A Munro to Climb

Everyone who crosses the Main Bridge in Inverness has stopped  on it even just for a moment to admire the view up the River Ness with Ben Wyvis in  the background.

All of us had thought at some time wouldn’t it be amazing to climb that but none of us are experienced hill walkers and climbing it was just a  background thought.

In January 2014 we arranged for a film Sam Heughan starred in  called ‘Emulsion’ to come to Inverness and for Sam himself to do a Q&A at it.  Needless to say we had an amazing weekend.

January 2014

While Sam was in Inverness  he Climbed Ben Wyvis

Well this was the inspiration we needed to all come come together and decide to do it together. But we’d have to do it during good weather.  Ben Wyvis is only snow free for a few months of the year and in 2014 we just never seemed to manage to get a fine day when we were all free.

2015 came and Sam launched My Peak Challenge.  This was to inspire fans to go beyond  what they thought that they could to.  The Munro was shouting at us.  2015  was the year we were going to conquer Ben Wyvis.  Also it was a big year for three of us having big 40th Birthdays.  This was something we felt  we really wanted to do to celebrate.

Unfortunately due to health issues not all of us were going to be able to  climb it this year but they hope to do it in the future and we’ll be right behind them.

We had a very wet summer in Scotland this year and just never seemed to be able to get a nice day when all of us were free. With winter around the corner our hopes for climbing Ben Wyvis in 2015 were dwindling, but we all had a free Monday in October so we crossed our fingers that the weather would be on our side.

The Three of us met in the Carpark just after 9am. Two of our children decided to join us Chloe (10) and Craig (16). Craig wasn’t waiting around for us so he headed off to the top and waited for us there.    We were advised to bring a walking stick and we were so glad we had these.

The path starts off with  a bit of a slope that gets your heart going but it soon levels off and you walk through beautiful landscape. In the morning light this was just lovely.

The Path winds for a long time and is just like  a lovely walk through the countryside but it then steepens with stone steps put in by path-builders to help stop erosion of the mountain by hillwalkers. These are a hard climb but we were in no rush and took our time stopping lots to enjoy the views that we were getting.

As we got higher the wind picked up and we had to wrap up. The wind was cutting but the views we were getting were amazing. We were quite excited and just couldn’t believe that we were actually doing it.

When we reached  summit of An Cabar we stopped for lunch and enjoy the views before be crossed the summit walk. We could clearly see the path that we had to head across to the top of Ben Wyvis. It wasn’t going to be a hard walk now and we knew that we were going to reach the top.

 

We Crossed the Summit taking in the fantastic views on both sides of the mountain, watching the clouds roll across the mountain just in front of it. It was an great experience and we really were on a high.

CLICK HERE to watch video clip of our climb/walk to the top

The End was in sight and we made it to the  trig point and shelter at the top.  The clouds started to roll in and  covered us so we didn’t get the view from the top but it was a great feeling to have made it. High fives all round.

We made our way back across the Summit  enjoying the views and picking out places we recognised and of course we had to get a pocket Jamie and Claire photo at the top of Ben Wyvis.

We made our way slowly back down the mountain and back to the carpark.

We were delighted with our achievement. When we got back we tweeted Sam to thank him for inspiring us to climb a Munro. We were surprised and delighted to get a tweet back.

Every time we cross the main bridge in town we can look up to Ben Wyvis and say ‘We were on the top of that’ .