Lake District bothy
With Storm Babet wreaking havoc across the UK, James Forrest heads to Buttermere to spend a night in the Lakes’ best bothy
IT EMERGES out of the mist, like a mirage in the desert. But this is no optical illusion. It’s real – a tiny shelter with a sloping roof, protruding chimney and walled yard, hidden secretly amidst giant slag heaps of silvery slate. The dichotomy is stark. The skies are dark and ominous, as if pent up with rage, and the hillside is a scene of devastation: colossal mounds of discarded rock, deep gash-like gullies and brutally vertical craggy excrescences. But this hut represents something softer. For me it is a sign of hope and a symbol of safety; a haven where the fire flickers golden and adventure tales are shared by candlelight.
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I’m high above Buttermere, nestled in a nook of rough-hewn ground between Haystacks and Fleetwith Pike. Below me Warnscale Beck winds seductively over the hollow of Warnscale Bottom towards the twin lakes of Buttermere and Crummock Water. To my right Striddle Crag snarls with a muscular hostility; to my left the shattered buttress of Green Crag looms menacingly; and in between all of this dramatic scenery, Warnscale Head Bothy sits with a quiet, unassuming confidence. It will be my home for the night – a place of refuge from the unpredictable weather.
‘ROUGHING IT’
The wooden door creaks open and I poke my head inside. It’s dark, with a smoky, damp smell – but it somehow still feels homely and welcoming. There’s a small wood-burning stove and two sleeping platforms in an L-shape orientation. The shelves are stacked with leftover ‘bothy bric-a-brac’: everything from tins of sardines and Coleman gas canisters to mud-stained cuddly toys and broken Sporks. Some of the items are illuminated by faint rays of dusk sunshine entering through a little rectangular window, as if the last remaining vestiges of daylight are enjoying a final swansong before darkness descends. It’s all very rustic and basic, but magical at the same time.
It feels counter-intuitive. How can I be simultaneously roughing it and living the dream? It doesn’t really make sense, but it works. This is what bothy life is all about: back-to-basics simple living in beautiful places. The Mountain Bothies Association (MBA), which maintains a network of about 100 huts across the UK, describes a bothy as “a simple shelter in remote country for the use and benefit of all those who love being in wild and lonely places”.
The experience is f
