National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 33

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Today’s stories include calling 911 on raccoons, aliens in Oregon, swans faking their own deaths, first hand third man encounters and almost but not really murder stories. Cassie also sprinkles in some Flash Trivia to embarrass Danielle! 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  or Apple Subscriptions 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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Limitless. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally. Breathe. Girl, winter is so last season. And now spring's 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, hello, everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. We have another trail tales. But first, before we start, I'm switching things up a little bit today. I'm scared. You didn't tell me what's happening. I didn't tell you any of this. No. So I was at the store today and I found something that made me think of you and I bought it immediately because you know how in all of our episodes, not all of our episodes, but many of our episodes, you ask me wild questions.

that I have no idea about. Yes. Well, I found at the store today, National Park Trivia, and I have 390 cards in my deck. And we're not going to do 390, but I am reversing the rolls and I am asking you questions before we start. I am both impressed and appalled at this. Well, you'll be more impressed because I have sections for you to choose from. Oh my God, are we doing this right now? We're doing this right now.

I'm not prepared. Okay, what are the sections? Here are the categories you can choose from. Plants, animals, and water. Okay. National Park-based. Geology and astronomy, tourism, and cultural history. Am I picking one?

Like, how many are we doing? I can do four. Four? One in each category. What? Okay, I guess do one in every category, just to switch it up. Do you have a preference of where I start?

No. No. I am so, okay, we just recorded another episode before this and she didn't breathe a fucking word. We were just talking for like three hours and you just kept this in your back pocket. It's the only secret I've ever kept. I had it next to me the whole time we were recording to the box. I feel bamboozled a little bit.

You should. I feel methodical and sneaky. So sneaky. Okay. So sneaky. Okay. Can we just do one at like every once in a while? Like I can tell a story and like get my mind.

And then I'll pop out a question. Sure. Okay. Oh my God. I cannot even believe this. Okay. Go. All right.

We're going to start with tourism. Oh. Okay. Let's see. There's, so these cards are fun because they have an easy question and they have a hard question. And I can choose which one I want to do. Can we start easy? Like this is, I'm being just like, like, take me out to dinner before you fuck me, you know, type of thing. Okay, fair, fair, fair. Let's see. Okay, this one's the easy one.

We've done this National Park before too. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is divided up into units that contain prairie ecosystems, strange looking badlands, historic cattle ranch lands, and home of a former president. How many units does the park actually have? And it gives you four options. So you can choose from A, B, C, or D. Okay. A, five, B, four, C, three, D, two. All right, my first get, before I knew that there was options, I had a number in mind, and that happened to be A. Five. Is that your final answer? Yeah, unfortunately. And C, three. It gives you, these cards are really fun, too, because it explains it to you. It says three. The South Unit is the most developed and most visited.

The north unit includes some pavement and lots of rugged scenery. At the Elkhorn Ranch Unit, there are no visitor centers or facilities, only Teddy Roosevelt vibes. Okay. Whoever made, I like this, whoever put together that answer. I was going through a lot of the cards earlier when I first bought it. I was like, I wonder what these are going to be because they don't give you a preview on the box. And they're actually really cool questions.

Well, in my defense, I did not research these. Theodore Roosevelt National Park. True. Nor did I... You haven't been there either, right? Yeah, nor have I been there. And you did both. Did you remember right off the bat?

Yeah, just because I remember researching the parks. Yeah. I only went to the South Unit when I was there. Oh, well, we're off to a rocky start. Yeah, we are. It's okay. Well, I'll come back with another one later this episode, so just stay on your toes. Okay, well, I'll share a story to get my spirits back up.

Because that was upsetting. All right. So this first story is titled, This is Why City People Shouldn't Camp Featuring 9-1-1. I like the title already. Sorry. I know, that's what grabbed me in the first place. Hi, Danielle and Cassie.

I cannot stress enough how deeply embarrassed I am to tell this story. I love it. Like, I've been debating writing it in for over a year since I started listening to your podcast. But hey, we're all friends, and it feels like a safe space to be made fun. of within. How, what is the chances of like you feeling embarrassed about writing the story and I just failed my first pop quiz? Like, embarrassment is the theme of this trail tales. When I was around 25, I went on a white water rafting trip in West Virginia with some friends. None of us were experienced outdoorsmen. I cannot stress this enough. But we were always up for an adventure. We decided we

would set up camp, head out onto the water, and then come back to eat, drink, and sleep, then leave for home in the morning. During the excursion, we had a bit of a worst-case scenario situation, where five of our rafts flipped in the rapids, like in the spot where the guides were like, hey, this is the most dangerous part. And we all had to swim for our lives, being pulled up into random rafts by folks behind us who saw us all flip and came to our rescue. Good times. Needless to say, we were tired and still stressed when we got back to camp. We may have unwound a little too hard with a few too many beers. I retired to me and my boyfriend at the time's tent before anyone else, trusting everyone to pack up the food and trash and store everything away safely. Did I mention

that I did absolutely no research before we took this trip and wasn't experienced in the outdoors? So when I woke up at about 3 a.m. to the sound of wrestling and grunting and cans thrashing around, I immediately assumed we were being ambushed by bears. I was in a full-on middle-of-the-night, delusional panic. I said, that absolutely frozen in my tent with no idea what to do. My boyfriend was asleep. I had what I thought was a stroke of genius and texted our friends in the other tents to see if anyone was awake and had their car keys on them. I thought if they set off their car alarm, it would scare the animals away and we could assess the situation. Naturally, everyone was fully passed out and I was alone in my terror.

To make matters worse, I started to hear less and less wrestling and thought for a moment that maybe we're in the clear. Nope. Moments later, I heard. heard sniffing along the outside of our tent. I heard an animal walking around the perimeter of my tent, sniffing and scoping out the area. So what was my next step? Oh, you know, the most logical thing one could do. I called 911 fucking one.

My genius city-dwelling self thought that I could call 911. Not speak, because the bears would hear me and come after me, I guess. And they would be able to location track my phone, send the police car, which would scare away the ambushing animals. I called three times, spoke no words, and just waited. Do you get arrested for that? I don't know. As you can imagine, that did not work.

And I laid there until the sun came up and started to hear the voices of other campers in the distance and therefore felt safe enough to come out of my tent. Wait, the police never showed up. No. So the GPS thing isn't a thing, I guess. I guess not. Yeah. Or at least where she was, I guess. I immediately went over to the campfire area and took a look at the damage.

Garbage bags were torn open, hot dog wrappers and shreds, and beer cans strewn about. One thing that I noticed was how tiny the scratch marks were on the garbage. Far too tiny for bears. Actually, just about the right size for raccoons. Huh. An absolute embarrassment. I recollected my night with my friends, shaming them for leaving food and garbage out all night,

blaming them for my second near-death experience of the weekend. Were they sorry? No. Did they make fun of me for months calling 911 on bears? Yes. Do I blame them? Nope. Did I tell them it was probably raccoons and not a predator? Nope. I then spent the first part of our drive home researching what type of animals even reside in the area we were camping in, which is, you know, maybe something I should have done beforehand.

City folks shouldn't be allowed in the woods. We just shouldn't. Anyway, I know better now and am much better equipped to handle a camping trip and can laugh at myself and even write into your podcast in hopes that you can share my story with even more people and further my embarrassment. Love y'all, Kim. I just cannot believe. Maybe they were mini bears. Deg.

Possible. And not raccoons. They're a rare species of mini bears. It was a very special spot. And you just heard a very unique phenomenon of the tiny bears of, I don't even know where the hell you were. That only police can have. address. Right. I just imagine calling 911 three times and just being like the other person,

like the dispatcher. Like, hello. You're right what the fuck? Hello? They probably thought you were a prank phone caller and we're sick of your shit. Oh my God. That is insane. That's so funny. I love it. Okay, Flash trivia. Oh my God. Hold on. Really? Right now? Yep. Okay. I'm going to make this a thing in the middle of our episodes. Now I'm going to be like flash trivia because I have 390 to go through. I hate that this is one-sided also. Yeah, you got to buy a deck. No, because you'll know the answers. Buy a different deck than me. Okay. I'm not going to memorize 390 cards. You never know. Two questions on each card. So there's 600 question. All right. Lay it on me. Yeah. Okay. This one, I chose the category, plants, animals, and water. And it's a Colorado question.

What river carved the Black Canyon of Gunnison? A, Gunnison River, B, Colorado River, C, Green River, D, Black River. No. You can do this. Is this the easy one? Yeah. Do you want me to do the hard one? Yeah.

Okay. Studies of the mid-1900 show that some of the pinion pines growing on the rim of the Black Canyon of Gunnison were astoundingly blank years old. 150 to 250 to 250 years old, B, 350 to 450 years old, C, 550 to 650 years old, C, 550 to 650 years old, D, 750 to 850 years old. Okay. Okay, so for the first question, I'm just going to say, because it's called Black Canyon of the Gunnison, so I'm going to say it's probably the Gunnison River. That's right. Okay.

Context clues. There we are. It says the river's incredibly steep course. It drops an average of 43 feet per mile, has given it the erosive power to cut through the hard bedrock of the canyon walls. It has, like, fun facts about the park too on here, which I really like. Yeah, it's a nice touch. It's a nice touch. It is. And then the second question, I was kind of focused on trying to figure out what the first answer was to the first question.

So I kind of forget the question. But when all out spells, I always picked C for my tests. So I'm going to go with C. Did you pass your test? Hey, I made Dean's list almost every semester of my whole life. Okay. Okay, it was just the ones. You're not answering C for every single one.

No, it's just like if I didn't know if I had no idea, like I would just pick C and hope it was right. I feel like that's a valid thing, though, because I feel like a lot of times with numbers, they would put like, it would be like the lowest to medium right answer highest number. Yeah, I don't know if there's really a method to the madness. I just, I don't know, I just always want that. So is that right? No.

Well, no, but I appreciate your method. I get it. Okay. All right. So what's the answer? It's 750 to 850 years old. That means that the parks trees are some of the oldest known of their species. Cool. Yeah. All right. So I'm one for three. I got to really get these numbers up. There will be more opportunities. Great. Okay. My turn for a story. Mine is titled, Aliens in the Night. Hi, Danielle and Cassie. My name is Katie. Feel free to share. I want to start by saying, I love your pod. And as a new mom, it has entertained me during my nesting phase and helped lessen my scrolling during many nursing sessions and contact naps. I've wanted to share my story for Trail Tales for a while. And my sweet baby, Juniper, sleeps on me and I thought I'd finally submit it. I like that name also. It is very cute. Please let me know if you share my story. I'm an avid listener, but it will be exciting to hear if you plan to share it. So here's my story. The events of my tale took place almost eight years ago. My now husband, then new boyfriend and I were driving from Juneau, Alaska, where we live, to

Santa Jose, California for his brother's wedding. We were so broke at the time, but had saved our summer wages working on a hovercraft tour in Glacier in Juneau to eke our way south. We camped every night and tried to camp for free. While this stretch of the trip, we had been driving for 12-plus hours, leaving Canada into Seattle, and then hitting the 101 south. It was midnight when we made it to a summer. Astoria, Oregon, but continued on to try to find a free spot to camp. We thought camping on the

Oregon coast would be easy. In Alaska, all beachland is state land and is free to camp on anywhere. We found that was not the case in Oregon. At midnight, as we were trying to find a spot to sleep for the night, we drove south of Astoria, a ways and came to a beach. It was called Sunset Beach, question mark, where we could drive the car down onto the beach. We figured we drive down and drive way far south on the beach, sleep for a few hours, and then drive back to the main road early in the morning. Well, this was our first mistake. My husband was driving on the wet sand so that my 2002 front wheel drive Honda Civic didn't get stuck in the sand. But of course, it did. And the tide was rising rapidly. So rapidly, I thought surely my car was going to be

swallowed by the surf. We called around to tow companies, but by this time it was past 1 a.m. and no one was answering. We finally called the police. Another police story. Here we are. They were able to call a tow company for us and a guy came out and was able to free my wheels as the water lapped mere feet away from my car. Once we were back on the pavement and the tow truck driver had left, we decided to leave my car in the parking area and hike south down the sand dunes and cowboy camp for the night. We brought only our sleeping pads and bags, this is important later, and started down the dune. We came upon what seemed like a squatters camp pretty suddenly. There were porno DVDs and booze bottles and garbage all over and we realized we should turn around and try hiking north for a place to rest our heads.

We made it back to the parking lot and started cresting a sea grass covered dune. I'm a short person, 5-1, and the grass came almost to chest height on me. As we waded through it, I was hot on my husband's heels when he stopped dead in his tracks causing me to bump into him. I said to him, Why'd you stop? And he said back, Katie, do you see that? And I responded, see what? As I peered around him. There, maybe five feet ahead of us, hovering maybe one foot above the seagrass was a glowing orb the size of a basketball. It was brightly lit and changing colors. It looked electric. I said back to him, what the fuck is that? Totally unnerved. He said, I don't know, but let's get the hell out of here. We quickly turned around and hustled back to the parking lot. We had so many things go wrong or be off about this night, but then as we

walked back to the car, the only car there with no one else around, I noticed a drip, drop, tail of liquid that followed the same line we had taken from the southern dunes across the parking lot to the northern dunes. I asked my husband if he was carrying a water bottle or something with liquid. He said no. We only had our sleeping pads and bags, but it looked like something had been following us. I pointed this out to him, which only terrified us more. We jumped into the car, adrenaline and nerves enough to keep us driving through the night until the sun started to rise. Once there was light in the sky, we pulled off in a scenic lookout, pull out, and slept

for a few hours in the car. To this day, neither of us have any clue what the glowing orb was. I've googled it. St. Elmo's fire, maybe. We also thought it was some sort of weather device or something. A few years later, we went back to the same beach to see if there was anything sticking out above the seagrass where we could explain what we saw. But in daylight, there was nothing but dunes in seagrass. We have watched the unacknowledged, an excellent alien documentary on Amazon Prime,

and one first-hand encounter clip looked kind of similar to what we saw. I want to come up with something that makes sense, but my husband and I agree we saw an alien in the night. The way that it's described is very similar to a lot of different descriptions of like glowing Orbs of Light in relation to alien sightings. Yeah. So I believe it. You don't got to, I don't know what the hell the water thing was about. That's a separate mystery.

Yeah, that's definitely a separate mystery. That would be cool if it was an alien. I like the thought of that. Yeah, because it doesn't do anything. Right. Yeah. It's just observing. An organ is full of weirdness and strangeness.

And I can totally sympathize with the like trying to find somewhere to camp along the Oregon coast. it is a nightmare. It's just a nightmare. Like everything is restricted off limits. Ian and I went to Cannon Beach multiple times with my toe behind camper. And also during just our cross-country trip, we went up the Oregon coast. But it's really difficult because obviously, like, in the forest, it's just like there's so much public land.

And national forests that you're just like wherever is good. But yeah, the coast is a way different story. And it's really, we learned our lesson the hard way a couple times. But anyways. All right, my next story I'm going to tell without pop quiz yet. You can ask me after. I need a mental break. It's okay.

I was giving me one. Okay, I didn't know if you were like... I've traumatized you for this episode. Like, oh God, not yet. I'm not ready. This is titled Black Swan Lake. Hi, this is a story of good fortune and luck. In 2015, I traveled to New Zealand and backpacked around the country for six months.

I made a friend from Germany, L, and we traveled together for a while. On the South Island, we did some pretty amazing camping and hiking, including one average campground that was pretty close to a town, but the sites themselves were relatively secluded, as in not the kind of place RVs or car campers went to. After we set up our tent, Elle and I decided to do a quick hike. The campground caretakers told us there was an easy hike with no elevation that was about three miles or 5K in and three miles or 5K out. Perfect for us.

We hadn't gotten the tent up until around. noon, so an easy short hike was exactly what we wanted. Turns out, it was six miles in and six miles out. I can't remember where the communication breakdown was, probably my own converting kilometers to miles, but we were having such a nice time on the way out that we didn't realize how far'd we gone or what time it was, and we soon came up to a backcountry cabin. Surprised to see a backcountry cabin, less than three miles from a family-style campground, we popped in to see what was up. A group from a local university were there and told us we had actually walked over six miles from camp and had even continued past the end of the original trail we were on. I have since gotten much more serious about paying attention

to where I'm going. We weren't lost exactly because there was a clear trail to follow back to our campground, but we were definitely in for a long evening of walking to get back. The university students told us to take a different trail because it was a shorter distance back to camp and it would meet our original trail. They showed us it on a map and it was legit. That train, led us past a gorgeous alpine lake, with about 50 to 60 adult black swans in mated pairs milling about, making their nests, and diving for food. Aside from the movie, I'd never really considered black swans as an animal I'd like to see in the wild. But they were incredible, so beautiful and graceful, their black feathers were glossy and reflected the late afternoon sun.

It still is probably the coolest wildlife encounter I've ever experienced, and it was so unexpected. We were so carefree about our adventure, we weren't really bothered about walking back in the dark. Oh, how this could have so easily become a survival story, and I didn't know it. So we decided to sit on the rocks for a while, rest, and just watch the swans. This was when we saw a really cool swan-to-swain interaction. One of the swans was clearly a more dominant and territorial jerk swan and was protective of a large chunk of rocky sandbar and would aggressively chase away any other swan who came by. Another swan seemingly accidentally waddled on up to that sandbar and started picking four muscles.

I'm not really even sure what they were eating. The aggressive swan snuck. I'm saying snuck, not charged, snuck up on this swan and savagely attacked it from behind. The squabble was so loud and feathers were flying everywhere. Eventually, the angry swan broke the other swan's neck. The hurt swan crumpled, lifeless to the ground, and laid. they're completely motionless. We were shocked. It's amazing how quickly nature can go from beauty and grace to chaos and violence. The angry swan strutted away to the farther side of his or her sandbar,

and I continued looking on at the dead swan, wondering what animals were in the area that would eventually come by and eat it, or if it would be other swans. I wondered about its mate. Would it leave it? Did they already have eggs? But then, the most interesting thing happened. The dead swan sneakily lifted its little head up just a bit, looking for the mean swan. And when it saw the coast was clear, it stood up, scurried back to the water, and with all its normal grace, swam away, and reunited with its mate. Elle and I were speechless. Did we really just not only see a flock of black swans in an alpine lake in New Zealand,

but one of them faked its own death? Is this some possum swan hybrid? It was wild. Amazing thing to witness. We did make it back to the campsite very late in the night, but it was so worth the extra miles and not eating all afternoon. I'll never forget the alpine black swan lake on the South Island of New Zealand. I never knew swans did that.

I never knew swans did that. I didn't either. That's so interesting. Like just imagine the tragedy. You're like, oh my God, like he just got murdered. Like what is happening? Is that something swans do or is that something this swan does? I want to know.

Is that an actual? Is that an actual swan behavior or did this? Is this an elite swan? That's a great question. Is this a swan rising above all the other swans? Yeah. And where is the swan today? Has he taken over? He should. I mean, he needs to rise above the ranks because that's some, that's some ninja shit. That is some ninja shit. All right. My next one is titled Trail Smiley Face. Hi guys, my name is Olivia and I was recommended to listen to your podcast by a friend a few months ago. I have been binge listening to every single episode since.

It is definitely my favorite podcast and I love that you both work in vet med. I used to be a vet tech so hearing your comments slash perspectives from working in this field is so relatable and makes me laugh. Especially the comments about cats in vet med, oh, wow. We get so much crap for that. If you know, you know. That's right. There's no hate towards cats either. They're just...

They're just particular, that's all. Not even all of them. I mean, some of them are lovely, but when you meet the ones that aren't, there's tales to be told. That's right. I just finished listening to Trail Tales 3 and remembered this story about my dad and wanted to share. My dad grew up about 15 minutes from Shannon Doa National Park, so as you can imagine, he spent a lot of time there as a child and teenager. One day, my dad was about four. his mom took him up the mountain for a quick hike. This path was paved so it was a very popular hike

to do with young children and strollers. My dad was in a stroller that day, as I can imagine it must be very nerve-wracking having a small child running around on a mountain. At the top of this path, there is a lookout that has a metal platform and a railing around it so small children are safe. I have actually been on this hike many times and can attest to the lookout being safe for children. Of course, there are ways to go up further up the mountain or stand on the boulders to get a better view down the mountain for people who are looking to have a little bit more of an adventure, which I have also done and would say is suitable for a beginner hiker, not very difficult. Well, this particular day, my dad was persistent that he wanted to go off the platform and look at the boulders. Of course, his mom told him it was

too dangerous and he needed to stay in his stroller. My dad kept asking and asking and finally got his way. Together, they walked hand in hand slightly off the path to look at the boulders. Next thing my grandma knew, my dad was tumbling down the side of the mountain. There was nobody else around to help, and if my grandma tried to go after my dad, she would have tumbled as well. My grandma was screaming my dad's name to try to locate him and make sure he was conscious. No voice came down from the mountains, not even slight groans. She was almost certain he was either going to be in really bad shape or not make it at all.

In pure panic, my grandma turned back down the path to see if there was a safer way to get to where she thought my dad had landed. She started back down the path and followed the bend in the trail. Standing there in the middle of the path, right around the bend, was an old man, about 80 with long white hair, a long white beard, and a walking cane. He was holding my dad. My dad was smiling from ear to ear and jumped out of the man's arms and back into the stroller. My grandma, crying, quickly helped my dad back into the stroller and checked his body for cuts, gashes, any sign of injury. He was in perfect shape. Astonished, my grandma looks up to thank the man for saving her son and the man was gone. Nowhere in sight. My grandma could see pretty far up and down the trail and he was nowhere to be

seen. To this day, my grandma does not understand how my dad was unharmed, how the old man had him back on the path within two minutes, and how this man literally vanished into thin air after returning my dad. Call him a guardian angel, a miracle, a coincidence, whatever you want to call it, but to this day, my dad still feels a sense of protection when on this mountain, like someone is looking out for him. This story brings me chills even after hearing it countless times. I'm not sure who this man was, or if I'll ever understand, but I'm so thankful he was there. My dad took my brothers and I camping on this mountain every fall growing up and each year without fail. We hiked up to the top of this mountain and looked over the Shenandoah Valley just like he did that day. This path will always hold a special

place in my family's heart, and I hope I can take my kids here one day to share this amazing story and show them the beauty of this national park I hold so close to my heart. Thank you for sharing fascinating and informative stories. Keep up the good work with love. Olivia. Olivia, your dad met Santa. If that was not a clear description of Santa Claus, then I don't know what it is. I have never heard of Santa walking with a cane. He's 80. Santa? Santa? I mean, usually he's. I mean, usually he's. he's got his reindeer dragging him around. He's got a, I mean, you make a compelling point, but I feel like I was going to say he met his guardian angel, but if you want to go with Santa, that's also appropriate. I'm pretty sure. I'm almost positive for Samma. I don't know why

everything is so funny today. I mean, think about it. Said, standing there in the middle of the path, the right around the bend, was an old man about 80 with long white hair and a long white beard and a walking cane. Okay, only two descriptors. Mad. She's logically holding her dad. He didn't say anything. He disappeared quickly. He disappeared quickly. I've never once.

He sees you when you're sleeping and he knows when you're awake. And he knows when you need help from falling down a mountain. Yeah. So that's that, I guess. Case closed. There it is. So you don't know. Yeah, you don't know what happened, but apparently Cassie does.

But I do. Merry Christmas. Happy Christmas in July. All right. All right. My last story is titled Ghost in the Nicolette. Hello. I've been listening to your podcast for over a year now, and I'm a huge fan, and I'm currently trying to get my girlfriend and friends to also listen.

My name is Nathan, and I believe I may have a potential trail tale for you. This past week, I listened to your episode, Spirit or Science, the Third Man Factor, and remember you saying to share your stories with us if you have one. I believe I may have a story that is similar to the Third Man Factor, or is at least a good ghost story. The story takes place in Chiquamagon, Nicolet National Forest, question mark, I don't know if I said that right, in the Northwoods of Wisconsin at my 100-year-old family cabin. The cabin is in the heart of the national forest and is on a small glacial lake. During the summer of 2020, I was living in the cabin during my forestry internship that took place in the Northwoods. I've been coming here my whole life and never thought a crazy day like I'm about to share with you would have come. One day in June, I had to relight my hot water tank, and while doing the task, there was a gas backup, which caused a small explosion.

This knocked me on my ass and caught one of the bathroom walls on fire. Smoke was billowing up fast, and I tried to put the fire out, but no luck. After taking in enough smoke to kill a person, I gave up and went outside to call 911. Oh, is this the third 911 call we've had in this episode? Everyone's calling 911. After the call, I heard a loud hissing noise and realized that a pipe burst from the heat and put the entire fire out, which is a miracle in and of itself. The fire department came along with an ambulance and said that the fire was out and proceeded to inspect the cabin. From here, I sat down on my picnic table and was left alone.

While sitting out of nowhere, appeared a 75 to 80-year-old man. Santa? It's not Santa. Because he has a totally different description. Let me remind you, I am in the middle of the forest with the nearest road a mile away. I never heard him walk up to me or saw a vehicle. He was just there. He was wearing an outfit made of wool and cotton and looked like a farmer from a photo out of the 1930s.

I asked him if he came over due to all the commotion with the noise of the trucks, but he said nothing. At this time, no one paid attention to us and the old man did not pay attention to the craziness. He was staring out at the lake, then looked at me and said, I have been meaning to talk to you for a few weeks now about your cabin. I replied, yeah, I have been living here for most of the summer. Did you come over here to talk because you saw the fire trucks? He said, no, but I was thinking of visiting today. The old man proceeded to say,

I came down here from the old farmhouse up the road. When I was a little boy, I would walk through the woods to come and fish at your cabin. It has been fun to see the place change over all of these years. It's truly a beautiful property. At this point, I was beyond overwhelmed from the fire, and now from this very confusing conversation that was also sparking more questions. I turned my head to look at my cabin quickly,

and when I looked back, the old man was gone, as fast as he approached. I got up to look for him and even asked someone if they saw where he went, and they had no idea what I was talking about. This moment has haunted me ever since, and I have even gone to the old farmhouse, and he doesn't live there.

I now wonder, after listening to the recent episode, if my mind was so stressed from the smoke intake and exhaustion, if it was all in my head, or if I was actually visited by a ghost of sorts during this vulnerable moment. Or, if he was a real person, why did he not care about my health or the state of the cabin? How did he know me? And why did he choose that moment of all to visit? After the fire, I told my parents what had happened and about the old man. They said the old man that I was describing died in the 1990s, but used to fish at our cabin

and walk from the farmhouse he grew up in all the time. Today, the cabin is still original and we were able to save it after the the fire and I have never seen the old man again, real or not. Let me know what you think. I know this is not a true trail tale, but it does make a good spooky cabin story that takes place in a national forest. Keep up the good work, Nathan. Gave me chills. You saw a ghost. For sure. That's so cool. I know. A real life apparition. That's our take, Nathan. Mm-hmm. It's real. Like I understand the connection with the third man factor with like the stressors of the day and being in a really precarious situation and all of that. But like a lot of the third man factor descriptors and experiences

say that they never speak out loud, you know? And even in the brevity of that conversation, like words were exchanged. But I don't know, I think you had an encounter with a spirit, which is so cool. That's really cool. Well, it's funny that you mentioned the third man factor because my next story is titled, The Third Man Factor Saved My Family's Lives. Ooh. Hi, gals. I'm a fairly new listener of the podcast and have been loving the episodes I've heard so far. I particularly enjoyed the recent episode on the Third Man Factor and wanted to share a story about

how this phenomenon saved mine and my family's lives once. The third man factor has now saved my mom's life twice, the first time being when she was swept into an undercurrent while swimming off the coast of Florida as a teenager and became pinned against an underwater semi-cave. She remembers a voice telling her to remain calm and wait, before then quickly telling her to swim against the current towards the shore at the exact moment when the strength of the current subsided. The second time involved my mom, my dad, me, and my two sisters. We were living in a double-wide mobile home in the woods area near Mount Rainier, and the house had an old-fashioned wood stove that we'd used in the winter for extra heat. One night, it had snowed quite a bit, so we were running a fire in the wood stove.

Usually it was safe to latch the stove's door and let the fire snuff itself out, which we did relatively frequently on cold nights. As my mom was almost asleep, she suddenly felt a distinct presence in her room. She began to come to a bit when she felt a hand touch her shoulder and nudge her, as if to wake her. Thinking it had to be me or one of my sisters, she turned over but saw no one. Worried, she got up and went to check on whichever one of us had nudged her. As soon as she got to the doorway of her bedroom, she saw a three-foot tower of flame shooting up from a log that had accidentally been left on top of the extremely hot stove and had caught fire while we had all been in bed. My mom shouted for my dad who leapt from bed, grabbed the flaming log with his bare hands, and threw it into the snow in front of our house, extinguishing it. It's important to note that mobile homes like the one we lived in are often constructed from extremely flammable materials.

Additionally, the wood stove was situated directly between where my parents' room was and the hallway that led directly to mine in my sister's rooms. It is highly likely that within a matter of seconds or minutes, the fire would have spread and effectively cut off my parents from the three of us who were still fast asleep in our beds. None of the fire alarms had gone off. My mom chocks it up to a guardian angel, whereas I'm more of the power of the subconscious side of things. Anyway, I hope this isn't too long. a trail tale, but relevant to your last episode and in proximity to Mount Rainier National Park. Close enough. And PAD was recommended to me by my childhood best friend who also grew up near Mount Rainier with me. So I've been particularly loving the Pacific Northwest episodes.

Shout out to Kayla. Hi, Kayla. Thanks for a great podcast, Jade. That house fires are so scary. Yeah. I mean, I don't think you need us to weigh in. You already know. We think that it was some help from the other side. For sure. For sure. And it just, actually reminded me, I don't know if I told you this, I feel like I did. So you may be hearing this for the second time, but this happened to me recently. And I woke up one day and immediately started Googling fire safe boxes to put all of like Ian's handwritten notes and cards and letters and things like that into. Because right now I have some of them like on like the little altar I have for him. and then the others are just like in my closet in just like a regular box, like not a fire safe box or

anything. And I was just like, I need to get those in a safe place because I just feel like something bad is gonna happen. And God forbid, like everything in the house, like, I mean, I would be sad to lose like his clothes and his guitars and like whatever. But like those sentimental like handwritten things, like I need to have a fire safe box. And so I was like looking I'm up and looking where I can go get them and whatnot. And then I'm doing errands and I'm going to pick up the dog's food and I'm checking out. And they have all of those like adhesives for the window for like fire personnel of like I have this amount of dogs or cats or whatever inside. I remember I had like a child. A child lives in this room.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like that. But for pets. So I'm like, okay, that's weird. Like I mean, I've seen them before, of course. but I've never noticed them at the cash register like that before. Sure.

So I got one. I'm like, okay. And then the next day, I'm sitting here. And I was doing research on an episode and I was about to leave for a couple of days. I was finishing up with emails and stuff. I'm like, what is that smell? Like, what is that smell? And I couldn't pinpoint it.

But I'm like, it smells like burning, like something's burning, but not what like a plasticy type of thing. I'm looking around and I'm like sniffing around. and then I look under my desk at this like random outlet and it is completely, it's a multiple one. It's not a huge power strip, but there's like three or four outlets in it. And one of them is completely melted and oozing and like about to catch fire. Oh my gosh. So I pulled out the, I mean, I was scared to even touch it, but I pulled out the plug really quick. Yeah.

That was connected to my mounted heater. I have electric heat in here, like units throughout the house. And it was literally like overheating and melting the entire thing. Like if I left, that thing would have caught fire. My whole house would have gone down. That's so scary. And what a weird thing you just had like an intuition moment or third man factor moment. Something in your head was like, hey, you got to prepare for something.

Yeah. Well, hopefully that was it. And it wasn't something else that you're preparing for. I mean, I'll take that. I'll take that. But like, yeah, obviously I fix that. And I, you know, everything's fine. Now I switched out the entire, like, outlet and everything's fine.

But it's just, it was such a weird, like, okay, moment of, like, listening to that, like, not only the voice, but the signs of, like, the coincidences, like, seeing that thing for the dogs. You know what I mean? It's just like, it was just odd. Yeah. But anyway. Such thing as coincidences. That's right. Okay.

So are we doing our bonus stories? Yeah. So, everyone, thanks for hanging out. we do have two more bonus stories. If you're on Patreon or if you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, you can check us out there. But in the meantime, flash trivia. Come on.

Thought I got away with it. I'm like, yes, she forgot. Oh, no. I distracted her with my stories of intuition. Let's see. What do I want to do? Okay. I have one.

It's tourism. Wait, no, hold on. We already did tourism. Okay, which one do you want then? Plants, animals, and water, geology, and astronomy, or cultural history. Well, I thought we were doing one from every category, so just pick between. Oh, okay. I don't think I've done cultural history yet. This one's labeled easy. It's a true or false. Okay. Conqueray National Park is the only wilderness park in North Carolina, true or false. The only wilderness park? In North Carolina. I feel like that's false. Isn't there like

national refuges and other things in North Carolina? Isn't Congerrie in South Carolina? Isn't that what you just said? No, I said North Carolina. I don't know. Yeah, it's in South Carolina. This question is wrong. It says it's the only wilderness park in North Carolina and the answer is true. And then it says true, but it would be false because it's not in North Carolina. And it says though South Carolina has many pieces of public land located about 20 miles south of Columbia. So I'm right in a weird way. The card is wrong. Yeah, it's false because it's not in the right state, but it says it's true on here and then talks about South Carolina.

Okay, so what I'm getting from that is that this whole deck needs to be thrown out because. Oh, nice try. Nice, nice try. I think it's just a typo. Uh-huh. Well, okay, so I'm two for five. Or no, wait, what? We did three questions.

You're two for four. How many did you ask me? Yeah, two for four. I thought you only asked me three. Well, I asked you two on one card, and then I asked you one question from other cards. Gotcha, gotcha. All right, so the last category you can ask me when we do our bonus stories. Okay.

Sounds good. All right. Well, that, thanks for hanging out, everyone. If you want to listen to Danielle's next trivia question, subscribe to us on Patreon or Apple Podcasts and listen to the extra bonus trail tales we have. I guess come see me fail. It's like I'm supposed to keep up a reputation here of knowing my shit. This is payback.

All right. Everyone, 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.

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