Glen of the Downs: Looking West

A walk with my cousin Dave (Slant) in the Glen of the Downs. Driving past earlier, we had noticed how the recent 'mini-beast' had glazed all the trees in snow. It was already thawing, unlike the shockingly vast snow-dump from the original Beast, a week previously, still evident in those ubiquitous, stubborn, soiled, often-sculptural lumps, like an army of deformed snowpeople or roadside glacial erratics. 

The Glen of the Downs (Irish: Gleann dá Ghrua, meaning "The Valley of the Two Brows') is a remarkable place: two, steep, thickly wooded hillsides with the four-lane N11 zipping between. The trees are mixed, with many oak, rowan, etc., and occasional surprises like tall eucalypts. As far as I can gather, the valley was owned by the La Touche family in the 18th century, and the woods are part of a vast garden estate they maintained. 

In the car park Dave and I separated and made our way uphill via two different branching paths. I ended up going to the top, where the ruins of a building, The Octagon, still stand: three large arched windows overlooking the other side of the glen, with a clear view across to the Sugarloaf mountain on the right. Underneath, there is a chamber with barred windows, like a cave or dungeon, with heavily graffitied walls (60 HIPPIES AT THIS RAVE, etc.). A bit depressing, and somewhat spooky, aka Blair Witch, a space thick with absent presences. The path through the woods was also slightly spooky. Strange to be walking in such thick, snowy woods. If it was later in the evening they would appear 'dark and deep' as the ones Frost might have stopped to watch. 

Re photography, despite the novelty of heavy snow, much of the scenery becomes rather samey after awhile. Dave and myself both came to similar conclusions, deciding that the most interesting views were looking downhill from near the top, into that amazing, knotted, Escher-like tangle of black and white, like an engraved vision of fractal infinities.