Sunrise in the middle of the summer is a wonderful time of the morning... you're groggy but the air is very fresh, the dawn chorus is a cocophany of sound overhead and there is absolutely no-one around. You feel quite close to nature and wonder how other people can miss out on this. Sure, they might be in bed for another five hours, but I know where I'd rather be once in a while.
This is going to be a Geocaching event with a difference.
You can only log this event as "attended" if you are present at the above co-ordinates, outside the Hellfire Club, at the TOP of Montpelier Hill on Sunday the 7th of July 2013 at the official moment of sunrise in Dublin, which according to to a well known website is 05:07am.
The carpark at the co-ordinates will NOT be open that early in the morning but there is sufficient roadside parking for a group of people to attend.
Bear in mind that we are meeting on top of the hill, so you will have to arrive sufficiently early to climb the hill before sunrise. We are not meeting in the carpark offically, you have to be AT THE TOP OF THE HILL at 05:07am.
There is a steep way and a zig-zag way up Montpelier Hill from the carpark which are both mapped on Openstreetmap and available on the Geocaching website. The steep way takes approximately 20-25 minutes in my experience and will have you puffing. Children will probably be able to make the ascent if they are pushed although they will be tired and grumpy at that time of the morning so it might be better to leave them in bed. If it is a nice day, you should get great views on the way up as light levels increase. All going well we will see the sun rise close to the Poolbeg Chimneys (yes that far north!).
Equipment: I strongly recommend you bring a torch. Ascent must be done before sunrise so it'll be a bit dark! Bringing something to sit on might be useful too as the ground may be damp.
I'm reluctant to say that this cache will go ahead in all weathers, but a casual glance at the (unreliable) weather maps two weeks prior to the 7th suggests high pressure building during this time so we may be lucky and get a settled day. That said, I will cancel the event by way of an announcement if the weather looks to be insanely unclement. Going up a hill at 5am is bad enough, doing it in awful weather is just outrageous.
I firmly believe you have to step outside the box a bit and do something crazy/mad once in a while. I have learnt that over the past few years and Geocaching has helped with that so come join me to do something utterly mad but memorable.
Yes I know this idea would have been better on the 21st June, but I didn't think of it in time! (also the weather was lousy)
The smart among you may notice that the time for sunrise should be slightly earlier when you are at a higher elevation, however I could not find a general way to calculate this for a given lat/long/height. There is also a surprising difference between timings given by different websites which would introduce a larger margin of error anyway. Also, the actual time of sunrise depends on atmospheric refraction and some other factors.