North and east of the A835 is the area from Loch Broom to Easter Ross. This road is also the main access point for walking and climbing in the area which contains seven Munros, the highest being Beinn Dearg (1084m). The Ben Wyvis ridge stretches from southwest to northeast from the road towards Loch Glass. Mountains south of Ben Wyvis are in the Glen Cannich to Glen Carron area, whilst those to the west are in the Loch Maree to Loch Broom area.
Given the recent arctic blast and subsequent rapid melt that had kicked in, we (once again for me) decided to ignore the usual guide-book route up Am Faochagach (western end of och Glascarnoch (NH277743). So we set off on the much longer ascent from the Black Bridge on the A835 Ullapool-Inverness Road (NH374708). A good track led up Strath Vaich and we took this until we reached Strathvaich Lodge where another track took us up onto the slopes (NH349743). At about 500m the track became buried in snow and we had a strong head wind for several hours while we slowly trudged our way along the ridge - over Meal Coire nan Laogh (666m NH329748), Tom Ban Mor (742m NH318754), Sron Liath and up onto Am Faochgach. We took the same route back.
