Devil's viewpoint

Here is the rather dampened view from the top of the 'Devil's Point' in the middle of the Cairngorms. This is the source of the Dee that runs south down a fabulous glacial cleft through the mountain range called the Lairig Ghru. In the distance you can see it turning left to head down to Braemar and Royal Deeside before heading down to the coast at Aberdeen. It was a long walk to get here and one that we thought was doomed to failure from the start.

Dodgy weather with frequent showers (some rather extended), swollen rivers and a chill northeast wind marked the day. It started with a pleasant cycle up to the boarded up Derry Lodge from the Linn of Dee car park (west of Braemar). The fine wooden footbridge over the river was smashed aside by the recent torrential floods. It appears that trees uprooted by the river and brought downstream had broadsided the bridge. Down at the 'ford' the river was 4' deep and running like a train so no crossing there either. A bit more hunting around upstream revealed another massive fallen Scots pine conveniently bridging the main flow of the river, so with a bit of 'pruning' I managed to fashion a route through and we could continue up to the next crossing. The next crossing was also out but had an old 'higher level' footbridge that was undamaged and we progressed up to Corrour bothy in a rather extended rain shower. We sheltered in the bothy with shrews running around at our feet, until at 4pm it was time make a dash for the top or head home in the rain. For some peculiar reason we opted to press on up the remaining 1000' ascent. A gentle rain continued most of the way up, but it brightened a bit just to egg us on and the path was a well maintained granite sand trail all the way to the col just behind the peak. From there the top of the Devil's Point (1004m) was just a few further contours to the view you see here. The peak forms a sentinel projecting into the Lairig Ghru, but is probably the smallest Munro in the vicinity. It's just a very long walk.

Of course, once here the rain picked up and we turned tail and backtracked for home getting back in the gloom at just after 9pm.