The weather kept changing from sunny to rainy and back again on this 16-mile, 8-hour walk along glens that took us north up Glen Dee, which meets the Lairig Ghru at the Pools of Dee, from the southern end.
We started walking from the Linn of Dee car park, and early on, we came across an elderly man carrying a very large and heavy-looking backpack with a stick (sticks?) walking on his own. We ended up having a short conversation with him, and it seemed he was on a long-distance walk to a destination quite a long way away.
Further up Glen Dee, we passed a young couple doing the circuit in the other direction. The girl asked if it was very muddy the way we had come. She sounded like she was not looking forward to trudging through much more mud.
We had a look inside the Corrour bothy, where two young men were staying. It looked quite snug (small) inside. One of them was about to try heading up a nearby slope with camera and tripod to get to the top of the Devil’s Point (Bod an Deamhain or Penis of the Demon), which stands just to the south-west of the bothy and is at the southern end of the group of peaks of (from the north) Braeriach, Carn na Criche, The Angel’s Peak, Cairn Toul, and Stob Coire an t-Saighdeir.
After returning the same way for a short distance back down Glen Dee, we contoured around the foot of Carn a’ Mhaim to head east along Allt Preas nam Meirleach into Gleann Laoigh Bheag. We passed some young men with big backpacks (from somewhere in continental Western Europe, but not sure which country they were from), who were probably planning to stay in Corrour bothy. We imagined it was going to be quite cosy for them. The first exclosure for trees that we came to seemed to have lost its fences, perhaps because the trees had grown enough not to need their protection any longer. The weather continued to change from bright to rainy/overcast. We also passed the abandoned-looking buildings of Derry Lodge. Two young men who joined the track from Luibeg Burn hurried on, then disappeared – it seemed they had wanted to be first to get to the Bob Scott Memorial Hut which we could see on the map. They need not have worried, as we were continuing into Glen Lui until we got back to the Linn of Dee. We took our time, ambling along and taking photographs. I saw some more ptarmigan (or grouse?) droppings. Almost at our destination, we went up to the edge of Lui Water to see what a salmon ladder looks like, as it was marked on the map.
Map showing walk route and peaks seen
View Linn of Dee circuit – Sept 2012 in a larger map