Croagh Patrick’s ‘cone’ posing problems for consultants

FAMILIAR SIGHT A mountain rescue team making their way down Croagh Patrick with a casualty. Pic: Michael McLaughlin

Áine Ryan

THE litany of casualties on Croagh Patrick has left Mayo Mountain Rescue (MMR) with its busiest first six months of the year since its foundation 25 years ago. The Mayo News can confirm the injuries sustained by 27 victims of falls since January were mainly on the treacherous cone of the mountain and have been ‘more serious head and lower limb injuries’.
These figures were confirmed to The Mayo News as the Croagh Patrick Stakeholders Group confirms consultant, Chris York,  has advised that the cone and summit ‘pose a number of quite unique challenges which is making it difficult to specify a solution that will fit into the landscape and which will succeed in keeping visitors on the path’.
Speaking yesterday, a spokeswoman for MMR said: “There is a lack of understanding by many users of the mountain of the level of difficulty it poses. With the numbers increasing all the time – there were over 122,000 last year – climbers need to make safety a priority. Be mindful of weather conditions, fitness levels of you and your party, knowledge of terrain, ability to navigate, route planning and gear.”
Meanwhile, in Mr York’s interim report to the stakeholder group he has advised that ‘there are feasible path development and repair solutions for the lower levels of the mountain to the shoulder using materials from the site together with some slope stabilisation interventions’.
This must all be achieved while adhering to the mountain’s iconic spiritual legacy and its natural environment.
“The objective of any works should be to help restore the mountain to a more natural state that can be managed in the long term rather than to encourage more visitors, improve safety or make it easier to climb,”  states Chris York, the owner of Walking the Talk, a company with wide experience in the management and repair of upland walkways in Scotland and Ireland.
He says ‘visitor management’ and their impact on the mountain is key to its future sustainability and any conservation works.
While the feasibility of addressing the issues on the lower slopes appears doable, the extensive damage on the summit and cone is compounded by the huge traffic, very steep gradients of over 35 degrees, the extent of the mobile scree surface and lack of suitable block stone on the mountain itself to build a stone pitch path.
Responding, the stakeholder group has ‘agreed to allocate additional expertise in the area of slope stabilisation and civil engineering to the technical team already in place and an additional time period of two months towards investigating comprehensively possible physical solutions for the cone summit’, while devising a strategy to mitigate the impact of people on the summit with a visitor management plan.
“Walking the Talk will simultaneously work on completing their specifications and costs for the repair and development of the path to the shoulder of the mountain,” said Martin Keating, the chairman of the stakeholders group.   
He urged visitors ‘to be cognisant that the path is over private lands, not to bring dogs as it is working farmland and abide by the leave no trace guidance’.