The A9 Phantom Hiker: An Unsourced Highland Tale

A walker in hiking gear stands by the A9 near the Pass of Drumochter, and is gone when a driver pulls over to help. That is the story as it circulates online. It suits the road. Drumochter is the high, bare pass between Perth and Inverness, and winter there is hard. But we could not find the walker anywhere in the record.

What the record actually shows

The A9’s published ghost is a coach, not a walker. In October 2006 the construction firm Tarmac released a “Spooky Roads” survey timed for Halloween. A trade news report dated 31 October 2006 says it ranked the A9 second among Britain’s spookiest roads, behind the M6. The A9 entry was a family travelling north from Pitlochry towards Newtonmore who saw a spectral coach drawn by white horses, with costumed figures. Tarmac said it ranked roads by how clear the sightings were rather than by how many there were.

The Paranormal Database carries what seems to be the same report. It adds that the coachmen wore white wigs, that the family’s son was 12, and that the coach moved along the edge of the road against busy traffic that no other driver seemed to notice. It dates the sighting only as “Unknown - 2000s?”. A 2019 Edinburgh Evening News feature on haunted Scottish roads repeats the coach. It also mentions a man in Victorian dress on horseback at The Mound, between Dornoch and Golspie, on the far northern stretch of the A9. Neither source gives a name or a date for the witnesses.

Older folklore along the road

Older tales near the route are closer in spirit to a roadside walker, though none is a hiker. The Paranormal Database lists a misty white “death bogle” at a crossroads in Pitlochry that tries to grab passers-by, who then die within the year. It also records the Pass of Killiecrankie, where government troops and Jacobite Highlanders fought in July 1689. Folklore there includes soldiers seen on the battlefield and a tall white figure that reaches for travellers on the roads. These are traditional stories with no dated witnesses.

The history behind the legend

The road itself has a long history. General Wade’s soldiers built a military road between Dunkeld and Inverness between 1727 and 1730, over the same high ground. The modern A9 was largely rebuilt from Bridge of Allan to Inverness in the 1970s and 1980s. The Perth to Inverness section regularly appears in lists of Scotland’s most dangerous roads. Average speed cameras came into use in late 2014. A programme to dual the road began in 2015 and is now due to finish in 2035.

People have died on the A9, mostly in traffic collisions. We found no source that ties a particular death, of a walker or anyone else, to a ghost story at Drumochter. Earlier versions of this page implied one. We think it is wrong to attach a ghost to real victims without evidence.

How to read it

The figure who stands by the road and is gone when you stop is a type found all over the world, like the phantom hitchhiker. On a long, tiring road with poor light, a walker glimpsed and then missed on the turn back is easy to imagine. The A9 hiker may be a recent invention, or a local tale that never reached print. As things stand it is unsourced folklore, and the A9’s one documented ghost report is the 2006 coach. If you have a first-hand account or a printed source, we would like to add it.

Sources

• Hub-4, “Tarmac has found Britain’s spookiest road”, 31 October 2006 - report of the 2006 survey ranking the A9 second, with the Pitlochry to Newtonmore coach
• Edinburgh Evening News, “8 of Scotland’s creepiest haunted roads and bridges”, 27 May 2019 - A9 coach and the rider at The Mound
• The Paranormal Database, Perth and Kinross (entries #7021 Ornate Coach, #5473 Death Bogle and #1214 Killiecrankie) - folklore catalogue
• Wikipedia, A9 road (Scotland) - Wade’s road, the 1970s and 1980s rebuild, safety record and dualling