Mam Sodhail was an important part of the Ordnance Survey's initial mapping of the northern Highlands in the 1840s, and the summit carries a massive cairn which was used by the surveyors in their work. The cairn is hollow and its walls have to be climbed to get inside. Unusually, there is a visitors' book inside the cairn. A few feet below the summit is the remains of a small bothy, complete with walls, fireplace and a chimney, which was formerly used by deerstalkers and watchers to keep sheep and walkers off the mountain. The bothy was mentioned by Sir Hugh Munro in volume one of the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal along with tips to circumvent it and its inhabitants. There is evidence of some quarrying south-west of the main summit on the ridge to Creag Coire nan Each. There are a number of pits about three metres deep and several metres across, and it is probable that this was the source of the stone for the summit cairn and the bothy.