I've visited Glendalough plenty of times. Its an absolutely terrific place to get out for the day and go hiking. This time I decided to go out hiking into the sunset. Myself and Cooper ditched the car at the Upper Glendalough lake, and set off on our way.

The route is fairly simple, start off at the lake, head towards the forest and you will begin to see signs pointing you towards the waterfall, and as you're walking along the waterfall, you will go through a lovely shaded forest that is a pleasure to look at.

Eventually, you will meet the steps of hell. These will give even the most fit people a run for their money. Sweat will be pumping out from every part of your body by the time you get to the top, so be prepared before you take on this journey and take your time.

Once you get past the steps of hell, you will be treated with a reward of the most wonderful views in Wicklow. There's nothing more peaceful and relaxing than following this route during sunset.

Most of the tourists are gone at this point, you can just relax and follow the route. At this time of the evening the only things you will meet, are the locals, which suffice to say are not very chatty, but we didn't let that get our spirits down and moved on.

As the night fell, we kept on moving. Half way through the route, the sun had set behind the mountains and we were slowly moving into blue hour. Last 30 minutes of the walk was in complete darkness, but eventually, we made it back to the Upper Glendalough Lake. As it wasn't dark enough yet to take star photos, we decided to walk down to the monastery and waste some time till the stars came out.

Oh boy, what a mistake that was! This turned from one of the nicest walks I've ever done to the most creepy walks I've ever done. Most of the light had already disappeared, so the only thing lighting our way now was my head torch.

As we made it to the little bridge which brings us to the church and the graveyard. I figured it was still a little bit early for star photos, so I decided I would take my chances at trying to capture some photos of the building below.

And this is where the scariness began. I happily spent around 30 minutes trying to compose the shot, take different exposures for blending them together later and trying different positions, up to the point till Cooper went mental, started barking and legged it into the grave yard. Now I'm definitely not superstitious, nor I believe in ghosts, but when your dog starts barking mad and legs it off into the grave yard, and leaves you by yourself, you start sweating a little. I folded up my tripod and braced myself, and went after Cooper into the grave yard.

Couldn't find the dog for a good 10 minutes, I wandered around the graveyard till I seen a pair of evil looking bright eyes in the darkness. I quickly pointed my torch towards the eyes only to find out it was a cat standing on a tomb stone :'(
(now I know what Cooper got excited about).
Mind due 3 minutes later he returns full of happiness like nothing ever happened. Either way, I was spooked at this point but I didn't come out that evening for nothing.

I made my way into the church and did what I do best, while looking over my shoulder every 5 seconds to make sure nothing comes my way and within 10 minutes I decided it was way to spooky to stick around. Packed up my tripod and made a quick exit.

We eventually made it back to the upper lake, but I was fairly happy with what I got in the church, plus there was few creepy and not very chatty photographers lurking around, so we just called it a day (or night) and headed back towards the car.

I would love to run some photography workshop in Glendalough trying to get a shot like this, but do any of you feel like heading out there at night after my story? :D It's normally not as scary with a group of people around you, but unfortunately Irish weather prohibits planning of astrophotography as the clouds normally block our view, I normally tend to monitor the cloud forecast daily and take my chance whenever I see my opening.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed this lengthy blog post. Thanks for reading.

Regards
Evan
Photos by Evan

Creepy Dark Night in Glendalough