Closer to the true heart of things

At a remote bothy deep in the Scottish Highlands, I meet a remarkable character on a lifelong quest – perhaps someone everyone in the world of adventure can learn from.

One year ago, at the end of May 2024, I went stravaiging in the Ben Alder area. Although the trip began like several other trips into this region, chasing the end of a long and tiring day on the last few kilometres to Ben Alder Cottage, it soon evolved into something special – and all thanks to a person I met and spoke to at the bothy.

I felt that my conversation with Kevin (not real name) reinforced and validated my own journey. He has gone so much further than I ever have or will, but I am 100% certain that he would reject descriptions such as ‘revolutionary’ or even ‘adventurer’, and I’m just as certain he is not doing what he’s doing as a conscious act of resistance against anything.

As you’ll learn from the story, Kevin lives a hard life, but it’s also a profoundly simple and purposeful one.

It’s made me wonder how many other people there are like Kevin out there, doing what they’re doing because it is what they must do.

This story was recorded on the trail in real time. It’s less polished and more rambling than my typical work, but it came straight from the heart. If you would prefer to listen instead of read, the full audio is embedded below. The written version has been lightly edited for clarity.

Day one

It’s twenty to nine in the evening and I’m on my way to Ben Alder Cottage. And why, might you ask, am I not in the bothy even though it’s twenty to nine at night? First of all, midsummer in the Scottish Highlands doesn’t really get dark, so I can see perfectly well. It’s probably brighter than it would be at midday in February in this location. But I am behind schedule, to be honest.

I didn’t leave Rannoch Station until about half three this afternoon. My train pulled in at nine minutes past three, and I saw the nice wee honesty box cafe in the visitor centre on the platform. So I thought, I’ll stop for a cup of tea. I got chatting to some people, and before I knew it twenty-odd minutes had gone by.

But I thought, looking at the map, it’s not really that far to Ben Alder Cottage, and the mountains aren’t really that steep. I’ve climbed the two Munros [Scottish mountains above 3,000ft in height] between Rannoch and the bothy before, so I know them. What’s the hurry?

There’s a nice big hill track for much of the approach, but then it just disappears in the middle of this colossal bog. I’ve passed this way before – not the exact route, but on the other side of the hill – and as I descended into this gargantuan morass of peat hags that stretched as far as the eye could see, something at the back of my mind, like a little red LED blinking, jogged the memory of having been here.

I’ve taken a pretty much trackless route from Rannoch over to Ben Alder Cottage. You know me; I like doing things just a bit awkwardly, a bit differently, so I thought I’d explore a bealach just south of Sgor Gaibhre’s summit. The descent was initially very steep, these awful sloping rock slabs on a convex slope, and was bringing back memories of when I descended the bealach just to the north of Sgor Gaibhre on my Alder Trail reconnaissance trip in early 2016.

On that col I’d found a very steep slope that could be most easily descended on the right-hand side. So, assuming the geology was similar, I thought I’d track right. And sure enough it was the safest way down – although there were a few little deer trods easily mistaken for human paths, and if you followed them you could get into difficulties.

So a bit of a tricky descent. And then, as I say, a morass of peat hags.

I think I’m past the worst of it now. I’ve been following the left bank of a river for about three or four kilometres, vague bits of tracks here and there. Soon I’ll be picking up a proper track which will take me all the way to the bothy in another five kilometres. So it’s really not very far.

I’ve been tempted a couple of times to stick the tent up. These nice flat grassy bits next to the river look awfully inviting, but I know what they’re are like in this kind of terrain – absolutely crawling with ticks, because it’s where the deer lie down to feed. So no, I need to stick to my guns. I’ll get to the bothy and then tomorrow I’ve got some Munros awaiting me – ones I didn’t do last time I was here many years ago.

Later…

It’s quarter past ten now and I’m on the final half kilometre to the bothy. It has taken me longer than expected, and that’s because the nice track disappeared into a horrible squelchy bog with lots of tyre tracks from mountain bikes.

It seems that whenever I approach Ben Alder Cottage this is how I approach it – with dusk coming on, kind of tired at the end of a longish day. Last twice I’ve been here, both in winterish conditions unlike today, were very much like that – approaching late in the evening. It’s just one of those places, I suppose. It’s not as easy to get to as you think, a bit further away from places than you think, and that’s part of the charm.

The trail under my feet really is disappearing at this point. I probably ought to keep an eye out to make sure I don’t get lost in the bog, but I will make it to the bothy tonight, so that’s good, even if everyone’s asleep by the time I get there. Or maybe they’ll all be drunk on whisky and singing to high heaven, I don’t know! But I will be getting to the bothy.

Day two

So, last night I did arrive at the bothy eventually, maybe twenty past ten. As I approached in the gathering twilight, I could see a couple of guys with bikes out the front. They seemed knackered, having cycled in from Pitlochry – about 45 miles.

I soon realised there were three other guys in the bothy, two of whom were young chaps up from Leeds and Edinburgh. They’d been drinking since five o’clock in the afternoon and were quite merry. They had a bottle of wine warming directly in the fire.

And the third guy, whom we shall call Kevin – not actually his real name, for reasons that will become apparent – was on a lifelong quest to visit every grid square in Scotland.

The more I spoke to him, the more I was in awe of his story. Very unassuming-looking guy – quite tall, quite thin, baseball cap, black waterproof jacket, rucksack with holes in. He had a Poundland groundsheet laid out on the floor of the bothy with a one-season synthetic sleeping bag laid directly on it. No sleeping pad or mat.

He showed us his map. It’s a Landranger map of this area. He had visited, I would say, 90% of the grid squares. Each grid square he had visited was marked with a neat red cross.

These are the photos Kevin gave me permission to take and share

Even doing this for one map blows the mind… the sheer level of effort it would take to visit every grid square. And he was doing it as a continuous journey, fuelled entirely by Co-Op biscuits and chocolate. His rucksack was 75% filled with packs of biscuits – digestives, chocolate cookies – and slabs of chocolate.

He also showed me an ice-cream carton entirely filled with CDs, and this was his luxury item. He played these CDs on a Sony Walkman and also had a little FM radio, but he didn’t have a phone.

He told us how he was homeless and had slipped through the cracks in the system, even though he had a decent bank balance. His parents had sadly died a few years before and he had an inheritance, but for various reasons he wasn’t able to buy or rent somewhere. He doesn’t have a passport or driving licence. So he decided that he’d rather just buy a tent and start hiking instead. He lives frugally and is on this enormous quest. He’s been doing it for three years already.

The more he spoke, the more I was amazed by his story. Absolutely amazed. He wasn’t doing this for internet fame or to create content. He was just doing it for himself. I really am at a loss for words to describe this whole encounter.

I said I’d love to write about this, asked him if I could do a proper interview, but he was reluctant. He was OK with me photographing his map, but he didn’t want to have his picture taken and he said he’d prefer not to be named, and he’d prefer not to appear in print. So I promised him I wouldn’t write a proper article about it, but he said he didn’t mind me blogging about it in passing, just as long as it didn’t become a big thing. So obviously I’m going to honour his wishes.

I kept thinking about the gulf between people like me, enmeshed in the outdoor industry and how we’ve got to mine everything we do for content to fuel our careers, and people like him. I’m not saying he’s somehow nobler in what he does, but… you know, maybe I am. He’s just doing something because he loves it, for the thing itself.

It’s a very quiet form of adventure, isn’t it? It’s just adventure for adventure’s sake, or perhaps not even adventure – I kind of suspect that Kevin may reject that term. It’s just what he does. It’s just his life.

He had so many fascinating insights about everything he’d seen in the mountains. The wildlife… even the way he described sitting and watching a stream was so poetic and profound. He can do that. He can just sit and watch a stream.

But he’s not putting the mountains on any kind of pedestal. He’s not saying that he has everything figured out. He describes his life as being quite hard, but it’s the life that has chosen him.

So I guess this is a roundabout way of saying it’s bloody good to be back in bothies again, because encounters like this with fascinating people only happen in bothies, in my experience. Yes, you can meet interesting people in Alpine huts as well, but there’s a – how to put it – slightly more refined edge, isn’t there? You know, everyone’s paid to be there. There’s a veneer of civilisation imposing its form on everything, whereas in bothies it seems a lot closer to the true heart of things, the true heart of why people go into the mountains.

I’ve never quite seen anything like it anywhere else. People are friends within moments of meeting, and the conversations are more honest, more real, but more surreal as well.

So yeah, whisky was drunk, the fire made everyone merry, I woke up the next morning and now I’m on my way up a hill in glorious sunshine. Kevin is heading up to visit his next grid square. I’m back in the world of bothies and all is right with the world.

Day three

Good morning! I’ve just woken up in my tent in the woods on the shores of Loch Ossian. After all the excitement of the night at the bothy, Kevin and his extraordinary map and quest, yesterday was quite chilled.

Originally I’d planned to head over four Munros that were new to me, but in the end I decided that I wasn’t in the mood for a massive day. I just wanted something a bit more chilled where I could take my time, take pictures, write. So I didn’t bother with the first two I’d planned and decided to keep them back for another day.

That’s one of the things I like to do – I won’t tick off all the new Munros to me in an area, I’ll leave some for future trips. Gives me a good excuse to come back. Not that I’m a slave to the list of Munros, you understand, but it does provide a good focus.

Anyway, I headed over towards Sgor Iutharn, which is a mountain I’d climbed before by the Lancet Edge, but this time I came up the back side up onto Geal-Charn – again, which I’d climbed before – and then two Munros which were new to me, Aonach Beag and Beinn Eibhinn. Beautiful conditions up on the ridge. I met quite a few other people: a group of walkers, a lady who’d been running over a few of the mountains. Had a bit of a chat. Hazy distant views, but very warm sunshine and a cooling breeze.

And then I just kind of dawdled, because I was a long way ahead of where I expected I’d be at that point. My original plan had been to camp up high on the ridge, but it was like two o’clock in the afternoon. So for a while I just sat on a rock and vegetated, which was nice – watched the golden eagles and the ravens.

Then I descended to the valley, which was fairly dry to begin with and then got a little boggy, but not too bad compared to the day before. I pootled along the track next to Loch Ossian and found a beautiful little spot in the woods to pitch my tent. Then I ambled down by the lochside and watched the midges on the water. Midges aren’t really too bad at all, but they are massing outside my tent now!

Overnight it was an absolute flat calm. I left both doors of the tent open for ventilation, and it’s just so peaceful sitting here in the forest. You can hear a few birds tweeting. There’s the white noise of a distant waterfall. Oh – and I’ve just seen a squirrel run up a tree, so that’s nice.

I’ve got, I think, about five kilometres to walk to Corrour Station. It’s – what time is it? – half eight in the morning. My train isn’t ’til gone lunchtime, so I’m going to head along to the little tearoom, probably have some breakfast, a cup of coffee, and then head home.

2025 coda

I turn to A Wizard of Earthsea (Le Guin):

You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do…

All images © Alex Roddie. Images produced using a camera and free of AI contamination. All Rights Reserved. Please don’t reproduce these images without permission.