National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 28

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Today’s stories include voices on the wind, universal confirmation, memorable engagements, San Luis Valley weirdness and overstaying your welcome. Outsiders Only bonus stories available on Patreon for Apple Subscribers!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!Microdose: Use code NPAD to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.Skylight Frame: Get 10% off, up to $30 off at SkylightFrame.com/PARK.Miracle Made: Use our link and code NPAD to save over 40% and get 3 free towels.BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off. 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. Hello everyone. Welcome to another Trail Tales episode. We love to tell these. I have a really spooky one actually to start with, which I feel like we haven't really been doing much of. Spooky ones. Yeah. I don't think I picked a single spooky one for this one. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, well, it's kind of longer. Okay. Do you want me to go first? Yeah. Okay, great. It is titled Lake Shalon, Children's Voices in the Wind. Oh, children's voices in the wind. I'm already scared. Told you, it was spooky. I'm a pretty new to your podcast as a family member just recently introduced it to me. She knows how much I

love the outdoors and travel and thought I'd enjoy your show. Several months ago, she told me about it and I looked it up, but never really got around to giving it much time. Then, a few weeks ago, she followed up with me to see if I had started listening yet. I honestly kind of forgot about it, but I felt bad because I understand how it feels to want someone to enjoy something I've experienced. So I immediately stopped what I was doing at bookmark your podcast. As soon as I heard your listeners' personal stories, I knew I had finally found the perfect place to share mine. And maybe there's someone else there who has had the same experience at this location. In 1996, I was 25 years old and had been dating my then boyfriend for almost a year. We were living in the Puyallup area of Washington State, about an hour

south of Seattle, and went on a summer backpacking trip to an extremely remote area on Lake Chalon in central Washington called Staheacon. Lake Chalon is a 50-mile-long recreational lake that is a very popular summer vacation destination and is about a six-hour drive from the Seattle-Tacoma metro area. There's a small, quaint town on the opposite end of the populated area of the lake called Staheiken, and that is only accessible by foot, air, or water. We took our backpacking gear and headed out to Stahegan on a ferry. I was very new to backpacking at the time, and I was so excited to be dating a wonderful guy who was excited to share his love and knowledge of backpacking with me.

This town is so unique in that the only cars, allowed are those of people who live and work in the town. The only way to get around is on bike or on foot. Such a lovely, remote, and peaceful place. We got off the ferry and I found the famous Tahikin Pastry Company for a treat and headed up to the trail. I remember going past a beautiful waterfall and up into the lush green forest. It was a long drive and ferry ride and a late start hiking. We only hiked for a few miles before we were afraid of running out of daylight, so we stopped at the first available section of campsites on the trail. Darkness came quick after we set up camp and finished dinner.

We went to bed and of course my boyfriend was fast asleep because he was in his happy place, a tent in the woods. Even though I loved it, falling asleep was not so easy for me. As he lay there in a deep slumber, I was listening to the towering fir trees all around swaying in the breeze. But it was what I heard in that breeze swirling through the trees that I will never forget. I was lying there listening to what sounded as clear as day, children. laughing and playing. It sounded to me exactly like an elementary school playground. I knew there was not a soul

with an earshot of us. We saw no other hikers or camp set up. It made absolutely no sense. But it wasn't scary. I was listening to happy children's voices playing and laughing. These voices were mixed in with the breeze. I was just lying there next to my boyfriend, frozen as he was in his deep sleep. I thought about waking him up to see if he also heard the sound. But to be honest, we hadn't been dating all that long. I really liked this guy and I didn't want him to think I was crazy. So instead, I just sat there, frozen, eyes wide open for what felt like hours, listening to the sounds of children's laughter mixed with the sounds of the trees and the breeze. I finally must have incorporated the sounds in with my dreams because eventually I fell asleep.

I don't remember ever mentioning this to him after the fact. I just kept it to myself. But I know that what I heard was not dream because it was always in the back of my mind. and I never forgot about it. There was no Google in 1995 or an easy way to research this area to see what I might have heard. So I stored it as my own special memory. Flash forward nine years to 2005. That same boyfriend and I have now been married for eight years and we had moved to New Jersey for a few years and then returned to Washington. We had a four-year-old boy and a two-year-old daughter. I was at home with the kids and the TV was on in the background for background noise.

There was a local evening news show that was talking about the 60th anniversary of a school bus crash into Lake Shalon where 15 children and the male bus driver lost their lives. I stopped in my tracks and focused all my attention on the TV. I still had not forgotten those sweet voices playing on the wind. I don't think I ever told anyone about the voices I heard that night, but it never left my memory. Knowing what I know now, I wish I would have at least told my husband what I had heard. But it doesn't really matter. I know what I heard. The story went on to explain that a school bus slid on snow or ice and went down a 30-foot bank and plunged into the lake.

All of the children and one adult perished. It finally made sense to me what I heard that night. And then I finally did explain to my husband what I heard nine years earlier. I've told many people this story whenever someone mentions Tahitin or Lake Shalon. I've done internet searches to see if anyone else had reported hearing those same voices and have come up with nothing. 26 years later, and I have not returned to that town or that campsite. I'm not sure if I want to, and I don't really feel like I need to. The news story and the beautiful voices of happy children is all the closure I need. I'm attaching a news article so you can have reference to the accident.

I would love to know if you choose to share my story on your podcast, Pam. Well, Pam, here it is. What a story that is, too. I love how they describe it as it wasn't scary. Because when you hear, I feel like if you went into that experience knowing what happened and then hearing children's voices, it would be very scary. But she's like, they sounded happy. They were like laughing children. And it's like if I heard laughing children knowing that story, I would be so scared, even if they sounded happy. Right. And I think it's spooky in the way of like the many years later seeing the story and being like, oh my God, like goosebumps.

Spooky instead of being spooky in the moment. Because, yeah, like she said, she didn't feel frightened. It's weird. There's kids laughing, but I'm not going to like hitting one up over it. Yeah. And I liked it because it was in an area I've been. Yeah. It's always fun to read those.

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Watch only on Prime. All right, my next one is titled, An Involuntary Encounter with Invasive. I say my next one, I think this is my first one I've read. It's your first. This is my first one. Okay, this one is titled, An Involuntary Encounter with Invasive Island by Bison. Hi there. My name is Jess and I've been obsessed with the podcast since August 2021 when I moved out to college. I also get to go on the Patagonia trip with y'all in March and I am so stoked.

Well, we'll see soon. Well, I guess this comes out after our trip is over. So we hope you had a great time and it was nice meeting you. But before we, we're recording this beforehand. So we're really, really stoked as well. This story takes place in October of 2022 and is a bit of a long one. So apologies in advance. Sometime in August, my dad called me with the idea to backpack across Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California on the 40 miles Tran Catalina Trail, and we decided to make it happen. My dad and I flew out to L.A. and ferried over to the island around 6 a.m. Once we made it to the island, we stocked up at the little vons on the island with food for our long trek and went to find the trailhead. It started with a pretty brutal ascent, but there was no denying

how stunning the scenery was. As an island morning and October, it was pretty hazy and foggy, but you could sense the ocean on either side of the narrow island. At the top of the first descent, there was a bright yellow sign that stated the dangers of getting too close to bison, as well as some humbling statistics about their strength and speed. My dad conveniently left out the fact that the island was home to a rather large herd of bison when he mentioned this island trek to me. Turns out in 1924, a director decided that he wanted bison on the island for the movie he was filming. They brought 14 bison. bison and just left them there when filming was done. So they bred and left the island with an invasive

herd of bison. The largest native animal to Catalina is a small island fox, so this was a pretty sizable change. My dad snapped a picture of me by the sign and we kept moving. A bit later, my dad pointed at what looked like a giant black rock in the distance. What is that? He asked. Dude, that's totally a bison. Look at that shape, I replied. Now, I've seen enough torons of yellowstone to have any desire to be anywhere, even sort of near a bison. So we both felt some relief that it was far enough away to look like a rock. We continued hiking across some of the most incessant, steepest descents and descents I have ever come across. On the peaks after ascents, the views are open and rather barren, except for some low cacti.

So it was easy to see the island and even the ocean views. After descending into little narrow valleys, there is a ton of plant life and tight corners, so visibility is a lot lower. While in the middle of one of those low points, my dad and I rounded a bush covered corner and came face to face with a giant bison. In a lot of tour on bison videos, the bison started out rather unbothered until people get up in their business. This was not the case for this homie. He was staring us down from higher ground than we were at, tense, tail swishing, and not breaking eye contact once. My dad and I froze unsure what to do at this point. We had no cell service and nowhere to go other than continuing.

on the narrow trail. To really drive home how unlucky we were, another bison was lying on the other side of the trail. So if the first one charged, we'd run straight into his friend. My dad pulled up the picture of me in the yellow sign from earlier, seeing if it mentioned what to do. All of the advice included things like, get behind a rock or a large tree. You know what this entire island did not have? Rocks or large trees. We had a hard time believing the knee-high cactus and desert-like Shrebery was going to do much against this 2,000-pound angry bison. After staring and anxiously whispering, we decided to pick up our trekking poles and try to move quietly but quickly past, as we didn't have much of an option. We would be coming within 50 feet of the bison. My dad led and I followed.

All I can remember thinking is that if this bison charged, I hope that he went for me instead of my dad, because at least my dad is physically capable of carrying me out of a ditch we were in. When my back was to the bison, I heard agitated huffing. I have never felt fear that deep and primal in my life. Luckily, we quickly walked around a steep corner so the bison could no longer see us and seemed to decide we weren't worth it anymore. We booked it as fast as we could. Once some of the heavy, cold fear drained a bit, my dad took a breath.

Who was the idiot director who left the bison here? I'm going to find his grave and I'm going to piss on it. We saw plenty more bison as we continued on the trail. But luckily, they were all. all from a much, much more tolerable distance. The rest of the trek was stunning, challenging, and eventful in much less terrifying ways post-bison encounter, and I'll never forget it. We spent two and a half days completing the trail before we ferried out.

We had gone during the off-season for the trail, so it was relatively quiet and was a much-needed break from the busy lives of a college student and a working dad, even with having the fear of God struck in us in the middle of the island. I'll attach the picture of me by the sign. be sure to note the naive glint in my eyes. It's pretty safe to say you won't see either of us featured on Torrance of Yellowstone as we are both scarred for life. My dad and I both love your podcast, so keep up the great work and thank you for everything.

Best, Jess. It reminds me of like how they were introduced and now they're like thriving, the Pablo Escobar hippos. Oh, yes. It's like you put me here, but I actually kind of do well here. I know I'm not supposed to be here, but it's got everything I need. Surprise. Surprise. Oh, man, I don't, I haven't been up close and personal with a bison before, other than bison

jams and Yellowstone. I have. When I was in North Dakota, I was hiking on a trail and there was bison poop everywhere. Oh, yeah, I remember this. And I was walking and I'm like, you know, I was alone. I was solo hiking in theater Roosevelt National Park. And I'm walking down this trail and there's bison poop everywhere and it's looking a little fresh and I'm getting a little nervous and I it the trail I was on it kind of like dipped down and would

come up and it wasn't like these huge mountains or anything but once you were down you couldn't see over the next hill and stuff so I was walking and I rounded a corner and there was a bison probably like 75 feet from me something like that it was like munching away and I was there was actually a big bush right as I saw it and I like saw it sitting there and I saw the bush and I was far enough away. I don't even think it saw me. And I just backed up. And I was like, that is my sign that this hike is done for the day. And I didn't finish it. I turned around. Good. Yeah. And then I saw a rattlesnake on the trail. So I was like, there's some, there's some stuff out here. Yeah, it's scary. I was actually just in Red Rocks the other day with the dogs. It was a really warm day,

like unseasonably warm. It was like in its 60s. I mean, and right now, obviously it's like 22 too when snowing. But it was a very rare, like, you know, nice day out in red rocks. And I had that thought of rattlesnakes. I'm like, I wonder when they're going to start coming out. Because it's just a perfect, perfect environment for them. I was scared. Once it's sunny and warm, just lie out on the rocks.

But I didn't know. I'm like, do they just come out, like, even just if it's, if it's one day or does it have to be consistently warm? Like, I don't know enough. I'm sure. I don't know enough about rattlesnics either. Okay, we're derailing. Yeah, we are.

Okay, my second story is titled, you're in the right place. And you thought I was done with science stories after last trail tales? Think again. It's a sign story. I never think you're done with sign stories. Surprise. Okay, it starts, hey ladies, thank you so much for the podcast. It is a nice decompressor on my 35-minute commute home from work as a middle school PE teacher.

I love listening to the trail tales and always think, I wish something cool would happen to me. And then I realized I do have a story. I'll be it, it doesn't take place in a national park. My boyfriend and I love hiking in the outdoors as well as camping music festivals. I have been a music festival junkie since high school due to my dad having the 1969 Woodstock DVD on repeat at our house. He was a musician and played in a band with my mom.

He instilled my love of the outdoors with Peace River trips in Florida and my love of music with his passion for it. So when my boyfriend and I bought tickets to the, Oh, God. Okinaechobee music festival. Oh, oh, there's no N in there. Oka Chobi? Oka Chobi. Music Festival. Sorry, everyone for Florida. We were excited to listen to music. Be surrounded by like-minded people and camp in our new tiny camper. The festival takes place in, oh, God, you did it to me again. Ocachopee. Ocachovie, Florida, where you are surrounded by grasslands, palm trees, pine trees, palmetto jungles, and lakes.

It's truly a magical place. Making plans like this was hard for me because my dad had terminal cancer and I just didn't know when his time would come. He had tried a new chemo to give him a little more time as immunotherapy was no longer working. Knowing that I didn't know what the future held, I made sure to see him the night before we left. He wasn't feeling great. He truly had the most positive attitude. So when I saw him struggling, I knew it wasn't good. I was worried about leaving for the weekend, but he wanted me to go and told me to have a good time. The next morning, we were packing up and getting ready to leave when my mom called and said he needed to go to the hospital.

He couldn't walk on his own and she needed help getting him into the car. We rushed to get everything in the car so we could head over there, but my mom called back and said my aunt and uncle, who happened to be in town and were staying closer than we lived, were on their way to help. She told me to go to the music festival and she would keep me updated. Throughout the festival, my mom would update me and it wasn't good. He was intubated and we weren't sure he would make it home. My sisters flew in from Georgia and Arizona, but they told me to stay as only one person was allowed in the hospital at a time due to COVID procedures. However, we ultimately decided we would leave early. The day before we left, I was trying to enjoy our last day, but was feeling so guilty about being there when my world was seemingly falling apart at home.

We were sitting by the lake listening to some music when someone randomly came up to me and handed me a card and walked away. The card said, love you, dad. I had tears in my eyes as I read it, and I knew I was in the right place and it was okay to enjoy. I made it home to spend the day in the hospital with my dad, festival braids and all. He made it home after all, but passed peacefully at home two weeks later with my mom, myself, and my sisters by his side. As Danielle says, take the trip, enjoy, and know that you are where you are supposed to be, Annie. Another tear, tear jerking one.

What are the chances? What are the chances? is someone just hands you a note that says love you, dad. Right. Like, talk about no such thing as coincidences and we say it all the time. But what the, like, who is carrying around a card that says that? Right. And like to hand it to the person who is having such an internal struggle with being there

and having their dad being so connected to me. It was just like, yeah, crazy. Crazy cool, Annie. It is. It kind of, it's a little different, but it just reminded me of it. is in Vermont, there is a mailbox that someone put up here. And the mailbox is in the middle of a trail. You have to hike out to it. It's not a far hike. It's like a nice little stroll through these really beautiful like flower fields. It's a little uphill. And you get there. And there is a bench that's

under this really pretty tree and it overlooks the mountains when you're up there. And a couple feet from it, there is just a mailbox in the middle of the trail and it says dad on it. And people hike this trail and they write letters to their dads who have passed away. And some of them aren't even to dads who have passed away, but dads who have abandoned their families. It's just whatever way to communicate with your dad who you have no communication with. But people, there's journals that are in it and you can go in there and write your own thing to your dad in it. It's so therapeutic. Yeah. It's like the wind phones like that I went to in Washington. Yeah. The wind telephone. I remember you telling them. No, it's just a rotary. Yeah.

Yeah, just a rotary phone. And there's, I think they're popping up in more and more places. It's a, it, they started in a different country. I think Japan or something. But yeah, it's just so therapeutic to just go out and talk or write, you know, to whoever you need to. And to have a special place that is designated for exactly that everyone who goes there is there for a similar reason. Yeah, exactly. It's very comforting. Is it my turn? Yes. Okay. I'm switching gears a little bit. This story is titled Hot Springs and the McCready Masturbator. My engagement story. Sounds romantic. Hi, ladies.

My name is Brandy. I've been listening to your podcast since I first discovered it in spring of 2022. I'm a home health therapist and love listening to your podcast while driving in between seeing patients. My trail tale doesn't take place in a national park, but does take place out in nature. so I thought I'd send it in. In January 2020, my then boyfriend, James, and I were living in beautiful Willamette Valley and Oregon. It was our second winter here, and we had talked about visiting a hot spring in the winter and finally decided to go one weekend. I spent an evening earlier in the week researching the different hot springs that weren't too far away, as we were wanting to make it a day trip when I came across McCready Springs.

It was only an hour and a half away and free, so we chose this one. I was reading some reviews on it when I came across one from 2012 of a younger female who posted how scary it was because her and another female were visiting when they noticed a man standing above them on the hill, quote unquote, enjoying himself when they were packing up to leave. Totally inappropriate and of course, creepy, but I had to laugh and tell James how if that were me, I'd probably yell out some sarcastic comment to try to give a hit to this dude's ego. After reading some other reviews and since this one was several years ago, we still decided to go to McCready Springs. Fast forward to that Saturday, we drove up to the trailhead and not a single vehicle was there. Score. There were still some snow on the ground. The weekend before there had been a snowstorm and high winds in the cascades. And we followed the footprints along the short, 500 feet or less trail from the parking lot to the springs. There was a random shirt hanging from a tree, which we didn't think too much of as unfortunately.

it's not uncommon for people to litter or leave items behind, and a down tree that had been cut in half in order to cross a small part of the creek to get from the first hot spring to the other two small hot springs along the side of the river. Now when I say hot springs, these were small. I'm talking three small, quote unquote, pools, barely even six inches deep. None of them were very warm, so I was going back and forth trying to decide if I even wanted to take off my hiking clothes with my bathing suit underneath to get in. Finally, I decided to go for it. When James bent down to help me take off my hiking boots,

me holding onto his shoulder for balance as I was removing my boots and pants when he began the speech. At first, I thought he was joking, as he had teased me several times before, bending down and acting like he was going to propose. So my initial response was, shut up, get up.

Until this time, he kept talking, and then I noticed the ring. Him down on one knee, and me with my feet in the mud, and my pants halfway around my thighs getting engaged. I said yes, and we had a few minutes of soaking it all in, then decided to try the hot springs finally. As I dipped my toes in the two closest to us and decided they weren't too warm,

I walked back to the first one by the down tree when James said it as soon as I noticed it too. Uh, was that there when we first got it here? Laying on the tree was a knife. It was in a sheath, but it was a huge knife with an eight to ten inch blade. We both looked at each other and then looked around. We were the only ones there. This area was behind him when he was proposing, but I'm sure I would have noticed someone walking around,

even during our moment, but we were dumbfounded. We chalked it up to maybe it had been there when we arrived, but it kind of blended in with the tree colors, so maybe it was just camouflaged because we were excited to jump into the hot springs. After a few minutes of standing around, we decided to get back in our car and drive half a mile up the road to cross the river as there was another change. trail on the other side of the river I had read about that the hot springs were supposed to be

nicer, but it was a longer hike. We parked our car and this time there were two other vehicles at this trailhead. We began our hike down and even though it was January, it was warmer than it had been so the snow was melting some and falling off the trees. It was a peaceful, quiet hike, but the snow falling at times made us both look around. Side note, before my fiance and I ever met, I traveled the country solo as a traveling therapist and often hike solo wherever I went. James is a veteran who served 12 years in the army. Both of us love hiking, being out in nature, and are always aware of our surroundings. This being said, I was hiking in front of him and often would stop and turn around to look at him to check in with each other. We kept within 10 feet of

each other the entire time. At one point on the trail, after about 20 to 25 minutes hiking in the snow, we came to an uphill area with a drop off to the raging river below. For some reason, I had a weird feeling. I stopped and told him, I don't know why, but I was a little. I don't know why, but I feel really uncomfortable. He agreed that something felt off, and we decided to turn around and go back home to share the news with family and friends and just enjoy our big day. We started hiking back to the trailhead, and after less than five minutes, we came around a small bend and we were greeted by a taller, middle-aged guy wearing cargo pants, a lightweight, long-sleeve shirt with a towel thrown over his shoulder. We did the whole trail etiquette thing of saying a quick, hi, and stepping to the side to let him pass us. instead, he stopped in the middle of the narrow trail and asked us if we'd been in the hot spring

yet. We told him no, and as I was in front of my fiancé, I began taking small steps as if to continue walking the way we were headed. But this guy decided to stand his ground and not make any effort to move, but kept encouraging us to turn and go back to the hot spring. My fiance is more of a social butterfly than I am and kind of made small talk with him for a minute or so. But this wasn't the usual, pass someone on the trail and give encouragement. He was very persistent and telling us to go back and he would show us the way. I had had enough. I said, nope, and was done caring if I seemed rude or not. So I walked off, passing the man and turned to give my fiancee the look. You know the look. Like, get us out of here. My fiance then began walking towards me and the guy gave up. But

once we got a little ways from him, my fiance said what we were both thinking, where did he come from? And we both had the, why was he so persistent on us going to the hot spring question? It wasn't normal. We had a pretty good pace and what had took us at least 15 to 20 minutes, this guy was in the area in less than five. No one ever pulled up behind us as we left the trailhead and I never saw anyone on the trail when I would look back at James. At this point, we picked up our pace walking even faster to the car.

Both of us occasionally glancing over our shoulder. It wasn't until we got back to the car when I asked James, Did you see his pants? That's right. His zipper was all the way down and part of his shirt was hanging through. I looked at James and said, that's him. That's the McCready masturbator of 2012. We had a little laugh, but in all honesty, we were a little creeped out. Not just about his pants. Maybe it was an honest mistake of forgetting to zip up, but the fact that this guy seemed to appear out of nowhere and why would he not give up on trying to get us to go to the hot springs with him? Anyways, thanks for reading our story. I've attached a couple pictures. of the hot spring from where our engagement took place and the one with the down tree you can see the knife if you zoom in. Remember to enjoy the view, but watch your back for creepy middle-aged men with her pants unzipped. I don't like that at all. No, that's creepy. I mean, very memorable engagement. Yeah. I mean, he would hope your engagement would be memorable without a weird, creepy, masturbating guy in the woods. I'm glad he wasn't actually masturbating when you saw him, but yeah.

Still, like anyone being persistent to get you somewhere, like alone in the woods is always, always feel a bad sign. I feel like it's one thing if you're both like have the same vibe and he's like, yeah, come to the hot springs. And you're like, yeah, that sounds great. But if you're like, no, he's like, come to the hot springs. And his pants are unzipped. Like, uh. In what world do you think we're going to do also?

Get away from me. Yeah. Okay, I guess my last one is kind of creepy too. We're on like a role of the creepy ones today. Yeah, I forgot that I included this one. It's titled Statues in the Wild and Sets. stenches in the house. Hey guys, I recently found your podcast and have been listening whenever I can to pass the time

while waiting to hear back from various summer positions. I grew up frequently going on trips to the woods through the BSA, visiting everywhere from New Mexico to Florida to Minnesota. My most terrifying story in the woods, however, was at a small state park not 30 minutes from my university about six years ago. I had planned a weekend camping trip with three of my friends who all lived on the same floor is me. Friday comes and with it comes a severe thunderstorm. So we settle on a day hike on Saturday. The morning of Saturday, we pack up our things and three out of the four of us, one was hung over

and bowed out last minute, venture out into the wild. We had planned to hike on the main trail, but changed that since we had heard stories of an abandoned horse ranch in the park. On our way through the winding and overgrown trails, we came to the top of a steep hill and saw a little gray flecks on the hillside, which we first thought were rocks, but then realized we live in Illinois, and rocks protruding from the ground doesn't really happen here. Upon closer investigation, we noticed that the rocks are actually small statues, the kind you'd see in a cemetery, except none of them have heads. I shit you not, every single statue of the 25-ish that we saw were headless, and otherwise in near-perfect condition. Needless to say, we were spooked. Among the

statues were those of Maria Bethlehem, angels, and Holocaust victims. We descended down the hillside to get a better look, and sure enough, there are more statues further out of reach, which someone in the group identified as various disciples and Jesus, also headless. We continue down the trail, because we are indeed the dumb bitches in every horror film, and found the dilapidated horse ranch that was talked about, with the roof caved in and the corral in disarray. As far as we could tell from lack of footprints and lack of trail disturbance, we were the first people here in a long time. I, once again, being a dumb bitch, went straight into the house, where the air was immediately heavy with both asbestos and the smell of rotting flesh. I looked around and saw a lump of something

covered by a tarp with red liquid seeping out of the bottom. I rationalized, okay, I rationalized it to being rusty water. I would have ran. I would have immediately turned around and run. Okay. I rationalized it to being rusty water as there were many rusty decorations and appliances around until I heard a large branch snap right outside of the old house. I froze for what seemed like forever. And when I finally mustered the courage to turn around, I only saw my friends who both stood there looking horrified with one mouthing that was not fucking us.

Growing up in Illinois, especially my part of Illinois, you learn quickly that there's nothing to fear in the wild. No mountain lions, no bears, no sheep, or goats, just small rodents and deer and people. And whatever broke that massive branch was not a deer. Needless to say, we immediately turned around and noped the fuck out of there. And we practically sprinted back to my car and peeled out of the parking lot as fast as possible. Not one of us looking back the entire run, which we later found out to be three miles, which was astonishing to me considering I'm not athletic in the least.

We drove back in silence and only truly freaked out when we got back to the door. Nobody knows exactly what we saw that day, but all three of us had the unfortunate experience to where we all knew the smell of a dead body to be a human body. And that was it. None of us had ever really spoken about that day since, and I've lost contact with those friends after we graduated. I still love going into the woods and hiking, but I haven't even entertained the thought of going exploring through man-made structures in the woods since. Even seeing an inhabited cabin gives me the willies to this day. I hoped you enjoyed hearing about my experience. And as you say, enjoy the view, but watch your back.

And also keep your nose open. S. Oh, that's so scary. Once you smell a dead body, like a human dead body, you know it's a dead body, is what they say. Yeah, I've never, I've only, I've never smelled a dead body before. I've been around dead bodies before, unfortunately, but they were not in like a decomp situation. Same. You know what I'm saying.

Same. So, but I mean, I know what a dead, like, animal body smells like. And that's not. You never forget that either. So yeah, that's fucking, I have said it once. I'll say it a million times, I don't fuck around with abandoned places. I just, because of that reason, like the human aspect of it, I mean, we have a friend from home that we used to work with Rachel.

And she is like all about that life, like exploring abandoned. She's so brave. So brave. She's so small too. She's like 90 pounds and like 5'2. And she's so small. But she is so mighty. And she goes into these abandoned places that are just really cool places to like old hospitals,

asylums. Mm-hmm. Like she doesn't fuck around. And she's brave. And I just can't. I can never. It's just too much for me, the human aspect of someone like being there or whatever. And yeah.

There's a trail near my house. And I walked on it one day just to explore and see. And the whole time I like kind of had weird vibes when I was there. And then I came across like this. old fireplace just in the middle of the trail. And then I noticed that there were like six more of them. And then at the beginning of the trail, there was this information sign, which I didn't look at. I should have. And there's an information sign that there used to be a town there. And the whole town burned down and a bunch of people died. And I was like, all right, well, that explains why I feel so

creeped out here. Like, I solo hike all the time. And when I went out on this trail, like, there was just something immediately where I felt uncomfortable. And I mean, I feel very comfortable walking by myself on known trails. Right. Yeah. And it just, yeah. Something was different. But I didn't have that experience. My next one is titled, Moose Are Real and in New England. No, they're not. No, they're not. And this story. This story takes place. like pretty much in my backyard so I know that this isn't real. I'm just kidding. We know you're lying but for the same. We know you're lying but we'll read it anyway. Hi ladies. With all the moose or lack of moose stories recently on trail tales, I feel like I had to share this trail tale with you all and hopefully

share it with everyone else as well. In the fall of 2020, my boyfriend got the idea that we should do a sunrise hike together. While I am not a night owl, waking up at 4 a.m. was not my version of a weekend. Eventually, he convinced me to go, and we decided to hike White Rock and Mount Hunger in the Worcester Range near Stowe, Vermont. We got up, made some coffee, drove to the trailhead under the light of a full moon, and started our ascent up the mountain. I'm a pretty good hiker and can normally keep up just fine with my boyfriend, but something about it still being dark and me being half asleep must have slowed me down considerably. I was constantly being dropped as I huffed and puffed up the mountain. We were racing the sunrise. It's a steep hike. At first light, we were not quite above the tree line yet, but with a new force of energy, we got to the top of white rock just in time to see the sun come over the next mountain range to the east. It was a gorgeous clear day, and having not seen any other people on trail, it felt like we were on top of the world as we looked over the valley below. In the couple days before the hike, my uncle passed away after a long battle with MS. Up there, I felt like I shared a moment of peace with him amidst the sad ones I would.

was feeling. After the pause, we continued our hike. By the time we walked across the ridge to the Mount Hunger Summit, some of the clouds started to roll in, and we were getting hungry for breakfast, so we headed back down the mountain. We rock scrambled the first quarter mile or so, then went down a steep set of metal stairs, and we were back under the trees. We were walking down the trail and came around a large tree when I noticed something moving. Very large and dark in color. I stopped dead in my tracks, but my boyfriend hadn't seen it yet. My first, thought was, oh my God, a bear. I croaked out, what? What's that? Before realizing it was an adult moose with its head down eating its own morning breakfast. Within a split second, my boyfriend

saw the moose turned 180 degrees and started sprinting back up the trail, leaving me to fend for myself. In my own moment of panic, I trusted that he, as a born and raised Vermonter, knew what to do when you saw a moose while hiking and chased after him yelling, what are you do? What are you do? What if it starts charging? Wait for me. He said, keep running. We got back to the metal stairs and clamored up them. Here I finally got him to stop by explaining that a moose probably can't get upstairs and we could

stop there. Catch our breath and get our head straight. This is when the magic of it all started to hit me. As your other stories have noted, seeing a moose in the wild is very rare and very special. I was kicking myself for not getting a picture while my boyfriend was still convinced it was coming after us and was on high alert. Don't worry, no moose is coming, I said. And just as I did, we heard a rustle come from the trail under the stairs in the direction,

which the moose would be coming from. We looked at each other panicked, ready to flee again, when a man finally revealed himself. We laughed at ourselves and started talking to the man to see if he had seen the moose. Yes, and if it had moved away from the trail. Also, yes. So we started back down to the car and finished up the hike without any more notable occurrences. All in all, the hike was well worth the early wake-up time, and I think back very fondly of the whole thing.

Unfortunately, I have no moose photo to confirm this tale, but I do have the huge drop in my hiking pace saved on my Garmin watch app from when we switched from walking pace into a full out sprint. I did attach a quick sunrise picture I snapped in case you wanted to see. Do you believe her? I'm skeptical, but...

Moose aren't real. No, no, I believe you. It's funny. I live in Vermont, and I've never seen moose here, so... It is very special and very lucky. And what a place to see one. Yeah. I mean, I'm just waiting for your day.

Cassie, your day in the sun. I know. You know what it is? I'm not out early in the morning. Maybe that's what I need to do. Every moose, I've seen two in New England. I've never seen them in the early morning. It's in the middle of the day.

Right. Well, I am out in the middle of the day and they're also not there then. All right. I'm just eagerly waiting for your time to shine. Me too. I'll put it on the podcast. I'll make a whole episode out of it if I need to. Well, until then, we appreciate you sending in your stories of moose, even if we don't believe

you. They're fabricated. Okay, all right. We're just kidding. I think I've said this before. I'm pretty sure I said this before, but like people are getting, like, we've had a couple of, like, messages and emails about, like, people, like, very offended. Like, truly.

About us saying moose aren't real. And they're like, we, no, moose. are real and they're here, like, educate yourselves. It's like, okay, please. Learn to take a joke. I'm serious. Moose are not real. Okay, all right.

To be fair, we both actually see moose. I almost said meas. We both see moose. Okay, tell us your trail tale. Oh, wait. No, it's our bonus one. Oh, yeah, it's our bonus one. Oh, never mind.

Goodbye, everybody. Yeah, see you later. If you want to listen to the bonus ones, then you're interested. You can listen on Apple Podcast subscription, or you can go over to our Patreon and subscribe on there. We have ad-free episodes. We have our bonus trail tales.

We have bonus monthly episodes. We have a lot of cool stuff on there. But thank you, everyone, for tuning in for this episode. For all of our outsiders, we'll see you in a second. But for everyone else, enjoy the view. But watch you back. Bye, everyone. Bye.

Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at Stories, at NPAD Podcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD Podcast. Join our Outsiders-only community on Patreon or Apple subscriptions to listen ad-free, unlock monthly bonus episodes

and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For our exclusive discount codes and source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For more information on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more, visit our website at npaddpodcast.com. And please rate, review, and subscribe from wherever you listen to podcasts.

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