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It's been a very grey winter so far and we haven't had a proper blue sky/crispy day on the hills since early December. Sunday the 17th finally offered us a chance. Coincidentally, I was also rotting to watch the conclusion of Snooker Masters (my fav was in the final!) so we picked something relatively short and close to home, to be down at reasonable time.
We have visited Fyrish Monument many times, but never bothered to continue to the neighbouring Cnoc Ceislein, which is a Sub'2000 Marylin. Being 523m high, it looks like a proper hill to climb and when combined with Cnoc Fyrish, it gives an excellent 3-4 hours walk. Not to mention that in winter conditions it offers great views to the less known side of Wyvis and other local mountains, also to the sea and firths
When we woke up on Sunday morning, our outdoor thermometer said -5

and the one in the car gave us -8

Nothing unusual for me - I'm familiar with -20*C and more (or should I say less), but it required strong willpower to get out of bed seeing such numbers
Previous reports on WH describe the route from Evanton which is similar in length and ascent, but I always fancied doing it over Fyrish so here it goes.
Our route:
When we started from Fyrish car park, it was still only -6*C

and I took my ultra thick gloves and bodywarmer. We packed all we needed into one rucksack, decided that crampons/ice axes and waterproof overtrousers won't be needed on this shorter walk. Walking poles though looked like a necessity - the path was icy from the very beginning.
The most tricky part turned out to be the little footbridge over Contullich Burn:

Past the bridge, some very icy steps saw us doing our balancing exercises

Generally, the first 100m or so of ascent on the path would be a recipe for a broken leg had we not been careful. Only higher up, ice gave way to snow and walking became easier:

Cnoc Fyrish is a great viewpoint to Cromarty Firth. Every time we come here, this panorama takes breath away:

We knew that cloud was only waiting on the western horizon to roll in and spoil the day, but at the moment we enjoyed some long awaited brightness:

Zoom to countless oil rigs, moored in the firth. The oil business is not doing very well, judging by the number of them...

The monument emerging:

It didn't take us long to reach the folly. We have already photographed it from every possible angle and in different weather conditions, but today the sun was behind it and Kevin managed some interesting snaps:

The monument and Cromarty Bay:

Wyvis was still cloud free at the moment (not for long!) and it looked amazing. This is the less known side of this mighty mountain, one which I'm hoping to explore in the future

Another significant lump on the horizon - Beinn Tarsuinn. During our previous visit to Fyrish, we spotted this one and put it on our list for winter outings. Did it for my birthday a couple of years back - superb wee hill, if you ignore the nearby windfarm

An obvious path/track traverses Cnoc Fyrish and descends west towards Cobhan Dubh. This side was not icy, thankfully, just very snowy

it is important to pick the right track once down in the forest as there are plenty of diversions and it's easy to get confused. We held on to our printout with the exact route marked (GPS was very helpful, too). It didn't help that I was continuously distracted by winter wonderland around:

We reached crossroads at 597697, where we turned right. There seems to be more forest here than marked on the map

, but soon we emerged onto open hillside, still on the track but with wider views around. Cnoc Ceislein was now just in front of us and I was eager to get to the summit!

We followed the track for about 1.2km, with good views to Fyrish monument:

Because the track cuts deep into the hillside, we were well protected from wind and enjoyed the outing to the full: what a difference to the grey day before!


We reached roughly the highest point of the track and here we spotted a narrow path heading straight towards the summit. It was all snowed over but ha! no snow was an obstacle enough for us today!

Winter wonderland:

Going was easy to start with, but soon snow became deep in places. Kevin stopped to put on his gaiters as the white stuff was annoyingly getting into his boots!

Carn Chuinneag, a local Corbett:

Kevin now ready for the final push, with Cnoc Fyrish behind:

Soon we reached the summit, marked by a trig point and a tiny lochan (a big puddle?) just behind it. I posed with Lucy - she has just bagged her first sub'2000 Marylin!

Kevin and Wyvis. The cloud was slowly pushing in from the west and the tops of the Munro were no longer visible:

A few panos from the summit - enjoy. It turned out to be an exceptionally good viewpoint, especially in winter conditions.




Wyvis again:

No matter how much we enjoyed this wee Marylin, the wind made us pack up and retreat back to the safety of the track. We returned to Cnoc Fyrish the same way (I bet there are other variations, once should be able to skip around it to the north, but we wanted to take more photos of the monument). The top of Cnoc Fyrish was now crowded, with loads of people with cameras, snapping and posing, slipping and falling over on icy paths

The western sky had the familiar "false sunset" effect:

The folly photo session:


We took our time descending to the car park, carefully balancing on the icy path. I saw someone going up (or rather struggling up) in tennis shoes

I guess this is a very popular local stroll and for some folks, the only experience they have ever had with ice was when they added it to their coke
All right, don't want to sound patronizing
To sum up, it's really worth to prolong the walk from Fyrish to Ceislein! On a good day, this little sub'2000 gives as much joy as any easy higher hill would do. Highly recommended
