I’ve enjoyed some trail walking recently. Or, eh, tried to.

I avoid the word “hiking” because it seems to have different meanings in different countries – when I read American blogs it seems hiking simply means walking on a forest (or other nature) trail, whatever the difficulty, while in Europe it seems to be more than that – with rough terrain and almost getting close to mountain climbing.

In Ireland, trail walking seems to be more used, and mean both, but what do I know! I’m not a native English speaker so trying to make myself understood properly is a thing. If English is your first language, feel free to give me your input about trail walking vs hiking!

I grew up in Sweden, and some of my very best memories have to do with walking in the forest. I remember very wet trails in the spring when we were out looking for hepatica flowers, and forests in the early autumn with the fresh autumn air and smell of fallen leaves and pine needles.

In Sweden we have Allemansrätten, or freedom to roam, which means the public is allowed to access – walk, hike, camp etc in forests, lands, even some privately owned lands. There is a HUGE tradition of trail walking and there are loads and loads of prepared trails and areas for walking and hiking.

In Ireland we don’t have that but I’ve realised that there are quite vast areas with available trails that landowners keep open to the public. We’ve enjoyed some lovely walks in small forest areas close to us.

Recently we thought it was about time to start exploring some of those other trails, and decided to go to Sheep’s head peninsula. It’s a stunning area at this time of the year, with the heather in full bloom, and I’ve been thinking a few years now that I want to go there in August.

My husband has an account on alltrails.com, so he checked there and suggested a loop that was labelled as “moderate” difficulty, and it looked like it would offer some fantastic views. Moderate sounded fine to me so we decided to go.

Big mistake!

Our chosen trail, the Cahergal loop, started fine with a steep uphill on a gravel road, followed by a narrow path over grasslands. Still very doable.

But after a while we came to a stile where the signpost said “Very difficult – for advanced walkers only”. WTF? Could they make up their minds perhaps BEFORE people enter the trail? We continued, thinking it couldn’t be so bad if it was categorised as “moderate”? And my husband said “hey, we ARE advanced walkers!”. Well, maybe. Big mistake!

Ahead of us was a very narrow, rough trail, just barely what I would even call a trail, over continuous steep hills, rocks, mud and whatnot. In some places I had to sit down and push myself down in a bench tricep press kind of manner to get down safely. My walking poles probably saved my life (and bones)!

The scenery didn’t disappoint:

But it was hard to enjoy it when I had to focus 100% on the ground to figure out where it was safe enough to take the next step.

At a certain point we came to a small road, and instead of crossing it to continue on the trail, we took the road back. The total walk was 7 km but maybe 4 km on the trail.

I finished the walk intact, but felt a bit disheartened. I just want to walk in nature, folks. Hills and variable terrain is fine. But I want to enjoy a good walk without thinking that every step will break a bone.

You may remember that I chickened out of both the Lago di Penne trail and Gougane Barra loop. Both of those were easier than this! The main problem with Lago di Penne was that I was just barely back to walking after my stress fracture and my ankle mobility and overall foot strength wasn’t yet fit for the terrain. At Gougane Barra we had a deadline and realised we had no idea how long it would take to finish the walk. It was very challenging with steep hills and a rocky path, but ok-ish. (but I’ve realised later that it’s quite a crazy walk!)

Later I did some further reading and found that all Irish website label the Cahergal loop as “hard and strenuous”, and the reviews on All trails confirmed this. We should have looked for some more information before going, and that’s it.

The Sheep’s head peninsula is still fabulous

Don’t get me wrong – the Sheep’s head peninsula is fabulous. Previously I’ve walked down to the Sheep’s head lighthouse and parts of the Peakeen ridge walk, and they were both great experiences. I’ll be back, but will need to do more research about where to go. The Cahergal loop is probably a superb experience for more adventurous people, but I prefer a step down in difficulty. “Moderate” likely suits me, but next time I’ll start with an “easy” trail, to see what they really mean with easy, before moving on to more difficult trails.

I found a good source at the Sport Ireland website, where they have a grading system of trails which seems accurate, and good listings to find trails of various difficulty in every county. FYI, if you use this website, use the list view to find trails, since the map view is not working right now.

I haven’t given up on trail walking. I love walking and I love nature. Using my strategy mentioned above, I’ll give the Sheep’s head peninsula another try next year, and now when my foot is back to normal, I’m interested in trying the Lago di Penne trail again the next time we go to Italy. The biggest challenge now should be the suspension bridge!

So what about the 19k walk in Wicklow?

When I was just barely back to walking after my stress fracture, my husband happily told me he had signed me up for a trail race in Wicklow. You can read more about it here. Really it is a running event, but I was signed up for the 19k which is allowed to walk if you can do it within the allocated time.

It’s been a hugely inspiring goal, and I’ve enjoyed training for it. So much good walking I’ve done this year! But towards the end of the summer I started feeling almost burnt out with chasing distances, and missed walking simply for the joy of walking. I wasn’t up to doing the race AT ALL but still planned to do it.

But the recent trail walking experience was the final nail in the coffin for my willingness to do the race. Although the Wicklow trail is probably much easier than what we did recently, trail walking IS slow and I started doubting whether I’d be able to finish within those 5,5 hours. I felt I was just going to be in the way and annoy people.

A week later I decided to drop out of the race, and felt good about that. My husband will still do it, running 30k, while I cheer on him from a SAS plane to Stockholm. I’m going to see my parents and hopefully my sister, and maybe even go for some nice walks.

Training for the 19k got me back to walking 10k and beyond, and I’ll be a Sweden at the time of the year when the autumn colours should be at their peak. Call me a quitter or whatever you want but I regret nothing!

What’s your experience? How do you define hiking? Do you have trails for all abilities in your area?