The Untold Story of Bothies: Campers’ Refuge in the Mountains (PHOTOS)

A bit of curiosity led British photographer Nicholas White to travel to Scotland to begin a project on a form of shelter called bothies.

“The more I researched them, the more intrigued I became until I finally made a trip to the Lake District in England in Spring of 2015,” White told weather.com. He recently completed a photo series documenting bothies across the United Kingdom titled “Black Dots.”

Bothies are small shacks or cottages dispersed around the mountains. They are forms of shelter that provide campers, without a tent, a dry place to stay. They are maintained by volunteers and are generally run by an honor code of respect for the bothy and its surroundings: treat it as if it was your own home. Many of the bothies can be located on maps available to the public.

“It can still be a bit of a struggle to find them, especially when the weather is against you,” White said. “Many of the bothies are situated in incredibly remote mountain countr[ies], and it takes more than just a grid reference to ensure your safe arrival.”

The temperate climate of the British Isles are frequently associated with cloudy days and rain, weather conditions that may pose challenges for photographers. However, White embraced it. “As lovely as it would have been to only go out on calm, summer evenings, that just wouldn’t be an accurate representation of what it’s like to spend time in these wild places,” he said.

Many of the bothies he visited were located in Scotland and its surrounding areas, but a number of his trips were also made to the English Lake District and Snowdonia, Wales.

The project itself is composed of several parts: landscapes, portraits and still life. White’s photographs encompass all aspects of life and activity around bothies, making it about the entire experience rather than just one aspect of it. His goal wasn’t to find and photograph every bothy, it was far more purposeful.

“I was very selective about what bothies to visit, and made these decisions based on location and the topography of the surrounding landscape in order to give a broad and varied study on bothying in the UK,” he said. “I was eager to put a face to those that have walked miles to temporarily inhabit these tiny, cold spaces hidden deep within the British landscape.”

The Black Dots series will be published as a photo book and will be available late 2017. For more on Nicholas White’s photography, follow him on Instagram.

For a behind-the-scenes look at how White worked, watch the video below.