National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 21

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

Today’s stories include prowling predators, surprise guests, a case of mistaken identity, monumental summits and rocky mountain highs. Bonus stories available for Outsiders on Patreon!We love our National Parks and we know you do too but when you're out there, remember to enjoy the view but watch your back. Please take a moment to rate and subscribe from wherever you’re listening to NPAD! Become part of our Outsider family on Patreon to gain access to ad-free episodes, bonus content, and more. Follow our socials Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. To share a Trail Tale, suggest a story, access merch, and browse our book recommendations - head over to our website.Thank you so much to our partners, check them out!Beam: Use our link and code NPAD to get 40% off at checkout.BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off your first month of online therapy by using our link.Prose: Use our link for a free in-depth hair consultation and 15% off your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Happy Thursday, everyone. We have another Trail Tales episode for you all, and we have some really exciting stories this week. Everyone is delivering a lot of nice stories, and it's really hard to pick. So I was going to go with a theme. I was trying to do a theme, but the theme is no theme because I couldn't like narrow it down. But oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you. I finally watched that volcano documentary last night.

Oh, you did. Yeah. There's a volcano documentary on Netflix. What's it called again? I don't. I watched it. I just don't remember what it's called. I don't know what it's called, but it takes place in New Zealand. And the documentary was absolutely, like, heartbreaking and just amazing to watch. And as soon as it ended, I kind of just, like, turned my TV off for a second. And I said out loud, when am I ever going to watch anything happy? Like, ever. It's just not what you watch. Never. I never have any uplifting anything. thing. But what a story, man. Wow. I was going to say, I mean, I could probably find some happy stories, but actually, I don't really watch that much happy stuff either because I'm like, I could recommend some happy stories. And the first thing that came to my mind was Lifetime movies. And they're all about like spouses murdering each other. So that's not really happy. And I can't do that. I can't do

lifetime homework. I don't. I just can't. It's my guilty pleasure. All right, well, let's get into some, I don't have any volcano stories, thank goodness, or any murder stories. I have a creepy one. Oh, my God. To start. Okay. Do you want a creepy one? We'll start it off.

I sure do. Okay. This one doesn't have a title, but it starts off with Hey, Cassie and Danielle. I love y'all's podcast, especially the Trail Tales episodes. I like hearing about other people's experiences outdoors. They make great campfire stories for my kids. I've loved the outdoors since I was very young and exploring the patches. of the woods, ponds, and cornfields near my house. I have spent much of my life hiking, camping,

foraging, and boulder hopping, both solo and with my four daughters in tow. My husband is also a forester with the United States Forest Service, so we've had the opportunity to live on national forests in locations as varied as Wyoming, the UP of Michigan, and the deep south. In my 40 years of exploring, I've only had one time that I felt uncomfortable in the woods. We were living in a very rural part of western Arkansas at the time along the Oklahoma border by very rural. I mean, if you wanted to go to Target, you would have to drive 90 minutes to get there. I like that that's the comparison to rural. Like you can't even get to a Target out here. Right, which means it's very out there. I will say though, I lived in a small town and Target was about 30 minutes from me and I felt

like that was far. So 90 minutes is a long time. It was a beautiful region and we spent seven years enjoying the rolling mountains, thick pine forests, and crystal clear mountain creeks and lakes. We never ran into anything more concerning than a grumpy timber rattlesnake and a few black bear signs. A few other moms and I would regularly go hiking with one another and we decided that we wanted to do a mommy child camping trip to the nearby Winding Stair Mountain National Recreation Area. All of us had larger families, so we ended up with a total of five moms and 23 children on this two-night trip. Damn, it's a lot.

Sounds chaotic and upsetting, but continue. My family trips had five children, and that was wild, so I can 23. Oh, my God, the next sentence. I know this sounds horrible to most people. Yeah, wow, yeah, read our minds. But it was the kind of feral, child-happy chaos that we all loved. That's fair. Growing up, we had a ton of kids that we would,

visit and it was wild, but they're some of my favorite memories as kids. It was early in March and still chilly at night, so the campground was deserted. We were all able to have an entire loop to ourselves and the kids spent the day riding bikes and scooters, exploring the nearby trails and ponds, and generally going wild. Honestly, I'm glad we were the only ones there because we would have probably driven other campers insane. The first night went great. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and told silly campfire stories like the pink jelly bean

and the toe. What's the toe? The kids made up their own endless nonsensical tales and we all retired for the night stuffed with junk food and joy. The next morning we woke up and discovered that one of the moms

had packed up and abandoned us in the middle of the night. She couldn't get her kids to sleep and gave up, through the tent, still filled with sleeping bags, into the bed of the truck, and raced home. No hard feelings.

Some people just aren't tent friendly. We were mostly irritated that she took off with a firewood with her. The second day was much like the first with one exception. We had to run into town for more firewood. Shortly after we returned, a car pulled into our loop and parked in an empty site across from us. We didn't think much of it at first. We just gained some company. We went hiking. When we returned, the car was still there, but the driver hadn't unpacked anything. Two of the moms had returned home that afternoon,

which we had known about in advance. This left me, one friend, in our combined 11 children for the second night. Everything was going great until my friend pulled me aside. That man is staring at us, she whispered. I glanced over and sure enough, the driver of the car had pulled out a camp chair, set it up behind his vehicle, and was just watching us. It was a little weird, but we brushed it off. With so many kids, we were used to people staring. The afternoon daylight started to fade. We cooked supper and got the kids ready for bed. Just after sunset, I looked across the loop and realized not only was this strange man still watching us, but it was now dark and he hadn't unloaded any camping gear. No tent, no sleeping bag, or hammock, just him in that chair. There was no moon that

night and it got very dark, very quickly. We knew the man was still there, though, because we could see the glow of his cigarette. My friend and I were getting very unnerved by the presence of this man. We were trying to stay calm, though, so that we didn't upset the kids. We were armed, but for safety reasons, had decided to leave the gun in her van where the kids couldn't access it. We wouldn't be able to access it quickly, but we also didn't feel comfortable sleeping with it in the tent. Most of our kids were under five at the time. At about that time, one of her daughters started complaining about an injury she had received earlier that day. We used this as an excuse to leave, saying that she needed to be seen by a nurse friend just to be on the safe side. We hurriedly threw everything into our

respective vehicles. We didn't pack so much as stuff and roll all our gear, food, bikes, and toddlers wherever they would fit, all in the dark by the headlight of our cars. When I got home, I realized I'd left our campforks behind. I decided to get a couple hours asleep and return in the morning before my husband had to leave for work. I got to the campground just after sunrise and was disturbed by what I saw. The man was gone, leaving nothing but a pile of cigarette butts to mark his presence the night before. It appeared as though he hadn't stayed any longer than we had. I was freaked out. I wrestled our camp forks away from the residence raccoons and drove home as quickly as I could. I have no idea what that man's intentions were. Maybe he was just having some issues and needed

some alone time that evening. Maybe he saw us in town, heard our conversation, and followed us back to the campground. We would have been easy targets for whatever he may have wanted to do. Either way, I'm very glad that we decided to leave. Even if we seemed a little paranoid. We moved from Arkansas before we ever got a chance to go camping together again, but we did still go hiking and never had any other creepy experiences. By the way, her daughter did end up being okay. Thanks for reading and remember to watch your back, Mandy. That's so upsetting because you want to give people the benefit of the doubt. Like maybe he did just want to be alone in nature. He was going through something. He was chain smoking. He wasn't alone. He wasn't. The creepy

part about that is like with that you're not even alone though i mean if you're near 11 kids 11 kids are not quiet you're not getting like the peace and quiet of nature you're sitting there smoking chain cigarettes watching kids probably running around screaming playing and having a nice time like that is not solitude very good point so i think it's super creepy i don't know i think it was a good idea they left and the fact that he it sounds like he didn't talk to them like if you were the only other person there. I've been to so many campgrounds, especially growing up. And it's so common to talk to the people across the way and be like, hey, if you need anything, let me know. I'm, have tons of stuff with me. You're like, hey, how's it going? How long are you here for? You know,

to just like take out a camp chair and just start chain smoking cigarettes for hours, just staring at your campsite. There's something, there's something icky there. Yeah, very true. I take back my previous statement. You were like trying to be nice. And I'm like, no. I'm scared. Yeah. True. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories,

and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. So my first story is named Mystery Predator. Hi ladies, my name is Katie.

Feel free to use my name and any included. I wanted to start off, like so many others, by telling you how much I love your podcast, the historical elements, and wilderness education that you bring to so many people, both experienced and not. It's both refreshing and inspiring. I've listened to you since episode two and only wish I found you later so I could binge all the episodes at once instead of having to wait every single week. Side note, I'll shamelessly, in the name of education only, of course,

admit that I was once a person who would feed wildlife that came into my yard in the fall. I at the time lived in a mountain town in Colorado on a large lot where the elk would settle in our grass most evenings beginning in late August. There's nothing quite like it when you get to live out your snow-white dreams with all of the wildlife settling on your front porch. The mamas and their babies would come straight up to the door if we'd let them, and I got into the habit of clearing out old vegetables that were on the verge of making it to the trash, and feeding them to the elk. It's truly magical being that close to wildlife,

but you learn how harmful these types of interactions are to local wildlife, thanks NPAD, and it greatly changes your perspective. They somehow become even more magical when they're just doing their own wild thing without human intervention. I'm enormously lucky that I was never hurt because if you know how big elk are, they're massive, especially when they're standing right in front of you. I should have taken the hint sooner since there was a handful of occasions that, albeit we're not aggressive, were frightening when the elk, would trot up to me every time. I'd bring out veggies, move without fear towards my hand, sometimes knocking into the grill or whatever else I would keep between myself and them.

Anyway, to sum up that story, I don't feed local or any wildlife anymore, as I know the harmful impacts it can have on some of my favorite animals and their ecological patterns because we all know that wildlife is wild and unpredictable. I just love that you ladies are continuously encouraging that there's always time to make changes. You're not stuck in a loop of making bad choices forever and we can learn and grow forward. I hope my side story is a testament to that mantra. I love that. Yeah, that's really nice. I mean, it's... You live, you learn. Yeah, just like my own side little story. When I was a kid, my family used to feed the deer in the yard because they loved seeing them. And also, I guess as a kid, they were just worried that they weren't going to have

enough food because it was an exceptionally cold winter, yada, yada, yada. And so they stopped feeding them. the back because they would put out all the seed and they were actually having deer from like not the same group especially male deer and we were having these huge like bloody deer fights in our backyard oh my god it was so bad so after that happened my mom was like absolutely not we're never it happened multiple times and my mom was like this is really scary i'm not having this happen in my yard clearly we're facilitating this it's not going on anymore but i can remember like very vividly they're like blood in the snow and looking out my window. And I mean, it was kind of cool to watch, but also scary, these huge buck fighting in our yard. Yeah, causing problems. Like daily, too. It wasn't even like,

oh, once or twice you look out the window. It's like, oh, we have like a really good food source here now. They're fighting over it. Yeah, yikes, no good. This story takes place around 17 years ago in Pike National Forest in Jefferson, Colorado. My family and surrounding neighborhood have always been the active outdoorsy type, and during most summers, we would trap shoot up in the mountains. There was never any concern for wildlife because, A, we'd never seen anything other than the resident cows, and B, we would be shooting for hours which would logically deter any surrounding wildlife from venturing into our camp. During this trip, we were set up at the bottom of a hill that opened into a large, grassy field, but were surrounded by Aspen Gros behind us.

My sister, Erica, who was probably six, neighbor Jess, who was around nine, and myself, around We're all getting bored sitting around and watching the adults since we were too small to shoot, let alone shoulder anything larger than a 22 rifle. We asked our parents if we could explore behind the forest and were given permission, but with the caveat that we would not venture farther than where we could see camp. Not far into the woods, we came upon an aspen that was partially cut or bent over to some extreme degree to the perfect angle that all three of us were able to climb on and bounce on it like a seesaw.

Just was in front, I was in the middle, and Erica was at the end. you bounced and bounce, happy to have something to do, and for our small amount of independence. Getting rowdy, Jess and I started pretending to panic that there was a bear to scare my barely out of kindergarten sister. Of course, it worked, and she was all welled up with tears, to which we quickly burst out laughing, half because it was so easy to trick her, and half because we didn't want to get in trouble for scaring the littlest of the bunch, when she inevitably would run crying down to our parents and rot us out. It was mostly harmless, and we all began messing with the others, trying to convince each other that we were seeing various predators in the woods in front of us.

The joke was quickly dying out when Jess stopped and said, guys, wait, I actually see something. We quickly shrugged her off and told her to knock it off because we weren't being fooled. She insisted that she saw something. Still, we didn't believe her and kept brushing her off and that we weren't falling for it.

It took Jess nearly crying herself to convince us that she actually was seeing something. Although she was the theatrical type and we were still slightly skeptical, she swore up and down on her friendship that she was seeing something and to take her seriously. I tried squinting out into the vast forest in front of us seeing absolutely nothing but trees. Thinking that she was going over the top trying to convince us, I told her, Jess, there's literally nothing out there, give it up already. But still, she persisted and finally I was getting that uneasy feeling creeping into my gut and making my heartbeat faster.

She kept telling us that she was seeing something move through the trees. All at once, we all jumped off of our makeshure. shift seesaw and stood in a line. My sister at this point is nearly shitting her pants and blubbering next to us while I still tried to find what Jess was allegedly seeing. Now Jess is starting to get hysterical and I'm the only one that's left to be rational, although feeling like I might shit my own pants at any time. I felt like we shouldn't all at once leave the area since whatever it was was so close to us even though I couldn't see it. I remember in my hunter safety class that you should never turn your back and run from predators because it triggers their hunting instincts,

and they would be more likely to attack. I suggested that Erica walked slowly down to the camp and get our parents to come up, armed, and myself and Jess would stand back to back with our arms lock behind us. Seriously, Katie, what would you do if something attacked you and you couldn't get away because your stupid arms were locked within hers? Anyway, I instructed Jess to stand facing whatever she was seeing so she could keep an eye on it, and I would stand behind her to watch for, if anything, was coming up behind us.

We sent my sister down to the adults, and instead of calmly and slowly walking down as I had advised her to do, this tiny idiot starts sprinting down the hill with her arms flailing over her head screaming for my dad. I didn't even know what to do at that point. I was just in awe. That was it. Whatever it was was clearly going to attack us, and this would be how my nine-year-old life was cut short.

I managed to get out. Jess, do you still see it? Yes, she said. Is it moving? No, it's not moving anymore. It seemed like an eternity that my sister had been gone, and I kept asking Jess probably every 10 seconds if she still had eyes on it. After the fourth or fifth ask, she responded that she couldn't see it anymore.

More intense panic was flooding my insides. I told her to keep searching again to find it, trying to calm myself down when, in fact, I was beginning to freak the fuck out. After a couple more seconds, she wasn't able to locate it again, so I told her we should walk backwards down the hill slowly to get back to camp. We began backwards the whole time, never able to find it again.

When Jess and I were out of the woods enough, we ourselves turned and sprinted into camp to get to our parents. Erica was sitting in a chair, minding her own. Apparently, both of our parents thought we were just being the regular assholes that we weren't just trying to scare her. I can't blame my sister for not doing anything else, though. It was typical for us to gang up on the littlest, and she was probably convinced that's exactly what we were doing.

Finally, after Jess and I were hysterically telling our parents that something truly was in the woods watching us, and we didn't know what it was, my dad started taking us seriously. He grabbed a gun and led the way back into the woods where we were. I have no idea why we were allowed to follow, but we were, and even more stupidly, we did. Jess led my dad right to where she thought she was seeing something, and there, on the ground, not five feet from where we were, was a paw print the size of my face. Mountain Lion Freshly pressed into the month. My dad was on high alert, but we never saw anything else, no sightings, and no other prints. The whole time, a fucking mountain lion was stalking us, and my sister and I were brushing it off like it was a made-up phantom.

Our best guess was that it was either desperate or a juvenile since there was continuous gunfire going on less than a quarter mile away from where we were on that tree. To this day, I'm still on high alert when I'm in any wooded area without clear visibility, and I'm always hyper aware of where my two-year-old snack-sized sun is always because of this tale. So that's my story, the time I almost became a Mountain Lions lunch. Enjoy the view, but watch your back. Thanks, ladies, keep up the amazing work, Katie. That's so scary. And the fact that they just brushed it off.

They're like, oh, no, there's nothing. At least there was the one of them that was like, there's something there. Like, yeah, I'm not messing with this. Yeah, that's, you're lucky. One of you even saw it, really, because if a big cat is hunting you, you usually don't. And I was just going to say that. She's very lucky, or they're all very lucky. And I guess that was kind of a weird tie-in, like children and somebody, a predator watching children. Yeah, they're similar. Weird. Yeah, scary stuff. I mean, it's just snowed here. And, okay, it's, so we had a winter storm. And I'm pretty sure, it's hitting most of the like middle of the US like it's not hitting you at all is it um not so we're getting

some weird weather so today is normal and tomorrow is warm and then the next two days after that are kind of cold but nothing like yeah i don't think it's hitting us because it's like 30 then it's 50s then it's 10 degrees and then it's like 25 yeah we are so we're recording this early it's the end of December And of course, winter storm named Elliot. And we had a hurricane in Florida earlier this year named Ian. It's like Ian Elliott. What is in the world? The chances.

No such thing is a coincidence. He's probably laughing his ass off right now. But I woke up and it's like a little winter wonderland out here. And it's really cold. But my favorite thing is always looking to see like the fresh prints in the snow to see what's like come by and you know the activity around yeah and i would not be very happy if i saw a mountain lion prints in my front yard yeah that would be scary especially just if you didn't have any pets if you didn't have any dogs yeah it'd be like you know like okay i can run to my car real quick

and run back in but your dog's out there and stuff i know i always have to close the doggy door because they're just they'll just go and hang out all night out in the middle of the yard and i'm just like I don't think so. Nope. Nope. Big nope. Well, my next story is a little bit of a long one, but it takes place in our home state of New Hampshire. Oh, okay. It's titled A Series of Unfortunate Events on Mount Washington. Hi, Danielle and Cassie. My name is Sid. I'm 22, and I discovered your podcast a few months ago. It's been an inspiration for me to adventure more. I recently secured a job at a resort in Rocky Mountain National Park and will move to Colorado from

my home state of Connecticut in January. Honestly, I'm not sure if I would have had the guts or ambition to do it without NPAD. Some may be deterred by the scary stories that are sometimes told, but they only make me feel more prepared and excited to be out on the trail. Backstory time. I have been disabled for many years with multiple diseases. My dad took me on hiking trips every weekend as a child, and before I got really sick, I hiked as much as I could. Nature has always calm my soul and put things into perspective for me. My doctors couldn't figure out what was causing all of these issues in a young girl, like early onset, osteoarthritis, chronic fatigue, nerve damage, migraine, and episodes of fainting.

I literally had the knees of an 80-year-old at age 18. Fortunately, I didn't let this stop me and was able to climb Mount Middnadnach in New Hampshire in 2020 while working at a summer camp. I felt my soul light up in a way it hadn't in years. Unfortunately, all of my physical health issues came to a head in 2021 when my pancreas failed. No more mountains for me. I was bedridden and depressed and had no hope I would ever hike again. After four long months of fighting to stay alive with frequently fatally low blood sugar levels,

a specialist discovered that my pancreas failed to develop as a child. I had not received proper nutrients in my body for all those years. It seemed like a death sentence. In reality, I was sentenced to a second chance. I was able to get on medications that changed my life. Now I have to take a pill each time I eat for as long as I'm on this earth, but that tiny pill opened up a whole new world for me. I was ready to get back outdoors.

My body felt alive in a way I didn't know existed. Food fueled me for the first time since I could remember. All of my symptoms stopped. I worked really hard this year to gain my strength. I took a leap of absence from college and moved home to my parents' house. During this time, I solo hiked every mountain in Connecticut, and have strength trained almost every day. I slowly increased my mileage until I had climbed to the tallest mountain in Connecticut,

which isn't saying much, I was ready for more. In August of this year, I celebrated my 22nd birthday with a solo trip to Mount Cardigan in New Hampshire. Again, my soul was absolutely invigorated. Here's where my story really begins. In early October, I listened to your episode on Mount Washington, 48 surviving the worst weather on the planet, White Mountain National Forest. I had already been to Mount Washington with my now ex-boyfriend for an anniversary in 2019.

At this time, my joints were in no shape for me to climb any mountain, much less the most dangerous one in the country. We rode the snow coach up via the auto road and saw the most beautiful sights I'd ever seen. Standing as high up at the summit as the coach could safely drive us, I told my companion, one day I will climb this mountain. Although we broke up shortly after the trip, I never let go of that sentiment. Your episode inspired me to make the trek of Mount Washington to mark my recovery. I trained extensively and made sure I was able to complete the seven miles with 4,000 feet of elevation gain. Everyone says that one mile in the White Mountains is equivalent to two miles anywhere else.

So I made sure I was physically fit as possible. I researched the gear to bring and tips from other hikers, and in mid-November, I embarked on my journey to hike the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. Now I know hiking in the whites in November is no joke, and you must be very prepared to ensure your safety. I obsessively check weather reports and booked a hotel just two days before leaving, so the weather would be less likely to change. I wore flee socks, insulated long johns, hiking pants, a base layer, another base layer, a three-fourth sip, a shell jacket, a hat, and gloves with a down jacket in my pack for the Alpine Zone. The weather was perfect. A crisp 35-degree bluebird day. I left home at 4 in the morning to arrive at the trailhead around 8 a.m. to 8.30 a.m.

I ended up beginning my journey around 9.30 due to many arrest stops to relieve my annoyingly small bladder. Takerman Ravine is a very straightforward trail, with a steady, rocky incline until you arrive above the alpine zone, which was where things became slightly sketchy. I was prepared for there to be some ice as it had rained a day prior, and this unfortunately was an understatement. The first two miles were spring-like, with some melting sheets of ice scattered around the trail. I had made the executive decision at the trailhead to wear my waterproof trail runners rather than my hiking boots. I know, I know. What? Listen. At this time, I had been rock climbing for a few months and was used to my tiny climbing shoes, so it was much more confident working rock scrambles and trail runners. I was more afraid of falling down a cliff with my bulky boots than I was of the prospect of getting

hypothermia in my trail runners. This may have been a mistake. There were many people on the trail that day. One person asked me if I had planned to hike down the mountain or if I was taking the cog railroad down. I was under the impression that the cog was closed down for the winter, so I told her I'd be hiking the whole way. As I approached the alpine zone, I noticed the groups thinning out. The amount of snow and ice steadily increased until the trees opened up to a scene out of the Arctic. The beautiful waterfalls cascaded down the mountain, but instead of water, it was like a freeze frame of ice.

I tried to locate the Carnes ahead to see what climbing would be in store for me. I'm not going to lie. It was very exposed, but I was expecting this. I took a moment to observe the scene and decided to continue, considering I was quite warm and my shoes had not gotten wet even though walking in the snow. With groups of people behind me and all those who had passed me on the trail, I knew I wouldn't be alone in the track, or so I thought. I made it up the first cliff-like section and found myself face to face with the scariest water crossing I'd ever seen.

I was on the side of a 500-foot drop, with a mountain asking me to cross the oh-so-beautiful waterfall I mentioned earlier. I am no stranger to water crossings, but one wrong step and I would have certainly plummeted to my death. I had a margin of error of about a foot, but any mistake would at least mean getting my feet soaked. I realized then that I had gone past the point of return. It would be more dangerous for me to go back down the ice-covered mountain than to continue to the summit. Although I don't regret this trip, I am still kicking myself for the lapse in judgment. I should have assessed if I could safely get down before this point. I carefully made my way across the flowing river of icy water and had a huge sigh of relief.

That is, until I glanced ahead at the boulder field and to my horror, the boulders looked half their size as the rest of the masses was covered in at least a foot of snow and ice. My water crossing troubles weren't over either. As I trudged on through the snow, I realized that I was hiking up a frozen. stream. With every step, I heard cracks under my feet as the flowing water rushed on the mountain beneath the surface. At this point, I was very nervous and kicking myself for not wearing microspikes, yet I stayed calm and forced myself to remember everything my dad taught me about hiking and hiking in winter conditions. At this point, I hadn't seen a single soul in about 45 minutes, as they were probably not crazy and stupid enough to climb walls of ice without traction gear, but as I struggled

through more water crossings and avoided falling to certain death, I came across a hut caretaker. We chatted about the beautiful weather, and I pretended to act less scared than I was. I mentioned how icy it was, and he said he would give me microskikes if he had an extra pair. But he wasn't concerned for my safety on the trail. His lack of worry about my footwear, combined with his knowledge of the terrain, gave me the confidence boost I needed. He stayed at the Boulder Field watching the skyline as I continued on, hopping from Boulder to boulder, praying my feet would land exactly where my brain was willing them to go. Then it finally happened.

At a break in the boulders, I had to walk through the snow to advance to the next cairn. And in a split second, my feet were submerged in freezing cold water. I knew I had only about a mile to go and convinced myself that maybe the lady I'd come across earlier was right. Perhaps I could ride the cog road down. If not, I would have to find another way back to my car that didn't involve death, which would certainly be the case if I attempted to descend down the way I came. Fortunately, I was smart enough to have brought extra socks with me and got my feet relatively dry. Worries of frostbite or hypothermia still riddled my mind, but I forced myself to focus on getting to the summit and how good it would feel to sit in a train car.

My sights were set on the ever-growing building that was the weather observatory. I focused on watching it getting bigger and bigger until it's right in front of me. My happy tears turned into, oh my God, I'm going to. going to die, what have I done? As I walked up the auto road and slowly came to terms with a sight before me. The lack of people, the lack of sound, the lack of everything, but the whistle of wind. I walked up to the dark observatory and stared at my reflection in the mirror. I was the only person at the summit. The cog was, in fact, not running. I forced myself not to panic and began yelling. Hello? Hello? Is anyone up here? This cry went on for about five minutes before panic did

in fact set in. Although my second pair of socks helped my feet say warm, they were still cold and damp. I also only had a limited amount of pills to take for my pancreas to work and I was at risk of fainting. It was about 3 p.m. now and the sun was quickly lowering to the horizon. I decided to call 911 to see if I could get advice from fish and game on what to do. They told me that the only chance of me safely getting down the mountain was to walk down the entirety of the auto road. They also informed me that nobody could drive up that road to help me due to the slippery and icy conditions. Fantastic. Note, I didn't want nor expect to be rescued. I realize how many calls our rescue workers receive, but it was disheartening to realize that there would be more ice, considering that the road was perfectly clear at the summit. This would not be an easy

descent. Looking back on it, I am embarrassed by how hysterical I must have come across to our beloved fishing game warriors. I was cold, tired, and remembering all the Mount Washington horror stories I have heard, including those in the NPAD episode. I also felt really dumb considering I never wanted to be one of those hikers who are inexperienced and ill-prepared for their adventures. Nevertheless, I began my journey down the road and did not look up how many miles long it was because frankly, I did not want to No. There was no choice, but I had to put one foot in front of the other. I decided to listen to a fiction audio book on my way down as I wasn't worried about phone battery since I had brought a portable charger with me. That book gave me so much solace, allowing me to escape into the

world of someone else's problems and me not being stuck at 6,000 feet and 30 degree weather. I began to calm down and feel extremely grateful. How many people get the chance to be completely alone on Mount Washington. To experience the auto road on my own two feet, normally nobody is allowed to walk on the road. But hey, fish and game told me to. I have always been a solo hiker, but the experience of being alone on that mountain is something I will never forget. It feels like the mountain was alive, and just she and I were there, alone together. It became a beautiful experience until the road got icy. After carefully navigating the path for around an hour, I saw wooden sign ahead reading Mile 4. I could have broken out into a dance right then if I wasn't on black ice.

I was going to make it out as long as I didn't trip or I wasn't eaten by a bear or a million other things didn't go wrong. Funnily enough, it was at this mile marker that I had stood at three years ago when I vowed to climb this mountain. Life works in weird ways. I could lie and say I never slipped once, but I definitely did. In some areas, I had to sit down and literally slide down like I was sledding, which I practically was. These moments gave me the comedic relief I needed to survive. With nobody around, I squealed like a child. Wee!

Running down slick ice patches to distract myself from the very dangerous situation. The sun was setting now and the temperatures dropped considerably. I finally made a wrong step onto the ice and fell. My portable charger and phone tumbling down with me. From then on, my phone displayed water detected, disconnect charging device immediately. Well, great. There goes my audiobook. and Lifeline. Thankfully, my phone wasn't completely dead, though. If I could just make it a few more

miles, I would be okay. After I was under the tree line, there were short spurts of road that were completely dry, and on those sections, I absolutely booked it in a full-on run. Shadows dance around the trees, threatening my mind with any frightening image my brain could conjure up. Bushes became bears and mile markers became foxes. I was quite literally hallucinating. I safely made my way to the mile two marker where I had the shit scared out of me. Two large figures and one small figure emerged from the woods about 500 feet in front of me and I couldn't believe my eyes. At a closer look, they were humans and a black lab. That's when I knew I had gone crazy. It was dark and freezing. Who in their right mind would be out here? Besides me, of course, I hadn't seen another person in over

four hours. I truly thought they were figments of my imagination until one of them called to me. The only thing I could manage to say was, oh my God, you're real. I thought I was hallucinating. We had a laugh and they explained to me that they had actually planned their hike up this way. They had already hiked another mountain in the morning and decided midday to hike Mount Washington and come down the auto road so they wouldn't be on the trail in the dark. And I thought I was crazy. I'd been texting my mom through the whole auto road experience and she was worried out of her mind

that I was going to freeze to death. So she was very happy when I reassured her that I had two new hiking kids. buddies to help if anything were to go wrong. I was still dying to get down the mountain, so I passed the hikers and continued running. I made it back to my car by 8 p.m. and drove the 10 minutes to my hotel and made some grody coffee maker water ramen. I turned on the shower and sat in essentially a fetal position, letting the water run over my back as I inspected my toes for frostbite. Somehow I made it out with all my toes intact and with feeling. Of course, the next day there was a snowstorm, so I had to drive four hours home in the first blizzard of the winter.

The next day, I also discovered that the road is 7.6 miles long, totaling a 13.9 mile day. I had no idea I had a 14-mile day in me. I came out of the journey without a scratch on me besides pulling both of the Achilles in my heels. I have so much more confidence in myself after this trip, despite everything that went wrong. I will admit that I was ill-prepared, but now I'll certainly never hike in the winter without microspikes again. That's my story. It was a long one, but I learned so much. mainly never hike Mount Washington without microspikes after September.

Upon hearing for multiple people how common knowledge this is, I felt again, extremely dumb. But live and learn, I am proud of myself for simply having the ability and technical skill to have successfully summited even without spikes. The trip made me fall in love with the alpine conditions and was the catalyst for my decision to take more time off of school in order to move to Colorado. I can't wait to experience hiking in Colorado and hopefully do my first 14er, which will definitely be completed with spikes, a helmet, and not in the dead of winter. Thank you for listening to my PSA on the dangers of Mount Washington and the story of young stupidity and learning your true strength.

Enjoy the view, but watch your back. Whoa. I'm cold listening to that. I love this story because it's on Mount Washington, and I think it's just a true testament to the weather conditions on Washington. And it was brave to the year. You wanted to climb that mountain and to pick November to do it was pretty, pretty intense. I've never done. I've done Washington a couple times. And they've all been in the midst of summer on like a blue birthday.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure the latest I've ever hiked in the whites was September, like mid-September. Uh, October. I've hiked in the whites in winter. I've been there in winter, but it's been, um, in not Mount Washington. I've hiked in the winter, but not Mount Washington. We don't go there. Yeah. I've done 4,000 footers actually in the winter, but not, not Mount Washington.

No, no, no. I also really liked this story just because I liked the beginning of it where she was talking about all of her health issues that she's had. And then her hiking, all of the Connecticut stuff, because I just resonated with that a lot, because I did something super similar just in New Hampshire. It was 2020. I had a kidney transplant. I was in kidney failure for a long time.

And when I finally received my kidney and was healthy again, I spent every day hiking in Southern New Hampshire. And I covered pretty much every mountain that exists in Southern New Hampshire. And I was hiking, you know, like five to seven days a week. And then I started hiking up in the White Mountain. So I thought that that was really cool that she took this health issue that she had. And she was like, I'm going to get out there and I'm going to use nature to overcome it. So I thought that that was really cool too.

Yeah, I agree. It's a big accomplishment for sure. It is. Even if you weren't very well prepared, you know now. Now you know. We've all done stuff where we haven't been prepared. I mean, Danielle and I got lost in the White Mountains for, we were on an eight mile, was like at eight or seven mile trail and we did 16 miles. Yeah. On accident. Was it moosella. Yeah, it was on accident. Like, we have also been there as well. So you live and you learn and we're glad that you're safe and you made it out. That's right. So my next. one is titled, Almost Letting Park Rangers Believe We Were Cassie and Danielle. Wait, what? Okay, tell me more. I need to know this. Hi, Danielle and Cassie.

I hope you're both doing great. My name is Anna, and I'm 18, and I'm from Iowa. Depressing. I know. I'm moving to Illinois this year to begin college. During a trip to Illinois in mid-June, I became bored listening to music. I had never listened to podcasts but somehow saw yours on my recommendations. I started playing it and became obsessed.

I started to plan my summer around adventuring to the Iowa State Parks that I had never visited, including some of my friends I would be leaving behind. My last trip, July 30th, was planned for Effigy Mounds Monument. And it just so happened that I got to the Effigy Mounds episode one week before my adventure. I was shocked and thrilled that you decided to come to Iowa, and I learned so much about a place that was only two hours from home that I knew nothing about. Thank you for that. Anyways, here goes the short story.

So after our two-hour drive to Harper's Ferry, we arrived at the visitor center. We had to take turns going inside in pairs because we brought my friend's dog, APA. Anyhow, my second time going inside with my friend, I decided I was going to muster the courage to ask the rangers about the bones and if all of them were returned from Munson. I just wanted to truly hear for myself that the right thing was done. So, my Burnett, long, curly-haired friend and I, a straight-haired blonde, went up to a ranger and asked, Is it certain all the bones were returned from Munson? The ranger was shocked, taken aback, and her guard was instantly up.

In the small effigy mounds museum, there is no talk of Munson or the locations of the bones after the 90s. I quickly commented, we just did a little research through podcasts. The ranger relaxed a bit and quickly received. responded, oh, where are you guys from? Cedar Rapids. We just listened to podcasts on the way here. She relaxed a little bit more.

Oh, so you guys aren't the podcasters. I was shocked. Someone could think I had the creative ability to do what you both do and quickly redeem myself by qualifying. No, no, no. We're not Danielle and Cassie. We're from Cedar Rapids. Danielle, your identity was almost stolen by a 17-year-old high school senior.

And Cassie, yours was an 18-year-old college freshman. So don't think you gals are getting old. I appreciate that so much. She answered my question saying, The bones have all been returned to the tribes. I don't know where they are in the park, but there are no bones in our basement. We shared a few pleasantries,

and she continued by saying, It's really sad because his, Munson's wife is the sweetest lady and has visited us a few times, but she hates us, which is sad because we wouldn't have closed the case and found the bones without her. her. I concluded that she must feel so much guilt and hurt that the park is a reminder of the harm her husband contributed to. I can't imagine someone hating an organization because of fines or

punishments, even if they shouldn't have been responsible. Anyways, something I think you both will find appalling is, the ranger continued by saying that one of Munson's friends has since visited the park and is insistent that Munson was framed by the park, that the park put those bones in his garage in the first place. I was quick to show. shoot down that theory by Munson's inconsistent stories and reliability, and she responded, Honey, you're preaching to the choir. It was overall an enlightening conversation and looking back now, I think she was shocked and uncomfortable with the mention of Munson because people who knew him will come in and make crazy claims. This is a little side note, but I do want to thank you both

for the podcast. I know it is a little cliche, but I have fallen in love with National Parks in the third grade when we had a unit where each student had to research one. In the fifth and seventh grade, I went on vacations to the mountain region, but really lost my passion for the parks after those trips were plagued with bad experiences due to the people that were accompanying me. My goal of seeing them all was something that didn't intrigue me and I didn't really care about doing.

After listening to you both, I have been reinvigorated with falling back in love with nature and my childhood dream. Luckily, I'm 18 and hope to have a little more time to continue my adventures. I plan on taking a trip to the Indiana Dunes next month and we'll let you both know if I get the pleasure of meeting Diana herself. Enjoy the view and understand where you step, Anna.

I love that. Enjoy the view, but understand where you step. I know. That's really nice. That's really creative, too. You said you weren't creative. That is very creative. Anna.

There it is. You're doing it. I just thought like, that title, I was just like, oh shit. Like, immediately I was like, are we in trouble? I thought they were going to be impersonating us in a show. I just felt like I was in trouble. I would have been curious what their reaction would have been if they did, if they didn't think it was us for a minute. No, but like what if it was us?

Yeah, you said they seemed uncomfortable when they thought it was us. I know, I'm like, I'm scared. But yeah, I just thought that was a really cool story about how like a real life conversation got sparked by one of the episodes in the park that it actually happened in. So yeah. Yeah, that was really, really cool. Thank you for sharing that story with us. It's always fun to hear our stories turn into real life, you know? Not that our stories aren't real life, but you know what I mean.

It feels like fake life. Yeah. Feels not real. Well, I have one last story before we do a bonus for trail tales and you have one more. Do you still have one more? Yeah, you still have one more. Yeah. This is like a good.

This is a long trail tales episode. This is a really long one. This one is titled Rocky Mountain National Park. Hi, Cassie and Danielle. My name is Annie and I recently began listening after your collab episode. episode with Morbid. I'm so grateful that y'all did that episode because it led me to you too, and I've been binging your episodes ever since. My husband Alex and I are national park lovers and are trying to visit them all. So far, we have been to 10 and we have a trip to three more

scheduled in the spring of next year. I love listening to y'all tell stories, but I especially love how each episode begins with the background of each park. I blame y'all for my travel list becoming so long, smiley face. I am also grateful to hear Danielle talk so openly about her. her grief. I am so sad for you and Ian, and I know there are no words. I abruptly lost my dad in February, and when I hear you talk about your grief, it makes me feel a little less alone. So thank you. Anywho, I am here to tell y'all about our visit to Rocky Mountain National Park. During the pandemic, my brother and then boyfriend, now husband, and I planned a trip to Colorado to do some hiking. At the time, we lived in Dallas, so my brother flew to us and we drove in my Jeep Wrangler to Dallas to

Alpine, Colorado. Side note, Danielle, when you talk about how people complain about how loud your Jeep is, I couldn't stop laughing because I get made fun of for it. I just got a new car and actually really miss my Jeep in the comfort of the horribly loud noises. It's like white noise when you're driving. I did notice it in your Jeep when I was in Washington. I was like, holy shit.

You have to like just raise your voice a little to actually. Yeah, you just got to turn the music up a little bit more. The next day we went to Great Sand students. National Park and then the following day we went to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. Finally, we drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park, which was our main destination. The first full day we went there, we decided to hike the Emerald Lake Trail. This is an easy 3.2 mile out and back trail up to the gorgeous emerald-colored lake in the middle of the mountains.

I highly recommend it to anyone who goes to Rocky Mountains. What I don't recommend is having undiagnosed asthma and not knowing about it and finding out when you're in an elevation that is so much higher than Dallas, Texas. The elevation change hit all three of us pretty hard, and I couldn't understand why this hike was so tiring. About halfway through, I was way more tired than I normally am and told my boyfriend half jokingly, I wasn't sure if I wanted to finish the trail. He looked at me and said something along the lines of, we are finishing the trail, you can do it. We finally got to the top and the view was glorious. Unlike anything I had ever seen, the pictures somehow looked like a green screen on a

postcard. I sat down on a rock to stare at the lake when my boyfriend called me over and said, let's take a selfie, immediate suspicion from me. At this point, we both knew we were getting engaged soon. I knew he had bought a ring and we had talked about what the future looked like. I think in the back of my mind, I immediately knew what was about to happen. So I go over to take a photo with him and afterwards he points away and says, look over there. That's when I knew. I turned back to him and he is down on one knee asking what I can only imagine is, will you marry me? But to be totally honest, I blacked out and remembered none of the rest.

According to him, I said, holy shit and grab the ring from the box and put it on my own damn finger. Because I am a proper lady. Not only was the location spectacular, but what happened next was out of a fairy tale. Right after he proposed, a marmot appeared on the rock next to us. Then a stellar Jay landed in the tree right next to us. Then on our hike down the trail, a chipmunk ate some seeds out of my hand. And finally, we rounded a corner and not 10 feet from us were a mama moose and a baby grazing on the side of the trail. I may not remember the engagement, but I certainly remember what felt like a fairy tale before and afterwards.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite national park stories that we have. I've attached a few photos and video from the trip for y'all. Thank you for doing all that you do and showing us the views while watching. our backs, Annie. Oh, what a memorable moment. Yeah. It's a very special story and a very special place. That's true. This one has no title and it begins. Hi, Cassie and Danielle. I've been a listener of the podcast since summer of 2021 and was bummed because this entire time I was convinced I didn't have a story of my own to share that might possibly end up on Trail Tales. That was until I heard the story in Trail 6 about Cassie's scary chicken encounter. I forgot about that one. I forgot about that

and was reminded of my own freaky encounter a couple of years ago. So here's my story. Back in the winter of 2020, I was back home in Texas on winter break for my graduate program and decided to take advantage of this time back home to visit some of the national parks in near my home state that somehow I had never visited in 20 years of living there. The plan originally was to solo trip from Dallas to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, then to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, then and in Big Ben. to National Park, all before heading back home.

When I told my mom about the plan, she freaked out and said there was absolutely no way I was making that trip by myself and like it or not, she was going to come to. I agreed and we took off for a trip to our lovely Texas and New Mexico parks. When I was beginning to plan this trip, I decided I wanted to stay at two different places near Big Bend because there was a couple of unique Airbnb rentals available around the park. One of our locations was a teepee in the desert, which I recommend, and the other place we stayed in was a small camper at a different campsite outside of Terlingua, a town at the entrance of the park. Shout out to the Tin Valley retro rentals there. The location of the campground for our

second stay in the camper was quite literally in the middle of nowhere, and as we were getting to the campsite the first night of our stay there, I was actually pretty glad my mom had come along. We had left the park earlier that night a bit later than we had originally planned to. Stopped and sat down for dinner, which took some extra time. So by the time we were headed towards the campground, it was pitch black. Oh, and since we were in the middle of nowhere, we had absolutely no cell service. It was not the smartest way to arrive at a campground that we were totally unfamiliar with. Once we got to the campsite with our cute little camper, picture included, all we wanted to do was crash and get some sleep for the next day. At some point in the middle of the night, I was awoken

by the sound of the wind, which was pretty loud and just slightly unsettling, but was able to quickly returned to sleep. The next time I woke up was due to the sound of something thumping against the door of our camper, which was even more unsettling. I gave it a couple seconds to see if it would stop, but it didn't, and I quietly whispered to my mom to try and wake her. Trying to stay as still and quiet as possible to avoid bringing extra attention to our intruder, I was finally able to wake up my mom and we tried to reason through what we were actually hearing. I thought back to the nature of the situation we were in. Middle of the night, middle of the desert with no cell service, not many other cars parked around us when we arrived at the campsite,

a tiny latch for a lock on our camper, and our car parked a good 30 feet away from where we were sleeping. How the hell were we going to get out of this one? The rhythmic thumping against our door continued, and after a couple of minutes of doing so, we finally heard the faintest of meows accompanying it. My mom and I looked at each other, and we were quickly reminded of the furry friend who had briefly greeted us as we arrived at our campsite hours before, as we were unpacking our belongings. The cat was pretty skittish when we had arrived and didn't stay long, so we didn't think much of it at the time.

My mom gathered up the courage to open the front door of our camper, and in came our same furry friend from before. Still giving soft meows, it just jumped up onto my mom's cot, circled around a couple times, and plopped herself right down. We laughed good and hard about something so innocent, being the cause of our racing hearts and intense fear only moments before. Finally able to fall back asleep, we didn't wake up again until early morning when the sun decided to rise over the small mountains around us and saw that the cat was still cozied up at my mom's feet.

We made sure to get a picture with our furry friend to commemorate such a hilarious memory, but also counted our blessings that it wasn't a different animal or a person with malicious intent. The trip around our Texas and New Mexico National Parks was so fun, and they definitely seem like some true hidden gems, in my opinion. I encourage all the people I talk to about this trip to try to get to these places, especially Big Bend, and even urge them to stay in unique places like the Airbnb or renovated and painted campers for a fun experience.

Just always make sure to watch your back for some of those smaller critters. Thanks for so much and keep up the great work, looking forward to all the fun stories from you two and all the future trail tales, Alicia. And I have to show you this picture of this cat, because it is so cute. And so when people get mad at me for saying I don't like cats, I do like cats. I just don't like cats working with cats in a veterinary type of situation. Fair.

I feel that. I have a long history of rescuing cats and weird places on trips. And I love little kittens. Oh my God. Remember milkshake? They scary me. Was it milkshake? Yeah, we had milkshake.

Cassie came home from this trip. Where were you? California? As in California, yeah. And she came back with this, she like brought, didn't you bring it to work? And it was like decrepit looking. It was a kitten. It was a kitten. It was on the streets of L.A.

Yeah. She named a milkshake. Oh, my God. So cute. Update. He's doing great and he's like a little fat house cat for some family now. So. Amazing.

That was, yeah, like four years ago maybe, five. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a while. I forget 2017, maybe. Yeah. I just let... Whenever I travel, like, cats find me that need homes and I can't say no. So I've, like, I can't physically keep a cat, but I find them homes and I have rehomed like seven cats, I think. It's like a little ridiculous, but I love them. Well, I just wonder, I love this story because this cat probably just makes its life by like pounding on. people's doors. It's like the resident cat and just is like, okay, I need somewhere to sleep and just takes advantage of visitors. Yeah. Okay, well, thanks everyone for joining us. I know that was a bit of a longer one, but if you're an outsider on Patreon, you have two more coming your way. So we will see you in just a second for those. Everybody else, we'll see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view. Boas, you're back. Bye. Bye.

joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, 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. Become an outsider by joining our Patreon where you'll gain access to monthly bonus stories and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our partners, you're supporting our show. To access our special discount codes along with source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For information on the show, to shop our merch store, sign up for our newsletter and more,

visit npaddpodcast.com. And if you're enjoying the show, please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average.

Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed, who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.