Monday 13 May 2013

Silverbridge and Little Wyvis

Monday 13th May 2013

A morning walk up a Corbett before the storm breaks! 

Distance: 10km; Ascent: 640m; Sunny, rainy, snowy & windy; Solo


The forecast was not at all promising for today, with predictions of rain, hail, snow, storm force winds and thunder!  However it looked like the worst of the weather would arrive from around lunchtime onwards, so therefore I needed a relatively short walk for the day.  My only remaining Munro in this area is Am Faochagach, which either requires a river crossing to access or a much longer walk-in from Black Bridge.  A couple of walkers from the bunkhouse had crossed the river on Saturday and they said it was nearly waist deep then, and it’s rained a fair bit since then!  I didn’t fancy the longer route with today’s forecast and so instead settled on the Corbett of Little Wyvis as my objective for the day.

Silverbridge and the Black Water
Therefore shortly after 9am I set off walking from the forest walks car park at Silverbridge. There were impressive views of waterfalls on the Black Water as I walked across the modern road bridge to reach the start of my track.  After passing some farm buildings I began to gain height, with excellent views towards the Fannichs to the west.

Looking towards the Fannichs from the W slopes of Little Wyvis
Fresh snow on Little Wyvis
The vehicle track made for quick upward progress and I soon crossed the snowline at around 600m, with good views down to Meall Ruighe an Fhuruch and down into Strathgarve.  However the good views were not to last as over to the west I could clearly see the black clouds approaching, and soon the cloud began to lower.

Rainbow in Strathgarve
Meall Ruighe an Fhirich from upper slopes of Little Wyvis
I reached the summit of Little Wyvis (Corbett, Marilyn) at around 10:20am.  By now it was snowing, which together with the very strong winds produced blizzard conditions.  I was glad that I had chosen a short walk for today!

On the summit of Little Wyvis
Little Wyvis summit cairn
It continued to snow as I descended back down my route of ascent, although it turned to rain once I was down below around 600m.  The rain continued for much of my descent, but the sun did eventually come out when I was a few hundred metres from the car!  I took a short detour to get a better view of the waterfalls on the Black Water before reached the car just before midday.

The Black Water flowing under Silverbridge
The Black Water
See here for my Social Hiking map from the day's walk.

N.B. 17/06/13 - Post date updated to include links to social hiking and hill-bagging pages.

No comments:

Post a Comment