Through the Lairig Ghru to Derry Lodge
(14 miles/327 metres ascent)
It wasn't a bad morning, and instead of hanging around in my sleeping clothes for a while, as I normally do, I got changed immediately and then went out to take a proper look at the day.
Little Peewiglet had been cold in the night, and he'd left his sleeping sock and curled up in my Lowe Alpine Mountain Hat for extra warmth.
...by the time Caburn, Pete, Trish and I were finally ready to go.
I took a quick piccy of Trish and Pete by the stand of tall trees...
...and then we set off together.
I love fungi, and we hadn't gone far before I noticed a very interesting brain-shaped fungus at the side of the track. It was the size of a large fist...
...and none of us had seen anything quite like it before. A trawl through my mushrooms and toadstools book suggests that it was a cauliflower fungus, though, and shortly afterwards we saw a smaller one a little further up the path.
The route to the Lairig Ghru through the Rothiemurchus Forest was truly beautiful - Caburn said it looked like a Japanese Buddhist monk's garden, and that's exactly what it resembled, with the small conifers and bonsai-like heathers and bilberries at the side of the path.
I was excitedly waiting for my first look at the Lairig Ghru itself, and once we'd emerged from the forest it suddenly came into view as we rounded a bend in the path.
There was cloud sitting on the top of the mountains at either side, and I looked along the ridge to the left and wondered how far it was to Ben MacDui.
We were making fairly rapid progress as the ground was easy, and we could see the others not very far ahead. Gradually we caught up with them...
...and I set off in pursuit of Tom and David, who were then at the front.
The view back towards Aviemore was impressive too, but we could see clouds gathering behind us, and it seemed likely that this was going to be another day of mixed weather.
The path ahead was rocky but still easy to negotiate...
...and soon we came to a memorial to Angus Sinclair, in memory of whom the Sinclair Hut was erected.
I was particularly interested in the path towards the Creag a Chalamain, having read an interesting story about it on the TGO messageboard. I inspected it pretty closely as we passed, but there was nothing untoward to be seen.
As we pressed on a little further we came to the first remaining snow, and I thought back to a few weeks earlier when it had sounded as though we might be walking on thick snow all the way to Derry Lodge! I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that most of it had gone.
We pressed on further, and - remembering all the stories I'd read about the Big Grey Man, and his activities up on the mountain to our left - I couldn't help but take a little time to stare up at the crags, now sitting in mist, and reflect on some of the strange experiences that people have described having had up there.
The weather had remained unsettled during our early progress up the valley, but I could see that if it could just break through there was warm sunshine up above. We continued in a loose formation, but from time to time the people at the front would stop for a break and the rest of us would gradually catch up with them. At some stage before we reached the top of the climb we decided a group photo was called for, and so we all took a bit of a break while taking it in turns to whip out the cameras and record the moment :)
Soon after that we went on again, and I nipped up to the front to get a picture of the procession progessing along the path.
By that time the weather was definitely clearing up, and some people began to get out of their waterproofs and into something lighter.
Not long after that we got to the top of the climb, and there was a clear view of the way ahead of us, with the Devil's Point - another exciting place that I'd read several interesting things about - standing out clearly ahead of us, to the right.
About that time a bunch of us decided to stop for lunch, but Kate, Tim, Alvar, Ann and Simon pressed on towards the Pools of Dee.
Lunch was lovely, and it was warm enough by then to sit in my baselayer with just a Fuera Smock thrown over the top to keep me from cooling down too much. I got out my tortillas and finished the last of my Primula, and and then I sat back to rest my feet for a while. We didn't wait too long, though, and not long after we set off down we arrived at a small pool with another small bank of snow to the left.
As we approached the Pools of Dee I noticed water cascading through snow down the side of the hill...
...and when we arrived at the pools I was entranced by the clarity of the water. Some people saw fish!
It was thrilling to see the Pools of Dee at last, having read about them so many times in the course of the last couple of years. I'm not sure quite what I'd been expecting, but they were larger than I'd imagined. Little did I imagine that Bob and Rose would actually be camping there later that night!
After the Pools of Dee the path branched both right and left, but the one on the left was the one we needed. Pete and Trish went the other way, and that meant they needed to get back to the other side further down. The stream had already grown wider, though, and the water was flowing very quickly, so it wasn't at all easy to get across!
After the mini-river crossing, we stood around chatting for a little while before we went on.
Soon we moved off, though, as we still hadn't reached Corrour Bothy and there was still some way to go.
We continued for a while, still walking in a loose formation of groups and stopping from time to time to re-form, when we felt like a break or someone wanted to put something on or take a layer off.
When we walked on I set off at the front, and went on alone for a while. I'd been listening to my MP3 player since lunchtime, and walking alone now I got lost in the music and sped off faster than I'd intended. It was exhilarating to be striding along in the splendour of the pass, with enough of a breeze to keep me cool in my baselayer but not needing to put anything heavier on to keep warm and dry. My rucksack was comfy, and I wasn't really aware of the weight it contained.
I'd been meaning to keep an eye out for the Tailors' Stone that David had told us about the night before - a place where 3 young tailors had apparently agreed to meet one New Year in order to dance a jig, but had sadly perished in a fearsome storm - but in the exhilaration of the moment I forgot all about it until, perhaps almost an hour later - I stopped to look back and saw David jigging about on top of a rock, and wondered what he was up to. Tom came up just then and the penny suddenly dropped, and so we put down our packs and dashed back across the little stream we'd only just forded, and joined David and Caburn on top of the rock for a boogie :)
When we continued I was sure it couldn't be much further to Corrour bothy, but it was still some time before I eventually spotted it on the other side of the river, dwarfed by mountains at the foot of the Devil's Point.
I knew there was a path leading to a small bridge across the river some distance further on, but the weather now began to close in a bit and it became cloudy and a little wet. The bothy was quite a lot further away than I'd imagined, and in view of the weather, and the fact that time was pressing on, we decided not to cross over but to press on towards Derry Lodge instead.
By now, Tom, David and I were some distance ahead of the rest of the group, and when we got to Luibeg burn we weren't sure whether to wade across on the rocks or to make our way back to Luibeg bridge. We'd missed the path to the bridge on the way down, and although it wasn't terribly far away it looked like too much walking in the wrong direction. After a bit of a debate, and a quick scout ahead to see whether there was an easier crossing spot round the corner, we decided to ditch the bridge and just go for the stream, so we all took off our socks.Tom put on his sandals, but David continued in his boots, and I went on in my Roclites, since they were already wet.
The journey across the stream was quite exciting, with Tom leading the way.
There were a couple of rather unsteady rocks, and a slippery place or two, but we all got across without incident and then sat down on the other side to replace our footwear.
As we were doing that Caburn arrived, and we wondered whether he might actually be able to jump across, given the length of his stride! Rather disappointingly, though, he didn't attempt it, and just made his way across the rocks in the conventional way :)
By now we were all a little tired, and looking forward to getting to Derry Lodge. David took advantage of the opportunity to rest his weary legs...
...but as soon as Caburn was ready to go we went on. We could see the others making their way towards Luibeg bridge by now - clearly they hadn't missed the path - and we set off with camping spots in mind.
We soon came to a charming message inscribed in the path, and it seemed likely that Challengers had been that way before us! :)
I went on with renewed vigour from that point, but it still seemed like an awfully long time before a building appeared before us in the near distance, sheltered by a stand of trees, and David - who had been there before - declared it to be Derry Lodge. Hurrah! :)
There was a large expanse of grass in front of the Lodge, upon which a tent had already been erected. We stopped for a quick chat, and I recognised the bloke I'd met briefly quite early that morning, as I'd been returning to the tent after my early morning ablutions :) It transpired that he wasn't the man who'd left the enticing message about beer and whusky, though, and he wasn't sure who that might have been.
Although the grass looked like a good, flat sort of pitch, David knew of a much cosier spot just a little further on in the pine trees, and so we went on to look for it. It was lovely indeed, and we put down our packs and began to scout around for the flattest places to pitch. I'd heard some horror stories about vast quantities of ticks at Derry Lodge, and so I kept a wary eye out for marauding hoardes of tiny beasties as I moved pine cones from the ground before putting up my tent.
Little Peewiglet was quite exhausted by the day, and spent a happy time sitting on top of my tent and looking back along the path we'd travelled, keeping an eye out for further Challengers.
Not long after we'd got the tents up we saw most of the group pass by - Trish and Pete weren't with them - and wondered where they might be going. It seemed a pity if we weren't going to camp in the same place, since we'd all had such fun the night before, but not long afterwards they returned and began to put up their tents. They'd been checking another bothy a few hundred metres further down the path, but they'd found it full of a group of hardened drinkers and so decided to come back.
It wasn't long before we'd re-created Hilleberg and Terra Nova City in the woods, and we all settled down to cook something yummy for tea.
Pete and Trish arrived as we were doing it - tired, but relieved, like the rest of us, to finally be there.
Some cunning person found a piece of elastic, and created a clever new form of camp footwear!
As we'd done the night before, we chatted outside the tents whilst we cooked and ate our suppers. I'd saved my two tins of G&T for a post Lairig Ghru treat, and so when we'd eaten I shared it round with those who declared an interest. There wasn't a lot, but at times like that it's the principle of having a drink that counts :)
As we stood around, relaxing, I wondered where other Challengers might be camping that night, and particularly whether anyone was pitching in an especially exciting place. The following day in Braemar, I learned from Bob and Rose that they'd set off from Kingussie for the Lairig Ghru as we'd left our camp at the head of it that morning, and that they'd managed to get as far as the Pools of Dee before bad light stopped play, so as we were standing around at Derry Lodge they were making their way to what surely must be one of the most exciting of all places to pitch a tent!
We were keeping an eye on the path from Luibeg just in case any futher Challengers might appear, and as we were doing that we noticed a group of walkers setting off in very purposeful fashion from the direction of the lodge toward the Lairig Ghru. We wondered whether it might be a mountain rescue team going out to an injured walker, and after a few minutes I walked over to the lodge to see whether the camper there knew what was happening. Fortunately it turned out to be a group of people setting off to carry out some maintenance work on Corrour bothy, though, so that was a relief.
Not long after that, however, we did see a lone walker approaching the lodge from Luibeg, and so David, Caburn and I went out to meet him. I wondered whether it might be Andy Howell, whom I'd still not seen since the boat in Mallaig, but it turned out to be Colin whom I'd first met at Garva Bridge, and I have to say that he looked pretty surprised to see a group of people dashing out to greet him! He looked even more surprised when David forced a mug on him, insisting, "Drink this,drink this!", but a quick slug of G&T turned out to be a welcome surprise because - discerning bloke that he is - G&T is his favourite drink too :)
We accompanied Colin back to the tents, and he set about putting up his Competition. A bunch of us then played around for a while with my SheWee, and I crept behind a tree to see whether it really would enable me to Pee Like A Man (sadly, it turned out to be less easy standing up, and fully clothed...). By now I was now quite excited at the prospect of finally seeing Braemar the following day, though, and so at about 10pm, with good intentions about getting up early enough not to be last packing up in the morning, I eventually went back to my tent and settled down to write up my diary, read a bit of my book and get some sleep.
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