Kate Kearney’s Cottage
A historic family-run pub and restaurant at the entrance to the Gap of Dunloe. Check the website for current food service and opening times.
Gap of Dunloe, Beaufort, Killarney, Co. KerryHardGully · Reeks · recorded
Carrauntoohil
Black Ladder.
A little-known archived ascent of Carrauntoohil through the Black Valley and the steep Black Ladder, returning along the same mountain line.
DISTANCE
8.93km
ASCENT
904m
HIGH POINT
1,010m
Steep, loose mountain ground · 128 archived track points · mapped retrace shown in yellow GRADE GUIDE ↗
Reading the map…
INTERACTIVE TERRAIN · ACTUAL GPX TRACKACTUAL GPX TRACK
No activity time is available. Build your own from pace, ascent, ground, weather and daylight.
ONE · BEFORE YOU COMMIT
Is this your day?
The grade, the hazards, the forecast and the ground the route actually crosses. Everything you need to decide whether to go at all.
WEATHER AT A GLANCE
Forecast for around 900 m
Approx. 900 mNOWReading the forecast
WINDReading the forecast
TODAY’S PEAK RAIN CHANCEReading the forecast
Forecast. This is a modelled estimate for this route’s high ground; conditions can differ sharply across the mountain. Detailed planning guidance follows. Derived from Open-Meteo forecast data ↗.
ARCHIVED ELEVATION
133 m to 1,010 m.
The elevation profile follows the migrated recording. The short mapped retrace returns along the outward walking path to the trailhead.
1,010 m133 m
Reading the forecast
0 km904 m ascent · 904 m descent8.93 km
THE LINE
A hard line through the Black Ladder.
The archived track approaches Carrauntoohil from the Black Valley before turning into the Black Ladder’s steep, loose gully. It reaches the summit area and descends along the same mountain line. A short mapped retrace completes the return to the trailhead.
The blank on the sheet
The Black Ladder is not named on the Ordnance Survey sheets. The Devil’s Ladder beside it is, and so is the Top of the Ladder above that, but the gully this route climbs is a walkers’ name carried by use rather than by record. Neither ladder is in the Placenames Database, and where the name comes from is not written down anywhere either. The likely answer is the Black Valley on the southern side, which is the way the gully is usually climbed and the way this recording comes at it: the track starts on the valley floor at 139 metres, nearly three kilometres south-east of the summit.
The ground around them is named, and thoroughly. Faill Dhubh, Cnoc na Toinne, Com na Gige, Eisc na Gige and the Bóthar na Gige zig-zags are all on the sheet for this corner of the Reeks. The two ladders are the blanks in the middle of it.
The cairn and the cross
What the archived line reaches at the top is a cairn the Survey calls of dubious antiquity: six metres by five, built of loose flat slabs gathered off the summit scree, and long since rebuilt into a climbers’ shelter. There are two other shelters up there. The large iron cross standing north of it went up in 1950, so the thing most people photograph on the highest ground in Ireland is younger than the shelter beside it.
Twenty-two metres off the line, at the north-west end of the saddle ridge on Carrauntoohil’s south-east side, is a square hut of rough construction two metres across, its upper courses rebuilt.
At the end of the Black Valley
Lower down, fifty-eight metres off the line, is a children’s burial ground. It sits in boggy pasture at the west end of the Black Valley, a little north-east of where the Glashankilleen stream meets the Cummeenduff river: a raised rectangle, fifteen metres by nineteen, walled on three sides. Inside are numerous uninscribed grave-markers and ten small mounds, averaging 2.3 by 1.5 metres, which may cover graves. Local information has it in use into the early twentieth century.
A metre further off the track, on the north bank of the Cummeenduff, is a subcircular enclosure eight and a half metres across, a sod-covered stony bank barely half a metre high, which appears on no Ordnance Survey map.
- 01Valley approachLower ground leads towards the base of the Black Ladder.
- 02The Black LadderA steep, loose ascent demands care with footing and rockfall.
- 03CarrauntoohilThe archived route reaches approximately 1,010 m, beside the summit cairn and the 1950 cross.
- 04Retraced descentThe mountain line is reversed, with a short mapped section completing the return to the trailhead.
Black Ladder is retained as the walkers’ name for the recorded line. The surrounding names are read from the Ordnance Survey sheets. The Faill Dhubh named here is distinct from the cliff above Brother O’Shea’s Gully. The archived track starts and finishes on the Black Valley side at 139 m and passes within about forty metres of the summit; these are measurements from the recording, not evidence for the origin of the gully’s name. The Black Valley reading is exactly that, a reading: no source consulted here gives an etymology for it. The summit cairn is Archaeological Survey record KE073-047, the hut KE073-049, the children’s burial ground KE073-011 and the enclosure KE073-043, all described from A. O’Sullivan and J. Sheehan, The Iveragh Peninsula: An Archaeological Survey of South Kerry (Cork University Press, 1996), with the pile-of-stones description from Hayward (1945). Every distance is measured from the archived GPX to the published coordinate. The burial ground is a graveyard and the markers are unmarked: it is somewhere to leave alone rather than look for.
Reading the forecast
WIND NOWReading the forecast
—cloud
—humidity
—km/h peak gust
Strongest wind today—
Peak gust—
RECENT RAINFALL · LIKELY GROUND
Reading the forecast
RAIN, GUST & VISIBILITY WINDOW
Reading the forecast
BEST HIKING WINDOW
Reading the forecast
DAYLIGHT PLAN
Reading the forecast
MET ÉIREANN · KERRY
Reading the forecast
NEXT SIX HOURS · swipe
Reading the forecast
HAZARDS & OPTIONSKnow the commitment.
The Black Ladder is steep, loose and serious mountain terrain.
Rockfall is a risk. Keep space between walkers and avoid dislodging stones.
Cloud can remove visibility quickly around the summit and upper gully.
The descent retraces steep ground and may be more difficult when wet or tired.
Turn back before entering the steepest ground if conditions, visibility or confidence are poor. Once committed high in the gully, reversing direction may itself be difficult. Do not rely on the archived track as your only navigation method.
FROM THE MOUNTAIN
Rob’s photographs.
TWO · YOU’VE DECIDED
Getting there.
Where it starts, the recorded file, and the checks worth making before you leave the house.
PLAN THE GROUND
Start well.
RECORDED STARTArchived recording trailhead
Select coordinates to copy
This historic recording begins and finishes at the same trailhead after adding the mapped retrace. Confirm current parking arrangements, land access and path conditions before leaving.
ROUTE FILE
Take the recorded route with you.
128 recorded track points, exactly as walked. Load it into your watch, phone or offline mapping before you leave signal.
The archived recording does not include point timestamps. Orange shows the recorded route. Yellow shows the mapped retrace along the outward walking path. Access and conditions must be checked independently.
Download original GPXcarrauntoohil-black-ladder.gpx · as recordedGeoJSONKML
Onto a watch: import the GPX into Garmin Connect, Komoot or Strava and send it to the device from there. On a phone, the Garmin Explore and OS Maps apps take the file straight from the share sheet.
BEFORE YOU GO
Read the ground. Keep your margin.
Conditions can change the seriousness of any recorded route.
Your quick checksOptional and saved only in this browser.
0/5 checkedThese checks support your planning; they do not confirm that the route is safe.
- 01Check conditionsReview forecasts and warnings before leaving.
- 02Navigate independentlyCarry suitable mapping and know how to use it.
- 03Protect your marginTurn back early if the day exceeds your experience.
- 04Share your planLeave your route and expected return time with someone.
Leave a plan.
Tell someone your route and return time. For emergencies in Ireland call 112 or 999 and ask for Mountain Rescue.
More recorded routes.
All 29 recorded routes →AFTER THE WALK
Post-hike picks.
A small, personal shortlist around Black Valley and Gap of Dunloe. Check current opening times before making the journey.