Mullingar hikers reach summit of Turkey's highest peak

Eilís Ryan

A group of hikers from this area were feeling on top of the world after hiking to the top of Mount Ararat, the highest mountain in Turkey, which offers views of that country, plus Armenia and Iran as well.

In total, the party numbered 26, around 60 per cent of whom were members of the Mullingar Hiking Club, with the remainder coming from other parts of Ireland, reveals the Hiking Club’s Kenneth Delaney.

And while all of Ireland was sweltering under the heatwave conditions, the hikers were making their way through snow as they neared the top of the 5,137m peak, where temperatures were at -15 degrees.

“Not too many Irish teams or groups have ever gone that far out to go for a hike, for sure,” laughs Ken, who with colleagues Andrew Bollard from Rochfortbridge and Tom O’Donoghue from Athlone just three months ago established Explore-more.ie To organise these sort of trips.

“So I advertised it to the Mullingar Hiking Club and I didn’t think I’d get a big response, but 27 people booked for the trip.”

It’s up there with the toughest tests the Mullingar Hiking Club members have set themselves: “Only a few months ago we did Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro was 5,895m and Mount Ararat was 5137m and then we also did Toubkal in Morocco,” says Ken. “That was around 4000m and we also did Mont Blanc, which is around that height as well. So I think it was pretty tough.

“Summit night was really hard. It was about an eight-hour hike to the summit from Camp Two.

The group flew out to Turkey on July 12, and returned just on July 23. On the first day of their hike, the group hiked to Camp One, which is at 3,200 metres.

“Then the following day we hiked up to 4200 metres. And then from there we spent an hour acclimatising, and then we hiked back down to the base camp, because the rule of thumb is when you’re hiking is ‘hike high, sleep low’.”

While the ascent took as long as eight hours, the journey down took about another six hours.

“So it was about a 14-hour day in total,” says Ken.

Conditions were good, but because it was so cold, there were no long stops for food: people carried their water in water bladders so they did not have to keep stopping and trying to open bottles; they had snacks in their pockets. “We probably had five eight-minute breaks,” says Ken.

He stressed that he, Tom and Andrew were keen to keep the costs down: “It was actually quite affordable. We do it for as cheap as we can for everybody, and we’re like the cheapest adventure travel company in Ireland at the moment.”

Ken works full-time in tourism, as a private tour operator, driving Americans and Americans and Canadians around Ireland and Scotland.

About sixty per cent on the trip were women: “There’s always more women on these trips because, just with things the way things are nowadays, women love coming in groups as opposed to solo hiking. It’s a lot safer, I guess, and the camaraderie and the fun and the craic is just great,” says Ken.

Following the ascent, the group spent some days sightseeing, visiting what is reputed to be the remains of Noah’s Ark, and visiting various other places.

Little, however, comes near the views from the top of Mount Ararat. “You could just see the border of Iran at night time from our campsite. We could see the mountains and the lights of Iran, we could see Armenia. It was just phenomenal. Some of the pictures we have are just unbelievable.”

Interestingly, there weren’t many others making their way up the mountain: “We saw maybe three other small teams of people, and that was it.

“When we got to the summit, there was nobody else there. We only stayed 10 minutes at the summit because a few people were getting cold, and it’s very easy to get frostbite at that altitude and temperature.”