Chester Rambling and Hill Walking Club

Club Guided walks in Snowdonia , North Wales and counties surrounding Cheshire

Chester Rambling and Hill Walking Club
United Kingdom
chesramclub@yahoo.com

Mountain Bothies Association

Always glad of any opportuity to publicise the work of the Mountain Bothies Association ( MBA ) with whom I have worked for the last five years. Our mission is to provide simple shelters for those who like wild places. We do this by maintaining a network of a hundred shelters, cottages and huts mostly in the furthest reaches of the Scottish highlands, although there are a few in Wales. A typical example would be a former shepherd's cottage falling derelict, for which an estate has no further use. They are all still owned by the estates, but by agreement with ourselves, we are allowed to maintain or in some cases rebuild from a ruinous state. All the labour we do is by ourselves and is voluntary

One common misconception is that they are there to save lives. That is not why we maintain them. They are free, open and used by small groups trekking around in the hills or climbing particular mountains. We call it camping without a tent. The most important thing is to keep the buildings watertight. So a lot of work goes into roofs, doors and windows. Other than that you may or may not find a stove or fireplace ( for which you might have to carry in your own fuel ), a few old chairs and generally a timber floor to sleep on. Facilities are very basic. There will be a stream nearby for water for drinking and washing. There is always a spade to take out to do your business, in the other direction from the stream please. And there will be a brush to clean the place out, and leave tidy for the next occupants. And we do mean tidy, by taking all rubbish out with you. It is amazing what we find left in bothies. I had quite a big fire recently fed by pot noodles, smash, pasta and many other bits and pieces left by lazy walkers.

You may or may not have company, you never know. It is sometime nice to have a place to oneself, but the evenings can be long, and if folk do turn up then they usually have interesting tales to tell round the fire. And you might have mice for company at night.

The MBA has been on the go for nearly fifty years. Prior to that, and in my own boyhood, there were bothies, generally just about habitable and sometimes kept going by small groups. Often this was done semi-secretly, and there are still a number of bothies maintained in this way. They are outwith our organisation, and often of a higher standard, but may be thus only because of their secretive nature. Those that we know of we don't reveal to other folk, so I am not going to tell you about them.

What I can tell you is that the MBA is a highly organised charity, with a hierarchy, committees, with meetings and budgets. At the bottom of the heap are folk like me who after working on eighteen workparties, was " promoted " to be a Maintainance Officer ( M.O. ) of one bothy, called Shenavall, in Wester Ross. An M.O.'s job is to report twice a year on the state of his bothy. If work needs doing then the M.O. may or may not choose to organise this work. And this is what I found myself doing last year. A lot of planning goes into a workparty. You have to identify what needs doing, work out all the material requirements ( there is no handy B&Q ), ensure you have sufficient volunteers, and think about how you are going to get all this material from the road to the bothy. Usually this is done in cooperation with the estate, who may have all-terrain vehicles, but I have seen everything from shoulders, wheelbarrows, boats and helicopters. If you are lucky you may also get a ride in any of these. Also on a larger workparty we bring in someone whose specific job is to cook. It is a good morale-booster to know that you can work on knowing that someone else is going to shout " Come and get it ". Another boost is that there is no timetable. You may work or not as you please, including going off to climb a hill. No problem. And no skills are required. If you can pick up a hammer or a paintbrush your'e fine.

Shenavall, in Wester Ross, October 2011

To give you some idea, this is a list of what we did in 2012 at this bothy

Demolish wall between living room and middle room
Build staircase enclosure including window of toughened glass
Clad wall and ceiling in old staircase area
Hatch in far room
Sleeping platform in same
Free bottom sash as escape in same
Varnishing
2 panes of glass replaced
Repairs to major holes in frames
Painting undercoat and gloss
Emulsion on walls and ceilings
New guttering on porch
Sweep chimney
Screw notice re fishing to wall
Repair to chimney flashing
Top of new stair "tidied"
New shelf
Cover gap in floor
2 young rowan trees enclosed in wire

You can see some of it on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL4XT23osNk

We had a recent spell of fine frosty weather up north so I was able to do a two day Spring inspection. A pleasure to tramp over the frozen bogs in sunshine.
No problems at the bothy - all last year's work has stood up to the Winter.
Last year's jobs included one big one which had to be done in a oner.
This year we have a large set of smaller jobs, all of which will either maintain or improve this heavily-used bothy, but which don't depend on each other.
But they will be scaled up or down according to numbers of volunteers.
So far there are not many.

You can see the trip in, and some of the list of jobs we would like to do in 2013, on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6lkvP6le28

For more information on the MBA, and how you can help, see our website

http://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/

Peter Aikman

(member of Chester Rambling and Hillwalking Club )

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Chester Rambling and Hill Walking Club
United Kingdom
chesramclub@yahoo.com