Haunted by unfavorable weather, heavy clouds coming in from the West, yet still clinging to a chance fed from a forecast of a short window of clear skies in the opposite direction, I raced the clouds towards the closest mountains Northeast of Cork. In the dark, a short hike, all the way up to Knockmealdown Mountain’s Sugar Loaf, and smack right into a dense cloud. No visibility upwards or anywhere really, except the blurry whitish of my lamp reflecting upon the dense mist surrounding me. I dropped the gear, put up a stove and got my hot cacao going… At least, tonight, I could have that.
And once again, in this unforeseeable symphony of Irish landscapes, the winds came to play, along with a sudden drop in temperature, pushing all the moisture to the ground, dragging the mist to lower altitudes. On the horizon below me, the surrounding towns were now blurry strokes of reflected light. Above me? Above me was something else… an entire galaxy unfolded, with Jupiter and Saturn dancing in the foreground, and sporadic meteors fading into bright light. The sights were only scarred with already too many man-made communicating clunks of shiny metal and solar cells.
Knockmealdown Mountains, Co. Waterford
2020, July
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