To celebrate eight years of publishing Ernest, we ask contributors to share their memories of journeys undertaken for the journal, from seeking ancient burial mounds in the North York Moors to breaking bread with strangers at a Greenlandic kaffemik. Here, writer Rich Baldwin reflects on the joy of finding shelter after a day’s hike in the Scottish Highlands for issue five.

There can still be a good hour or so of walking left when a bothy comes into view. On a typical day, the approach to a shelter is usually completed in dwindling light or complete darkness. It’s during these last miles when the thought comes to mind, “Am I going to have this place to myself?”.

In years gone by the answer was almost always “yes”, though bothies aren’t the well kept secret they once were. The likelihood of having a shelter to yourself is now a rare luxury.

There are a few telltale signs that rule out an evening of solitude; a dim light in the window, a curl of smoke from the chimney. Sometimes it’s the smell of smoke that faintly drifts over in the evening air. Occasionally the sound of voices and conversation give the game away. Though more often than not, it’s the sight of a brightly coloured down jacket emerging from a shelter in the distance that shatters the prospect of a night alone.

Of course, this is no bad thing. Some of the best bothy nights have been those shared with strangers: the hilarious walkers from Cologne who’d fallen in a river in Glen Nevis and berated each other as they dried out by the fire, a shared meal overlooking the Atlantic, and the group of lads mountain biking coast to coast who I expected to be noisy and drinking all night but were all snoring by 8pm.