The Bothy at Coire Fionnaraich

This is a story I wanted to tell earlier. To be more specific a month ago when I was still in Scotland. But didn't want too much time to pass before I could get it written down so the details could be documented to look back at later.

Chandler and I wanted to camp in Scotland and we had been talking about it for nearly three years after I came back from my first trip. That time I had a little SUV that was just big enough for me to camp out of. But I've been reading about the bothies of Scotland way before that first trip and I knew that I had to find one on this second one.

The word bothy is similar to our word for shed. However the bothies of the Highlands were mostly once shepherd, hunter, or stalker cottages. Some may have been small homes at one point but all of them have one to two floors with just a few small rooms. Now they are kept for hikers and backpackers who walk out into the mountains and use them for shelter. Very basic stone or wood dwellings with no electricity or furniture. Maybe a table, chairs, and a woodstove if you're fortunate.

Coire Fionnaraich (do not ask me to pronounce that) Bothy turned out to be the easiest one for us to gain access to without climbing hours into the mountains. About an hour and twenty minute drive from Ardross. However our adventure began in Inverness. After the other guys had left we had three nights before we would check into the Stittenham Cottage where I would stay the rest of the month. The idea was to set aside three nights to find adventure in a city, and in the mountains. Spending the night in Inverness we started the next day by gathering supplies for our trek into the Highlands. Inverness offered some camping stores where we picked up gloves, mess kit, an extra backpack (only £5) and a few other things. In Dingwall we found firewood, cheese, meat, bread, and whisky. We were also grateful to have borrowed sleeping bags from your dear friends Gary and Amy Slupek. Who also thought were we mad for camping in a bothy in the dead of winter.

The trail going out to and then past the bothy stretches for miles into the western highlands. Going by google maps it appeared that we needed to start from where the car park was, which is what I proposed despite Chandler thinking that it was from the opposite side of a river. He was right. This mistake on my part meant that we had to turn around adding 20 minutes to the hike alone with me stepping into a bog and soaking my boots. The irritating sounds of squishing reminding me of my error the rest of the hike.

Along the trail we passed a few friendly hikers who were happy to chat or wave. Two older fellows informed us that if we were heading to the bothy that it was empty and would most likely remain that way. Another man on a four wheeler stopped to tell us we were nearly there and it should come over the horizon soon enough.

Over a small bridge, up a slight hill and the old cottage came into view.

These photos will never do this place justice. The mountains of the glen with snow and waterfalls trailing down their sides truly transport your imagination into another world. A place where the only sounds are wind and water. The beautiful desolation of this winter clad glen creates a strange sense of awe and comfort. Smiles over our faces we hurried to the welcoming sight of the remote cottage that would be our home for the night.

It took us a moment before we went inside. Mainly because we were both still fixed in a trance from the fantastical place we found ourselves in. Reading the sign posted on the door Chandler informed us that this bothy was part of an estate and is closed during the autumn months for stag hunting. A little research informed me later this cottage was built in the 1800s and used specifically as a stalker's cottage for the estate the land it belongs to.

The old wooden door opened by an iron latch revealed a small spiral wooden staircase that led to two small rooms in the eves of the roof. On the ground floor to the right we found a room with an interesting little wood stove, table, some chairs and a few other things left behind by people before us.

The next few minutes were spent by Chandler making logistical sense of where we would sleep and me pretending to be a time traveler who found himself in the Highlands of Scotland in the 1800s. Speaking of the friendship we have created over the last near 8 years, I will say this works out very well. My friend can sort out the facts while I play in the background. With the mindfulness to not let the two cross paths.

The sun began to set and a chill chased off the bit of warmth the day had uncharacteristically brought with it. After setting up house in our new home, we set out to explore the surrounding marsh, stream, and moors around us.

Exploring the remains of a smaller building behind the bothy we decided to walk down the trail and discussed the idea of living in a place like this. The vast wilderness of the mountains as your backyard combined with a practical yet endearing stone house is a thought that both of us wholeheartedly would like to find one day. A dream nearly made real by this place.

For ages people have traversed these paths making for themselves a place to build a fire, find food, care for their families, sing songs and tell stories. It resonates from every stone and howling wind. Somehow winter heightens that overwhelming feeling of an ancient presence. The presence of so many others before us to have walked this land and thought the same as we have.

As night approached we decided it was time to do something we had really been looking forward to the entire time...light the wood stove. Looking forward to it not simply because it was getting cooler, but because it was going to be awesome.

And it was. We used dried heather to help get it going along with some fuel logs that we had brought and fire starter that was left behind from someone else. Again my imagination took flight as the sun drifted away leaving the growing flame to offer our only light and warmth, it was wonderful.

My best friend had the appearance of a woodcutter or farmer who had just come in from the moors after a long day of herding his sheep, stacking wood, and carrying water to the house. With his characteristic solemn expression he starred into the fire leaning his elbows on his knees. An image of a person at peace with the harsh world around him.

I wrote a little story in my head of a man named Franklin but went by Frank. His wife had taken the children to her mothers for the week, it was a full days drive from their stone cottage in the mountains to town. Frank decided to stay behind because wolves had been terrorizing their cattle and sheep the last few nights and he couldn't afford to lose another one. He didn't mind though, he welcomed the silence even if he would miss his family. Not that the sounds of his kids laughing or his wife singing bothered him, it was just nice to be along with only his thoughts from time to time. Sitting at the wood stove after a long day of tending to the farm he pulled up his stool, poured himself a whisky and released the day's weariness by peering into the flames of the fire. Frank also wore a bright orange cap and had the very same stoic face Chandler was wearing.

As the sunset turned to dark we decided to read notebooks that had been kept in the bothy going back to the 1980s! Travelers such as ourselves had been writing down their experiences as they passed through. Early Chandler had written in one of them about our own arrival and hike that day. Again we were reminded of the lives spent under the same slate roof we now sat. Stories of people gathered around the same stove for decades.

One entry told of a group of vegans who gathered around the fire and were all happy to open their vegan food and even offered some to a random hiker who was staying in one of the upstairs rooms. The very next entry was by that same hiker who related how he happened upon a group of "friendly vegans". He went on to tell how he reluctantly accepted their vegan snacks and then quickly went to his own room where he promptly made himself a steak! While reading we too loading up meat and cheese on crackers and sharing the small bottle of whisky.

Adding to our entertainment we also found an Agatha Christie novel called Death in the Air. Taking turns reading the first few chapters we eventually just skipped to the end to find out who the killer was. It was the charismatic handsome fellow who was flirting with the main heroine at the start of the story.

The night was dark and the stars were spectacular. My poor little phone camera did its best to capture the ghostly sight of our cottage against the starlit sky, mountains looming over us as if silent giants slept on the horizon. The only light dancing around from within the window of the bothy. Again...transported to another world and another time far from the reality I was living.

The rest of the night Frank and I filled the room with conversations ranging from the philosophical to the hypothetical. Reminding me again that if walls could indeed speak, these would have hundreds of years worth of stories to tell.

I can't say it was the best sleep I have ever had camping, but it wasn't as bad as I had prepared myself for. Thankfully the sleeping bags we were given held up to the 30 degree cold. And despite our best efforts the fire eventually went out. It was okay though, we were in the Scottish Highlands in a bothy and we had completed our goal.

About 7am we crawled out of our sleeping bags to the returning sun. Just enough wood to have one small fire before heading out. I left an entry relating our night and our thoughts on leaving and we packed our bags, this time a little lighter with the wood and whisky gone.

This was a moment in time that will last me forever. My words and photos cannot articulate or visualize what this place was like and how it made us think and feel. From a spiritual perspective it is a reminder that we live in a wide world created so we can find happiness. But the type of happiness that sticks with you. Personally it was something I've wanted to do for years and to have that experience finally and know what it's like to hike into the highlands and sleep in a bothy was better than I had imagined...and I can imagine a lot.

Who knows when Chandler and I might be able to do something like that again. Now in my 40s I understand moments like this can't be taken for granted. Time doesn't wait on anyone and even if tomorrow we found ourselves in the New System it could be hundreds of years before we might recreate that experience together.

I do believe though that at some point I will be paying my old friend Frank a visit at his own farm with cattle and maybe sheep where a fire burns in his practical looking cottage. Whether that's in Oklahoma or somewhere else I can assure you a brightly colored toboggin will be sitting on his head and I will continue to do my best at cracking a smile on his serious looking face.

Slàinte Mhath!