Sunday 25th May
Another day; another hole. It seems as my sleeping mat has developed a hole, although it must be a very small one as it takes about 6-7 hours for the mat to deflate even with me on it.
Today's route is over to Rothiemurchus Forest via the Liarig Ghru. The Liarig Ghru is one of the best known mountain passes not only in Scotland but in the U.K. I had heard a lot about it but still didn't know what to expect once up there.
We said our goodbyes to Duncan, and set off back down to the bridge crossing the River Dee, as the main path runs up the Eastern side of the Dee.
Again the paths were good to start with and we made steady progress. One of the first thing we were looking of today was the Clach nan Taillear. We think that the picture below is it; as it is on the right side of the path and close to where the path to Carn a`Mhaim goes up from the Liarig Ghru (this was to be Duncan's route for today).
Clach nan Tailler
From Clach nan Tailear the path climbed continuously and started to get a bit rougher, as we climbed the views across to Cairn Toul & up to Ben Macdui opened out. Yesterday we had spend the latter part of the day looking at the Devil's Point and to never seems to get closer; today we couldn't get far away from it.
Looking North
Back to the Devil's Point
One of Duncan's parting words were "watch out for the boulders" and just before the Pools of Dee; we hit them. These boulders are BIG, you have to be really careful where you place your feet as it could be so easy to misplace a step and break an ankle. A couple of times I got a pole struck in the gaps and it needed a good pull to retrieve it.
Boulders everywhere
We finally made it to the Pools of Dee and stopped there for lunch. while sitting there people started to arrived from the other direction (Aviemore) and pass by.
There was still some snow lying in the pass, and at some places it looked to be 6-8 inches deep. Shortly after the Pools of Dee; we hit a marked cairn, this turned out to be the height cairn of the Liarig Ghru, we were at the highest point 835 m (2733 ft). So everything from here was downhill.
Although all downhill; it wasn't easy, again the path seemed to disappear and then reappear somewhere else. It wasn't until we arrived near the start of Allt Druidh that the paths were more defined.
Allt Druidh
All the climbing over boulders and non-defined paths made for a bad day for the feet, by the time we reached the Rothiemurchus Forest my feet felt a bit bruised and battered, it was nice to be on smooth paths again.
Start/finish of the Liarig Ghru
We made our way to the clearing in the Forest and set up our final night's wild camp.
Camp in Rothiemurchus Forest
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