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On our way to the Gairloch meet we picked Ben Wyvis to do on the way. Travelling up the road with Jim & Michelle, we met the Tinman in the car park just up from Garve to begin the walk.
Was great to see him again and after a cup of tea, most generously provided by Michelle and her Jetboil we set off on a catch up on the path towards the mountain. Not just an ordinary mountain but an Awesome Mountain going by the Gaelic translation. We had a flyby by two fighter jets and that was like a starter gun to our walk. Me and Geoff set off on our manly walk towards the hill as Jim and Michelle swung hands and made daisy chains in between their canoodling on the path.
The path gently rises until the base of the mountain where it gets fairly steep, but I don`t know if the addition of "stairs" actually helps. Kinda encourages you to speed up a bit.
It was a nice day, not spectacular, a bit grey but nice and of course ten minutes into the walk I was down to the Tshirt.
There were loads of bags of gravel and rocks dropped off by the path so an upgrade of the path was due to take place soon.
- The Tinman takes the rocky road to Wyvis
We carried on up the path and although the old Tinman felt it a bit steep I was alright, still in my forties ye know
We waited at the top of the steps for "love`s young dream" and got chatting to a cockney geezer as he made his way down.
- Decent scenic views
Looking across from here to Little Wyvis, it looks a great wee hill.
- Little Wyvis
Once Jim and Michelle had caught up we set off together to cross the "plateau" to pass the ever increasing false summits. As we did this the mist was rolling in , we could just barely see each new peak rise in front of us. Surprisingly long walk along the top. As we approached the summit the ground became covered with snow but only centimetres deep.
Jim and Geoff walked ahead as myself and Michelle trailed behind catching up on ourselves a bit.
- Man with blanked out eyes gets his wee man out at summit
We soon caught up with them at the cairn and Jim pulled out his huge flask filled with piping hot tomato soup. Fanbloodytastic !
We sat and slurped this as the views around us drifted in and out of the clouds.
- summit pose
we headed back down and caught sight of a huge cornice ready to drop.
- Cornice
We then took a path off to the left which took us out of the wind a bit and down towards the steps. Jim and Michelle raced ahead of us and I really began to feel on the descent. The relentless steps taking their toll on my knees, FFS I`m in my forties ye know !
- name that burd !
It seemed a wee bit of a drag on the last section out , but it had been a long day.
The first Munro of the weekend was in the bag and we were ready to meet the gang at Gairloch.