Operation poo: The remarkable helicopter mission to remove a quarter tonne of waste from remote Scottish bothy

At Corrour Bothy, one of Scotland’s most popular shelters, cleaning the toilets poses a logistical challenge that only a helicopter can meet.

The chopper was called in last Thursday to help with the annual clean-up, which was organised by National Trust for Scotland and the Mountain Bothies Association.

Around a dozen bags of human waste were removed - each weighing around 20 kg each.

Ben Dolphin, the ranger at Mar Lodge Estate, said a helicopter was needed for the job, simply because “it’s a lot of poo”.

Four toilets at Corrour Bothy, one of Scotland’s most popular which sits on a key route between Deeside and the Highlands, keep walkers well served with two in use at any one time.

Each toilet has a bag to hold the waste, which are then removed and taken to a store when full to allow them to dry out.

“The shed gets full of lots of bags of poo and that is when someone from MBA goes up, not quite in Haz Mat suits but protective boiler suits, to get the bags ready for the helicopter.”

Mr Dolphin said the operation was always mounted to coincide with a helicopter being deployed on the estate.

On this occasion, a chopper had been in use nearby helping in a project to restore peatland.

“NTS incurs the cost of flying the helicopter out and then the MBA puts in the volunteer hours,” he added.

Mr Dolphin walked up to the bothy ahead of the operation on Thursday to ensure no campers would be pitched nearby on the day of the collection.

Neil Reid, the maintenance officer (MO) for Corrour Bothy with the Mountain Bothies Association, said: “The helicopter is the only practical way of getting in there. The estate used to have a tracked vehicle that could pick it up, but they no longer have that.

“Everything went according to plan on Thursday. It is not as messy a job as you might think, but we do wear boiler suits which are suitable for wearing in a sewer.

“The unpleasant bit really is decanting the bags out to the store to dry out a bit. We are having to do that every four to six weeks. A lot of people use Corrour.

“It’s not just a bothy thing though. The thing we have noticed, and I have looked after that toilet since it was put in, is that people use the toilet who are just passing by. They will make a bit of a detour and use the toilet.

“So the toilet is keeping all this sh*t out of the glen. The toilet really is performing a valuable function.”

Corrour is located in the Lairig Ghru, an old right of way between Deeside and Speyside.

The original bothy was built in 1877 as a deer watchers hut and the last watcher to stay at the bothy was a Frank Scott who left in 1920.

In 1949, the bothy was reconstructed by members of the Cairngorm Club and has been maintained by the MBA since 1967.

The MBA said that, over the years, its popularity was”unfortunately accompanied by irresponsible toilet practices to the extent that the area around the bothy was becoming an environmental hazard”.

In 2006, a small extension was built to accommodate an experimental “dry toilet” which has since doubled in size.