Shenavall Bothy, Autumn Rowan

LOCATION LAT/LONG 57.7768, -5.2541, NH 066 810, LR Map 19
A flagship MBA bothy, Shenavall is one of the best-known and busiest in Scotland and a visit is the perfect introduction to the delights of bothying. Spectacularly located on the edge of the Fisherfield Forest and close to an area of remote peaks described by Alfred Wainwright as ‘the Great Wilderness’, it has been a magnet for Munro baggers and walkers for over a century. You can read a wealth of background material from accounts by the people who lived there, to entries in journals and bothy books, including vivid passages in Ken Wilson and Richard Gilbert’s classics, The Big Walks and Wild Walks. Renowned author and mountaineer WH Murray visited in the 1950s, and HRH Prince Charles also hiked out here while still a pupil at Gordonstoun. Unless you are visiting out of season you are unlikely to have the place to yourself, but this region is one of the jewels of the Scottish Highlands and an opportunity not to be missed.