Camasunary Bothy

Grid Reference: NG 51760 18306

Camasunary Bothy is a small shelter maintained by the Mountain Bothies Association. Black Shed Projects looks after the Bothy on behalf of the Mountains Bothies Association. The Bothy is located in Camasunary Bay at the end of Glen Sligachan, on the west coast of the Isle of Skye. The Bothy sits under the awesome Black Cullin and provides a great base for exploring the Blackand Red Cullin, including Sgurr na Stri, Loch Corusick, and Blabheinn.

The Bothy is located on the Skye Trail and is free to use by walkers. There is no charge but users are asked to keep the Bothy clean and tidy and to take away their rubbish. There are sleeping platforms for 16 but there is no fire or toilet. There is a fire pit outside but you should bring your own wood.

The Bothy was built in 2015 and replaced the old Bothy which also sits in Camasunary Bay.

The Bothy can be reached from Elgol via the coast path (approx 2hours), from Sligahan via the path that runs down Sligachan Glen (approx 3 hrs) or from the car park at Kilmarie via a rough Landrover track (approx 1.5 hrs).

The nearest small shop is in Elgol, at the Community Hall. The opening times are quite limited. There are cafes in Elgol, Torrin, and Broadford. Broadford also has a large Coop in Broadford as well as restaurants, a fish and chip shop and campsite. Busses run through Broadford to the rest of Skye and to the mainland. The is a bus from Elgol to Broadford but I think runs infrequently.

Mini Beach Clean Project

Camasunary Bothy is piloting a Mini Beach Clean initiative in conjunction with Skye Marine Matters. The beaches on the west coast of Skye suffers badly from plastics and other detritus. There are many one day beach cleaning initiatives but it is often difficult to remove the waste that is collected from remote locations.

Walker carrying two bags of beach rubbish back to the bins at Kilmarie Car Park on 28 May 2019 (source: Richard Simmonds’ Facebook post of 29 May 2019).

Luckily Skye Marine Matters has raised money via Crowdfunding for a rib that can collect waste from beaches. However, we thought that an alternative to day long beach clean initiatives might be to ask visitors to Camasunary Bay to carry out a few pieces of plastic and thereby keep on to of the problem in an incremental way. The Bothy provides the bags and a nudge via signs and Bothy users have responded fantastically. Sadly all the brilliant beach cleaning that went nice in 2019 was undone by Storm Brendon in the new year. The storm washed up loads more plastic and so the plastic challenge continues.