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I'd passed by and noticed Cnoc Fyrish lots of times, and just never quite managed to get up it. I reckoned I might be able to manage it post-covid, so we made plans. Malky's parents who were staying with us were actually planning to head elsewhere but decided last minute to join us.
We parked up at what Malky described as the usual spot and faffed for a while, before heading up the path

I discovered that Malky's folks were excellent pacers and stopped me from trying to go too fast! There were a lot of people around, mostly coming down (hardly surprising as it was well after lunch!) and as we started to come out of the woods the views opened out across the firth

Wee lochan and a chance for a breather

Malky's Dad forges ahead

Cromarty Bridge

Another wee ascent and we were out onto the plateau - views down the firth to all the oil rigs!

The strange monument ahead

And finally we were at the top after a relatively painless climb - perhaps we should bring Mr & Mrs Malky with us more often?!

The Fyrish monument

Cnoc Ceislein - the marilyn summit that Malky was tempted by...

What I think is Carn Cuinneag?

The impressive backside of Ben Wyvis - corries peeking out. Malky keeps going on about a long route around the back of there that we should do - perhaps sometime in the future


Looking down the Cromarty firth towards Dingwall

Malky walkin' on sunshine


Although we had eaten lunch before leaving the house, Malky was hungry and had carried up what would (for me) count as a second lunch

Mummy and Daddy Clark had brought a flask so we found a wee bit of shelter behind a big pillar of rock

After a while it was time to go - we all had different ideas of where to go next, but agreed that we could all continue down on a circular route, which left options for some people to break off to go up the extra summit later on, but keeping us all relatively together - it turned out that no-one had brought a map

Fortunately I had viewranger on my phone and was able to screenshot the relevant bit before losing signal. Malky had a phone without a sim card... (so he photographed my screen shot

) so we had 2 "maps" between the 4 of us
Off we go - on the least prepared hill-walk ever


It was a beautiful afternoon and we were all getting quite warm. However, the track was less good underfoot here, which was causing unhappiness in the ranks...


Looking back to the monument

Eventually we got to the point where we had to make a decision - 3 of us were keen to try for the summit, whilst Malky's Mum was not. Malky decided he could run to the top and back before catching up with Mum before she could get lost. His Dad and I would follow at a slower pace and meet them back at the car. We juggled some phones around until each group had a working phone and a "map" between us, and phone numbers of each phone had been swapped
Malky ran off while and left the 3 of us to store a number my number in Malky's Dad's phone, and was most of the way down before we were done

Fortunately he had also discovered a path through the heather so was able to make life easier for us on the ascent!
Now on the path it was a relatively easy climb and although the sun had disappeared, the views were great


Oil rigs at Nigg

Summit of Cnoc Ceislein

Strathfarrar hills; a bit of sun over there!

From here it was a case of retracing our steps back to the track and navigating our way back to the car. Mostly easy, with the odd interest added...

Malky and his mum had only been waiting about 15 minutes. We jumped in quickly as there were midges lying in wait and we headed home. A slightly longer walk and I seemed to have survived - perhaps things were improving?
