I’ve been climbing for over an hour now. With each meter I climb my pack grows heavier. It’s long time now since I left the broad, flat alluvial plain of the river Findhorn, where it wanders into the heart of the Monadhaliath Mountains of Scotland.  These hills are not the jagged peaks of Skye or the huge open spaces of the Cairngorms.  These hills are an endless rolling sea little visited by walkers. They are the home of the men who shoot birds and those who farm the wind.  This is the Eagle’s glen.  A place where Golden Eagles fly unmolested. I am walking in the Coignafearn estate, a place where wildlife is finding a foothold in these hostile hills.

This is a January day.  Only a week ago these hills were swathed in snow and it would have been impossible to drive down the glen let alone climb the hill.  Since then unseasonably warm winds have swept these hills with only patches of white daubing the summits as if left be the work of careless painter.  Above the green and white of the hillsides a pale mist sits on the summits.  Now, high on the hill, a surprisingly cold wind makes me zip up my cagoule and pull down my hat over my ears.  The mist swallows me now.  A soft wetness invading my clothes.  Yes still I climb.  It is the search that draws me on.  The quest that consumes me compels me to move forward.  My pack is heavy with provisions and my legs are growing tired but I must carry on. 

What began as a pastime, an interest I would indulge in when I could find nothing else to entertain  me has become a quest that I can’t deny.  Some might call it an obsession but they don’t understand why I do this.  I’m in pursuit of something very rare.  I don’t think it’s an obsession but perhaps it’s true that those who are truly obsessed never see it.  If you know you are obsessed then by definition you can’t be.  Are you still with me?

I spend hours poring over maps, searching along hill tracks, looking for vital signs of what I seek.  I know they exist because I have found them before. They are rare but with patience, determination and grit, you can find them.  For those of you who do not know, I am searching for the lost bothy.   To many folk a bothy is a simple mountain shelter, to others it is a dream, a place of peace.  Ahead of me, somewhere out in the mist, is what I seek.  There is nothing on the map. No building is marked here, just a kink in the track. I saw that kink and realised what it might mean so searched the satellite image.  Captured on Google earth, rare as a snow leopard, is a square object that might be a roof.  It might easily be a stack of wood, or some other square object.  What has drawn me too it is that I am fairly certain it is a building.  I always look at the shadow the object casts, this is the trick of the bothy hunter. I am looking for that triangular shaped shadow that will show me it is the one thing that makes this image different from all others, it has a roof.

The mist grows thicker as I climb. I am over 2,000ft now and it grows colder still.  There are lot’s of things that can rob me of my goal.  The building might be derelict, with blind windows staring out across the hillside.  It could be locked tight shut against such bothy hunters as I.  It might be nothing more than a corrugated iron cowshed.  There is only one way to find out.  I must strap on my rucksack and go there. Only when I stand where that image lies on my computer will I know if it has been worth all this effort.  That is the curse of my breed.

The track ahead of me turns sharply, I know I am close.  Out of the mist a shape appears.  At first it is ill defined and I worry I have been mistaken. Then a chimney appears and soon I am standing beside the bothy I have been searching for, the mirage has become reality.  There is a veranda, a substantial one room shelter.  The bothy looks out of the wildness of the Monadhliath mountains, a deep valley snakes below. There is only one more question.  Can I get in?

I grasp the door handle and turn it.  The door does not move. It is locked.  I try not to swear too much but my language would make the average squaddie blush.  All is not lost.  There must be a key somewhere.  I search beneath every rock I can find, scour the outside of the building.  I tap the wood to look for hidden panels. I search for twenty minutes but find nothing. Inside the bothy there is a wood stove, there is warmth, comfort, joy.  The only problem is that I am separated from it by a few inches of wood that I cannot move.  Disconsolate I take the sack of coal from my bag.  The coal that would have given me warmth and comfort and hide it in the heather.  I hope I’ll be able to find it again.  It’s wet now and dark.  All I can do is plod back to my car.  I am not too depressed, after all,  this is the price the bothy hunter must pay.

If you would like to visit a bothy you don’t have to search the wilds as I do.  You can simply visit the Mountain Bothies Association (MBA) website and there you’ll find al the information you’ll need.  MBA bothies have the advantage of being unlocked and a lot more welcoming than the bothies I seek. Be careful though, you might wind up like me.  A hopeless obsessive always searching for that tantalising unknown bothy.

As I plod back down through the mist am not too down hearted. I know I’ll get into that bothy one day because I know a secret.  There is not a locked bothy door in the whole of the Highlands that cannot be opened by putting a bottle of whisky in the right hands.  All I need to do is find the hands.