Ben Wyvis (Munro) 1046m: Monday 2nd May 2016
The forecast was for rain much of the night but the temperatures were to to stay around 10 deg C - much warmer than any previous night since we arrived in Scotland. So I set my moth traps with a little more hope than previously - and got 2 species new to me: Rhigognistis incarnatella and Povolnya leucapennella. Both overwinter as the adult - so these along with a couple of other species obtained last night have just emerged from hibernation. The former is scarce and largely confined to the Highlands, the latter is more widespread and associated with oak woodlands.
Knowing that we planned to make an ascent today, Alison misconstrued the arrival of a cup of tea at 7am as an indication that she should get up. She was slightly perturbed when she realised that I hadn't yet done my traps and she could have had another hour in bed. Having had the successes mentioned above and then breakfast we drove north for about 40 minutes to get to the Ben Wyvis car park in time to start walking at 10am. The weather forecast was for sunny spells with rain, sometimes heavy. Having driven through lovely sunshine and got our walking gear on, it promptly started raining and continued to do so for about an hour - almost long enough for us to enter the cloud from which the rain had been falling. Ben Wyvis actually has 3 named peaks all of Munro height, but because they are in close association only the highest, Glas Leathad Mor, counts as a Munro - but you have to go over An Cabar, 946m, to get there. The ascent of An Cabar is steep but on a largely well-made path. We entered the cloud about half-way up and as we neared the top the wind became strong and persistent enough on the steep slope that Alison was talking about going back down - but then two people (ominously wearing ski goggles) descended out of the mist and reassured us that the wind was no stronger on the plateau and we weren't far from the top of An Cabar. We continued on through the mist over the first summit and onto the summit plateau, from where it was another 2km to the top. For much of the way the wind was coming across the plateau and buffeting us slightly from behind - for about 15 mins there was horizontal hail and I understood that ski goggles would indeed be useful were we going in the other direction (which of course we had to do later). There was very little snow on the summit plateau and apart from the wind and the hail the going was fairly easy. Eventually we got to the summit cairn and trig point, took the obligatory photo and turned round. Now facing slightly into the wind and hail, it felt very cold and the hail was pretty uncomfortable any time we looked up - but we kept up a fast pace and got back to An Cabar in good time. As we descended, the cloud cleared and we were treated to about an hour of intermittent sunshine, no precipitation, and some pretty good views. Also a fine pair of Ptarmigan were on the path and expended almost no effort to move out of our way. We saw two other people on this walk - one in a T-shirt! who didn't make it to the top and the other ran past us on the way up and was still running when he passed us on the way down - oh to be that fit! Distance: 14km Ascent: 935m