You’re a days walk from anywhere.

Sleeping peacefully on the floor of a remote highland bothy which looks like it was used on the set of The Blair Witch Project.

In your dream you imagine a man, running in the darkness towards the bothy.

You wake up as the man in your dream launches himself through the front door.

You poo your pants as the man in your dream now appears to be standing above you as you lie on the floor.

That was my Saturday night. 😀

The man was called Michael and seemed to be either drunk, hypothermic or mentally handicapped (or all of the above). He’d had an epic and got lost, then he found us. We gave him some water and food, made sure he was OK and then we lay on our backs for the rest of the night with our eyes wide open, with Michael sleeping close by. Longest night of my life.

Wow. You’re clearly a kind person. I would have told micheal to jog on!

And wait for the papers tomorrow, “man found dead on moors”?

Wow. You’re clearly a kind person. I would have told micheal to jog on!

nah, it’s a public bothy. They’re in those locations for a reason…there’s nowhere else to go for miles. He needed shelter. Still didn’t make me sleep any more easily though 🙂

And wait for the papers tomorrow, “man found dead on moors”?

We made sure he was good before we set off yesterday. Think he was proper gnaarr core. Not sure i’d been keen on crossing mountains at 1am in winter on my own!

Sorry you would have done what ?

I never want to meet you in the hills chips

People die from exposure in the scottish hills.

Sorry , stupidest post of the year

But this story reminds me of my escape from the family to a bothy between xmas and new year

Had gone to bed and at the back of nine euan and his father and brother turned up and woke me up , shit my self + didnt know em from adam. Ended up being a good night.

Euans on here , emailed me 2 years later when i was looking for a job in aberdeen and asked if i wanted an interview with his fathers co.

:-O 🙂

Had gone to bed and at the back of nine euan and his father and brother turned up and woke me up , shit my self + didnt know em from adam. Ended up being a good night.

Aye, it’s not a nice feeling at first is it??! But you meet some awesome people in really unique circumstances. We always take extra food/booze just in case 🙂

I bloomin hate bothies…. My wife and I were on our honeymoon in one of the Knoydart bothies (I sh1t you not) on our own when a dozen or so ‘Young Offenders’ turned up with their leaders. They all buggered off down the Glen but one returned in the middle of the night convinced the rest were out to get him. He balanced bottles on the sash windows and door handles etc and wandered around with a knife in a very worrying paranoid/schizoid way for the rest of the night.

No more bothies after that thank you.

I’ve had a few spooky nights in bothies and in a couple I’ve found people living almost permanently – in Camsunary one room of the cottage was occupied by someone who had a mattress, sleeping bag, a catering size chunk of Cheddar cheese, a Camping Gaz stove and a massive bottle of Brufen tablets as well as some kind of invalidity benefits booklet with his name on it. There was also an irate note pinned to the door written by a large group who had come to use the bothy and were annoyed at him hogging the room yet never actually showing up. In two nights we never saw him and when we walked out we bumped into the local PC who, when we mentioned the absentee bothy user, smiled and said “Oh, that’s where he’s staying at the moment, is it?”

Well done PF – moderate hypothermia can look a lot like being pissed or mentally challenged. Given that you were a day’s walk from anywhere, I’d be inclined to think it was the former rather than the latter.

Reckon he was lucky you were around to sort him out.

moderate hypothermia can look a lot like being pissed or mentally challenged.

So all those lovely ladies on a saturday night are actualy suffering the early stages of hypothermia and just want to cuddle up to get warm? And there was me thinking they were drunk slags!

Wow. You’re clearly a kind person. I would have told micheal to jog on!

You’ve never stayed in a bothy then… 🙄

Good effort Peter, you did exactly what you should have

So all those lovely ladies on a saturday night are actualy suffering the early stages of hypothermia and just want to cuddle up to get warm? And there was me thinking they were drunk slags!

I spend every Friday hanging around outside pubs in town with a fluffy blanket and a flask of tea ready to go.

It appears my “stranger” is not a stranger at all….

Wow. There’s literally pages about the guy. Varying reports over 2 years about a man called Michael who appears to be “living” there from time to time – some saying abusive, some saying friendly. Some also saying he was armed.

He was certainly friendly with us.

Still, sobering stuff. 😯

I once blundered through someones wild camp at 2am in the Highlands whilst supporting a failed Ramsay attempt. I heard some mumbling from the tent. I apologised for waking them….which in fairness probably didn’t help

Oh well, I’m obviously too generous with my diagnoses! You still did the right thing, obviously. Certainly telling him to jog on, as suggested, might have been counterproductive…

No you’re right Martin, it would have been foolish/rude/inhumane to do anything other than offer help.

If things turned sour, well, I was reasonably well prepared. I don’t tend to sleep in spooky cottages with only my girly fists for protection, i’m also pretty wary of people in situations like that. (I don’t carry a gun btw, before the STW police come and arrest me)

What nunchuks for bothying?

🙂

Bombers actually!

Reading that UKbothies forum is exactly the marketing 4 season tent manufacturers are looking for

Sounds a bit like a bloke I met years ago in a bothy up north – he turned up at 2am wearing a shell suit, and carrying a Tescos bag full of rhubarb. Seemed happy enough 😉

pics of your missus or it didn’t happen.

I woke up in a youth hostel once to find the young man that should have been asleep in the top bunk sat by my bedside staring at me. It put me right off communal accommodation, I’ve been just about tents ever since.

pics of your missus or it didn’t happen.

😆

I did the coast to coast about 10 years ago with 4 mates and we stayed in YHA’s, we met loads of lovely people (families/couples/groups of two etc. and one nutter who called himself “psycho” who took a shine to my mate Steve.

Bouy did we take the piss.

😆

I’ve got nothing more to add on the subject, other than this vid on that UKbothies thread had me in stiches.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLm5LcDCe3M[/video]

hahahahaha! that’s class! 🙂

|So there was more than one of you yet you were scared of one man?

Why?

So there was more than one of you yet you were scared of one man?

Why?

I was with my girlfriend.

Clearly i’m not as tough as you mike, but when I’m lying on the floor of a dark bothy in the middle of nowhere and wake to find a man standing over me at 1am, that can be quite scary until I’ve worked out who the person is and whether he’s friendly or a nutter.

Mikeconnor, hard bastard….

|So there was more than one of you yet you were scared of one man?
Why?

Mikeconnor on his way to a bothy yesterday.

Wow. That video is a minute and a half of my life I’ll never get back.

Is that the bothie in the woods behind the natwest in Swindon?

Scary stuff…

About 15 years ago, I was staying at White Laggan bothy in Galloway with a group of kids and another instructor. Same wild, wet, cold night and just as the kids were all heading to the sleeping platform upstairs around 10:30pm, a pair of beered up lads burst through the door. Within about 10 mins, one was upstairs showing the three girls who were in bed already the size of his (impressive/freakishly) big knives. 😯 , and the other was offering the lads whisky from the bottle or two he had downstairs… 😕
Cue other instructor and I trying to sneak group out of the building with as many waterproofs, warm tops and torches as we could.
Pre-mobile phones, we walked all the way out to Clatteringshaws visitors centre and managed to raise someone at a nearby cottage to use the phone and get a minibus to come and pick us up.
I and another instructor returned the next day to collect all the kit we had left – all of it had been searched and strewn all round bothy and outside…the three girls spare underwear had gone with the two visitors it transpired…
Thankfully a ‘one off’ incident in the 25+ years I have been using bothy’s.

the three girls spare underwear had gone with the two visitors it transpired…

😯

Who was the other person with Hora???

Big **** off Maglites are great for staying in brothies….

Big **** off Maglites are great for staying in brothies….

Freudian slip?

😉

lol’d here.