell working in Bristol. He is also tenth for the combined league table for England, Ireland and Wales, and second in the combined table for Ireland and Wales.

This latest milestone comes after Fergal (54) spent a number of weeks during the summer climbing a host of mountains in Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, including scaling the 1,895m Giewont in the Tatra mountains, near the Polish resort of Zakopane, in just five hours.

In Ireland, Fergal has just 18 hills left to climb in Connacht (three in Galway, and 15 in Mayo, with the exception of the islands). He has reached all summits in Leinster and Ulster.

Impressively, he has managed to do all of this in just over five years. He took up hillwalking as a therapeutic exercise following an operation for acute sciatica eight years ago.

“One of the lads below me on the league table has been doing this gradually over a period of 25 or 30 years,” said Fergal.

“Climbing so many hills and mountains in a short time might seem unusual, but once you’ve been in a situation where you’re immobile like I was, the reasons behind it become clearer. My back was so bad that there was no question – I would have ended up in a wheelchair without an operation.

“So it’s a pleasure to be able to do it, whether it’s in rain, snow or sunshine. For anyone recovering from illness, it’s a great way to recover and push yourself on.”

Fergal said that hillwalking is a “rapidly growing sport” in Ireland, and that there is a link between this and the rapid centralisation of human life in urban areas.

“That’s why it became so popular in Poland, for example – people wanted to get away from the concrete and high-rises and get back to nature and the mountains,” Fergal continued.

“It’s therapeutic; great for the mind and spirit. It became popular in England after the First World War, when many officers returning from the trenches wanted to get away for some peace.”

In 2017 and 2018, Fergal really upped the ante on his climbing by tackling some of Europe’s biggest peaks, including Greece’s iconic Mount Olympus, Monte Perdido (the third highest mountain in the Pyrenees), and Mount Kazbek in Georgia. The crowning glory came last August, when he reached the roof of Europe – the summit of Russia’s Mount Elbrus.

He’s not too sure what’s next around the corner, but in the mean time, he’s going to keep chipping away at the outstanding summits on his Irish list.