The HiiKER Podcast

Ireland is a small country. You can pretty much drive from one end of the country to the other in less than a day.

But this small Island off the west coast of Europe, is packed with some of the most beautiful and rugged landscapes in the world.

Our little Island has 275 mountains according to the Vandeleur-Lynams scale, which classifies a mountain as being over 600m in elevation and 15m prominence.

While bagging all of these peaks is not as widely spoken about as say the Munroes in Scotland, or the Wainwrights in the Lake District or the 14ers in the US, there are a number of people who have managed to scale all 275.

My guest this week, Ellie Berry, not only ticked off all 275, but managed to do it in a new record time of 50 days and 5 hours! Beating the previous record by almost 5 days.

You might remember Ellie as one part of Tough soles - I did a podcast way back with her and her partner Carl who hiked all of the Irish Waymarked trails.

This time she has conquered a new challenge.

If it wasn’t already a huge challenge, Ireland had the worst summer for rainfall on record this year. Add into the mix a couple of spills and a missed peak, this was truly an achievement of mind over matter.

While Ellie is soft spoken, her achievements are almost deafening!

Find more on Tough soles over at https://toughsoles.ie/

Plan your next hiking adventure with HiiKER - https://hiiker.app/

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Louis-Philippe Loncke is an, explorer, adventurer, speaking coach and entrepreneur.

He has done 19 expeditions on 5 continents, 14 are world firsts. He has done solo extreme treks across deserts, long distance sea-kayaking on rivers or lakes and scientific expeditions. He is a Life Fellow of the Explorers Club in New York, elected Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, was a Torchbearer for the London Olympic Games and won the European Adventurer of the year 2016 award.

Among his expedition he crossed on foot and completely alone the length of the Simpson desert, the most arid desert of Australia; kayaked around lake Titicaca and survived for 7 weeks trekking across the mountains and wet forests of Tasmania.

He even went back in 2018 to cross Tasmania unressupplied in the winter. Most of his expeditions are solo unsupported treks. He just passed over 10.000km of hiking and 3300km of kayaking on multi days trips and expeditions.

As web entrepreneur, he founded the Expedition Database, the first online encyclopaedia about scientific, exploration and adventure expeditions.

He often raises awareness for an ecological cause and was knighted by Dr. Jane Goodall in the European parliament for his services to raise awareness about water pollution in fragile environments. Find more about him on his socials, his newsletter to know when his films are coming out: https://sleek.bio/lonckelph

Find your next expedition - https://hiiker.app

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The Art O’Neill challenge has long-been on Irish mountain-dwellers calendar.

Hikers and ultra-runners gather in the depths of winter, at night to complete a grueling 60km course

I say course, but there is actually no official route.

Not only are participants facing into the darkness,

but they also have to self-navigate over open mountains with almost no actual trails to use.

Some might say those that run the route are lunatics for running in those conditions.

The runners might be looking back at the walkers with awe as they continue in the bleak winter night.

So why are they doing this? Why Am I doing this??

Last year, I myself took part in the challenge as a runner. Unfortunately, I dropped out early...

This year, I’m going again with the sole purpose of completing it!

The more time I have spent with this challenge in my head, the more fascinated I became with the history of it.

Who was Art O’Neill?

Why is it named after him?

Normally when a race is named after a person, it usually means that person is not around anymore!

Turns out Art hasn’t been around for a couple centuries.

I’ve wanted to do a podcast about the Art O’Neill challenge for a while, but it wasn’t until I came across my guest, that I felt we could do a good job of it.

Jane Casey is a fellow hiker and content creator from Wicklow.

Over the past few months, she has been documenting her curiosity around Ireland on social media.

She offers bite-sized history lessons about things that we all walk by unknowingly everyday.

And in a country like Ireland that is steeped in History and folklore, she has plenty of subject matter to get through.

When I introduced Jane to the subject of Art O’Neill and the challenge, she was excited to be involved. While Jane is not a historian, she does her research well and came to the show prepared!

So if you’re taking part in this years challenge or you’re just a curious Casey like Jane, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Follow Jane Casey

IG: https://www.instagram.com/janecasey.ie

TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@janecasey.ie

Find all the maps you need for the Art O'Neill challenge

https://hiiker.app/purchases

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