In his Legends of the Cairngorms, Affleck Gray provides a detailed story of what happened at the bothy. In summary, we are told that on the evening of 2nd January 1800, the calm, frosty weather that had prevailed their first two days there was replaced by a terrific storm that continued with unabated fury until the afternoon of the 4th. The whole district was covered with a blanket of deep snow and when the hunting party didn't return at the expected time, a scout was sent the next morning to determine why.
On arrival at the site where the bothy had previously stood, he could find no trace of it but the site was covered with snow to a depth of several feet. He quickly returned with the news and on the following day a work party returned to the scene. They began to clear away the snow and had made substantial progress when darkness fell and they had to return home for the night. They returned the following day and when the site was finally cleared of snow they found the bothy completely demolished. The bodies of the hunting party were discovered thus -- Ballachroan was lying on his face in a heather pallet; Donald Grant and John MacPherson were lying on another pallet with their arms stretched over each other; Donald MacGillivray was in a sitting position on the floor reaching toward his foot as if to be removing his shoes. Duncan MacPharlane's body was found two months later by another hunter some three hundred yards from the bothy site. It was lying in a snow drift with one hand pointing upwards.
The assumption was that MacPharlane had been standing when an avalanche struck the bothy and had been carried away with the walls and roof of the building; the others had been lying or sitting and had been shielded by the base of the bothy walls. The debris of the bothy was carried for a distance of four hundred yards or so and part of the roof nearly a mile. The party's guns were found mangled by the stones and timber of the building.
The hunter's bodies were placed in rough coffins that the party had brought with them, which suggests that rescuers had expected the worst. It is generally known that Glen Tromie was subject to terrific avalanches in snowstorms and cited several other examples to illustrate the phenomena. Perhaps that is why the area is known as Gaidhig dhubh nam feadan fiar -- 'Dark Gaick of the twisted ravines'. A cairn was erected on the site in 1902. A visit to the site provides a sense of what might have happened to the party. The cairn stands in the centre of an area strewn with rubble which may be that of the ruined bothy and the avalanche. Behind it rears a 'twisted' ravine that may well have been the one that spawned the avalanche that demolished the Black Officer and his companions at Kingussie.