National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 32

Episode Date: July 6, 2023

Today’s stories include disembodied voices, justice from beyond, haunted happenings, high adventures and the bestest bark ranger. Outsiders Only bonus stories available for Patreon and 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!BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off.Hello Fresh: Use our link and code npad50 for 50% off plus free shipping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close your eyes. Focus. Listen to work getting done with Monday.com. Relax. As AI does the manual work, while your teams are aligned on a single source of truth. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform, so flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Notice you're limitless.

Limitless. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally. Breathe. Hi everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark Trail Tales edition. We have more stories today. Lots of stories to share and I'm excited because I think there's a little bit of a theme going on, like a slight theme. Is there? Yeah. Like spooky. We haven't really done many spooky trail tales recently. So this one has more than one. So that's a theme. Very cool. Full disclosure, Danielle was gracious enough to research this trail tales.

and put them all together. So I've read through them a little bit, but I didn't read through yours. So I knew mine had some spooky theme. I didn't know that yours did too. Excellent. Well, do you want to go first or do you want me to go first? I can go first because mine is titled,

I don't believe in ghosts. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Howdy, ladies? Most people call me Smith and I'm your typical, overly prideful, lanky Texan who always wears a cowboy hat and boots. I'm from Austin, Texas, and about nine years ago, I met a cute, spunky little Minnesota girl in Dallas and we decided to get hitched, move back to Austin, and make a family.

If we can be honest here, married, straight parents are usually pretty boring. But our coolest activity is that we sold slash gave away most of what we own two years ago, bought an old motorhome and left the Austin area to roam the highways, RV stops, and the national and state parks of our great nation. Anywho, to go along with my country look, I am always. way behind on entertainment and tech trends. I will admit I just started listening to podcasts on our long drives beginning in 2021. We spent a lot of time out in the Big Bend area of far west Texas because we love the higher elevation, beautiful topography, temperate weather, and friendly folks.

About a year ago when I was behind the wheel cruising through a little town out there called Alpine, Population 6,06, I was curious if there were any podcasts about the area. Lo and behold, when I searched Big Bend in Spotify, your episode 25 Shifting Sands Big Bend National Park popped up. As so many other people say, I've been hooked ever since and I have retold your stories to friends and family frequently. Keep up the great work. So, ready for my trail tow? I am an avid outdoorsman and hunter. I started hunting in about 2004 west of Austin and the area known as Texas Hill Country. You know that place where everyone from California is buying all the land because it's so gorgeous, Yep, that place.

I deer hunted on a ranch out there for about a decade that was owned by my ex's family. It was a historic property that had been passed down through four generations. When it was originally purchased by them in the early 1900s, a small woodslat house was built for the family on the front section of the property. This was really more of a cabin in the woods by today's standards, and with a husband, wife, and four daughters, it was a roomy 500 square foot with one bedroom. Now my 34-foot motor home doesn't seem so small. No one has lived there since the 1940s and since the property has always been a working cattle ranch, some of the cowboys in hands would go inside to find shade or get out of bad weather. The house is almost completely empty except a small table, two chairs, and a wood-burning stove in the back corner.

Switching gears, about 10 years ago, I was hunting on that property. My father-in-law had set up a new stand in a grove of oak trees next to cattle tank, aka pond. It was a 30-foot-tall bow blind that was strapped against one of the thicker trees. One of the reasons why he chose that spot is because there were animal tracks everywhere. You could follow multiple game trails up the side of the tank and back through the trees. It was perfect. I was excited to get to hunt this spot, but to my surprise, I didn't see any deer the first time out, or second, or the third.

I figured that all our tromping around and setting up had spooked everything away for a bit. One night, we saw a group of feral hogs come in just before dusk on our trail camp. So the next afternoon, I was out there. Instead of sitting in that tree stand again, I decided that I wanted to get closer to the action. So I camoed out, head to toe, doused myself in scent killer spray, and sat on the ground against a big tree where I covered my feet, legs, and hips with abundant fallen leaves, since it was November after all. Did I mention that?

I don't think so. About 15 feet in front of my spot, two game trails intersected, and there was a corn feeder about 40 yards past that. After sitting very still for a couple hours, the sunlight was starting to fade, and since I was under the canopy of trees, the shadows were growing longer. I figured I had about 20 minutes of legal shooting light left. Then, right on cue, I heard hogs walking down the trail behind me. They were coming straight down the trail to my right and were about 60 feet back. I slowly reached for my 357 magnum revolver that was right beside me hidden under the brush with me. When they were about 40 feet behind my tree,

I realized that they were walking really slowly. I've hunted hogs all over Texas, and these must have been the chillest piggyies on the... The chillest piggyes on this side of the mighty... I can just hear your southern accent in this. Must have been the chills piggyes on this side of the Mississippi. The mighty Mississippi. Mighty Mississippi.

Sorry, my southern accent's awful, but you really like the way that you wrote this. Then I realized that I wasn't hearing hogs. The footsteps were one at a time. It would have been taller than a pig. My mind started racing about what it could be, horse or cow. No, it wasn't that big. A loose goat from a neighboring property?

No, mountain lion? They are few and far between in the hill country, and it didn't sound soft-footed either. It was too loud for a deer, but heavier than a raccoon, squirrel, armadillo, or possum. It really sounded like a person. Someone who was just on a leisurely stroll down a path on private property all alone. Hmm. Whatever it was was now about 20 feet behind my tree as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I'm a very logical person, but I just couldn't figure out what this thing was before I saw it. So I gripped my pistol, held my position, and slowly turned my head to the right to hopefully see it before it discovered me.

For some reason, the thing stopped about 10 feet behind the tree. I remained very still to not spook it. Then about 30 seconds later, it kept walking along. Okay, here it comes. My wide eyes, through my camo gator and beanie. I took slow, short breaths. It took about four steps out in front of me, crunching the leaves and twigs with every step. Yet I saw nothing. What?

I blinked a couple times and after I completely lost my cool, I quickly stood up. There was still enough light to see across the grove of trees across the clearing to my right, but nothing was there. At my movement, whatever had been there was gone. Without even trying to be stealthy now, I backed up, then paced around the tree, looking up the branches and peered down the little trail

it came from. No tracks. Again, nothing. An anxious feeling washed over me, and since my brain couldn't nail down any logic here, I decided to grab my stuff and get out of dodge. As I walked away, I was about 30 yards away from that spot against the tree, and I heard someone running. It was that same area that I had just been sitting in, and it ran away from me down the other trail next to the tank embankment, a trail that happened to lead back to the old house at the front of the property. Spooky. Spooky. I hiked back to camp at a brisk pace and disbelief of my encounter. By the time I walked back to the other side of the property, it was pitch black. My father-in-law was sitting there by the fire roasting some hot dogs. When he saw me approach, he said, get anything? To which I vigorously

shook my head. I must have had a crazy look on my face because he followed it with, Are you okay? To which I recounted exactly what happened. All the facts, all the logic, all the things that went through my head, and the fact that I had no idea why I couldn't see something that was right in front of me. It sounded a little ridiculous, so I thought he would be amused and laughed at me. Instead, my tale was met with a serious, stoic face. He instructed me to drive over to the front of the ranch in the morning and speak with Ari,

an old rancher who married one of the daughters named Honey of the original family. He and Honey were the only people who lived on the ranch full time. And side note, their story is kind of romantic. Ari had been a young, handsome cowboy that worked for Honey's dad, the original owner of the ranch. I guess he had somewhat wooed her, got permission from her dad, married her, and built another house out there in the 1970s. After breakfast the next day, I stopped at Ari's on the way out. He showed me around the house, offered me a Dr. Pepper, and explained the water situation

on the ranch as any true Texas rancher would. We walked out on the wraparound porch and sat down in some chairs. I awkwardly brought up the story from my previous day's hunt. He patiently listened and right when I thought he was fixing to kick me off the porch for being a weirdo, he went straight into a story from 50 years before like it had happened yesterday. Back in his cowboy days, there were plenty of tall tales passed around the campfires out there by ranch hands about that old house. R.E. recounted one day, in 1950-something, it was very cold with high wood,

winds. He went into that house to get warm and he said he could see light coming in between the boards and feel plenty of wind with it. One of the other workers had been there earlier, so there were still a few live coals in the bottom of the wood stove, so he put a couple more sticks in there to get it going again. There was no electricity wired into the shack, so he had the front door wide open to let light in. He was crouched down on his haunches with his hands extended to the growing flames when all of the sudden and he smelled ladies perfume. The smell grew stronger as if a woman was standing very close to him. He turned his head around to look around the entire room,

but it was just him and the old stove. He shook it off and turned back to the fire. Then something touched him gently across the shoulder as if with one purposeful finger. He said he was frozen. He slowly turned his head to see the translucent figure of a woman, slowly walk into the light of the open door, then disappear. I was stunned.

I just stared at the man waiting for him to crack a smile, but he was serious. He let me gawk for a bit, then said, It sounds like you may have spooked her out there. That wasn't really the answer I was looking for, but I thanked him for the hospitality and walked back out to my truck. Should Ari's story have made me feel better? I mean, it would have explained it, but ghosts aren't real, right? Whoever said that?

I never said that. Who ever said that? We never said that. Moose aren't real, but ghosts are real. Ghost are another story. Yeah. I drove out of the property with a newfound existential conundrum, that's for sure. And there it is.

I have only told a couple people that story, and I'm not sure what to make of it. On a happy note, my wife and I decided to do a bunch more research on the Big Bend area after I made her listen to episode 25 too. We ended up buying a fixer up our house out here in the Alpine about a year ago, and we still listen to y'all on every car trip over half an hour. I took my young sons on their first Big Bend National Park hike the other day. I want to raise my boys to enjoy and respect the wild places and find spouses who will listen to murder podcasts with them. Thanks for listening to my yarn. Enjoy the view, but watch your butts.

Smith. Smith, I loved the way he wrote that. Me too. I just felt like your character shone through the whole writing. And it was such an interesting story. And I agree. Find a spouse who will listen to a murder podcast with you. And I also love that. There's just something about a skeptic writing in a story about something that makes them question their belief system. I mean, not to say that I don't enjoy reading it from full-blown believers either, but it just adds a little layer of extra credibility or at least like contemplate like, oh, maybe that was something. Yeah, I mean, when you hear from people who are serious believers, there's part of you that could be like, are they just twisting this to make it fit their beliefs? But when you hear it from a skeptic,

It's almost more of a legitimacy to it because you know that they don't believe. Yeah. And they've already tried to make it make sense logically and it didn't. 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 open that envelope? It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. 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. Well, my first story is also very creepy. Oh, okay. It's titled, Was That a Big Cat screaming or a woman? Hello, I grew up in the tiny town of Cohocton in western New York, where my house sat in a low valley with two big hills on either side. There was a big log cabin house across the street from us that a creepy old man lived in until I was about seven and then he moved away. When my new neighbors moved in, they had two kids that were around my age, so we played together all of the time.

The woods on the hill behind their house were steeper and closer than the ones behind mine, so we often played in them to build forts or look for salamanders. When we were about 10, we got the courage to hike up to the very top of their hill, about two miles from their house, to see what was up there. When we got to the top, we saw a wide open field with an old school bus, a truck, a shed, and an outhouse. Everything was locked with chains, and we didn't have the keys. So being the small delinquents that we were, we smashed some of the windows with a rock and made our way around the area. In the truck, we found bags full of random women's clothing, shoes, and purses. In the shed, we found some old guns, axes, shovels, and a mattress. The outhouse was just an outhouse, but it was gross.

Thank you for that. have to go into further description because there's nothing grosser than an outhouse to me. So I get it. Literally any outhouse, I cannot. I just can't. I don't like that. The only outhouses that are cool are, I don't even know if they're labeled as outhouses, but they're the ones where they're just the little wooden structures that are open.

There's no door and they're just in the middle of the woods somewhere. And there's a toilet and a giant hole. Just like a pit toilet. They have them all over Alaska. Yeah, they have them all over Alaska. I swear, like, I peed with no door so many times in the middle of the outdoors in Alaska. And I was like, you know, this isn't bad. Except for the mosquitoes. That's kind of gross. Something about, like, building an enclosure around it makes people like, why do you be, don't even get me started on outhouses. My fear without houses is that it's going to fall over with me inside. What? I've never once thought of that. But well, now you will.

I remember hearing a story of someone who they were, someone played a joke on them and they were in an outhouse and their friends like pushed it over while they were in it. And it's always been a fear of mine ever since. I heard that story. Friendship would be over for me because I just, I, like I could probably throw up right now even imagining myself inside of an outhouse. But okay, back to the story because it's actually pretty crazy. Okay. But in the bus, we found what we thought were the skeletons that you would find in a classroom, but with wigs glued on to them.

There are about 10 of them, but some looked more yellow than the others, and they were all facing the front. But when we got on the bus, me and Kaylee, the other girl, felt so off, like we were dizzy and sick, so we didn't stay in there for more than a few minutes. Josh, on the other hand, stayed there for about 10 minutes going through another bag full of random stuff. Kaylee and I felt super freaked out by all of this and decided we didn't want to be there anymore, so we started to walk away when we noticed a shoe near a tree. We walked over to it and I went to pick it up. When I did, some bones fell out of it.

I dropped it and we ran. Yelling for Josh as we passed the bus and back down the path we came. Josh caught up a few moments later with tears in his eyes asking us if we saw her and if that is why we were running. Saw who, we asked. He said that after he saw us run, he looked in the direction that we were coming from, and there was a woman standing there with an arm cut off. And when he went to jump out of the bus, he felt like he couldn't move.

Like he had this intense feeling of dread flush over him. He was able to move after what felt like minutes, but was only a few seconds. We all ran back down to the house after this and were too scared to tell anyone what we did or what we saw. A few weeks went by and Josh kept telling us that he keeps waking up in the middle of the night. someone saying help from his closet. I would not be sleeping in that room anymore. Well, they did the opposite. So we had a sleepover in his room.

Like clockwork at 3 a.m. it happens, and we all hear it. A faint help, help me is coming from his closet. That gives me chills. We swing open the door and find nothing. The next day, we searched the closet and I sprayed peroxide on the wall. walls and carpet, and it started to foam and bubble on the back left corner, which is no good if anyone knows anything about blood and putting peroxide on it. It has that sort of reaction. So we ripped a small bit back to find the cement underneath stained a dark brown. I sprayed it

again, and once again, it fizzed once more. This time, we told his mom. She cleaned it, but that was it. All right, mom. It's great. Fast forward to the summer of that year, about three months later and we are in my yard having a small fire when we hear it it's three a m a blood-curdling scream coming from the woods across the street we all go silent and look at each other a few seconds pass and we hear another scream we took off into my house and stayed in my room until morning too scared to sleep it sounded like a woman this happened every single time we had a fire and it wasn't just at 3 a.m. You could hear it at any time between 10 o'clock at night and 3 in the morning, and it was the same scream every time. We looked up mountain lions, bobcats, and even

Fox, because we heard they can sound like a woman. But when we listened to the recordings, it didn't come close to what we kept hearing. Eventually, we told their parents about the bus and the creepy happenings that followed, and they had it removed, and the police took all the bags of clothes, everything in the shed, and of course, the skeletons. We still couldn't tell if they were real or not, and we never heard anything else about them, but the screaming continued and my house started getting creepy. I have five older sisters, so after a couple of weird things started happening around my house, like things moving on their own, hearing voices, and seeing shadows out of the corner of our eye, they decided to use a makeshift Ouija board out of cardboard

and use a clear cap as the planchette. Well, we got more than what we asked for. I sat in the corner watching and was not a part of this. None of my sisters knew what I had seen on the hill so I was extremely mortified when it spelled out, killed, hill, bus, and 1992. For reference, I was born in 95 and this year was 2007. I ran to the computer and looked up missing women from the area in 1992, and there was one. I took a picture of her and sent it to Josh,

asking, was this her? I didn't get a reply back. Instead, I got a knock on my door, but it was Josh. He ran over and said, oh my God, that was her. How did you find that? this. I told him how and we just looked at each other, not sure what to do. We couldn't just tell the cops, oh yeah, she told us from beyond the grave. So we just sat there with this information until a few

weeks later. I was lying on my bed, which was positioned under some shelves when a ball landed on top of my chest and fell onto the floor. I got up to get it and when I did, the entire shelf fell where I was just laying. I said, okay, I'll say something. I told my mom who informed the police. They came out, got some information and months later, we saw our old creepy neighbor in the paper, arrested on three counts of kidnapping and murder. We still hear the screaming outside, but everything else has calmed down after that. I know this wasn't a park story, but I felt like you ladies would appreciate it. I just started your podcast a few months back and I'm slowly making my way through your episodes. Anyway, thank you both for adding more fuel to my love of the outdoors and of all things spooky, Jill.

That was so scary. And it was written. Like, it was real. It was your neighbor. It was real. And your neighbor was a murderer. Isn't that insane? That's so scary. And whoever from Beyond the Grave was like, these kids can help, like, get some justice here.

That's something out of a movie. I know. That's like a scary movie that you watch on Netflix. I mean, movies have to get inspiration from somewhere and this seems like that place. Should write into Netflix. God. It's so scary. Oh, God.

That's so scary. scary oh that's a fear of mine i'm in the middle of house hunting right now and i'm so afraid i'm going to buy a house that's haunted because i'm not going to buy it like a new one so and yeah up in new england i feel like your chances are higher a lot of the houses that pop up for sale a lot of them have been renovated but when you look at the year it was built it's sometime in the 1800s my first boyfriend uh well not my first boyfriend my first serious boyfriend i should say um His family lived in Kuntuckuk in New Hampshire and their house. They don't live there anymore.

But their house was built in 1725. Is it haunted? Sure felt haunted. It was creepy as hell. But it was actually really cool too because there was a lot of unique architecture that was obviously built from that time. Yeah. But anyway, I just remember everything was uneven. The stairs were miniature and like super steep.

There was a ton of miniature different rooms. Like open concept was not a thing. I mean, there's probably a lot of things that would never pass code today. But it was cool to spend some time in. But anyway, that's creepy. I can't. I don't know. I like old houses because of some of the character that they, I hate new builds.

The new builds that are happening, they all look the same. It's like the fake gray wood floors with white walls, white countertops. Gray cabinets. Yeah, there's just, there's no character at all. And they're clean looking. They look nice and you can decorate them well if that's your style. But for me, I'm just like, give me some type of character. But 1700s character, no thank you.

And haunted character also. Well, good luck. All the houses you've been sending me don't look haunted. Yeah, hopefully they're not. Sometimes you can't tell. All right, well, a little breakup in the spooky, scary stories. This one is titled Moose in New Hampshire, exist.

Mm-hmm. Hi, Cassie and Danielle. My name is Heidi and I have two daughters, Mia 21 and Eza 19. You may use our names should you choose to share. Mia introduced me to your podcast at the start of our long race home from San Antonio, Texas, back to central New Hampshire after dropping Eza at college. We had to shorten the drive in order to get Mia home in time to meet up with their friends for their departure out west to camp in Glacier National Forest for two months.

We binged your podcast the entire 30 plus hours, stopping only to have in-depth conversations about the content. Not only did we fall in love with your podcast, but we truly bonded over it in a new adult way. To date, we both have caught up with all the non-patrione episodes. Those will have to be next. Thank you for all you do, and we are deeply sorry for your loss. Anyway, on to the real moose of New Hampshire. I can't help but laugh every time I hear stories of moose not being real.

I've seen many. In Maine, my sightings have all been the calm, oh look encounters. In New Hampshire, they've come with a side of, holy shit. The first vivid memory I have, I was a small child, maybe eight years old or so. My sister and I were with my father, headed to his house for a weekend visit. Our parents divorced when we were very little. My father lived four miles out on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. He always said, if they pave the road, I'll move.

This particular day, we came around the corner on the dirt road to find a very large cow moose walking down the center of the road. She turned to look at us, turned back, and simply kept on sauntering down the middle of the road. With no room to pass, all we could do was follow her at a safe distance, very slowly. After about five minutes or so, we came upon a clearing on the right which she walked off into. My dad being a curious dad and all of us in awe of this majestic beast, pulled off the side of the road to get a a better look at her from outside the car. He instructed us to get out, but leave the doors open in case she charges. So we did. At this point, she was about halfway across the large field, probably about 200 yards away. She stopped and turned to look at us again as we were standing outside my dad's

station wagon, being very quiet, just staring at her. Thankfully, she did not see us as a threat and eventually continued walking off into the woods. Probably not the best parental moment, but thankfully all ended well. The second close encounter I've had was with our late dog, Stella, about eight years ago. She was a black lab and just a young two-year-old at the time when we were out for our morning walk. We were at the top of our hill, which is part of the Mink Hills, which are part of the Chandler Reservation. The Chandler Reservation consists of approximately 1,524 acres and is adjacent to the 400-acre Harriman-Channd-State Forest. We are no strangers to wildlife.

is deeply wooded on both sides until you get to the top where it opens to a clearing on one side and vast views of surrounding mountains to the north and east. It is a dead end unless you are in foot, have an ATV, or a serious off-road vehicle. I was training Stella to walk off leash and she was doing great. On our way back down, I spot a large bull moose headed into the woods just at the edge of the clearing. This was probably only 500 yards away, not quiet in its movements, and Stella just enough ahead of me, I would never be able to grab her in time if she noticed it. Thankfully, my dopey little girl just looked at me completely unfazed by animal noises in the woods and we continued on our merry way. Had it been a squirrel, the story would have been very

different. I hear that. The third and most recent encounter was while I was teaching Issa how to drive. We were on our way home around dusk, driving a backcountry road that skirts Mount Kyrsodge when a truck coming in the other direction flashed its lights at us. Issa checked her own to make sure she didn't have her high beams on. I said he's probably warning us about a cop doing speed checks or something up ahead. The road is near the high school, has access to the mountain itself and local country club, so it's not unusual to see police officers watching for speeders. Not a moment later, a large cow moose jumped into the middle of the road ahead of us.

Everything at that moment went into slow motion, and my daughter did not react. As calmly and sternly as I could, I said, breaks! Thankfully, she snapped out of it and started breaking, and thankfully, the moose kept going. Crisis averted. Hearts pounding as we drove past the spot where the moose had come from. I looked to the right to spot her calf waiting its turn to cross. There you have it, ladies. Moose in New Hampshire are real, at least for me.

And my neighbor who likes to walk very early in the morning in the dark with no light, don't ask, I have no idea and would never go out without a light myself. She always reports her wildlife encounters on Facebook. mostly Black Bears, but she did report a moose walking down the middle of our road last fall. Speaking of Black Bears, I tried to attach a video of our most recent visitor last summer, but it was too large, so I screenshot some photos from it instead. Enjoy the view, keep your head on a swivel, and watch your back. So you're telling me that you had three moose encounters.

I would just like to say that I have been to the areas that they are describing, and I have never seen a moose there. Well, I'm just saying, like, it takes a lot of time and effort to make up a story like that. I will also like to say that the photos she attached were not of moose. It was only of Black Bear. How convenient. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. Just so you know. It's so funny.

But for real jokes aside, thank you. for sharing that made-up story. Should we tell them? We could tell them. I guess you can lay it on them. We are in the works of creating Moose Aren't Real merch. It's been highly requested. It has.

You all better buy it. Let me just say that because I'm like, who is going to, like, I know it's kind of a joke. But like, it seems like now there's like a cult following of it. So we just wanted to provide you guys with some sort of tangible, real. merch that you can wear. It's a conversation starter. It sure is. If you're walking around with the shirt this is moose aren't real and it's someone who has not listened to this podcast, they're going to have questions. And you'll have answers, maybe, but. And they might try to sway you with fake photos, fake stories, fake news. But we don't believe them. Fake news. Yeah, so I guess

keep an eye out for that because we had a first like couple preliminary designs come through. and we were just cracking. They're so funny. I feel like this will be our funniest design, which I'm excited for. Oh, all right. My next story is titled A Haunted Kind of Trail. Hi, Cassie and Danielle. First, I discovered your podcast a year ago, and as an outdoor enthusiast, I am hooked.

I save them for drives to and from the hospital and look forward to them every week. My story is not quite on a trail, but wilderness adjacent. We were visiting Asheville to look for housing for our move. and booked our stay in a 100-year-old farmhouse overlooking the mountains. The description seemed like the perfect place to stay with our nine-month-old son, quiet for him and no chance of waking up others like in a hotel. We pulled in close to midnight and were greeted by a cute farmhouse semi-secluded off of the side of the road. We couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, despite everything being

exactly as it was in the pictures. We settled in and my husband, somewhat jokingly, somewhat serious, said it felt haunted. I've always always felt sensitive towards energies or hauntings, if you will, and I agreed. It felt haunted, but I talked myself down saying I was tired and looking for things because it was just an old house. The next morning, when we woke up, we realized we were across from a church and a graveyard. Sounds picturesque to me. I don't know what all the fuss is about, but despite the graveyard, we had a mountain's view and neighbor chickens that came up to the porch, much to the delight of my son. We later walked along the mountain road, as

it was an easy hike with a baby. I saw a small tombstone with flowers and stopped to read the description. My heart dropped as I was holding my own baby when I realized I was reading the tombstone of a baby who was only 12 days old when they died in 1934. I turned around and quickly walked back to our farmhouse. After a full day of exploring Asheville and house hunting, I forgot about our tiny hike and we were all settled into bed. I was awakened from a deep sleep by my son playing with his wooden wheel, the one from the Love Every 5 to 6 month play pack for reference. I'm sure moms get it. I have no idea what you're talking about.

I chuckled to myself that the baby got up so early to play and my husband had taken him downstairs thinking it was around 5.30 in the morning. That is, until my husband came into the room and asked what was making that noise. Him and the baby were asleep in the room next to me and it was only 3 a.m. As soon as I realized my son was not the one playing with his toy and my husband realized I was Also upstairs, we jumped up to investigate. The noise immediately ceased. I stayed with our sleeping baby as he went and searched the entire house.

Nothing was out of place. The doors were all locked. He was convinced it was an animal in the roof or outside. I couldn't think of any animal that would make the noises with food or sticks. Even though it was my night to sleep, we switched off every other night to take care of the baby if he wakes up. I slept in their room. Periodically, we heard the noises and I swore I heard a baby.

but every time I woke up, mine was asleep. The next morning, my husband brought up the noises, and I brought out my baby's wooden wheel and spun it. It was the exact same noise. My husband offhandedly mentioned that he thought he kept hearing the baby the previous night, but would wake up to find him also asleep. I told him about the grave, and we walked down to see it. He wasn't convinced, but was creeped out when our son kept crawling to the same spot,

stopping and staring into the corner like he was seeing someone. Overall, it was a great. house with great chickens, but there was something else there too. I have a science research background and I cannot give you any plausible scientific explanation for the noises we heard or the child's cries. I know this was lengthy and not technically a trail tale, but I hope you enjoyed. Creepy, the part where your baby was staring off at something in the corner, that's what freaks me out the most, like someone else seeing something that you can't see and you're in the room. This little part right here says, great house with great chickens, but there's a lot.

was something else there too. I really hope that was like your Airbnb review. You know what I mean? That's so intriguing. Yeah. But there was someone else there too. Oh my God. Stay at your own risk. My next one is titled, Best Way to Land a Spot on Trail Tales. Hey ladies, first off, I'm sorry for the length of this one, but you have to get the whole story to understand the full scope. Really, this whole story would be a great book or even a hallmark movie. It's really going to pull at your heartstrings. I'm not sure where to start the story, so I'm going to start at the beginning, even though things won't start making sense until later.

In November of 2021, my husband set his mind on getting his soul dog, a bloodhound. I was a little hesitant because I coach basketball and am a teacher and was about to start my days of being gone consistently. My husband, Ian, is a UPS driver and as you know, the holidays are crazy for them. So we were about to have little to no free time and in no way, way had time for a puppy. But despite everything working against us, we were determined to make it work. So we introduced Polly, the bloodhound to our family. We already owned Charlie, a chocolate lab, so it was going to be the four of us, one big happy family. Shortly after getting Polly, I took her to

our local vet for her very first puppy check up with us, only to find out that she had a heart murmur. Not a little one either, like a one or a two. We were talking about a four. Our eight-week-old puppy had a grade four heart murmur, and our hearts sank. We immediately made the decision to get her to a specialist and see what was going on since our local vet couldn't get us answers we needed. We set out to Missou, the University of Missouri, you know, one of the top veterinary hospitals in the country, terrified, might I add. We found that Polly had S-A-S, subaortic stenosis. The valve on the left side of her heart was small, so her little tiny heart was working overtime. Eventually, her heart wasn't going to keep up anymore and it would just eventually quit. Sitting in the room, I cried lots. I called

my husband and he cried lots too. It was very tough learning that our 10 week old puppy was only going to live for a short few years, if that. Upon learning this information, we made the decision that we were going to treat Polly just like any other dog. We weren't going to baby her. We weren't going to make her sit around and not play with her big sister. She was going to be treated normal, aside from her medications that she was going to need daily. This is the part of the story where national parks and hiking become relevant. My husband and I decided that if Polly only had a short time here with us, we were going to make the best of it. We weren't just going to sit around scared for what might happen to her. Because of Polly, my husband and I started hiking, and then we found out that we

loved hiking. Hiking became our passion. We spent every free weekend loading ourselves and the dogs up and going to New State Park each weekend. We and the dogs loved our new. lifestyle. Our trips to state parks turned into trips to national parks. We did the Three Dune Challenge and Diana's Dune Challenge in Indiana Dune's National Park. We hiked through Cuyahoga Valley and the dogs became bark rangers. That's really cute. We hiked Tom Sock Mountain, highest point in Missouri. We climbed boulders and Elephant Rock State Park, Missouri. We were unstoppable. Things were going great until they weren't. Polly was unique. She was full of spunk and spice and the biggest, I simpleasked, We simply do not give a fuck attitude that I have ever come across.

We often found herself saying, in typical poly fashion, because every task she could make difficult, she did. You wanted her to load up in the truck? Nah, her back legs wouldn't work all of the sudden. Someone had to lift her. She would bark in her sister's face just as she had started to fall asleep. She'd steal everything she could get her mouth on and then just run around wanting you to chase her. When she got tired, she got even worse, too. She would fight sleep like a toddler and become a menace.

In between all the greatness, we continued our checkups and they continued to keep an eye on her diagnosis. There wasn't a surgery that could be done. In fact, there wasn't much that could be done aside from daily medications to control the disease. The cardio team was completely supportive in our decision to treat Polly like a normal dog. Because if she had to live her life in a bubble, what life was that? We weren't going to restrict her and she was going to live her best life. Her quality of life was the most important thing to us. Fast forward to January of 2023, we bought our first camper.

There would be no better way to explore the great outdoors and all this country has to offer. It would make traveling with two large dogs so much easier. At the end of the month, Polly had two fainting episodes, one when my husband came home from work and another the next day while playing with her sister. The night of the second episode was made an emergency trip to Missou. We were given the worst news possible. Polly was in congestive heart failure and was given only weeks to live. Her lungs and abdomen were both filling with liquids and she wasn't getting enough oxygen

to her brain, hence the fainting. We hadn't been hiking since probably November of 2022. Coaching really took all my free time away. We just bought a brand new camper to take her adventuring in and she wasn't even going to get to sleep in it. So after being told the worst news possible, we slowed down. We went hiking. We had to take it.

slow at her pace and our three to four mile hikes turned into one mile hikes. But that was okay. We were going to keep going at her pace as long as she wanted to. And she did. She was so happy to be hiking. She would just throw her head back and let the wind whip around her big old ears and smile. Luckily, we woke up one Saturday morning in February and it was going to be a beautiful weekend. So we decided to load up and take the camper and the girls on our very first camping trip ever. We stayed close to home and only hiked 1.5 miles as that was the shortest trail I could find. The camping went well. However, the hiking did not. My husband ended up having to carry Polly off the trail the last half mile or so.

We had a spring break trip plan for 2023 visiting Shenandoah and New River Gorge. It was going to be the maiden voyage in our new camper. My husband and I and the dogs were going to pack up and take off. We had decided that we weren't going to take Polly hiking, but rather we were going to take to take turns hiking with our chocolate lab while the others stayed at the campground with Polly. We had entirely changed our vacation plans because we needed to accommodate Polly. She was even cleared by Mizzou to go with us as long as we were willing to go at her pace and not force her to hike if she wanted to take any breaks, which we were absolutely on board for.

We knew what was best for her and we wanted the best for her. Insert National Park After Dark. I started listening to your podcast in March of 2022. I have always been a fan of National parks and it's a personal goal to see all of them in the United States. My husband loves podcast, but I wasn't a huge fan. So randomly on our trip to White Sands, Carlsban Caverns, Guadalupe Mountain, and Big Bend, I searched National Parks in the podcast search bar and the rest is history. My husband decided to try out your podcast too, after hearing me retell many of the stories and the rest is history there too. We love listening to your podcast. We often joke that

in typical Polly fashion, she is going to die on the trail. The farthest point, away possible from the truck and we were going to have to carry her back, sobbing and laughing and just hoping we wouldn't pass anyone on a trail because, well, that's some serious explaining right there. I told my husband, if that happened, I was riding in and we would sure make the trail tales because, well, that story is priceless. It's now March of 2003. Basketball season is over and I'm done coaching. I get a call from my husband at almost 3 o'clock during the school day. Weird. He's telling me I need to come home. Polly had collapsed and he was pretty positive that she wasn't getting up this time. Her heart had given out. We loaded her up and took her to Missou one last time. On the way home,

sobbing, he says, we're not even going to get a trail tales out of this. A bit dramatic. Yes, but emotions were high. So here I am writing this. Not sure if it's totally trailtail worthy, but we owe that dog so much. She brought so much joy into our lives and even a new passion. We're one week away from the big Shenandoah trip and she isn't going to get to go she will be missed greatly much love brittany well brittany i think polly deserves the trail tales yeah absolutely thousand percent and i think we just like ruined everyone's lives by reading that really a heart felt wholesome really sad really sad story and just as i mean us working in the vet tech field we've seen a lot of other families go through this too so i can say from our vet tech experience that i think

that she had the absolute best family and you guys were the best parents that she could have gotten for the time that she was here. 1,000%. And if you want to see something to like uplift you a little bit, we're going to post the picture of her receiving her Bark Ranger badge at the dunes. She's so cute. So if you want a little smile after that. But that was an awesome story.

And we loved it because we love seeing families do the best by their animals. And you couldn't have done better. So good job. All right, my last one. Let's see what it's called. Okay, we're going in a completely different direction. It's titled Sasquatch Human Demon Hybrid. Oh, I'm intrigued.

Hello, ladies. My name is Mads. You can say it. And I'm going to start off this with a ramble about how much I love your podcast. I've been with you guys since the beginning, episode four, I believe. And I've laughed with you, cried with you, and I've been endlessly inspired and entertained listening to you the past couple of years. Anyways, onto my tail. After spending three years backpacking around Australia and avoiding

the U.S. during the pandemic, I flew back to my home state of Washington for a long overdue visit. I brought my partner with me who is from Spain, we met in Australia, and was stoked to show him the beautiful place I call home. As anyone from the PNW knows, autumn is usually a gorgeous time of year. However, the air quality from those late summer fires can be hellish and disrupt your plans for going into the mountains and enjoying the last of the good weather before you are wrapped in a blanket and cocooning yourself in for the next six months. As my partner and I were only visiting for three weeks, we were determined to fight the smoke and do as much outside activity as possible. We decided to go hiking and camping in the Mount Baker National Forest exactly as I have done for most of my life.

We drove up the long forest service road to the trailhead that I'd been to at least a dozen times, but I started to feel uneasy. This feeling of uneasiness was attributed to a myriad. creative things, mostly irrational, including, but not limited to, increasing smoke in the area, a fear of volcanoes as I grew up surrounded by five active ones that I know are probably not going to blow, but whenever I am in the blast zone, it's in the back of my mind. My love of listening to true crime and increasing that tenfold in the last few years while sitting my ass in a tractor, trying to save money to continue traveling, binging fucked up survival stories, animal attacks, and just plain wilderness horror stories

without taking a moment to think about how these stories may affect me later whenever I return to the true mountain wilderness. And finally, the fact that my partner had just been talking about how insane it is, that Americans can just tote around guns wherever they damn well please. The woods can always be eerie, and Mount Baker Wilderness is thick. To me, it has always been filled with a mysterious, luring energy. On top of all this, when I checked the fire situation earlier that day, I only read the list of names of the fires and didn't pay any attention to the actual map and assumed that none of them were near where we were going. As we approached the trailhead and noticed all trails leading to the parking lot except the trail we were headed up or closed due to the

proximity of the fire, I realized the one fire I didn't know the location of from the list I read was only 10 miles from us at that point. Upon realizing this, my anxiety went through the roof, knowing that it would take over an hour to get back down that service road that had sheer cliffs on either side. No place to be if you quickly had to evacuate. Combine this with a thick blanket of smoke obstructing your vision and you are toast, literally. Internally, I wanted to nope the fuck out of there, but I wanted to act excited for my partner who has never been to Washington and who is the kind of daring and adventurous person I am at heart, but wish my anxiety could still let me be. He could see my discomfort, but there was another car in the parking lot, and we have made the trek to

get there, so we decided to continue. I felt good about making the hike. However, I wasn't sure I was if I was keen to stay the night up there. As we ascended, I let nature and the surrounding beauty take my mind off of things and I soaked in the beautiful, albeit hazy, views. When we got to the top, we discovered there was already a small group of people staying in the fire lookout that we had planned to stay in that night. I was secretly relieved because that meant we would have to camp down at the lakes and the start of the trailhead and could nope the fuck out of there more quickly if need be. We stayed up there for sunset, smoked some of that dank and legal Washington reefer with the group staying in the lookout, and decided to hike down with the last of the

light. By this time, you could see the smoke billowing into the valley at a faster rate, and you could barely see the mountain face in front of us. I relaxed myself again, trying to convince myself that it was fine if the others were staying overnight too, even though my anxiety was screaming, those motherfuckers are from Wisconsin. Do they even know what a forest fire is? Just as we were nearing the bottom of the mountain and I was starting to make peace with and accept my fate, whatever it may be, to show my boyfriend a good time, we saw a black figure emerge from a closed trailhead and slowly start limping along the side of the lake. From our vantage point, we couldn't tell if this was a big foot, a shadow figure, a bear walking on its hind legs, or simply a person. But the way it moved did not seem human-like.

It was slow and lagging. As we got back to our car, we could see it was just a man walking along the lake. But where did he come from? The man walking. by and his eyes were black, does not say a word, and just limps away into the night as we set up our tent. Thinking what the F was that, I told myself I'd be okay as long as he didn't come back. There's a lot of like bad things happening that are just being brushed off. Like, oh, it's fine. This is fine. It's fine. It's not fine. I would be, is he going to come back? Right. I'll be fine as as long as he doesn't. And you said you smoked and like I feel like that just makes my anxiety worse. So like, I couldn't imagine how you're feeling right now.

Yeah, you get like more paranoid. Yeah. I would just be sitting there, like, stuffing my face of the snack. Like, is he here? Is he here? Is he back? By the time we finished setting up our tent, the sky was almost black. From the shadows, I see the man limped closely back behind our tent.

Back, there he is. Back down the closed trail head he came from. It should be noted that there was a closed gate that no cars could get around and the drive up the mountain was over 15 miles. Personally, I don't think he limped all the way back up there. There were no cars beside ours and the groups in the lookout. At this point, due to the fire and the creepiness of this empty-eyed, silent dude lolly-gagging in the darkness, and let's be real, my body was not used to the Washington weed anymore.

I was beside myself. I would have rather the figure had been a bear walking on its hind legs or even Sasquatch himself, but there is no evilness in the natural world that compares to some type of humans, and this felt like one of them. My partner knew I was majorly freaking out and he tried to calm me down, but had admitted he'd never seen me like this the entire time he had known me. I was acting like a child and couldn't decide if we should stay or go. But after 20 minutes of tearful debate, he concluded that if I was going to be scared shitless,

tonight wouldn't be fun for him either. As we packed up camp in the dark and drove back down the mountain, I felt incredibly stupid and embarrassed for letting my irrational fears get the best of me. I'm supposed to be the adventurer, damn it. After many wild theories, we concluded he, was just a recluse living up in the wilderness on his evening walk, maybe a little drunk. Why couldn't he have just said, hi, to make himself seem friendly? And why did I have such a feeling of impending doom when I saw him?

Why did I have to grow up in a place full of serial killers? We were now on a mission to find somewhere else to camp in the area for the night, as we had a hike planned up at Artist's Point the next day, at the base of the actual volcano. There are a plethora of possible options in that area, and I've camped at them many times before. However, I was still freaked out and wanted to be near people and not anywhere that was close to a closed trailhead due to fires. My shitty Australian phone coverage wouldn't give me self-reception to check the map, so we drove our sorry asses 30 miles back to a small town to look up possible spots. My partner goes into the fuel station, grabs a coffee at 10.30 at night to make a point that I'm being ridiculous, as we usually just pull off the road anywhere and everywhere to sleep in Australia. He asks the clerk what he recommends, and he comes back with the next.

name of a road to park on and we set off. By midnight, we get to the spot off the highway on a deserted forest service road and don't even set up the tent. Just recline the seats back in the truck for a less than restful sleep. In the morning, my partner tells me that while he didn't know if he was in sleep paralysis or awake, he looked over to me in the night and saw the silhouette of a little boy knocking on our window and staring in at us right next to my head. Casual. That's so scary. Children, Things are even scarier than adult things if the children are creepy. Yeah, mm-hmm. While I'm grateful he didn't lend me this information in the moment to spare my sleep,

the little ghost boy staring at me would have been the icing on the cake to a what-the-fuck is happening type of night. Looking back, I feel silly for letting my fears win and interrupting what would have been an epic night at a campsite that was near and dear to my heart. However, we both now agree that there was something very, very off about how that night played out. To my knowledge, no one died in a forest fire that night, and nobody was axed murdered by a Sasquatch demon human hybrid, but I can rest easy knowing I absolutely did not feel right in that moment and trusted my intuition. The mountains will always be where I feel most at home, but their powerful, desolate energy will just take some getting used to again, I guess. Thank you for taking the time to read my long, built-up, but comfortably uneventful trail tale. I hope to be one day fast enough on my computer to secure a spot on an MPAD trip.

Thank you for doing what you do and continuing to create and evolve this incredible show, even in times of immense hardship. I wish you both adventure, peace and joy in the little things. X OXO.XO. MADs. I'm always about trusting intuition. I'll tell you that right now. Yeah. I just, I think at the end of the day, you were safe.

That first guy, he sounded really creepy and scary. Yeah, even if it isn't anything paranormal, especially if it's not anything paranormal or cryptid-like. I would have preferred paranormal to that guy. And you're just, you said, you're like, I missed out on an epic night of camping. It's like, I would have just been, yeah. Or did you miss out on being murdered? Or did you miss out on just being anxiety through the roof?

Terrified. The whole night and just having a sleepless night. And yeah, you did the right thing. I think, yeah, you made the right decision. You're safe. And if there is something inside you that is saying so strongly that you're not safe, just believe it. Just believe it.

Yeah. And I hope that your partner, like, understands that. Obviously, it seems like he does. Yeah. Anyway, all right. I know I picked a lot of really long ones this time around, huh? Yeah, it's a long episode. Yeah, well, keep writing them in, please.

Yes, keep writing them in. Our email is Stories at NPADPodcast.com. Sure is. And we got two more for outsiders on Apple subscriptions and Patreon, so we'll see you guys in a second. But everyone else, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. 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 NPADPodcast.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.

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.