Is a light "bothy" a winter hiking "essential"?

When traveling alone, I’d imagine a bivy better in an emergency (a broken leg and I don’t want to be hopping around setting up a tarp).  But with snow or cold ground, any emergency shelter really only shines if you have a insulating pad of some sort.  Yes, in many places, you could cut tree limbs, but not if you’re badly injured, above tree line, (or, for me, on a treeless island).

The bag style seem easier to deal with than a flat tarp in wind.

A bothy is a shelter. What constitutes emergency shelter depends on season, location, expected weather, experience of the hiker, etc. See https://www.tiso.com/blog/scotlands-top-10-bothies

For daytripping solo winter travel on snow in California below tree line, I take an insulating pad, shovel, and the tools to make fire.I also know how to make a shelter with the shovel, and practice making fires in snowy conditions. If going above treeline or into an area I know less well or less travelled by other folks on skis or snowshoes, or chance of storm, I would take a bivy sack.

A bag bothy is way cool. I have a 2-person, and I’ve sat in a friend’s 4-person in a storm. True insta-shelter. No poles or mucking around. Toss it over you and BAM! you are indoors. If you want to get fancy (recommended), dig a hole for everyone’s legs so it is more like sitting on a bench. Sit on your pack for butt insulation. Essential? If you or someone else are hurt and have to wait for help, then I suppose yes. But a bag bothy is so simple to deploy that it may become more than just emergency shelter, so it effectively becomes ‘multi-use’ (i.e., lunch on stormy days and emergency shelter).

Storm brewing:

Poor bastards that dug a trench and put a ski/tarp shelter over the top:

Us kickin’ it in the big bothy (ignore the serious face on the left; I think someone cut the cheese):

Panorama of all 6 of us tucked in nicely:

Agree that Bothy’s are cool. They deploy in a flash, eliminate all wind, and warm up inside amazingly fast. I started carrying one as an emergency shelter on day long ski tours. Oh and of course they shelter from snow. I ended up deciding that they were a better choice than a bivy. Warmer, I think.

Can a both be deployed by only 1 person, or do you need two for the tension?

If you have skis or poles of some sort, you could stuff those into snow and make them be the ‘other person’. But bothys are meant to use folks as the tent poles and stakes. That has its pluses and minuses, obviously. It’s not a replacement for a overnight camping shelter. It’s an amazingly pleasant emergency/quick-break stuff-sack for humans.

Guys just for clarification

A bothy is a small hut
As they are often very basic and may even leak (if raining) folks talk about using a “Bothy bag”

Initially, a bothy bag was a basic sleeping bag cover, it kept your sleeping bag clean and if the roof of the bothy leaked it kept your sleeping bag dry.

Now the term bothy bag has been used in marketing by companies to include emergency shelters, which is ridiculous as you couldn’t physically use most of these emergency shelters inside a bothy

I don’t want to be pedantic, but if people search for a bothy, or a bothy bag as an emergency shelter they will not get the products or answers they were after

Bothy

“Can a both be deployed by only 1 person, or do you need two for the tension?”

I’ve used mine solo very easily. But honestly I’ve never used it for hours at a time–never had to.

Perhaps a 2 or 4 person mid could be a bothy in a pinch. Better suited than my tarp.

Bothy bags are very easy to make, just a rectangular solid shape with no bottom, and maybe a few vents around the top perimeter.  I made 2P and 4P bothy bags with material I had left over, the 2P is silnylon (~ 8 oz, for up to 3 people) and the 4P is coated nylon (~12 oz if I recall, from two discontinued tent footprints on clearance, might hold 6 in a pinch).

What got me to make one was a Fall hike up Cadillac Mountain in Acadia NP.  It was cold, windy, and rainy on top, no good place to shelter other than the small gift shop.  Everyone else mostly stayed in their cars except for a brief look around (couldn’t see anything due to fog).  We headed back down into the trees and found a spot sort of out of the wind and had lunch.  But we were cold and it was somewhat unpleasant.  When I got home I made a bothy bag.

Below we are eating lunch at a picnic table in a leaky lean-to on a X-C ski trip in the ADKs, the wind picked up and we started getting cold so out came the bothy bag.  It really made a difference, I now carry one on most day hikes.

There is a small business here in Oz that makes “Bothy Bags” as a main part of their sales. They are considered essential parts of the kit for tour leaders/school groups and anybody in Antarctica. They were being used by S&R groups in England and Scotland way back in the dim dark 1970s when I was climbing over there because they are simply the quickest way to get shelter from the wind.

Certainly a singleton can use a 2 person bothy bag and i know many ski tourers who carry one as a matter of course, even those who also carry a full Goretex bivvy sack At around 300 grams it’s the same weight as a sandwich. The real benefit comes when you have a group, Evans 6P bothy weighs 500g and the 8P a paltry 700g Make one from ULCuben fabric and those weights could be halved. Even tho I do not yet own one I would consider them essential for a group, Hypothermia treatment being one of those areas where speed is essential and any delay at all could; possibly; be fatal, a little less so for trekking solo but still worthwhile.

I’ve just taken my own advice and ordered an XL 2 person bothy bag for next winter from out local UL custom maker. I’ll possible be having a tadpole with me for one week-end next ski season so no chances will be taken and I figure I’d find it useful in Canada and Alaska in 2020 anyway.

Also I have to disagree with Mark in his post above, when I was hill walking and climbing in Scotland decades ago a “Bothy” was any sort of shelter from the wind and the rain, there are some famous rock shelters and a couple of caves that were all termed “bothy” when I was there in winter any shelter at all was heaven compared to the sleet.,slush, hail and general dismality that can be a typical Scottish winter climb

I checked into buying materials for making one out of Dyneema hybrid/Cuben fiber, looking at RipStop By the Roll’s recent sale.  Whew!  Would have been  over $200, for enough material and Cuben Fiber tape to seam seal.  And, Cuben fiber material does not compress down very well.  I decided I’d carry the weight of my UL Terra Nova 2P bothy, seeing as how it is rarely deployed even for lunch stops.

A variation on this is called a zelt (which I’m told is German for tent).  I see that montbell Japan sells some models: https://en.montbell.jp/products/goods/list.php?category=207000 (note that it appears these are made from a non waterproof breathable fabric)

The thing about a bothy that makes me think that it would be a superior to a bivy as an emergency shelter is that it gets really, really warm inside very quickly. If you had a sit pad (or better) and a big puffy, that would go a ways. Happily I never had to try this out!

There may be other factors I haven’t considered.