Mountain Bothies Association trustee Juls Stodel helps one curious wanderer with his uphill struggle in TGO’s advice column, supported by Highlander Outdoor. Every month, one reader who writes to Juls with an Uphill Struggle will win an £100 voucher to spend with Highlander.
Dear Juls,
I have been on a few hikes in Scotland over the past 12 months and have, from time to time, come across stone buildings or huts referencing the Mountain Bothies Association (or MBA) on the doors. In these remote areas, I’ve found them to look very welcoming – especially if the weather is coming in. Can I use these places without permission?David, August 2025
Dear David,
The mission statement of the Mountain Bothies Association is ‘to maintain simple shelters in remote country for the use of all who love wild and lonely places’. Do you love wild and lonely places, David? Well, then let me set a scene.
Say you had opened the unlocked door of one of these buildings, you would have found a weatherproof shelter available to you. It has no electricity nor running water, but it most likely has a fire or stove and maybe a couple of bunks or platforms to sleep on.
If you’re very lucky, someone might have left some coal or firewood behind for you. If you’re even luckier, that person – a fellow hillwalker looking to get out the rain and sleep somewhere dry tonight – may still be there tending an already-blazing fire, offering you a brew.
There are just over a hundred of these bothies throughout Scotland, Northern England and Wales and no two are the same. They are our equivalent of the mountain huts, wilderness shelters, or refuges that you find in other countries.
You do not need to book, and you do not need to pay. Just turn up and be open to sharing with whomever else turns up, too. It’s a bit like a fairytale cabin in the woods without all the witches and wolves and cannibalism.
These shelters exist because of the hard work of the MBA’s volunteers. While you might not have to hand over hard cash, consider tidying up after yourself your form of payment.
There are a few rules known collectively as ‘The Bothy Code’. These rules are all very straightforward actions of respect towards the bothy, other visitors, the environment, and based on the agreement that the MBA has entered into with the estate. You can find the Bothy Code on the MBA website or YouTube. Give it a perusal before you go.
These bothies are very special to me; I’ve spent at least a night in every one of them. These aren’t purpose built; each one has a history far predating their life as a bothy; they are our history. You’re sleeping amongst centuries of stories. Don’t worry, the ghosts are chill, but you might want to hang your food away from the resident bothy mouse.
Next time you find an old crofthouse with a roundel on the door, up by a lonely loch, under a clag-covered hill in the arse-end of nowhere, defy all those childhood warnings. Enter the house that isn’t yours and go and speak to strangers. You’re now part of the stories.
If you want to craft the stories, you can also volunteer and, who knows, maybe you’ll be a Maintenance Organiser (caretaker) of a bothy one day. But let’s just start with opening the door of the next one you come across. Maybe you’ll find yourself entering into a whole new adventure.
Every month, one reader who writes to Juls with an Uphill Struggle will win an £100 voucher to spend with Highlander Outdoor.
