{"id":4036,"date":"2022-05-15T20:40:44","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T20:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aweewalk.com\/?p=4036"},"modified":"2022-05-31T17:21:50","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T17:21:50","slug":"our-own-private-bothy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/?p=4036","title":{"rendered":"Our own private bothy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scottish hillwalking\u2019s most venerable tradition is the \u201cright of public access.\u201d It allows citizens to cross private lands and camp on them, with some restrictions. A similarly public-spirited tradition is the maintenance of repurposed farm buildings or tenant cottages, called \u201cbothies,\u201d as shelter for cold and wet hillwalkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Mark Beckwith and I brought the traditions together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019d been walking for 12 miles in on-and-off rain and rising afternoon winds. Our goal was a bothy the vetter of my route had mentioned in his comments after I\u2019d submitted it for approval. I\u2019d proposed camping near an ancient stone bridge on the estate that owns (or at least controls) a big part of Glen Roy, one of the many river valleys, or glens, of the Central Highlands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d suggest going a little further along the glen beyond Turret Bridge, which is perhaps a little close to the lodge,\u201d wrote Colin Crawford. \u201cIf you can stretch as far as the bothy, you\u2019ll find it to be a comfortable overnight halt, with an impressive staircase and a large open plan upstairs area. At one time you could always assume that it would be well-stocked with wood, thanks to a retired Mountain Guide who lived down the glen. That may still be the case, but the gentleman in question must now be getting on in years, if indeed he\u2019s still there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019d passed Brae Roy Lodge, an imposing stuccoed stone house that I\u2019d say was mostly built in the first half of the 1800s. It\u2019s undoubtedly where the owner of the estate once lived (or stayed in if he was an absentee), but there were no cars outside and no evidence of life at the moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We walked on. Less than 10 minutes away, out of view of the lodge, was the stone bridge in question\u2014a simple, handsome, and indestructible piece of engineering of the kind one encounters occasionally in the Highlands. Such places always set my mind to wondering.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Turret Bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

You could create a whole history course around this bridge, making it a keyhole through which to view economy, culture, social structure, governance. When was it built? Who built it, and why? What\u2019s the \u201cturret\u201d all about? Who was the designer and what determined its dimensions? What effect did it have on life hereabout? When did it cease being important, and why does almost nobody go over it today? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I digress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we wanted to avoid another night in our pathetic trekking-pole tents, and as it was getting cold and threatening rain, we pushed on to the bothy Vetter Crawford had mentioned. In less than 10 minutes, we saw a stone building on our left, with a path mowed to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It certainly looked<\/em> like a bothy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should have known that when a hillwalker says: \u201cIf you can stretch as far as the bothy . . .\u201d he isn\u2019t talking about an eight-minute walk. In fact, the building that Mr. Crawford said we might want to push on to was more than three miles up the trail. (More about it in the next post.)<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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We walked up to it. There was no sign of recent activity. It was unlocked. We opened the door and walked in. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Leaning against the walls and piled along them were lots of rough lumber, posts, pallets, propane tanks, attachments for farm implements, ancient containers of agricultural chemicals, and a sheet-metal cabinet. The fireplace at one end was entirely hiddlen by stored stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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There was plenty of room for two sleeping pads and bags. The items in storage doubled nicely as counters for camp stoves and water bottles, and as drying racks for clothes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invoking need, the Scottish right of access, the worsening weather, and our sense of stewardship, we bothetized the building for the night.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Like many such buildings, this one had three facades with no windows. However, like many it now had skylights cut into the slate roof. I can\u2019t imagine they were original. But they are very useful, especially when the sun doesn\u2019t set until 9.30 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t warm and it wasn\u2019t particularly comfortable. But it was out the rain. You didn\u2019t even have to walk far from the front door to urinate in the middle of the night, as the wind whistled. It was, after all, our<\/em> bothy.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We were thankful to the unknown people who\u2019d built it, lived in it, abandoned it, reused it, and left it open. We left our nameless ghosts with it proudly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scottish hillwalking\u2019s most venerable tradition is the \u201cright of public access.\u201d It allows citizens to cross private lands and camp on them, with some restrictions. A similarly public-spirited tradition is the maintenance of repurposed farm buildings or tenant cottages, called \u201cbothies,\u201d as shelter for cold and wet hillwalkers. Today, Mark Beckwith and I brought the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scotland-5","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4036"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4258,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036\/revisions\/4258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}