We are nine...
...And other tales from bothies.
5 pm.
It’s dark and cold, but the red-pink haze of the last light of the sun glows over the sea in the distance and hills of Glencoe. I sit on the frozen ground, patches of icy white surround me at the start of the snowline in the shadow of the mountain.
Lunchtime. A little late, admittedly, but we had wanted to get down off the top of the ridge before it got really dark.
There might be more comfortable spots and times for lunch but I wouldn’t change it for the fanciest cafe in the world. Cheeks cold from the winter air, homemade sandwich in hand, surrounded by friends who happily offer up crisps and caramel buttons to share, it’s a great way to spend a Saturday.
It’s not just the stunning views and the perfect light, stars burning above us in a shining smear, that I love, but the comradeship and laughter and enjoyment that comes from being out on the hills. I recognise it from the pages of bothy books, too, and it was the personal stories of friendship and love of places and people that drew me in.
From the earliest days of bothying in the 1920s, when men and women took to the hills in the more carefree moments following the end of the First World War, people have been writing poems, jokes, tales and conversations in bothy books.
Men like Archie Hunter, a working-class lad from Glasgow, who first came to Corrour in the Cairngorms in the 1930s and returned year after year to eulogise about the peaks. To learn more about Archie you have to get the book…(available for preorder and in all good bookshops soon). But there were so many stories I wanted to tell and people I wanted to talk about, there simply wasn’t enough space on the page. Relive a handful here from the pages of Corrour’s books.
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23rd September, 1929, Corrour.
“WE ARE NINE (and the Tyke)” - that is a dog. Although the group didn’t start off as nine.
Douglas and Alex walked from Derry Lodge to Ben MacDui, summitted with 20lbs packs and then made their way to Corrour. They slid down the Allt a' Choire Mhòir, and then headed for the bothy. (I chuckle reading this. We too, on the way down from the top.. had chosen to shoot down on our backsides, mostly, but not always, intentionally and mostly for fun, to save on energy and simply to enjoy the mountain all the more).
They met The Three Aberdonians, got dry and were promptly joined by four men from Arbroath and Mike the Dog. It was a squeeze, they said, but a fun time nonetheless with cocoa and gingerbread on the menu.
“There were nine men in Cororur, Who arrived from all points of the moor, Said the dog with delight, There are no more in sight, But I wish to Hell there were fewer.
The 1940s. It’s the middle of the Second World War. Men and women are arriving on leave, for training exercises, for a bit of a break amidst fighting and conflict.
If you had happened to visit you might have met Doris, Ann, Norah, Lela and Bide, young women doing medical training in London. I love their sketch, dressed in a mix of fashionable walking trousers and skirts, hair up in buns, striding across the page.
Or perhaps you would have encountered English soldiers from London who weren’t too keen to be here, sent up for training. Sgt. H.H. Jills visited on 25th June 1942. He did not seem impressed by the location. ‘As usual Rain’, he decried, underlining the word twice, capitalising it for more effect. For him, the Highlands should remain firmly on the page, in the novels of Maurice Walsh but he didn’t want to be thrown into one.
Maybe you would have seen men and women who were glad to be back in the hills again, and anxious if they would ever return, but glad for some time hiking the mountains. One lovely sketch shows three c
ompanions in 1942 as stick figures on an ascent, accompanied by the words “sans souci”, without worry.
1996 - Liz Cotrill and Hugh Thomas held their wedding party in Corrour, leaving a book for all to sign after commemorating their own nuptials with a bothy trip. Food and coals were carried up the mountain, and much love and happiness were shared in the building and in the book.
Liz (now signing off as Liz T.) wrote as she left that she had left the veil for the next bride or their anniversary.
“Reunion in 52 weeks.
The end of the beginning.”
On our way down from the first peak of the ridge, the descent was tricky. Very steep, very icy and the visibility worsening. Erik, heading up the party and navigating, deepened the steps of the previous climbers for us, etching out the way with crampons and ice axe. We followed him. We trod in his footsteps. And we trod similar paths to many hikers and climbers before us who had forged frienships on the peaks.
Slightly nervous, but all still smiling, we slid down the final stretch of that part of the ridge. We rewarded ourselves with salty crisps and a laugh. The clouds thinned and the last rays of the sun shone, diffuse through the swirling white air, glowing gold.
