UKH

A week and a half ago I went for a wee saunter up Carn A'Mhaim in the 'Gorms. It was a nice day out, but when I got back to the Linn of Dee car park I saw several signs saying that all of the bothies were still closed. However, some wit had written a comment in marker pen on one of the signs saying "Pants on fire"! I'm wondering if said person had a look at one of the nearby bothies and found it open. Can anyone tell me what the exact situation is with regards to mountain bothies? Are they actually open or not.

The MBA website is categorically stating they are not open and won't be until all social distancing measures are dropped.

That's a recent update, only posted a few days ago.

Probably best to take a tent for the time being.

OK. Cheers for that.

Most of them are apparently unlocked still in case of emergencies. But they are closed for normal use. Not sure if this will change when (in England at least) we're allowed to stay away overnight after July 4th - I suspect not given the impossibility of effective cleaning after every use.

Open or not, I’m not sure how keen I am to visit a place where random strangers turn up, you are unable to practice any form of social distancing, have no idea who touched what the day/hours before you arrived and generally speaking personal hygiene isn’t easy to maintain.

C-19 has possibly ruined bothies for me for a while, who knows how long.

Cheers - this may explain the doodled graffiti I saw!

From a Scottish regulation point of view they would probably fall under self-catering with shared facilities (a spade!). While self-catering is opening on the 3rd July, with guidance on cleaning, which obviously won't be happening in a bothy, Those with shared facilities are not, potentially reopening later (details yet to be announced).  Accommodation providers are to maintain a contact records of guests to enable Public Health Trace & Test, should it be required.

Thus its difficult to see Bothies being officially opened and meeting legislation requirements, until social distancing, and the requirement to hold details for contact tracing are dropped.

While hill-goers have been rightly pointing out the absurdity of the previous 5 mile exercise restrictions and exceptional low risk of contraction outdoors. IMHO bothies are clearly a different 'beast' high risk in terms of likely transmission in the event an occupant has it, and worse potential infections can't be run to ground via trace and test.

Though if not locked I would suspect the NED element will be quickly in residence.

I've always worked on that very principal regarding bothies since long before anyone had ever heard of the coronavirus

Hygiene has never bothered me! Except for the really popular ones...

However the turning up of random strangers always has, though the more remote, the less fear! This comes from having a dog which would not react well to the entry of strangers late at night to a place where we were sleeping - which I think is damn right natural!

Plus the chance of those strangers being neds planning a party