After an excellent outing last week, doing the usual run up and down something in the cairngorms was set aside for @MM0EFI Fraser’s suggestion of Ben Wyvis (GM/NS-005) and Little Wyvis (GM/NS-050).
Planning
Our prep work the previous days consisted of a quick look at the map to see how long it would take. Fraser originally suggested we could also do the once activated Carn na Dubh Choille, GM/NS-117, across the river, but as there’s not a convenient crossing the route for that is about 11 km on its own.
There isn’t an established path between the two Wyvii, and I think only John, G4YSS, has done both in a day, back in 2012. Walking highlands has a couple of reports of doing both and so we’d plotted out a simple route of up and down each hill.
Looking at the map, there was maybe some route that avoided retracing ourselves and come around but nothing obvious for climbing Little Wyvis.
Ben Wyvis
We met at Bellabeg, and continued in one car to the Ben Wyvis car park. We arrived in record time, and set off up the track towards Ben Wyvis.
It’s quite a steep climb up the first peak en route to Ben Wyvis, plenty of stairs built into the side of the hill. From there it’s a pleasant walk across the top for a few km until you final reach the actual summit. We had great views all around and the cloud was just sitting a little way above us. The long walk across the top gives plenty of time to admire the views. The munro seems to separate two worlds - to the west it’s wilderness and more mountains; to east it’s farmlands, generally flat and civilisation.
We arrived at the summit and looked for spots to setup. The ground is surprisingly quite wet and boggy at the top, and whilst the trig would make a good place to setup - with convenient fence post mast support - there was a continous stream of other walkers, so we moved away from it. Fraser tried 2m, and I setup on HF. No sooner than we started than the cloud closed in and the views disappeared.
They’d been a bit of a CME the night before but HF was fine, and Fraser had warned the locals beforehand, so once the message got round he managed enough on 2m.
Little Wyvis
Walking up Ben Wyvis we’d been looking at the terrain across to Little and also decided we didn’t want to go back down those stairs. We took the quad track off to the east and walked down and around the nice gradual shoulder of the hill, to approach Little Wyvis from the east. Also hoping to avoid losing as much elevation as possible.
It was a lovely route down, with good views all around. The track did run out and turn into spongey moss and heather, which we bounced down as we came to the bottom of the valley. Little Wyvis is captured by two other hilltops, Tom na Caillich and Meall Odhar Mor, and so we were aiming to climb up the valley between one of them and join the ridge at the col, before heading up to the summit. As we got closer we picked Tom and headed up to join the path to the summit.
This time I was on 2m and Fraser on HF. A couple of locals answered my CQs quickly and offered to put out the message on their WhatsApp group, and over about 20 minutes I did manage to make 5 contacts. I was spotting for Fraser and when there was a lull in 2m activity I’d go and ask what his new frequency he was on - but as soon as I did, someone called me on 2m. I never did spot him on 10.
We did well with the weather, a big downpour passed us by in the valley and then only as we’d packed up did it make it to the summit. We followed an old fence and pseudo-path back down to the main track and headed back to the car. It was fish and chips (or red pudding for some) in Grantown-on-Spey, and then back home!
Postprandial
Glimpsing all those excellent NS summits just makes my list of options even longer! Little Wyvis is a fine summit, and it offers the same views as its big bro, plus the benefit of no-one ever going up it! It has an established route up from Silver Bridge, but if you want a little adventure then feel free to follow our route!
This part of the world has excellent lora coverage and we were tracked all the way from Inverness and back, even in the low lying areas.
to that area, I expect we’ll be back there again before too long.
. I was desperate for a pee, so nipped behind the sign and immediately stepped into a bog, leaving my shoe behind. The other foot got soaked, but the shoe stayed on.
Changed into my boots and started the hike with wet feet.