Mellow Expeditions - @tom__plant

This week’s Mellow Expeditions feature comes from @tom__plant who talks us through his recent over night stay in a Scottish bothy which ended with some warm company after a hike through Loch Treig. Here’s what Tom had to say about the trip..

We got the scenic ‘once a day’ train from Fort William to Corrour Station, the one from the famous scene in Train Spotting. It was a very un-Scottish 23 degrees so it was a long, slow trudge into the valley down to Loch Treig.

The terrain started as basic paths, but on the ascent up from the first loch it soon turned to peat bogs, marshland and very little man made paths. 8 miles later we started to see a little white house on the horizon, a very welcome site by this time!

Sat on the edge of Loch Chiarain, as dusk was creeping in, photos don’t do it justice. It was movingly quiet, the most remote area I had been to before; no roads or people for miles around, just mountains. The only sound was the gentle lapping of the loch on the shore.

The bothy was well kitted out, two downstairs communal rooms and two sleeping rooms upstairs, each with a fireplace. We set up our pits, & cooked our well earned noodles. To be welcomed by our friendly neighbours. A French investigative journalist from London and two local lads one of which was the head deer stalker for the local estate, he knew the surrounding 30,000 acres like the back of his hand, and had a story or two to tell.

We got the fire going and saw in the early hours passing round whiskey and sharing stories like we’d all been friends for years, the perfect Scottish bothy experience!