I’m currently studying for a BTEC National Diploma in Outdoor Adventre and as part of the course, the group has to plan and execute a four day expedition. We have decided to go on a canoeing/walking expedition to Loch Ericht near Perth and will be staying for two nights at Ben Alder Cottage.

I’m currently studying for a BTEC National Diploma in Outdoor Adventre and as part of the course, the group has to plan and execute a four day expedition. We have decided to go on a canoeing/walking expedition to Loch Ericht near Perth and will be staying for two nights at Ben Alder Cottage. I have heard from my college lecturer that the bothy is supposed to be haunted and did some research into it. I found these two bits of information. Has anyone heard any simmilar stories? We are going on the expedition from the 17th May – 21st May. I’ll let you know if I encounter anything.

“North of Loch Rannoch, very much in the middle of nowhere, on the shores of Loch Ericht is Ben Alder Cottage.
It is a ‘bothy’ used by walkers and climbers. In spite of its small size and remoteness it is quite famous because of a legend about it being haunted. The story goes that the gamekeeper of the Alder Estate ,called McCook, hanged himself in the cottage. The reality seems to be that he retired happily to Newtonmore (on the southern approaches to the Cairngorms). Still, the facts should not be allowed to get in the way of the pleasure derived from sleeping in the haunted cottage. Many a lone traveller has reported noises in the night or strange lights. Sceptical people attribute the noises to mice and deer rubbing the velvet off their horns and the lights to practical jokers. The only way to judge for yourself is to stay the night. The cottage is about seven mile north of Loch Rannoch and fourteen miles south of Dalwhinnie. It lies below crags where there is one of the many ‘Prince Charlie’s caves’.”
http://www.rannoch.net/Places.htm

“Ben Alder Cottage is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a ghillie [a gamekeeper employed by a landowner to prevent poaching on his lands, control unwelcome natural predators such as fox or otter and monitor the health of the wildlife.] who hanged himself from the rafters.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Alder