What a Bothy Is — and What It Isn't

A bothy is an unlocked shelter on the hill: four walls, a roof, usually a fireplace or stove, and often a raised wooden sleeping platform. That is the whole offer. There are no beds, no bedding, no warden, no booking system and no fee. You turn up, you take what space is free, and you leave it fit for the next person.

In the Lake District bothies are scarce. You will find a handful tucked into quiet valley heads and on the fringes of the higher fells, most of them maintained by volunteers or climbing clubs, and some of them no more than a stone barn with a bench. Treat them as a shelter of last resort that happens to be wonderful, not as a cheap bunkhouse. Turn up expecting a night on a floorboard and you will never be disappointed.

Do Your Homework Before You Leave the House

The single most common mistake is assuming a bothy is open, reachable and empty. Check all three before you set off.

• Is it still there and unlocked? Some bothies close for repairs, some are locked at certain times of year, and some buildings marked on older maps are now private dwellings or farm stores.
• How do you actually get to it? Work out the walk-in distance, the ascent and whether there is legal parking at the road end. A two-hour walk in the dark with a heavy pack is a very different proposition from a forty-minute stroll.
• What does it have? Water from a stream, a fireplace, sleeping platforms, a spade, a toilet? Assume nothing. Many have no toilet at all.
• Where exactly is it? Write the grid reference on paper. Phone signal in the Lakes is patchy at best and often absent in exactly the valleys where bothies sit.
• What if it's full? Have a plan B — a pitch nearby, or a route on to another shelter. Always carry a tent or bivvy bag, even if you are banking on a bed.

A bothy at 400 metres in February, with no fire and a broken window, is a serious place. The same building in July is a delight. Match your kit to the season, not to your optimism.

Arriving, Sharing and Keeping the Peace

Bothies work on first come, first served. If it is full, do not squeeze in and do not spread your group across the floor. Pitch outside and enjoy it — that is the arrangement. If you arrive late, come in quietly, keep headtorches on their lowest setting and sort your kit out by the door rather than in the middle of the room.

Sound travels further than you think in a stone building with a hard floor. Voices carry, boots clatter, and a group that stays up until two in the morning will ruin the night for everyone else. Keep noise low after dark, and if you are part of a large group, claim one corner, keep your kit contained, and let others have the fire.

Wet boots and dripping waterproofs belong in the porch or by the door. Nobody wants a sodden rucksack draped over the sleeping platform, and nobody wants to step into a puddle at three in the morning.

Waste, Water and the Toilet Question

• Carry out everything. There are no bins. That means tea bags, foil, orange peel, apple cores, wet wipes and anything you assumed would burn. Ash and food scraps bring in vermin, and vermin close bothies.
• Toilets are usually absent. Walk at least 50 metres from any water source, and 30 metres from the bothy and the path. Dig a hole 15 to 20 centimetres deep, bury the waste, and carry the paper out in a bag.
• Treat your drinking water. Stream water looks clean and can still carry bugs. Filter, boil or chemically treat it, and never drink straight from a pool below a sheep pasture.
• Wash away from the water. Use a bowl, keep soap and detergent out of the stream, and tip the dirty water well away from the bank.

The ground around a popular bothy quickly becomes grim when people cut corners. It takes seconds to do this properly and it is the difference between a shelter that survives and one that gets locked up.

Fires, Fuel and Leaving Something Behind

Only light a fire in an existing fireplace or stove, never on a wooden floor or a sleeping platform. Keep it small, feed it dry dead wood and never burn plastic, treated timber or anything you will later regret. Some bothies ask that you avoid coal because the ash has to be carried out; take that request seriously.

Do not strip the surrounding woodland. Standing deadwood and fallen logs are habitat, and a valley stripped bare looks and feels bereft. Bring a small amount of dry kindling with you, and if you have collected wood, leave the surplus stacked neatly and dry by the fire for the next visitor. That tradition — a few sticks, arranged neatly — is what makes bothying work.

Before you go, sweep the floor, clear the ash into a bag, check under the platform for forgotten kit, and close the door properly on the latch. If you notice damage — a cracked pane, a loose slate, a blocked flue — pass the word on to whoever maintains the building so it can be fixed before winter.

Wild Swimming from the Bothy Door

A tarn or a deep pool below a bothy is one of the great pleasures of a night out on the fells, but cold water is cold water. Enter slowly, breathe, and keep the first dip short — a few minutes is plenty. Have a towel, dry clothes and a warm layer waiting on the bank, and never swim alone or after drinking.

Cover any cuts before you get in, keep your head above water in murky pools, and do not swallow the water. Rinse off suncream and insect repellent before you swim, use no soap, and stay away from gravelly shallows in late autumn and winter where fish spawn. Five minutes in a mountain tarn, followed by dry socks and a mug of something hot, is hard to beat — and leaves nothing behind but ripples.