Steeper than the Spinc but with a fraction of the walkers the Cummeengeera horseshoe in Kerry is Augustʼs quiet classic

Fog thins over the Caha hills and the air tastes salty from Kenmare Bay. The track is quiet, the kind of rough ribbon that promises solitude more than spectacle. August puts a soft sheen on these ridges, and the light goes silver in the hollows. “You leave the car and step into silence,” says a local walker. “Then the glen gathers you in.”

Why this horseshoe stands out

This is a steep, old-fashioned loop in west Kerry. The slopes tip up faster than the Wicklow Spinc, but only a handful of feet pass each week. The hills rise clean, with quartzite ribs and heather combs. Views open suddenly, Kenmare Bay flashing like folded tin below.

What sets it apart is texture and tempo. You move from ferny lanes to crag and on to high turf balconies. The wind feels oceanic, tugging your pack and rinsing the mind clear. It’s a “big little day,” as one veteran hiker put it, “where every corner shows more.”

Getting there without fuss

Approach from the Beara side, beyond Lauragh’s shaded roads and stone-walled boreens. The glen lies tucked behind low farms and spruce, with parking in modest pull-ins and respectful verges near the valley mouth. Arrive early, leave no trace, and greet the farming rhythm with quiet manners.

The start feels unassuming: a sheep path skims streams, and foxglove bows over ditches. Soon the ground steepens into runnable grass that shifts to knobbled rock. You gain the rim in a breath and the whole amphitheatre unfurls.

The route at a glance

Climb the western spur first for warm legs and quick height. The angle bites hard, hands to turf and heather in short bursts. A shoulder grants reprieve and a first long look at water, islands stippling the bay like cracked slate.

Hold the skyline north, keeping the glen cupped to your right. Small knolls lead to a higher top, where rock shelves step like ancient seats. The walking turns springy, then stony and skittish near the crest blocks. “It’s not technical,” says a guide I met years back, “but it rewards patience and straight feet.”

The horseshoe’s eastern arm feels wilder and quieter still. A shallow col may hold bog after rain, and the larks ride thermals above pillow-soft moss. Then up again to a last summit, the glen far below packed tight with shadow. Descent follows a green rake, veering toward a reedy stream and faint walls of a ruin. Hoof-prints show lines, and the path unspools to the lane.

Expect roughly six to eight hours, depending on weather and pace, with 900–1,100 metres of ascent over 12–15 rugged kilometres. Numbers vary with your start, but the shape stays the same: up, around, and home with salt in your hair.

August moods and small miracles

August brings respite from spring squalls, yet wind still tumbles from the sea with ideas of its own. Heather goes fully purple, and the meadowsweet sweetens the approaches like spun honey. You may hear snipe drumming at dusk and watch gannets scythe far off, bright knives on water.

The season is “a hush with colour,” a farmer told me one evening. Cattle drift slow in the lower fields, and foxes look twice before crossing a rinsed road. Heat can haze the views, but a breeze clears the curtain in a single, salt-flecked minute.

Safety and simple strategy

This is unwaymarked country, so bring your own sense and the tools to back it. Cloud can pour over the ridge in minutes, and the ground hides ankle-twisting holes. Move deliberately, read the shape of the land, and keep exit options live.

Carry:

• A weatherproof map, reliable compass, spare layers, headtorch and a small, decisive first-aid kit

Drink from high flows only, filter with care, and treat the valley like a larder that isn’t yours to touch. Gates go back as you found them, and stone walls are to be admired, not climbed.

The feel of the place

What stays with you is not the single view, but the run of moments. The clink of quartzite under boot. The rush of wind through hairpin grass. The sudden hush when a raven closes its wings and drops. The bay glitters one way, the interior folds another, and you stand between.

It asks for a bit of effort, a little nerve, and the kindness to let the glen be slow. On a weekday in late summer, you may count your fellow walkers on one hand. You step off the last slope, salt on your lips and a grin you can’t hide. And you think, quietly and with full heart, that some classics prefer to stay quiet.