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Bothies and the CWT

Bothies and the CWT


Postby Coulags » Wed Jun 22, 2022 10:17 pm

I am a regular bothy goer and member of the MBA but find myself much less inclined to use them in the summer months mainly because of the CWT .

I read in this summers MBA newsletter of “ the constant problem of people leaving behind their rubbish “ . However it appears that this is to be “ expected due to the high level of traffic from people completing the CWT . This beggars belief in my opinion ..

Is there anything that can be done ? Are trail baggers all selfish in this regard ?

Would be interested in bothy goers and trail walkers thoughts on this .
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby Booga » Wed Jun 22, 2022 10:48 pm

I read this too when I arrived home and the newsletter was waiting for me. I've encountered a fair bit of rubbish in bothies but haven't visited the CWT or WHW ones yet which seem to suffer from trail traffic litter from what I've read online as well as in the latest MBA newsletter.

Bothies that are a fairly short walk from a parking space can get litter left by the weekend party brigade and poorly prepared/unknowledgable first timers but people doing the CWT really should know better. Could it be that a walker experienced/enthusiastic enough to do the CWT is still ignorant of bothy etiquette and thinks bothies have a regular visit from the bin man? It seems more likely that some people really are just selfish and will happily "ditch some excess weight" from their packs if they think they can get away with it.

Unfortunately bothies seem to be a victim of the fact that if you try to make something "idiot proof" then along will come a bigger grade of idiot! Could bigger, more noticeable signs in bothies be an answer? Perhaps with an easy to interpret graphic and in different languages? Is bothy etiquette mentioned in CWT books and guides already? We can continue to try and educate the ignorant but the selfish and lazy will still leave litter even if they know not to.
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby Sunset tripper » Wed Jun 22, 2022 11:14 pm

I only stay in bothies on occasion but I often have a look in. I was inside three on the Cape Wrath Trail last year, Corryhully, A'Chuil & Barrisdale. They all looked in good order and tidy. I think the issue is maybe a more random thing and I wouldn't expect CWT folk to be a particular problem. There was travel restrictions on my visit to Corryhully and like Barrisdale is not MBA but was open and in use, though probably small numbers.
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby WalkWithWallace » Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:37 am

I wouldn't single out CWTers, baggers/hillwalkers are equally as bad for leaving rubbish behind in bothies. That said rubbish/litter on the whole is a blight on Britain, and the problem is far more deep rooted than pointing the finger at thru hikers or hillwalkers imho. :?
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby al78 » Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:37 am

WalkWithWallace wrote:I wouldn't single out CWTers, baggers/hillwalkers are equally as bad for leaving rubbish behind in bothies. That said rubbish/litter on the whole is a blight on Britain, and the problem is far more deep rooted than pointing the finger at thru hikers or hillwalkers imho. :?


I agree. Littering is a problem throughout the UK, not just along long distance trails.

https://www.countryfile.com/how-to/outdoor-skills/britains-growing-litter-problem-why-is-it-so-bad-and-how-to-take-action/

There is one theory that lockdown has contributed to the problem, through people having to go to outdoor places to socialise, and as they haven't regularly done that in the past, they haven't been socialised towards acceptable behaviour such as discarding waste in a bin or taking it home.
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby Giant Stoneater » Thu Jun 23, 2022 11:22 am

Lockdown has more than contributed as pubs and restaurants were limited in amount of folk through their doors by reduced seating and takeaways became the norm, our nearest main burger place is 8 miles away and the countryside where we stay was littered with cartons and drink containers.

Bothies have always had a problem with litter and there is no easy solution to it, at the end of lockdown i walked from Glenmore to Fords of Avon to Hutchison Memorial Hut and the amount of discarded masks was shocking.
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby walkingpoles » Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:47 pm

I didn't see lots of rubbish in bothies on my CWT (that was 2016, things change). The worst was, when I followed the A87 towards Cluanie, but that's drivers not hikers that are the problem.

I'd think that long distance hikers are less likely to buy a six pack or a glass bottle in Fort William to carry along. Most of the rubbish is packaging of food which is light enough to carry out. And there are places like hostels and pubs where rubbish can be discarded easily.

I lost a pair of sandals in a bothy on the CWT. Somebody might perceive it as rubbish, but it was incompetence on my part. And I hope whoever found it, made good use of it.
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby cruachan06 » Thu Jun 23, 2022 3:26 pm

As we've all commented, it isn't limited to bothies. I'm just back from the Clyde Walkway (and hurting quite a bit but that's for another thread!) and there was a lot of litter around in places.

Also I've seen a lot of reports that the WHW bothies (and probably others) are popular spots for locals to use when they aren't full of walkers.
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby Coulags » Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:26 pm

Litter is very much a societal problem I agree . The road edge between Crianlarich and Loch Lomond is truly horrendous .
This litter is caused by lowlife discarding anything they feel like out their car window .

But how can the type of people who trek to Sourlies , Maol Bhuidhe etc not grasp the concept of littering ?.. If we’re not blaming through walkers and hikers who can we blame . Your average Ned doesn’t go down the rollercoaster and walk in from Strathan to leave his black bag of rubbish .
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby AyrshireAlps » Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:59 pm

Not all selfish, lazy bastards are Neds.
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby WalkWithWallace » Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:06 am

Coulags wrote:But how can the type of people who trek to Sourlies , Maol Bhuidhe etc not grasp the concept of littering ?.. If we’re not blaming through walkers and hikers who can we blame . Your average Ned doesn’t go down the rollercoaster and walk in from Strathan to leave his black bag of rubbish .


As AyrshireAlps touched on, these are not neds frequenting these bothies. Just selfish and or ignorant people. :roll:
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby HalfManHalfTitanium » Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:20 pm

Sorry this is a long post. Trying to put my thoughts together in an attempt to get to the heart of this problem.

First observation: I've hardly ever seen litter in Europe, whether in cities or on the mountains.

One of many cultural differences. Another cultural difference is that if the In Pin was in Europe, there might well be an iron ladder bolted to it.

My wife used to live in Germany. If someone drops litter, they will be told off by (a) their parents (b) their friends or (c) every passer-by. Everyone learns from a young age that it is a no-no. German muggers probably dispose of victims' purses and wallets in litter bins.

Overall, we don't have that same approach in Britain. So while we would not expect the sort of people who do the CWT to be the stereotypical "litter lout", we should not be totally surprised either, when a national problem reaches Glen Dessarry and its ranks of commercial conifers. It is easy to label a group and blame them; harder to find solutions that work.

Samantha Harding, Director of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said “The crux of the problem is that all sorts of people litter all sorts of items for all sorts of reasons”. Ah, so now we know.

I think that deep down there is something in our culture, about our relationship with the world around us. I am distrustful of surveys, but it was interesting to see yesterday the results of a Europe-wide survey about how connected people feel to nature. Of course, the UK came bottom.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/23/britain-ranks-bottom-in-europe-for-nature-connectiveness

The Guardian article about the survey findings said "While high levels of urban residents did not necessarily mean a weaker connection with nature, more decisive negative influences on nature connection were higher average incomes and smartphone ownership."

But again, that's just scratching the surface. Smartphone ownership, for example, is a symptom, not a cause, of a society that chooses to have a closer relationship with Facebook than with the plants and animals living in our own gardens.

Last year, I joined Instagram. I didn't really know what it was, but I could see it enabled me to post up a photo every day, like Harvey Keitel in the film Smoke. A record of something nice I'd seen - a flower, a tree etc.

I hadn't reckoned on the untamed power of the Internet. Soon I had 700 Followers, and hundred of Likes for every photo. So I felt obliged to look at and Like photos posted by my Followers.

What I saw was really striking.

I had Followers in Britain, but also other parts of the world - Canada and the States, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, and lots in Europe (especially eastern Europe and Scandinavia) and Japan. There was a stark difference between the British photos and all the others.

The "rest of the world" photos were devoid of people. They were of hills, rivers, coast, plants and animals. You could look at such photos and meditate. I felt that I was seeing the world through others' eyes, and feeling the contemplative closeness of their relationship with nature.

The British photos, on the other hand, always showed the person. And they were always doing something - completing a long distance trail, climbing a mountain, wild camping, wild swimming, "Doing the North Coast 500" (whatever that is).

Nothing wrong with any of that! I post the occasional summit selfie myself! - and my TRs on WH are obviously a log of my outdoor activities.

Rather, it was the almost complete lack, in the British images, of those contemplative photos, those quiet moments of not doing anything, just being with nature.

Perhaps a higher percentage of British people see the natural world as "out there" - separate from us. When we go into it, we take selfies to show our friends where we have been. the enjoyment of being outdoors is to be found in the ability to tell people about it. "Look at me, in the wilderness!".

When you feel like that, maybe it is easy to drop a piece of plastic packaging. But if you actually feel a connection to the landscape around you, you wouldn't do it - any more than you would leave litter in a friend's home.

Just exploring an idea. We will never find a solution if we don't understand the problem.
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby BigTed » Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:32 pm

It isn't ideal but I have just got into the mindset that any bothy trip will involve bringing out a carrier bag of other peoples empty cans and bottles. I shouldn't have to do it but compared with the effort MBA volunteers put in to keep these places going it is trivial.

If enough of us do it we can keep the bothies clear. There is a certain mindset that thinks leaving stuff is OK if they aren't first. IE if a bothy already has 6 empty whisky bottles as candleholders another two won't matter.
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby Coulags » Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:19 pm

HMHTitanium - very well put . :clap:
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Re: Bothies and the CWT

Postby prog99 » Sat Jun 25, 2022 7:48 am

Coulags wrote:HMHTitanium - very well put . :clap:

If he’s not seen much litter in Europe though then try france or (even worse, much worse) Greece.
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