UKC

We cycled from Dumfries via NCR 7. It's a great route a definitely worth the effort. We arrived at White Laggan Bothy on Saturday night, having We found a car-load of youngish types parked the forest track unloading their car and preparing to walk the several hundred metres to the bothy. They were wearing wellies or shoes with carrier bags wrapped. One had a small yappy dog.

Unimpressed and not happy to share a with this party we continued to Glen Trool.

Were we doing them a disservice and missed out on a great craic?

In reply to Peter Metcalfe:

You have to watch those youngish types with their shoes in wrapped up carrier bags and their yappy dogs having a good time...

In short, I guess you'll never know.

In reply to Peter Metcalfe:

You probably just missed a 'Beer & Booze Fest' in the bothy. (and a lot of litter afterwards).

In reply to Peter Metcalfe:

i've shared a bothy with a group of young'uns with loads of booze and the car parked by on about half a dozen occasions, some in Wales, some in Southern Scotland.

only on one of those times were my prejudices proved unfounded. the rest of the times it was a grim, grim experience, with one night so bad that i left the bothy at about midnight and crashed in a bivvy about a km away.

sadly, the reason they have a bad reputation is because people have bad experiences with them.

In reply to Peter Metcalfe:

You should've stayed.
If things got out of hand you could've given them an hour long lecture on catchment hydrology and flood modelling to calm the situation down

In reply to Peter Metcalfe:

Unfortunately the Galloway bothies are too often abused by car loads of yobs who leave loads of litter in their wake. Whether this was the case in this instance we won't know, but if I were putting money on it I'd say 50:50. If you got their car number you could contact the Forestry in Newton Stewart as they would be interested to know as they have quite a lot of trouble with people drive cars, motorbikes and quad bikes up their tracks who shouldn't be.

In reply to Peter Metcalfe:

I remember staying in the Rackwick Bay bothy after climbing the Old Man of Hoy. Unpacking the car to walk to the bothy we encountered a middle aged couple who were also obviously intending to stay in the bothy. They clearly decided that 3 lads in their 20s were not the company they wanted and turned around. We of course had been up early and spend the day climbing, we quietly cooked a meal, slowly sipped a couple of cans of beer and went to bed early.