Lairig Ghru Month 8. August 2015

August marked the eighth instalment of my project to walk and photograph the Lairig Ghru every month during 2015.

Looking up into the Lairig Ghru

I’ve been going through my walk notes from the year, and the August iteration was actually the 11th and 12th times that I’ve done at least part of my ‘standard walk’.

The walk starts from the little car park at Loch an Eilein and follows paths through the Rothiemurchus Estate to the Cairngorm Club Footbridge and to Piccadilly before turning right and climbing up into the Lairig Ghru - over the months I’ve started to give the various landmarks up the path - splitting the route into four chunks each taking roughly an hour to walk).

Part 1. Loch an Eilein to Piccadilly (this is a recognised place name - at least it appears on the Rothiemurchus Estate map)

Part 2 Piccadilly to Top Tree (this is my label - it’s the last big tree beside the path as you climb up from Speyside)

Part 3 Top Tree to Last Ford (again my label - it’s the last distinct ford as you climb up into the Lairig Ghru boulder view)

Part 4 Last Ford to The Top (in this case the high point of the Lairig Ghru, just beyond this (from the perspective of someone coming up from the Spey side) are the Pools of Dee.

This month I had the chance to do the walk twice.  On one day I did the first two parts of the walk (time constraints meant this was all I had time to do), and on the next day the first three parts (the weather forecast was rubbish for the entire day, but the threatened rain didn’t appear until late afternoon).

Part 1. Loch an Eilein to Piccadilly.

Loch an Eilein, Summer 2015

Through Rothiemurchus Estate

Through Rothiemurchus Estate

Cairngorm Club Footbridge

Piccadilly

Part 2. Piccadilly to Top Tree

Through the tree line

Top Tree

Part 3. Top Tree to Last Ford

Pathside Mosses

Fox gloves

Way-marking up toward the Sinclair Memorial

Top Ford - snow filled in Winter, water-filled in Spring and very dry by August

And on the third day. 

Once the rain arrived late on the second of my August walk days, it stayed around. I popped back to Loch an Eilein about 16 hours after the rain started, it was still falling steadily.  I took that as my cue to start driving back down to Oxford.

Loch an Eilein, Also Summer 2015