Lairig Ghru

From the north the Lairig Ghru can be approached from Glenmore through the Chalamain Gap, and from Aviemore through the Rothiemurchus Forest by way of the Crossroads above Allt Drùidh.

Watson gives the place name "Làirig Dhrù", meaning pass of Dhru or Druie, with the local pronunciation "Laarig Groo".

Lairig means hill pass, and map-makers of the nineteenth century solved the problem to their own satisfaction by substituting for Ghru the word Ghruamach, for which they had apparently not the slightest authority.

But authorities on place-names reject these suggestions, and are obliged to leave the name Ghru a mystery, although it seems to contain the same root as the Allt Dhru burn which drains it to the north.

The Lairig Ghru has been a route used by many different people, for many different purposes as made clear in Haldane (1952), and was in regular use long before the height of the droving trade in the more peaceful times after the middle of the 18th century: The natural barrier of hills which stand round the head waters of the two rivers [the Dee and Don] was thus less of a protection than a source of danger, and it was over paths trodden by centuries of raiding traffic that, when more peaceful times came, the drovers of north-east Scotland passed on their way to the trysts and their lawful occasionsThe Lairig Ghru was used as a droving-route as late as 1873 - Haldane (1952) - to Braemar and farther south.

The full route from Aviemore to Braemar is about 43 km (27 mi), though many walkers cut the walk short by starting or finishing at Linn of Dee.

Anderson (1911) writes: In the days before railways it was much used as a means of intercommunication, particularly for the driving of cattle from all the Highlands around to the great southern "trysts" or fairs ; but now the pass is seldom traversed except by gillies and foresters, or by pedestrians ambitious to add the feat of "doing" it to their "record".An even earlier recreational mention is a report on the snow conditions in the Lairig Ghru by C. G. Cash in April 1901: On the 17th I went up the Lairig Ghru [from Rothiemurchus] as far as the watershed.

Indeed I barely found enough exposed rock to serve as a dry seat, while I took a rest, a lunch, and a look at the Deeside viewThis snow report by C. G. Cash implies both his own and his readers' familiarity with the Lairig Ghru.

Others only exist in older books Gordon (1925), Watson (1975) - for example - because the authors, acquainted with local people and traditions, have described these features and recorded their names.

Soon after this coming together, the track splits again with the left-hand (roughly NW) branch leading to the Cairngorm Club footbridge across the River Dee towards Corrour Bothy and the mountains to the west of the Lairig Ghru.

Corrour Bothy is a simple stone building below Coire Odhar, which lies between The Devil's Point and Cairn Toul on the western side of the river.

In Gordon (1925) the author describes using this path on an ascent of Braeriach, continuing: It is (1925) some thirty years since the late Duke of Fife constructed it, but as the corrie is one of the most outlying of all in the wide Forest of Mar the path has scarcely been used since the day it was made and is now difficult to follow, except near the top of the corrieThe Lairig Ghru track winds around a series of pools on the Mar side of the summit.

A bothy was built in 1957 by members of the Edinburgh University OTC as a memorial to Dr William Angus Sinclair FRSE, who died on Cairn Gorm on 21 December 1954.