Over The Hill

Our intended walk for Sunday, day two of our Kinlochewe weekend, was to double up and do Sgorr Ruadh, a 962m Munro and then return via Fuar Tholl, at 907m one of the higher Corbetts. However, when the MWIS forecast was distributed around the bunkhouse on Saturday evening there were lots of people rethinking their plans for Sunday. MWIS painted a very gloomy picture of rain, very low cloud, and worst of all, near gale force winds. And so alternative ideas were bouncing around like balls in a fountain. The weather in the west was bad, but further towards the east coast was going to be windy, but with a fair chance of clearer skies, and so, after quite a bit of deliberation, Little Wyvis was promoted to first choice for the day. It had its advantages, it was on our route home, so no detour required, and it would certainly be a shorter day on the hills, so we would get to Crianlarich before the road closures at Pulpit Rock would require a very long detour via Callander to get home.

Dwarfed by its close neighbour, An Cabar, itself a Munro Top at 946m, and outclassed by its big brother, Ben Wyvis, 1046m, it is not difficult to see from where the name Little Wyvis is derived. It doesn't even have its own access path, as, setting out from the car park just south of Garbat, you follow the main Ben Wyvis path through the forest as it climbs above the Allt a'Bhealaich Mhoir towards the forest boundary until, as the path veers uphill towards An Cabar, you then have a choice of routes towards Little Wyvis.

We opted for the longer way around, and continued to follow the river over rough heather ground as we headed into Bealach Mor flanked to the left by the steep slopes of An Cabar, and to the right by the north east slopes of Tom na Caillich. We began a rising contour around the base of Tom na Caillich intending to continue with this traverse until we reached the bealach between Tom na Caillich and Little Wyvis. However, as we started to climb the heather clad slopes, Dave spotted a few crags and a nice grassy rake lying directly beneath the summit. Never one to take the long way round, a quick shout from Dave had us all making a direct climb up, what turned out to be fairly steep ground, to a small cairn marking the 705m summit of Tom na Caillich.

From here we could clearly see our route ahead as it first dipped slightly and crossed an area of wet grassland before taking an easy climb for the final kilometre towards the open grassy summit. As forecast, it was quite windy on the tops, but we had the dry conditions that made it much more bearable. Nevertheless, we departed this windy spot fairly quickly and dropped off the north west edge for a short distance to pick up an old, and very wet track which contours the hillside as it runs north east just below the level of the ridge.

We followed this track until it doubled back on itself, at which point we could see the forest boundary and the Ben Wyvis track just to the north of us, and about 300 metres lower than our current height. And so, once again we took to the open heather hillside and descended towards the river and the track beyond. A convenient set of stepping stone made light work of crossing the Allt a'Bhealaich Mhoir and we were soon back on the good forest track heading downhill and back to the car park.

The weather had been kind to us, it stayed dry, the clouds were scattered and so we had a few good views of distant peaks, and apart from on the actual summit, the winds did not bother us. All in all then Little Wyvis served its purpose, we evaded the worst of the weather and we had a very pleasant walk.

Thanks everyone, once again, great company.