I shut down the laptop, grabbed some food and my rucksack and fired up a newly-serviced Gunter at 1630 on Friday and headed off into some crazy Good Friday traffic to pick up Toezi from Paisley, for his first adventure in the van.
We left Paisley in bright sunshine not long after 1700 and headed up the A9, with a stop in Pitlochry for some chips. From there, it was a dusk-into-night drive up through the beautiful scenery of the Central Highlands, watching Venus get brighter, and the full moon rising in the big door mirrors.
We passed through Inverness and pulled into the Silver Bridge car park not far outside of Garve at 2230, where we decided to spend the night in the van. It was quiet, with a couple of other vans about. We put the pop-top up and Toezi got his kit ready, we had some drinks and snacks and then hit the hay a bit later on. I had a decent sleep but I could hear Toezi, a bit restless above.
We were up about 0630, and took our time having breakfast and getting our kit ready. We headed along the road to the Ben Wyvis car park where we were the second vehicle on site. Toezi pointed out that with the pop-top up, my van could double as the Pope-mobile!
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| Gunter missing out on the hill |
We were on the hill at 0805, and it was clear but frosty all around - the heather on the hill sparkling in the early morning sunlight.
As we headed up the path, we were walking directly into the sun. We came across a few folk heading down who must have been up pretty early doors.
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| Sun rising behind An Cabar |
The sun was starting to warm everything up but there was still a bitter south-easterly to contend with. As a result, the big steps on the path had a thin layer of ice on them, making for slippy conditions on the way up.
The views were great, we could pick out the Glascarnoch Dam and the Fannaichs.
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| Views |
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| Glascarnoch and Beinn Dearg |
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| Fannaichs |
Eventually, the climb levelled out and we were on top of the first top, An Cabar at 0950.
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| An Cabar |
From there it was pretty easy going to the summit. Of note were the corniced edges, which had some massive holes in them which went all the way down. No way you'd want to walk on there, but there were boot prints on the snow nonetheless.
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| Snow |
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| Snow and spindrift coming up the corrie |
It didn't take us long to get to the top, and we arrived at 1025. It was quite windy and cold, so we stopped to admire the views but didn't hang about.
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| Toezi on the summit |
We headed back towards the corniced snow and found a dip out of the breeze where we had a very early lunch and a Creme Egg in the snow.
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| Creme Egg in the snow |
We decided to head back the way we came and it was a good move - the ice had melted and the hill was busy with lots of people making their way up, and all enjoying the sunshine and warming air.
It was easy walking and a pleasure to feel the sun on my skin after a very long winter.
We were back at the car by 1235 and then it was a coffee in the van before the long drive back down the road. I was home for 1745, meaning we did the whole thing in about 24 hours - the perfect microadventure.
Here's the relive:
Hike Distance: 15.03km
Hike Ascent: 940m
Hike Time: 4h 22m
Munros Completed: 197
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