IMMERSE IN BIG MOUNTAIN SCENERY
Devil’s Point, Cairngorms
Where mountains pile one upon the other forming tight valleys and crowded skylines, the result is always spectacular, but can also feel closed in and claustrophobic. However, there are landscapes where the bulk of the mountains is matched by the space around them. The scenery is vast, the views huge; this is Big Country.
The UK’s Big Country is almost exclusively found in Scotland, where the combination of soaring landforms and expansive panoramas co-exist most harmoniously because there’s space for it. The Cairngorms are perhaps the best example. The mountains are big; six of the British Isles’ seven highest peaks are found here, and four of those are found along a continuous chain of summits on the western side of the Lairig Ghru pass.
Which brings us on to the second aspect of the Cairngorms that makes it Big Country: the space between the mountains. Glaciercut passes and wide river-bottomed glens are as much a feature of the Cairngorms as the high ground, but it’s the combination of these that makes the landscape special.
If there’s one peak from where these qualities are exemplified, it’s the sordidly named Devil’s Point. Its Gaelic name, Bod an Deamhain, actually means ‘Penis of the Demon’; when Queen Victoria asked her ghillie John Brown for a translation, he erred on the side of euphemistic to avoid Her Majesty’s blushes, and the name has stuck. The best way to reach its summit is to traverse those four of the UK’s highest peaks to arrive at the end of the chain of mountains and the summit of the Devil’s Point at the finale of a day whose scenic revelations have been building up to this moment.
Directly below its steep nose, a confluence of valleys yawns between the hills. The steep-sided Lairig Ghru cuts north below another Cairngorm giant, Ben Macdui. The wide, green, water-patterned Glen Dee rolls away to the south, fed by the burn winding joyfully out of Glen Geusachan from the west. Opposite, the water of Allt Preas nam Meirleach begins its journey east towards Luibeg Burn, Lui Water, the River Dee, and eventually the sea. It’s Big Country all right, and this is the best view in the house.