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This was my second drive up to Ben Wyvis car park in three days. On Tuesday (the blizzard day) a friend and myself contemplated getting up and conquering this beauty but our better judgement prevailed. I could not let it lie though and was given permission from my almost full term pregnant wife to get it out of the way.
So with the thoughts of an instant recall looming in my eager mind I set off at 0600hrs arriving back in the familiar car park for 0715hrs. I took a quick photo of my target from a layby approaching the Dingwall roundabout. Incidentally I see this mountain almost every time I drive into Inverness from my home town, today it was looking superb!
On my way over the bridge and through the gate, cracking on briskly following the stream through woodland using a well formed and maintained path throughout. After a wee bit catching the Wyvis brothers standing like two night club bouncers. Ben Wyvis and his wee mate Little Wyvis.
Having studied the map beforehand I realised An Cabar would be a bit of a slog on what was turning out to be a great day and sure enough it was, however a good path was available zig zagging for a period.
During my sluggish ascent up An Cabar I could see Little Wyvis peaking his head round another doorman to the south west, he knew he would need assistance to eject me from this club!
Enough was enough where my footing was concerned. I had turned into what was referred to in the army as a "snipers nightmare". Every two or three steps I was going on my a**e so out came the microspikes as advertised by my friend HighlandSC last year. They were invaluable as the going was very hard icy snow during this phase.
Soon I was just a bit above Little Wyvis and I had good views across him and beyond
After an hour and a half I hit the cairn on An Cabar
Dreading a phone call to immediately come home I scanned north east to the ridge and scooted on towards the main objective (Ben Wyvis)
Having not yet completed a winter skills course I had to use what experience I had to deter me from going anywhere near the snow formation hanging over the corrie to the south east. I crazy ski course in the army featured heavily as an anchor when looking at this..
Success! I hit the summit phone call free after a couple of hours and then had a cup of tea before taking some photos of this magnificent part of the world.
Twenty minutes had past so I hit the trail back along the plateau and past An Cabar
The sun shing on Little Wyvis on the way back down, I kept singing the "Different Strokes" tune that day for some reason.
Back down the icy slope of An Cabar
I remembered to pick up my shopping on the way back down having left it on the track by the stream.
When I returned to the car park the sun was shining and more folk were embarking on a great walk.
