Ben Bulben Hike

My friend and I walked up Ben Bulben on Friday.  I've been up before, but thought it worth checking what information was on the web.  Turns out that the info is misleading, so here is a heads-up if you are thinking of going there.


The nose of Ben Bulben,  and the view back down.


I like to walk -- not climb -- up mountains, and get to the top.

When I google Ben Bulben hike, I get:

1. The Sligo tourism description of the "Ben Bulben Loop".   This is a walk that doesn't go up the mountain at all, but lets you look at it from around the "nose".  It involves about 45m of ascent.  The summit of Ben Bulben is at 526m.

2. A number of descriptions and Youtube videos that describe climbs -- not walks.  Some are described as "easy climbs".  However, all these involve climbing up vertical bits of cliff.  If you are not an experienced climber, they are good ways to lose your life.

3. Some descriptions of walks that involve clambering up rather steep slopes with loose stones on them.   These are ok in good weather, provided you are careful.

I did not see a description of the straightforward way to walk up.  This is steep, but not crazy.  You take the public roads  around the north side and up into the valley (Glendarragh) between Ben Bulben
aka Benbulbin) and Benwiskin.  Park somewhere around the "scary bridge" (an 8-foot-wide slab of reinforced concrete without any parapet), grid G468703.  You walk up by the well-used path that climbs southward up to the plateau.  It runs up to the left of the river that runs down the southern end of the valley.  Once you get up you can do a nice loop out west across the 500m summit and the neck to Ben Bulben (526m), back to the neck and then south-east to King's Mountain (462m) , and back north to the same path back down.  Takes about 4 hours from the bridge.  Bring a compass and the 1:50000 Sheet 16, in case you find yourself in mist.   On Ben Bulben, be sure to keep on west to the nose,  after you reach the summit. Stop when you get to top of the 45 degree slope, since a slip on that will take you over the cliff and end your life.   The view all round and down from the nose is absolutely incomparable.  If the weather is suitable, there is a path running close to the cliff edge on the north side, with spectacular views.










(The path up to the plateau is probably discussed on the web, but since I didn't run across it in a quick search, others might end up doing something they might regret, based on what they find online.  Hence this post.)

 Photographed on our patio this morning. The hose is half-inch diameter (about 12mm).

 He seemed to be lost, or just terrified. I went in, got the camera, and came back out, and he was still trying to hide beside the hose.

Is this a pigmy shrew, or a greater white-toothed shrew?  Or something else?

Amusing Book: Tipperary Tango

Less Serious Books, a new division of Logic Press, is publishing the story Tipperary Tango, by the rather enigmatic Fergal Anton, who vanished in mysterious circumstances about twenty years ago.
See:
Less Serious

Analysis Zero

This is my new book on the foundations of analysis. The hardcover version can be got for half-price at the printer's site: http://www.lulu.com/shop/anthony-g-ofarrell/analysis-zero/hardcover/product-22350069.html

It is a bit expensive.  There will in due course be a paperback that you will be able  get from Lulu.com for about Euro 12.50.

Added 3-10-2015: In fact, the paperback costs just Euro 10.00 from Lulu.  (Recommended Retail Price 19.99).

Little book of lecture notes on Geometric Measure Theory

Logic Press has just published Maria Roginskaya's lecture notes.  The book is called Advanced Basics of Geometric Measure Theory, and is available at
http://www.lulu.com/shop/maria-roginskaya/advanced-basics-of-geometric-measure-theory/paperback/product-22307272.html

Topics covered include the Banach-Tarski paradox, cardinals and ordinals, equivalents of the Axiom of Choice, measure and integral, Hausdorff measures, and a remarkable recent result of Korner's on the Hausdorff dimension of sets of sums.

It will take until November or so before the ISBN registration propagates to the whole system, so if you were thinking of ordering it for your institution, or through a bookseller, you should wait until then. It is available right now direct from the printer, Lulu.com, at half price.

Cyclo-lecteur's blog:

We met Jean-Pierre Brèthes when we sat down on the same bench to watch the Chaban-Delmas bridge open for a cruise ship leaving Bordeaux. He blogs at
http://cyclo-lecteur.blogspot.fr/
and is worth reading.

Monkey-puzzle Nut

This is a Monkey-puzzle nut, from our garden. It was plucked before it was fully ripe. It is resting on a plate of diameter 16cm.  It was sticky, oozing a white fluid. We kept it for a month or so, and it dried, and then I hit it quite hard with a wooden mallet and it broke in two:

 Each spike on the fruit is the tip of a separate nut:

 I cut and peeled the shell off one and ate it. Tasted unripe, woody, in the way an unripe hazelnut does.   There are lots of other fruits on the tree. We'll wait for them to fall of their own accord.