• Wednesday 6th October 2021

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We had drove up here the night before so we could be up and away relatively early  this morning and had stayed overnight in the car park at the bottom of Ben Wyvis.

We also chose a Wednesday as this can be a popular hill. There’s easy access to this Munro and what used to be wet and peat paths, covered in heather have now been hugely improved and replaced with what I would class as well constructed paths.

Ben Wyvis is a munro located in Easter Ross, north-west of Dingwall in northern Scotland…situated about 35 miles north west of Inverness.

We have attempted to hike this mountain twice before. First time resulted in a whiteout when we were staying close by in Inverness and another time there was galeforce winds and rain so we aborted plans and stayed cosied up in bed in our nice warm hotel.

Today it was sunshine and clouds…no excuses…this mountain would be sumitted today!

The mountain is prominent in views of the area. It’s vast and sprawling and is in an isolated position which makes it a dominating feature.  Some have described it as being like a whale-back shape, others like an elephant rising from the lower moors of Easter Ross….either way I couldn’t quite see but I guess both are fitting because its huge and bulky.

The name means ‘hill of terror’ which seemed ill-fitting today from where we stood and viewing it on the drive in it looked like a great boring lump.

We began our hike.

The ascent was pretty straightforward in these pleasant enough conditions by Munro standards. It just felt really good to be walking in the Highlands once more if I’m being honest. The weather in the valley felt pretty warm for this time of year.

Expect little and you may be surprised and that was our experience on Ben Wyvis.

The walk in was lovely, the scenery beautiful, but I do like Autumn, the colours mesmerise me. We enjoyed the forested lower slopes and followed the path which ran alongside a tumbling burn.

A huge amount of work has actually been done on these ‘paths’ up this mountain and approximatley a third of the way from the bealach we reached a long pretty steep man-made staircase…always good for working those leg muscles.

Once on the bealach it leveled out quite a bit so walking got quicker.

On reaching the summit the wind was bitter and cold and clouds hung around. We drank a small mouthful of coffee but decided to head down lower into the sunshine for lunch.

We were rewarded with pretty stunning views of the Highlands, they were extensive and spectacular, its immensely satisfying when you get views like these.

We looked over to An Teallach, the Torridon range and we could even see Suilven a mountain which we paddled into and then climbed a few years back.

We stayed here for quite a bit soaking in the views and the vitamin D as this day with sunshine was a one off. We have had so much wind and rain of late and its to continue supposedly for the next few weeks, so this moment was not getting taken for granted…then it began to get cold again so we moved downwards once more.

It was a pretty quick decent as the staircase helped us get off quickly and we were eventually back down following the river back to the carpark.

Overall a great day with a pretty easy Munro bagged, reasonably good weather and I’d even go as far as to say the company was pretty good also!