Yesterday we had planned to climb Cronk ny Arrey Laa to see the sun rise, but uncooperative weather drove us to Langness instead (not that this turned out to be a bad thing).

Today, we decided to have another go at the mountain, but not at sunrise, as it was not only predicted to be a cold morning, but also actually was.

Cronk means hill in Manx. Estimates vary, but this source puts it at 1449 feet (441 metres), and says that Snaefell (2034 feet) is the island's only mountain. What?? When I was growing up, anything over 1000 feet counted as a mountain (and certainly behaved as such). And undeniably, many of the Island's high points are named Slieau (mountain), even Slieau Whallian, which tops out at just 1093 feet.

Anyway, the name Cronk ny Arrey Laa is translated here as "Hill of the Day Watch", an appellation that is said to derive from its use as a look-out post during the period of Viking invasion. But the article continues: "The hill is also known locally as Cronk ny Irree-Laa, meaning hill of the rising day or dawn. It was said that when the sun rose over this hill, it was a sign for the herring-fishers to harvest their catch." That's the name and meaning I was familiar with.

There's a space to leave your car just off the beautiful Sloc road, so it's not especially difficult to walk up to the cairn at the top of the mountain. And the views today were stupendous:





If the ascent was easy, the descent was anything but. Very, very steep, and at about 9.30 in the morning, still icy...



Once off that really tricky bit, you're still not really out of the woods, because at this point you hit the coast path, which barrels you down hundreds of feet at the angle of a steep flight of stairs, and then makes you ford a tumbling stream.





Our original objective had been Niarbyl, the tail of rocks on the left:


But having taken much longer than we had anticipated to get this far, we decided to quit here, and turn back up the steep track that would return us to the car. We weren't especially disappointed. We had already covered the coastal stretch down to Niarbyl back in 1993, when we walked from Peel to Port Erin (getting mightily lost en route, I might add), and what we'd done today had been very rewarding.