Wilderness Refuge
In the heart of the Cairngorms, the Corrour bothy provides sanctuary – and a legacy going back hundreds of years
Cameron McNeish explores the rich history of the Corrour Bothy in the Cairngorms
MINUTE in its vast, remote surroundings, Corrour bothy always looks fragile and out of place, a man-made artifice defying the chaos and archetypal power of wild nature.
The monumental slabs of the mountain Devil’s Point, its name suggestive of the ecstatic and the demonic, upthrust to the sky beyond it, blackening out the afternoon and evening sun. The very existence of such a building, especially such a tiny one, always appears incomprehensible in such a wild place as the Lairig Ghru in the Cairngorms.
Corrour is a corruption of Coire Odhar, the scooped corrie that forms the slopes behind it, and it’s tempting to consider the original of the Lairig Ghru as the Lairig
Ghruamach, the gloomy, or forbidding pass, as the map-makers of the 19th century did.
Whether the Lairig Ghru is regarded as gloomy or not depends much on your own experience of the place, and I’ve never regarded it as such.
The Lairig Ghru is, in fact, the finest mountain pass in Scotland, and I recall, with distinct clarity, the relief I experienced when, early in my hillwalking career, I actually sought out its relative sanctuary after a disturbing experience on the Cairngorm plateau.
I had left the Linn of Dee and climbed Ben Macdui via Carn a’mhaim en route to Cairn Gorm. It was my first experience of the Cairngorms after a number of years of climbing and walking on the hills of the west
“I sought out its sanctuary after a disturbing experience plateau” on the Cairngorm
where you are rarely out of sight of a road. I had never experienced such a vast, undulating plateau at such an elevation, and mists were constantly lifting and falling. I wasn’t confident in my navigation skills and I panicked.
This kind of threatening landscape was new to me and, in a sense, I was walking into the unknown. Some might suggest I simply came to my senses, but rather than risk any form of mishap while on my own, I turned tail and scuttled down steep slopes beside the March Burn into the relative safety of the Lairig Ghru.
I crossed the infant River Dee, made a brew in
Corrour bothy, my first experience of a bothy, and in warm evening sunshine climbed up the faint path – it was faint then, not so now – to the broad plateau that led to the Devil’s Point where I camped for the night.
Curiously I don’t think it even crossed my mind to spend the night in the bothy. Outside the air was pure and that’s what I wanted in my nostrils as I drifted off to sleep. In the 46 years since, I’ve only spent a handful of overnights in a bothy, the popularity of which I’ve never fully understood.
While I’ve always preferred a tent, and being something of a loner when it comes to the hills, I’m put off bothying by the idea of sharing a small, cramped space with absolute strangers. I know others think differently.
My good friend Ian R Mitchell, joint author with Dave Brown of the fine book Mountain Days and Bothy Nights, waxes lyrical about the friendships he has made in front of a bothy fire. But we’re all different, and I still hold something of a conviction that I go to the hills to escape people, for isolation and clarity of thought.
That’s not to suggest I’m anti-bothy. I’m certainly not, and on a couple of occasions I’ve appreciated them when
“I enjoy stopping at bothies for a brew and book” an hour or so with its visitor
the weather has been too foul for camping. I also enjoy stopping at bothies for a brew, and an hour or so with its visitor book can be hugely entertaining. I remember reading an old prayer from the Carmina Gadelica, scribbled down in the Glensulaig Both, north of Loch Eil:
Thou chief of chiefs, child of the needy,
Be with us in the journey, And in the gleam of the river. Be with us in the journey, And in the gleam of the river.
It was a benediction that remained with me as I followed the gleaming river back to Fassfern and my car.
So why am I, a self-confessed isolationist, reviewing a book about a bothy? First of all the book, Corrour Bothy, A Refuge in the Wilderness, is about more than a mere building, however iconic it may be.
It is an amazingly well researched archive of man’s love of the Cairngorms, a history of recreational land use in the eastern Highlands of Scotland and a fond and knowing appraisal of what many today see as part and parcel of the hillgoing game, bothying.
The author of the book, Ralph Storer, will be a name familiar to many hill-goers in Scotland. His earlier book, 50 Classic Routes on Scottish Mountains, became a bit of a classic in itself.
It was while studying at Dundee University, however, that he joined the Rucksack Club and first discovered the treasure trove of bothy books from Corrour bothy, the first of which was apparently left on June 27, 1928. What followed was a forensic study and collection of historical information and anecdotes about the bothy, ranging from the humorous to the spiritual.
The history of Corrour bothy is a fascinating one. Originally built in 1877 as a deer watcher’s house, there is evidence to suggest people used the area, and no doubt had buildings there, as shielings long before that.
Seton Gordon stayed there in the early part of the 20th century and inadvertently rescued some walkers when they heard him playing his bagpipes. They followed the sound through the mists to find refuge in the bothy.
In 1920, the building was abandoned by Mar Lodge
Estate but was soon adopted by Scotland’s new wave of hikers, climbers and romantics, who were happy to sleep under hedges, by the side of the road, in caves and howffs in the rocks.
To them Corrour bothy added a touch of luxury to their normal “wild camping” experience. However, vandalism, often considered a modern curse, was not unknown. An entry from the bothy book in January 1929 says, “Arrived here at 3.20pm after a four-hour tramp in the snow. Found the bothy in an abominable state, with the bunk smashed and mighty little of the flooring left. Dug some roots out of the bog by the river and got a good fire going.”
Not all occupants were willing to dig for firewood though. Many preferred the wood that came immediately to hand, whether it be the armchair, bed, floorboards or even the wood panels from the walls. By the end of the year the bothy book pleads with visitors to keep the bothy in good condition, prompting one user to write, “Definition. A YAHOO is a person who makes use of the bothy and leaves it in a FILTHY CONDITION.”
After the Second World War, the type of person using Corrour had largely changed. The decades after the war saw the emergence of outdoor centres, school groups and the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme and newer bothies, built by the military to aid mountain warfare training were eventually demolished or abandoned.
The St Valery above Loch Avon and Curran beside Lochan Buidhe bothies were pulled down in 1975 after the fateful Edinburgh School disaster when five schoolboys and an assistant teacher perished when trying to find the latter bothy in a November blizzard.
It’s obvious Ralph has a long-standing personal love of this tiny Cairngorm building and through his association with the Rucksack Club, many years of access to the historical documents that are the visitor books.
“When you see these venerable old books,” he writes, “now even more faded and ravaged by time, and hold them delicately in your hands, it’s impossible not to be transported back to those early days of bothying. I’m at Corrour again. I experience again the howling gale, the swirling snow, the biting cold, the unforgiving floor, the warming fire, the conviviality of companions, the kindness of strangers, and the irresistible pull of the wilds.
“I hope I’ve done justice to the original authors who have made the visitors’ books such a compelling read.”
You have Ralph, you certainly have, and many will thank you for it. All those who cherish their own memories of Corrour Bothy and all those who have yet to enjoy the pleasure of its sanctuary in the wild.
“I experience again the howling gale, the swirling snow... the fire” warming