Travel: Gimme Shelter
Rustic huts called bothies — more than 100 of which are scattered throughout England, Wales and Scotland — are an indispensable, if little-known, element of British hill culture, writes Stephen Hiltner
By the time the tiny hut came into view, nestled high in a corrie in Scotland’s 450,000-hectare Cairngorms National Park, I had trekked for nearly 15km, 5 of which, regrettably, I’d had to navigate after nightfall. The hike, through a broad valley in the Eastern Highlands called Glen Derry, carried me past groves of Scots pines and over a series of streams, some of which, lined with slick stepping stones, made for precarious crossings. All the while, two rows of smooth, eroded mountain peaks enclosed me in an amphitheatre of muted colours: hazel-hued heather, golden grasses. Though much of my walk was solitary, the flickering glow in the hut’s main window, I knew, meant I would have some company for the night and the warmth of a fire to greet me.
My overnight home, the Hutchison Memorial Hut, colloquially called the Hutchie Hut, which I visited in late October, is one of more than 100 rustic shelters scattered throughout England, Wales and Scotland that are frequented by a motley assortment of outdoor adventurers. Left unlocked, free to use and with most offering little more than a roof, four walls and perhaps a small wood-burning stove, the buildings, called bothies (rhymes with “frothy”), are an indispensable — if for many years underground — element of British hill culture.
A vast majority of bothies are repurposed structures — crofters’ homes, shepherds’ huts, mining outbuildings — that have been salvaged from various states of disrepair by the Mountain Bothies Association, a charitable organisation founded in 1965 whose aim is “to maintain simple shelters in remote country for the use and benefit of all who love wild and lonely places”. Some, like Warnscale Head in England’s Lake District, date to the 1700s. Collectively, since they came into recreational use in the 1930s as weekend getaways (sometimes used
clandestinely) for working-class labourers, bothies have given rise to a unique culture that values communal respect for fellow visitors, for the bothies themselves and for the land on which they are situated.
But bothy culture, some longtime proponents fear, is imperiled by a generation unaccustomed to shrewdly guarded secrets. Map co-ordinates for the often hard-to-find dwellings, once dispersed only among hiking insiders, are now available openly on the internet. Popular hashtags have helped create something of a buzz on Instagram, where bothies are sometimes presented, misguidedly, as an alternative to Airbnb rentals. (The bothy code unequivocally prohibits the use of bothies for commercial purposes, and discourages their use by large groups.)
A hugely popular and impressively researched guide, The Scottish Bothy Bible, published in 2017, lines shelves in stores throughout the UK, the first of many bothy guides to achieve a kind of mainstream success. It, too, has increased foot traffic.
Bothies, I should mention at the outset, are not for everyone. During the course of two weeks, while hiking more than 300km and visiting 20 of them (12 of which I slept overnight in), I battled sopping boots, squally winds, dispiriting cold, blinding rain and seemingly impenetrable bogs only to reach dwellings that, by most modern standards, are ill-suited for human occupancy. The interiors are often dark and dank, with cold stone floors that double as stiff sleeping platforms. With few exceptions, toilets consist of the great outdoors, along with a small spade and posted instructions to deposit one’s waste a considerate distance from the building. More than once I awoke to the sound of mice skittering near my head.
But to me and many others, the discomforts are a barely distinguishable blip — and, dare I say, often an ascetic pleasure — in an otherwise rapturous experience. Bothies are a portal. In all their understated glory, bothies allow for prolonged access to Britain’s rugged, restorative and majestical hidden corners, places that might otherwise prove unforgiving or impractical as day-hike destinations for the casual explorer.
When, cold and exhausted, I finally crossed the threshold of the Hutchie Hut, I was greeted by three strangers: Tom and Lee, two undergraduate students at the University of St Andrews who were perched on the tiny room’s tiny sleeping platform; and Yakub, a fellow journalist from Manchester who had made a pallet for himself on the floor. Seeing their fuel was low, I offered up my bundle of firewood and my small bag of coal, then unfolded my sleeping bag on the floor and gratefully accepted a swig of Tom’s whisky. Within minutes, buoyed by tales of our sundry mishaps on the way up the mountain, the four of us were strangers no more.
Such encounters were common on my trip, during which I crossed paths with a few dozen fellow adventurers: climbers, environmentalists, families, solitary hikers, groups of friends, young and old. Some were drawn by the promise of night-time carousing, others by a deep connection to the land. Lynn Munro, who I met at Coiremor and Magoo’s, two adjacent bothies in the northern Highlands, called the surrounding area her “favourite square kilometre in the whole world”.with two friends, Tom and Francis, she had ventured out for a restorative trip to a place she has visited on and off for her entire life. I fell asleep that night to the sound of the trio singing harmonies beside the fire.
There is no doubt that Britain’s hills, lakes and heaths make for perpetually awe-inspiring settings. But, particularly as one presses ever northward into the Scottish Highlands, the moorlands can also make for a challenging, sometimes perilous landscape. The mix of rain and gales can be blinding. Trails can consist of little more than slightly trampled grass, easily mistaken for the paths left by wandering rivulets or grazing sheep. While traipsing through a moor during or after a hard rain, each step becomes something of a calculation: Which foothold is least likely to give way, leading to a boot filled with boggy water? Over time, with practice, one’s calculus improves. But despite my hiking experience, I never felt 100 per cent certain that what looked like firm, dry land wouldn’t give way and envelop my entire leg — which, inevitably, it did.
And therein lies what may ultimately serve as a saving grace against the threat of overcrowding. Reaching Britain’s truly spectacular bothies requires a good deal of effort and often a little risk. Those driven by the thrills of Instagram “likes” and free accommodation will, by and large, find themselves insufficiently motivated for the trek. And those who do value the restorative spirit of the places are likely to become ambassadors of a continuing and evolving tradition.
Bothy culture, in other words, may prove more resilient than some would have you believe.
All of which helps to explain an endearing entry I spotted in the Hutchie Hut’s bothy book, logged in mid-september. “Last here 50 years ago,” begins the brief note from a hillwalker named GW. “Nothing much has changed.”