Carrauntoohil Centre Gully

Met Andy and headed for Lisleibane. A cold windy day. We met the rest at Lisleibane and headed for Coimin Iochtarach. Mid-ways up the third step before the lake we turned left and approached the rock face. An initial moderate step followed by two hard moves, the first exposed. Good scrambling up to where it levelled off near the entrance to Curve.

Our first plan was to turn left here and go up the Grey Area. Here I disagreed and said that the Grey Area was too exposed for the day that was in it, as there was a nice wind and it was biting cold. Andy and I looked at each other Western-style across thirty feet of open ground.

The others stood aside watching, all that was missing were the "six shooters". Patricia broke the silence saying she agreed with me, Andy smiled and said we were right. We now had three options: Curve Gully, Centre Gully or O'Shea's. We opted for Centre. I was glad as it must be five or six years since I done it.

From what I remembered the gully had got very clean, we were in good shelter and the climbing was good. The two steps in the gully posed no problem. There was a big crowd on top, the shelter was full, no place to stop, we headed for the "Gates".

Here we stopped and had a snack in relative comfort. Except for the cold it was a good day out, being very dry. Out were Andy, 2 lads from T.G.H., Margaret, Pat and Siobhan