From Knockree on to Clonegal, much of the Way follows the contact point between the granite of the western part of the Wicklow Mountains and the schists and slates of the east. The trail follows the Glencree River through Seskin Wood, a semi-natural oak and hazel woodland and a habitat for jays. Crossing the river at a footbridge, the trail then passes into Crone Woods and ascends to Ride Rock, which overlooks Powerscourt Deerpark and the Powerscourt Waterfall, the tallest in Ireland at . Deer - hybrids of imported Japanese Sika and native Red deer - are common in the forests and mountains along the Wicklow Way and all deer in the Wicklow Mountains originated with the Powerscourt herd. The next valley to be crossed is Glensoulan which, although uninhabited today, before the Great Famine of the 1840s was home to a small population of cottiers and faint traces of their farms can still be seen in the wintertime when the bracken is low. Crossing the River Dargle, the trail ascends the eastern shoulder of Djouce mountain. Here, the heathland gives way to wetter blanket bog. Bogland shares a number of plant and animal species with heathland but is also a habitat for species of bog cotton as well as bog asphodel, sedges (which contribute to the formation of peat) and bog moss. The wet bogland is also a habitat for frogs, pondskaters and diving beetles. Near the summit of Djouce, the Way joins a wooden or bog bridge, constructed to protect the bog from erosion, which crosses White Hill, the highest point on the Way at . The trail descends White Hill towards Luggala along a ridge, known as the Barr, where a memorial stone to J. B. Malone, carved by sculptor Billy Gannon and erected in 1990, may be found overlooking Lough Tay. From Luggala, the trail passes through a coniferous plantation of spruce and pine on the eastern flanks of Sleamaine and Ballinafunshoge Hills to reach Oldbridge, which crosses the River Avonmore near Lough Dan.