Short Day Out: The Bothy Raid

With the low winter sun, the skyline was a rich palette of golden browns glowing and contrasting against the emerald forest. Heading further up along smooth gravel tracks into the forest park, we passed deep ink blue lochs, rivers and streams and a beautiful camping spot at Otter Pools.

Taking full advantage of the cake and coffee at the cafe on Clatteringshaws Loch we then headed west following the River Dee, under the watchful eyes of kites and stags. As we rolled along the shores of Loch Dee the rain started. It was forecast to be heavy overnight, so we made an effort to get a shift on with the light already fading.

Leaving the smooth gravel, we had a section of hike-a-bike up to the bothy, perched on the side of the hill above the loch. A bunch of hikers had beaten us to it but in the spirit of camaraderie we were welcomed in and shared hot coffee and Warren’s birthday cake.

In the spirit of camaraderie we were welcomed in and shared hot coffee and Warren’s birthday cake

Unplug to recharge

If you want to unplug and recharge, there is nothing better than heading off-grid on your bike to a mountain bothy. No phones, no power, no running water. Less is most definitely more. Try it – you’ll come back feeling like a much better person with memories that will last a lifetime and and if you’re lucky some new friends too.

New trails make new tales

When planning your bikepacking trip to a bothy, a little extra local knowledge will go a long way to helping you score a great bothy night. We hooked up with local riders at The Frothy Bike Co and Scottish bikepacking legend and author of the author of Scottish Gravel Rides Ed Shoote to gather some tips over a few beers the night before our ride. Ed’s advice was to bear in mind that the Scottish landscape is constantly changing due to things such as forestry and wind farm development, which can mean older paper maps can be a bit unreliable for plotting bikepacking routes.

Use an open-source mapping platform to ensure you have the most up-to-date maps and route info. We used komoot to plot our route, as well as getting advice from local gravel gurus Galloway Cycling. 

Best served shared

The Mountain Bothy Association is a charity which maintains around 100 bothies across Scotland, England and Wales. For all those who seek wild and remote places, this is a great place to start your planning.

You can’t book a bothy so be prepared for there being no room in the inn. Bothies are popular with hikers and mountaineers and expect to find a crowd in the good ones. 

It’s recommended you keep your group as small as possible as they’re usually pretty small. And if you’ve biked in a long way you need a plan B and perhaps even a C in case there is no room. But on the whole, people are happy to cram in – that’s part of the fun. As soon as you’ve shared a few beers, maybe a dram or two and got the games out, you’ll quickly become good friends! But do think about packing a bivvy or a tarp as a back-up.

As we were heading out near the shortest day of the year, we also took our lights so that if we needed to we could bail and head back to the pub!

Come Prepared

Bothies can vary massively and you need to be prepared to adapt to what you find. The buildings are often old shepherds or mountain huts and it’s a bit like stepping back in time – they’re super basic and how well they’re maintained varies massively, so it pays to be pretty self-sufficient.

We planned to make a night of it so I packed cooking gear, candles, firelighters and a water filter. With all that extra stuff I needed to save some weight and space by making some smart clothing and sleeping choices. I combined Universal Colours merino cycling gear with an extra base layer, beanie and their amazing packable insulated jacket, topped up with extra insulation from my cold defying Sea2Summit Spark 2 Summer bag and a Thermarest NeoAir.

Even though it got down near freezing, with the log fire burning I was toasty! This set-up all packs down so small it meant I had plenty of room left in my Apidura Backcountry bags for a stash for food, a few Stohk pale ales and an amazing bottle of local Man O’Swords single malt for extra warmth.

At this time of year you may well encounter some boggy hike-a-bike too, so waterproof socks make a lot of sense and of course no self-respecting bikepacker should leave home without their foam birkies strapped on, which are perfect for bothy life. 

Leave only laughter

The MBA has a simple code aimed at keeping things nice. The easiest way to sum up the code is ‘do as you would be done by’ and ‘leave no trace’. 

Quiet is the new loud

Bothies are usually pretty remote and if you’re bikepacking a long distance it could be a long walk home if you have an issue. One of the joys of Galloway is the sense of remote wilderness – very few people live there. The population density is less than 10% of our backyard, the Chilterns (which is hardly crowded), the phone signal is patchy at best, and you’re 8 times more likely to run into a sheep than another person. 

The bothy is reached by cycling along  what is possibly the longest gravel road in the UK, starting out near Gatehouse of Fleet. The gravel round here is notorious for shredding tyres, particularly in winter.  40mm+ ‘robust’ tubeless tyres are essential. Make sure you also have tyre repair kits, spare sealant,  tubes and other spares as there’s a high likelihood you might need all of them!