National Park After Dark - Lore and Lingering Spirits: Haunted National Park Trails

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Bring all of your hiking gear, plenty of water, and a ghost meter as we travel to various haunted trails in Channel Islands, Rocky Mountain, Indiana Dunes, Grand Canyon and Great Smoky Mountains.NPAD is featured on @Stitcher's second annual True Crime Week. You can listen to our show and all the other True Crime Week podcasts on the Stitcher app or at stitcher.com/discover #StitcherTrueCrimeWeekFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!BetterHelp: Take charge of your mental health. NPAD listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/NPADApostrophe: Save $15 off your first visit with a board-certified dermatologist at apostrophe.com/NPADFor a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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People travel from all over the world to see national parks. The immense beauty these regions of the world hold are incomparable to anywhere else on the planet. From rolling mountains and cascading waterfalls, deep canyons and enormous support, Coyah trees, to massive snow-cap mountains and beautiful shorelines. These places are little slices of heaven on earth. We head to these destinations in awe of their magnificence, ready for the adventure that is to come. We head deep into the wilderness and with each turn of the trail we are on, we head further and further away from safety. These quiet trails deep in the forest and valleys, inside the canyon walls and shorelines will trick you with their beauty.

They'll lure you in with a promise of beautiful views, incredible wildlife, and adventure. But there are things here that you can't see. These secluded and magical places are where the darkest creatures hide. Here are where the forlorn spirits dwell and the most dangerous legends reside. You've now entered their territory, whether you live or die, on these trails is up to them. Welcome to National Park After Dark. I've been waiting all year for this.

It is spooky season. Happy October to kick off spooky season because I think this, I think collectively we can all say that this is one of our favorite seasons. We want to start it up with a fun spooky giveaway that we're going to be having posted on our Instagram. We have partnered with four other small businesses

that are chock full of creative and talented artists that have a lot of fun, spooky themed prizes to give away. And we are so stoked to be a part of this giveaway for everybody to kick off the season right. So on our Instagram, we're going to have a post that will link to all of their pages. Go check them out. All the rules and guidelines for entering the giveaway, if you so choose, will be there. The giveaway is going to be running from October 4th.

And the winner will be announced on October 11th. So go on to our Instagram. Check out the rules. We're super stoked. We're going to start spooky season off on a really good note. We are starting this podcast out this month with some spooky haunted hiking trails around the national parks. I can't even wait. I have my haunted candle.

I have my mood lighting. Your haunted candle. And I'm ready for some ghost stores. I mean, the candle itself is. from World Market, and I don't think they're haunted. But the little candle holder got from an antique store, and it definitely has some history to it. So I'm just going to say it's haunted, and it's staying here while you tell me all the stories. We are kicking off spooky season, but we're also going to be doing for the entire month of October. We're going to have spooky themed, and we're not the only ones on this train. If you head over to the Stitcher app,

They are kicking off the spookiest month of the year with the creepiest and crawliest true crime podcasts. You can listen to us on there and you can also find other true crime podcasts like Stephen King, Strawberry Spring, and the super creepy, Strangeville, and it's all free. Also, when you go right on their homepage, you're going to see us right there next to a bunch of other cool true crime podcast. So you can find your next true crime pod obsession while you're on there. you can go download the Stitcher app or you can just go to stitcher.com. So how many parks are we going to?

Like what's this episode about? Are we, so we're bopping around places? Yes. So essentially for this episode, what I've done is I have created a bunch of recommended trails in different hikes that you can find yourselves and go on and hike to them. And I have a series of haunted stories filled with ghosts and different lore that are hiding within these trails. Yes. This is like one of the best ideas you've ever had. Well, it's actually funny because I had this idea in my head and then I went to a bookstore because

I have been reading so many books because of this podcast. And I found this book. It is called Haunted Hikes by Marin Horace. It is a book entirely of state parks, national parks, and national forests that are haunted or have some type of cryptid there, just some paranormal thing is happening on these trails. And it kind of set up like short stories and then it tells you about the trail and how long they are and what you need to do to prepare on them. So I thought it was a really, really cool book. So I got a lot of my ideas from this book, but I ended up doing further research to get

more of a deep dive into all of these stories elsewhere. but the inspiration is from this book. After you've been reading it and going into it, are any of them places you've been? I've been to some of the parks. I have not been on the hikes. There are some hikes that I've been on inside the book, but the stories I found today, I have not been on the trails before. Okay.

Are you ready to get into this? Absolutely. I've never been more ready. October's the best season of the year, hands down, or best month, I should say. It's like October is a season. It is. October is a season. For sure, especially.

Especially in New England, like if anyone is from New England, you know exactly what we're talking about. The leaves are starting to change. There's just something in the air. Everyone just is happier, I think. I don't know. It's just a warm, nice feeling as the season's changing and things get creepy and I'm ready to be, am I going to be scared or is it? Am I going to be nervous? I have a bunch of different stories.

So I feel like you're going to have a lot of different feelings here. Okay. Let's do it. Well, the first park that we're heading to is a park that. that we have never visited before. And we are going to Channel Islands National Park. Ooh, California. Also a national park that is very high on,

it's on my list. I know my list is long. We'll add it, I'm just gonna put it out there. It's still on my list. I can't with you. We get it. Like, okay, just so everyone is aware, Cassie is three hours ahead of me.

And a couple nights ago at like 11 o'clock my time. So it's well, into the early morning hours. Cassie is sending me links about national parks in the Middle East. She's like, we got to go. It's on the list. I'm like, okay, can you wait? Hold on a minute. Like, it's first of all, it's 2 a.m.

where you are, so calm down. I can't go to my best thinking. Okay, so Channel Islands. Anyway, we're going to Channel Islands. And I want to introduce you to Channel Islands National Park. It is located in California and it's located off the coast of Santa Barbara.

It consists of five out of the eight Channel Islands and it covers 249,561 acres. The islands were originally established as a national monument in 1938, but then later it turned into a national park on March 5, 1980. As well as the islands being a national park, six nautical miles around the Channel Islands have been designated as a national marine sanctuary, where the marine life around it is protected. there are over 2,000 different types of species of flora and fauna on the islands, there are also 145 of these species that are found nowhere else on the planet. Some of these include the

island fox, a bright blue bird known as the island scrub jay, and the spotted skunk. San Miguel is one of the smaller of the eight islands covering 9,325 acres. It is 8 miles long and 3.7 miles wide. It is one of the least visited of the islands with less than 200 people visiting every year. Less than 200? Mm-hmm. Not many people head out here. And it's also where our haunted trail is going to take place today. The first European to ever set foot on San Miguel Island was a man by the name of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.

He was a Portuguese explorer who ventured out that way to find what the Spaniards believed was a hidden city that existed there. They had left from Mexico on June 27, 1542, and it took them three months to arrive to the islands. They stopped here to rest from their journey and explore the islands, and he ended up sailing north. He was actually one of the first explorers to explore California's coast. And by the time autumn came around, because he headed out in June, by the time autumn came around, the storm started to roll in. and because of the turbulent weather that was there, him and his crew decided that they were going to stay for the winter on San Miguel Island. Somewhere along the way, during his stay on the island, he was injured. Some speculate that he was attacked from natives who were living in the region.

But when you research it, it's more likely that he fell on some of the jagged rocks of the island, where he hit his shin bone and broke it clean in half. I can feel that. You know, when you like hit your shin or your ankle just the right way and you're like, that's it. I can't move for the rest of it. And you think that's the worst. But he broke it clean in half. And I'm sure modern medicine, circa 1580, whatever wasn't the greatest.

Yeah. What medicine? It took only a week for him to get gangrene. And two weeks later, he died. on January 3rd, 1543. But on his deathbed, he cursed the island, yelling that if anyone were to try and claim his island as their own, they would die a violent and horrible death. The audacity, honestly.

I know. He's like, this is mine, even though he went there and there were already people living there. It's like, this is mine for all of eternity. And didn't he go thinking there was already some sort of city there? Yeah. And then he found the island. Yeah, come on. But it's rumored that when he died, his crew buried him in an undisclosed location on the island inside of a casket, and he was fully dressed in his armor.

And along with his armor, he was buried with his jeweled sword. In April of that year, his crew returned to the island where they placed a plaque in his honor. In the years following his death, there were six shipwrecks from explorers attempting to visit. and claim the island as their own. It also should be noted that the waters surrounding the island are filled with great white sharks, and no one survived any of these wrecks. Ooh. A man who moved to the island in 1930 named Robert Brooks lived there with his wife for several years. And at one point, he decided to proclaim himself as the king of San Miguel, and shortly after, committed suicide. Juan Cabrillo has several monuments and historical

sites named after him up the California coastline and California even celebrates him on September 28th as Cabrillo Day. If you go out to the island and you hike along the Point Bennett Trail, a roughly 16-mile there and back trail that will lead you to Kire Harbor where Wands Memorial is, you might get a chance to meet him yourself. Hikers and campers, although you do need a reservation to camp, have reported seeing a ghost wearing armor and holding a jeweled sword roaming around the meadows of the trail.

And while he doesn't seem to bother anyone who visits, never claim his island as your own, or you too may be bound to a horrible death. I don't know if I'd want to run into him just based on his attitude, you know? Like, I don't like this, dude. I don't. I kind of, I don't know why this should,

just reminded me of this, but, um, because it has little to nothing to do with that story. Okay. But, but, well, you said jeweled sword and they buried it in an undisclosed location on the island, which, so I'm assuming it has not, his burial location has not been located or found. No. Right. Right. Are you familiar with Marie Antoinette's lost necklace?

No, I'm not. It's in New Hampshire, in southern New Hampshire, in Nashua. What? Supposedly. And there's a whole story behind it. SparkNotes version. She was being led or her transport and some of her things were being transported from one location to another by some French Canadians or something.

And along the way, it was in two people were in charge of it and some shit went down. and some of her stuff was buried in a location, which is now near Nashua, New Hampshire, and the only person who knew where that was got killed or died. So her necklace, like, thought to be worth millions and millions of dollars, is allegedly on the shores of this lake in southern New Hampshire. A mile from our house that we grew up in millions of dollars, just, like, buried in the ground. Just sitting there. I feel another treasure hunt.

Where's the poem? I know everyone's going to be fiercely Googling it. But I definitely may or may not have been to that location a couple of times. I read about it in a book, of course, Lost Treasures of New England. So I went to that lake and it's a developed, there's like houses around it now and it's private. Okay. So you can't really dig around there. Yeah.

It's in someone's backyard. Yeah, and they don't even know. It's like I'm doing you a favor. I'll toss you a couple mill. All right. Just let me come poke around. Very kind of you. But yeah, it just reminded me when you said his jeweled sword.

Because how cool is that? He's just like sitting there on the island somewhere. And many people have reported seeing him. So you certainly, if you are one of the 200 people who head out to this island this year or next year, you might run into him. Am I going to like the next ghost better? He's at the bottom of the list so far. He's the first one, so there's not much of the list. Okay.

but I'm going to rank them at the end. Okay. Actually, I think you'll like this next one. So for the next story, we are going to head into Rocky Mountain National Park, which happens to have quite a few hauntings, and this one does not include the Stanley Hotel at all. Oh, okay. So just a slight little introduction to the Rocky Mountain National Park.

We've already done an episode on it. So just a little one, Rocky Mountain National Park is located in Colorado, and it's about 75 miles northwest of Denver. It was established as a national park in 1915, and it is the third most visited park with over 4 million visitors every year. The park is well known for its rocky mountain peaks and also its abundance of wildlife. It also has a location called the Mummy Range, which is located in the park and is in the Rocky Mountain Range. It is a short sub-range of the mountains with averaging elevations of around 13,000 feet. I've never been to this part of the park.

He'll probably want to go after healy this story, actually. William Clyde Currants moved Estes Park, Colorado from Nebraska in 1883. He was quickly given the name Old Miner Bill. Bill came to Estes Park because he was convinced that there was gold and mining to be done in the mummy range. Bill's welcome inside the town was short-lived because he'd be able to be. began to talk about all these wild occurrences he claimed to be happening there. And the people there were not so sure about him. They didn't know if he was eccentric and just a little odd, or if he was just

plainly insane. And one day in December, 1904, the citizens were so fed up and tired of his stories of these weird, strange things happening inside the area, which was not a park at the time. They brought him to the Montezuma County Jail because of some wild outbursts that he was having. What kind of outbursts are these? He was saying things like there were these strange ghosts and creatures inside the parks and he would go on and on about them and the people in the town were like, you're crazy, there's nothing out there. Ah, okay.

So inside the jail, a doctor came and examined him, and he determined that not only was minor Bill insane, but he was the most insane person that he had ever met in his entire career. Now in 1904, his prescription to fix this was that Bill would have both of his hands and feet bound and he would be committed. That's horrific. And also I use the term insane because this was what the doctor was saying was he's insane. There's no diagnosis of what's going on. He just deemed him as insane.

This is the same time frame that doctors prescribed cocaine for everything. It's like, oh, well, you got a cold, hear some Coke. The good old days. The good old days. Oh, my God. So at his commitment meeting, they decided that he was definitely insane because witnesses from the town came forward and spoke of how he talked about astrology and divine things. So he was labeled absolutely insane, and he ended up committed for five years before he was released. He'd just born in the wrong time.

Like he would just be so quote unquote normal now. Like everyone, here we are talking about the same things that I'm sure he was spouting off about. We'd be committed. We'd be committed. Oh, I don't even want to know what would happen to me if I was born a couple hundred years ago. But either way, minor bill, I feel like he's a kinder spirit. I like him already. I thought you might.

So he ended up committed for five years before he was released. And as soon as he was released, he headed straight back into the Rocky Mountain National Park, which at the time was not established as a park yet. And it was actually known as Horseshoe Park. And he went back there to continue his mining expedition that he had been on, which at this point was also a reason that people, thought he was insane because geologists had come into the area and tested the rock and found no evidence of gold at all. But Bill paid no attention to this and he continued his own mining. He was

cutting down trees and he was actually building his own little roads to get back and forth to the areas. When the park was later established as a national park in 1915, a park ranger visit him and told him that he could no longer cut down trees but mentioned nothing of continuing to mine. When the Park Service built Fall River Road, which is still in the park today, Bill became angry and said it would interfere with his work, so he put up a barbed wire fence across the roadway. He was shortly arrested by the Park Service, obviously, and then he was eventually allowed to return to the area

if he promised that he would not put up a fence again, which he promised. Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, the town was finding him more and more odd because he was still telling stories, and he was telling stories that they found completely unbelievable. He would tell stories of strange footprints, ghosts, and monsters that lived up inside of the mountains. And most notably, of all these things, he continuously would talk about what he called the blue mist. He told people that every so often, a huge mass of blue fog would hang over the valley of the park,

and then it would disappear. He said he would often watch this happen from his cabin on me. Mount Chapman and then he would head down to take a closer look to see what was going on. What he would find when he got there were giant three-toed footprints, bigger than any animal he had ever seen. And always near these footprints he would find animal remains. But these were animal remains like anything he had seen before. These animal bones were scraped clean, like something from out of this world and it always happened during the time of the blue mist.

So we're talking aliens. Maybe. I thought you were going to say something along the lines of Bigfoot, like spending a lot of time deep into the forest and I don't know. I don't know. Who says Bigfoot doesn't have three toes? I don't know. I just feel like the mist associated with it as well as the way that the animals are found,

like the remains are found, like scraped clean and stuff. it seems very surgical to me. It's not like an animal is eating meat. You know animals leave behind things and these bones are scraped clean. Right. So he was telling the people of the town what was going on here, but they wrote him off as a crazy old hermit in the woods. Because I mean already he had been committed to a facility before for five years,

so they had already just assumed that he was the crazy guy hanging out in the mountains. At some point during this time, old Bill stopped visiting. the town and people noticed and they decided that they wanted to send up a group of people to the cabin to go check on him when they got to his cabin at the front steps of it they found old bill his remains on the ground his bones licked clean and a giant three-toed footprint beside him this is your this isn't real this is the story I found what many different higher points along the park have reported seeing the blue mist for themselves Okay, so his story is being corroborated. Mm-hmm. And I'm guessing nothing else came of his remains. Like, no one. No one knew what happened.

Okay, well, I do. Um, if I may. Um, so he, he was obviously observing a lot of activity from otherworldly beings for a long time. And he just happened to maybe know too much. and they were like, you got to go. And that was that. But actually, I don't know. I'm already caught.

I already don't know because I think that for the most part, aliens might be, I wouldn't say friendly, but also not like killing people and licking their bones clean or whatever. Like, I feel like they would just take him. Like, why would they leave him like that? Yeah, there's a lot of evidence being left behind there of their presence if it was aliens. And a footprint that. they're better than that. They're not that sloppy, you know. All right, so we're off the alien train.

I think. That thought is gone now. It's gone now and I don't have a backup. So where do I go from here? What do you think? I don't know. Part of me, I'm like, well, maybe there's this mysterious creature out there. So the blue mist has been seen, but not really anything regarding the footprints that you read about. I didn't read anything more about the footprints, but the blue mist is something that hikers will go out onto this trail and they've reported seeing. Okay. Very interesting.

I have no other theories. I have no theory. I just talk myself out of my only one. So that's that on that. But I do really like him. I think that he was definitely seeing something, whether or not he was seeing something legitimate or not, or if it was something that was in his mind. He wasn't treated.

Something in his mind lick his bones clean? I don't know. I don't know. The story's throwing me for a loop. You know, maybe it's something we've never even heard of or seen or has been discovered yet, you know? Yeah, I guess. Maybe you guys know. Maybe you guys have some insight on this.

What has three toes? That's also not real. Okay. First. Okay. Second article. Three-toed footprints found in New Hampshire. They're here.

Oh, no. Oh, my God. There's a picture of it. Oh, my God. Is that it? I don't know. It's really big, though. What has three toes in New Hampshire?

Chickens. Okay, I'm going to go down a hole. Okay, here's another one, northern Idaho. This one looks like pointier toes, though. Yeah. They're not as rounded. I was picturing them pointy in my head, but I really don't know. Okay, go to the next story.

Okay. The next story also takes place in Colorado in Rocky Mountain National Park. And we are going to head to Spirit Lake. So Spirit Lake and Rocky Mountain National Park can be accessed on a there and back 15.7 mile trail called the East Inlet Trail. On this trail, you will pass a few other lakes, waterfalls, mountain views, wildlife, and marshlands before you get there. While this picturesque trail makes for a fantastic summer or fall hike, it also carries a daunting history. The Ute Native people are the oldest residents of Colorado. and expand to Utah, Wyoming, northern New Mexico, and Arizona.

Ute's at one time lived entirely off of the land with a deep appreciation for the area's ecosystem. The Ute people had set camp up along the shorelines of Spirit Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park long before it was ever a national park. The story goes, on one summer day, storm clouds rolled in, bringing this ominous green cloud and the promise of bad west. As the tribes prepared their shelters for the storm that was coming in, warriors from the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes surrounded them. They began to shoot hundreds of arrows into their camp, and being outnumbered and caught off guard, and in an effort to save their women and children, they put all of them on rafts and into the water of Spirit Lake. The storm rolled in, bringing thunder, lightning, and torrential downpours with extreme winds.

The battle between the tribes continued on throughout the entire storm and the night. The following morning, when the Ute chief looked out onto the lake for the women and children, he found something devastating. The raft they had sent them all out on was destroyed, and the remains of floating wood littered the center of the lake, but it was quiet. There was no one in the lake, and every single one of them had drowned that night. Oh, no. The Ute people told stories of seeing their spirits in a fog swirling above the water.

The chief then vowed to take his tribe away from this location, and they were completely gone by the 1870s. Visitors to this area, especially in the morning, will report seeing their ghosts hanging above the water. And in the wintertime, people that step out onto the lake will hear from below the ice the sounds of women and children screaming. This is terrifying. Really? Terrifying if you're out there. I mean, this is miles and miles away from anything. Well, you said 15.

It's a 15 mile hike. There and back. So you're like seven miles out. Yeah. What a horrific and horrendous story. Thank you. You're welcome. Well, because like the sentiment behind it's like they were trying to save them, you know?

And then in turn, obviously. the weather took a turn and there wasn't too much hope for them, but that's really, really sad. I've never heard of that before. Yeah, there's quite a few haunting stories around the Rocky Mountain National Park area, and that one I thought was particularly scary because when I read it, I put myself out, because I go hiking all the time and I like winter hiking. And I can just imagine if you're standing on a frozen lake and you just hear screaming and it sounds like it's coming from underneath you.

I'm just picturing what you would do in that situation. Like you would search, right? You would freak out. You would be like digging in the snow. You'd be searching around. You'd be trying to find these people and then to find out that it's a goat. Oh, it would just be so eerie. And if you knew the history and heard it, even worse.

Arguably. So if you want to terrify yourself, go out onto this hike. Make sure you're packed and prepared because it's a long hike and in the wilderness. of the Rockies, but you can certainly head out there. I would never be out there on that lake in the winter. I don't do that. I don't go on frozen services. No.

No way. It's not worth it. Even if they're like, this ice is seven feet thick, you're fine. Like, that, you're lying. And I feel like something bad's going to happen. See, I'm the opposite. I'm like, great. Cool.

I'm out. I know. There's so many pictures you frolicing on frozen lake. I'm like, what the f... What are you doing? I can't even argue. Go on. So that is my haunting stories in Rocky Mountain National Park.

And we're going to move on to another park. We're going to go to Indiana Dunes National Park. One I have not been to. Me either. And it's pretty recent that it became a national park, actually. Indiana Dunes National Park is located in northwestern part of Indiana. And it was originally established as a national lake shore. in 1966, but it was very recently designated as the United States 61st National Park on February 5th, 2019.

Ooh, yeah. Okay. This park is situated smack dab in between Chicago and Michigan City, which might sound a little bit weird because national parks are generally somewhere a little bit more remote, but this park is beautiful. This park encompasses 15,349 acres and 20 miles of Lake Michigan seashore. The shores are filled with beautiful beaches, wetlands, ancient forests, and towering sand dunes. This park also has a lot of hiking trails. One of these trails is named the Dune Succession Trail. This is a 1.1 mile trail that takes you through the dunes on a wooden walkway, filled with beautiful views and staircases.

One climb of 250 stairs will bring you to a view of Lake Michigan and Chicago. This trail is not only beautiful, but it is haunted by a woman who has been named Diana of the Dunes. Diana of the Dunes real name was Alice Mabel Gray. She was born in Chicago in 1881 and she grew up there. And she was extremely intelligent. At the age of only 16, she attended the University of Chicago where she got her bachelor's. degree and had notable mentions in astronomy, math, Greek, and Latin. Eventually, she ended up continuing her education in Germany where she became fluent in multiple languages before she

ended up returning home. When she returned home to Chicago, she got a job working as a stenographer, and she hated it. Is stenography map making? You know, I thought it sounded like it would be cool because I didn't know what it was. A stenographer is literally, you know, those people in courtrooms that type everything that you're saying. Yeah. That was her job. Oh, why did I think, is map making cartography? I think maybe that sounds better.

Yeah. Why did I think? And they have those really weird little machines that it's all shorthand. Well, this is back when it was like typewriters, too, I think, because this was a long time ago. So her job, I read conflicting stories of exactly where she worked, but one of them said that she worked at the University of Chicago and her job was to literally just type what people said. And remind you, she has a bachelor's degree, a master degree. She's fluent in multiple languages. So how did she end up there?

What led her to that decision? It didn't, my research didn't go into exactly how she got there, but it did talk about. how upset she was at the job, and she felt that in this time period, the amount of education that she received versus the job that the world was willing to give her as a woman was infuriating. And she also hated the concept of labor for small income, and she hated the thought that she had to maintain her life with a constant effort within a job that she hated to afford to live. Hello. Hello. You're speaking to the choir, Diana. that's like I also don't agree with labor and for a very small return yeah like she just hated the concept of nine to five jobs and working for a little return and just working so you can eat and survive she was really struggling with it and even at one point which I think is kind of a controversial saying because it wasn't this but she did refer to it as she felt like it was slavery to treat her that way but

at the same time in this time period she was a woman who was being looked down upon because she was a woman and wasn't getting fair jobs and so she definitely had a point where it wasn't fair. During this time and during school and for years she had been going to the sand dunes frequently to kind of get away. It was her place of solitude. She loved it there. So meanwhile during this time that she was working, the Indiana dunes had actually been labeled as a wasteland by the steel mill and power plant developers in the area. And an industrial company had acquired the land in the area around 1905 and were beginning to build a huge production facility there. By 1909, conservation efforts had started to try and preserve the land. And people were upset with what

they were building there. And by 1910, Alice had began speaking publicly about the importance of the conservation of the area and she was kind of involved with the conservation efforts. In October of 1915, Alice was 34 years old at the time and she decided that she was completely sick of the conventional life. She hated her job. She hated her lifestyle. So she up in one day, quit her job and moved into the sand dunes. They're not a built area. There's no towns there. There's no one living there. She decided that she wanted to live a much, simpler life and she went there with only a few of her possessions and she moved by herself into a small abandoned shack that was on the beach so she was very fed up

that's like an extreme yeah fed up not just coming home and complaining about your day over and over it's really like I have had enough and I'm completely changing my life she's like this is unfair I hate it I hate this I don't want to and she's intelligent she's she resourceful she deserves to have a different lifestyle that she's living and she feels that and she's like i'm done i'm i'm out of here we're going we're going to where i love to be the most and her intention while she was here was that she wanted to live simply and write during her days there so she actually when she got there she began to use her time to study the ecological systems and the flora and

fauna of the area she would spend time walking to a local library that wasn't too too far away and she would often go in there to read books and research things on her own about the area. And then she would also walk and hike along the beach and kind of observe things in real time as well. While she was living there, she made her furniture out of driftwood and she ate fish and berries to survive. So she was fishing, collecting berries, harvesting any plants around the area and just living very, very simply. Word soon got out to the public of her life. because people would report seeing this beautiful woman skinny dipping in the lake or running along the beach. She is living the life.

She is. She's just a little free spirit out there. And this is in the 30s? No, this is like 19, 1915. I don't know why I thought the 30s, but okay. So around that time. This is 1915. I mean, women in this time period, they were not thought of as free spirits.

She was very past her time and at this point women were married. They had children. They were housewives. They didn't get, you know, I mean, they weren't even late. Women weren't even allowed to vote at this time. You know, women really weren't thought of as independent beings. This was huge to see this woman skinny dipping and running around a beach and hearing her living on her own out there. So the media soon got word of her life as this hermit and little.

off the land and people started traveling from all over to see her and to interview her. She became extremely famous within the media and they started labeling her as weird things like nympho of the dunes because of her being seen naked and then they also called her a mermaid. She was almost like this mythical creature that people were infatuated with and I thought it was so not funny but ironic that they would assume because she's naked they would call her call her a nympho. It's like, she's literally by herself. She's just, she's just trying to be free. Like, why does she need clothes in the summer alone on a beach? Well, it kind of reminds me of the baroness from the Galapagos episode we just did of how the media kind of took her

eccentric lifestyle that everyone was so taken aback by for the times that being coming from a woman, and just kind of twisting it and amplifying it into this different type of story just because they're not fitting the box of what women were like back then or supposed to be like. So yeah, kind of just reminded me of that. It did for me too when I was researching it. With these names, they also ended up giving her the nickname Diana of the Dunes, which is what really stuck. And they named her after Diana, the Roman goddess of wildlife.

During these interviews that she would do with the media, she would talk about her life and what she was doing there. But she also really emphasized how important protecting the dunes were and the devastating side effects that industries were having on them. And she actually used her fame that she had gotten to bring awareness of why the dunes should be protected. And she fought really hard in these statements to say it needs to become a state park because we need to protect it. and we need to prevent any development on it. And she began doing these public speeches, and she even did a public speech at the Art Institute in Chicago for tons of people. And she was really the person that made people care about the dunes.

Her efforts ended up being the direct reason why it later became a state park. She didn't live to see the park become a national lakeshore, though, in the 1960s or become a national park. She ended up dying of kidney failure in 1925 after living inside the dunes for over nine years. It was said that when Alice died, she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered inside the park, but instead, she was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery with no tombstone. So she has no tombstone right now? No, she has no tombstone, but she was buried next to some people that she knew. she had a lover at some point and ended up being buried next to his family was an article that I read.

Oh. Because I would have thought that if she was so instrumental in the protection efforts for this area, that maybe there would have been some sort of even like a memorial, but that's incredible to use your fame for something like that. Like not to shame the baroness, but she didn't really do much with what was going on. She was just fun. She was just fun and trying to get people to come to an island for a hotel. She was trying to get started. Like this is a much more notable, worthwhile cause, something that's going to outlive you.

You know, it's not for you. It's for the planet and for others to enjoy this little piece of the planet that she really loved. And it is believed that because of her love for the dunes and because she loved it so much that her spirit actually remains there. visitors have reported seeing Diana over the years. People will report seeing a naked woman running along the beaches before disappearing into the water, or sometimes there's been reports of a small glimpse of her across from a campfire. A happy spirit. Okay, she's my number one now. A happy spirit. And today you can honor Diana. Today you can actually visit the park and participate in what is called Diana's dare. And this is a challenge that starts in the West Beach parking lot of the park, and it

dares you to travel in the same footsteps as Diana and see the park with the same eyes that she did. It brings you through the Dune Succession Trail, West Beach, and Long Lake Trail for a total of 3.4 miles. And the park encourages you to become one with nature while you're out there, to take a step back from reality and really listen. to the nature around you and to see the value of preserving it, just like Diana did. And when you finish the challenge, you'll be gifted with a sticker from the National Park Service. That is the coolest thing I've ever heard. That's whoever came up with that idea, Bravo.

Because what a way to honor someone that did so much for the park, but also a way for, like you said, like take a step back in time. Like I can imagine us going there and like putting our phones away, putting our cameras away, and just really being enveloped in the park and how she viewed it. Like obviously early 1900s, you don't have the stuff we have now. And you just become more aware and appreciative of what's around you. And I think that a lot of times, even now in national parks, I mean, we're guilty of it too. We go there. We see something. We're like, oh, my God, I want to take a picture.

or I want to show this to someone back home and we're so quick to, you know, take a picture or be sucked out of the moment, even if it's briefly. But I think that would be a really cool way to take a step back in time. Yeah. And part of it too is they're trying to continue Diana's legacy where she was trying to make people see the importance of the park and why you should preserve it. So part of their whole hike with the challenge is look at it the way that Diana did really pay attention. to it because when you care about this park, you're going to care about preserving it. And that's their whole thing with it. And I thought that was such a fun thing.

And it made me want to visit Indiana Dunes National Park more. Like it hasn't been, I mean, it's pretty recently a new park. And it hasn't been on like the forefront of my list of places to go. But now that I know this cool history that lives there, I'm like, oh, let's go. That would be so cool. Yeah, that's awesome. What a cool story. And I do have more stories.

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Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. The next park we're going to is Grand Canyon National Park. We have done an episode on this, so I'll just do a tiny little introduction into the park. The Grand Canyon is located in northwestern Arizona. It was established as a park on February 26, 1919. And it is the second most visited park in the entire country next to the Great Smoky Mountains. The park covers 1,217,262 acres.

and a big feature inside this park is the Colorado River, which runs through the bottom of this canyon. And while the park is this grand destination for hiking trails, some of them are certainly more difficult than others. For this haunted hike, we're heading deep into the National Park onto a trail that is for experts only, and you will need to plan to have permits and backpack there if you want to do the trail. The Tanner and Beamer Trail connect to make a 30.8 mile out and back trail. While the Tanner portion of the trail is more moderate but has several different steep sections to it, the Beamer portion of the trail is a much bigger beast. With no water sources, cliff edges with over 1,000 foot drops and narrow trails,

you will need to do plenty of research before you attempt this hike. But the effort that's put into this hike into the backcountry will be rewarded with incredibly beautiful views of the park. And it's also the only place that you can see the crash site of United Airlines Flight 718. Finally, you're doing a plane story. I know. When I researched it, I'm like, wow. Danielle hasn't covered this one yet. Honestly, it's not intentional.

And I'm now intentionally avoiding air accidents, aircraft, any sort of. any hot air balloons. They are, but Cassie will tell it. So. Okay. It was June 30th, 1956 when the last radio transmission came in from the aircraft. Salt Lake, United 718, and then static. Ah, we're going in. Pull up, pull up. Could be heard in the background. And then the transmission cut out. Just a few minutes before the plane had collided with another aircraft. And was now spiraling towards the Grand Canyon. It had lost part of its left wing, had significant damage to the engine, and the tail broke off the plane entirely. When it crashed into Choir Butte, a 6,500-foot elevation summit on the east rim, everyone died. The second aircraft lost

its tail end and lost all control. It went into a nose dive towards the canyon at over 480 miles per hour before it crashed and killed every person on board. It crashed into the northeast slope of the Temple Butte, a 5,308 foot landmark on the east rim of the park. It disintegrated with its impact, instantly killing every single person on the plane. In total, 128 people were killed in this crash, making it at the time the worst airline disaster in U.S. history. Because of how remote the crash was, it took teams of Swiss mountaineers, military personnel, river guides, and hikers to finally locate the crash site. When they did, less than 30 of the 128 passengers remains were identifiable because of the impact of the crash and the fires afterwards. And to this day, some of the aircraft remains at the crash site. Over the years, hikers in this area

have reported strange happenings and even suspect that the victims of the crash might still be there. During the night, campers have reported seeing over a hundred single lights that look like a group of people in a single file line hiking through the canyon, and then later they find out that no one was ever there. Some hikers report seeing lights in the area around the crash site, but the site isn't accessible by foot, and there's no roads or possible way that anyone could get there. One ranger inside of the park reported seeing a group of a dozen people or so dressed in city clothing, hiking out of the canyon, between Temple and Chouar Butes. When she tried to get closer to see what was going on, they disappeared. It's always so interesting when accounts like this, whether it's paranormal or just something unexplained come from employees, whether it's someone that works at a hotel or a park service employee

or just someone that's connected to the space in some way. It seems a little more credible in some way, but to hear a park ranger, who is familiar with the area to say that they saw this huge group of people. Like, who would that be? And also this hike is over 30 miles long. It's extremely difficult. You need gear. And to see a group of people dressed in city clothes that just wouldn't happen out here.

That's wild. And I have one more national park on my list that I wanted to check off for this episode. And we are going to head to Great Smoky Mountains. National Park. And we already covered this one as well, but just a little brief introduction to this one as well. The Great Smoky Mountain National Park is located in southeastern Tennessee and is the most visited of all of the national parks with 12.5 million visitors every single year. Inside the park, there are the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains, and this area has a long history of Cherokee indigenous people living there, long before settlers discovered it in the

1700s. They were living off of the lands here and also among the strange creatures that live in the forest. I just like gave you the eyes. I just like, erase my eyebrows. Yeah, I hear like, oh, tell me more. You have my attention. The Cherokee people believe in a terrible ogress by whom they call spear finger. Legend has it that she is a shapeshifter and a woman monster who feeds off of the livers of children. She is able to take form of anyone that she wants to, but her appearance of choice is often an old, gentle-looking woman. Even though her appearance looks weak and fragile, her skin is hard as stone. There is no weapon that can harm her. You would never be able to tell her from another sweet old-looking woman, except for her long forefinger, made of black

obsidian stone. She uses this finger as her weapon. Speerfinger lives and hunts along the trails north of Lake Fontana inside the park where children like to go berry picking. In her sweet grandmotherly way, she will call to children to come closer to her and prop them up onto her lap to comb through their hair. And when they're least expecting it, she will pierce them through the heart and kill them. Then she will take out their livers and eat it. My face just went from smiling in excitement to slowly, slowly turning into a what the, what the hell is this? So this is a native legend. This is a native legend that they have.

Spear finger. You know what kind of reminds me of when you said it's like an older woman, someone gentle, like welcoming, calls to them, sits them down. A siren? No. Well, yes, but hocus pocus. When they're like, oh, yeah. Little children, I'll take the away. And it's like, you know, they're bringing them in,

and they're like nice looking young women. And all the kids are like in this trance, like going down to their house. Yeah. Like that. Speaking of which everyone go watch Hocus Focus. It's October. Hocus Pocus 2 is being filmed back home right now. Wait, really?

Oh, my God. In sale of a mess? Yeah, so they're in New England right now. They're doing a big casting call for extras, and they just went to some of the local antique shops and bought, like, thousands of dollars worth this stuff. Okay. So maybe next year we'll have that little treat.

Cool. I love that. I don't know. I got my reservations because the original is always the best, but. True. I mean, if they have the original cast, though. Okay. Okay.

There's hope. Anyway, back to my story of square finger. I'm just imagining this. Is this the finger? This is the obsidian. Your pointer finger for everyone who can't see you. Okay, spear finger, she's taking livers. What does she do with the rest of the body?

Leave it. It doesn't need them. Oh, okay. I read one story of where she'll even go after adults sometimes, and she stabs you. Actually, I'm not even going to add this into the episode because it's stupid. Why not? Just tell the people. I read this one account of her where she is so fast with her little spear finger, she takes your liver out and you don't even notice it.

And then you walk around until you like die. It's like a chicken with its head cut off. You have like a last couple seconds of... But it sounded like it was like a couple hours. You walk around without a liver and then you just die. I just picture it like she's just like so quick with the... So fast. Yeah.

Yeah. One day on Nolan Creek Trail, a 18.5 mile out and back trail located near Bryson City, North Carolina, and labeled as moderate on the All Trails app, a settler's daughter went missing. The father was distraught, panicked, and headed out onto the trail to find her. When he ventured too far into the deep forest, he was killed. Now, whether or not you believe Spearfinger had killed his daughter, hikers on this trail have reported ever since seeing a lantern floating and guiding lost hikers back to safety into the trailhead. What makes this trail even more eerie are all the old ruins of a once-upon-a-time town that once lived there

and ancient graveyards deep into the woods along this trail. Hikers report eerie feelings and even electronic devices and GPSes will stop working on this trail. So if you head out there, keep a map close and your... children closer. Yeah, I don't like that one. That's probably my least, least favorite. Well, some people theorized that this was a legend that natives came up with to keep their children from wandering off the trails. That's a genius. A genius. Like, tell this story to your children as fact, which I'm skeptical. But, you know, like, they were onto something, for sure. They were onto something. I mean, what's something that your parents told you that, like, stuck with you that isn't real?

Okay. That if you turn the lights. Oh, sorry. No, I'm sorry. Go, go, go, go. That if you turn. Because it might be the same thing. Literally might be the same thing.

Now that you just said turn the lights. Is it turn the lights on in your car? Yes, that if you turn your lights on in the car, it's illegal and police will pull you over. I still think that's real. Is it real? Oh my God. That's so funny because that's the same thing. I don't know.

Me either, but I won't. I won't turn my lights on because I'll. get arrested. I'm like, I can't. It's like a spotlight and they're going to see me and I'm going to be pulled over and be arrested or something. It's like somehow to drive the lights on. Yeah, it's like the little overhead light. But I'm pretty sure that parents tell you that because you keep pressing it and it like blinds you if it's on too long and you can't see the road that well. So I'm pretty sure like parents just say that so you stop pressing the middle light when they're driving. But I'm also not Sure. So. And I also don't do it even when I'm by myself. Like I ignore that. That's even a thing.

I never touch. The only time I use it is if I'm not driving and I need to get something out of my car. That's so funny. We had the same exact one. But the spear finger thing is definitely a little more traumatizing for sure. And apparently it worked because here we are still talking about it. And hope maybe spear finger will work for you and your children at home as well when you're on the trail. If I ever had a kid, that would be my go-to. Just so you know, if you go off trail, there's an old woman. She's going to look nice. She's not nice.

She has a finger that's a rock. And she's going to stab you and take out your liver and you'll die. They're going to be like, what? Oh, my God. A single tear strolling. I feel like, that's right. Stay by my side. Yeah.

Don't leave. Definitely not my favorite of the stories. You've told me just because it is scary. it was real. But Diana, the Dunes is definitely my favorite. She was my favorite one to research, and she actually has a much longer, wider story of all of her conservation efforts. And I actually just bought a book on her. So maybe there's a whole episode coming out about Diana because she's got an entire story that I didn't even touch today. Awesome. Well, I'm looking forward to that, for sure. Yeah. Well, thanks for starting spooky season off on such a good foot. Yeah. And I'm

excited you have some stories for us next week we are continuing the spooky theme for the whole month and they're not all going to be the same we have a lot of different types of spooky things planned we're really really excited for it so this month is going to be big we have not only the spooky stories i'm definitely going to do our monthly bonus story on patreon spooky themes as well but we also have some other things, non-just episode related that we have planned, that can't wait to share with you. Other than that, though, I think that's it for today. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back.

Maybe spearfingers back there. Gonna get you. Gonna get you live up. Okay, we have to go. I'm turning off my spooky candle. Turn it off. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion of your own, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Come hang out with us on Patreon for monthly bonus episodes and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For exclusive discount codes along with source information from today's episode, check out our show notes. more information on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more, visit our website at npadpodcast.com. And please rate, review, and subscribe from wherever you listen to podcasts. So one day... That's bizarre. Okay, sorry. Go on.

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