National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 46

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Today’s stories include hooting in the wrong places, being at the right place at the right time, being Bigfoot, seeing Bigfoot, hot springs horror, ghost relatives and honestly, probably too much poop talk. 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!Claritin: Head to claritin.com right now for a discount. Hatch: Use our link to get $20 off and free shipping.Athena Club: Use code NPAD to get 20% off your purchase. Skylight Frames: Use our link and get $15 off a Skylight Frame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Hello everyone, welcome back to National Park After Dark, Trail Tales Edition. Hello, everybody.

Thank you, again, as always, for writing in so many awesome stories. We love to tell them and bring them to the show and share them with everyone. So keep them coming. If you haven't written us the story yet and you want to, our submission link is on our website, M-PadD podcast.com, and you can write them in right there. Yeah. And you've been sending in some pretty hard hitters. So we have a lot backlogged, but you never know.

Could be your time shine at any moment. You could write them in and they'll be aired like six months later because you guys have so great. Truly. I'm about sending them in that we have so many to go through. So don't be shy. Yeah, don't be shy. You never know when it's your turn.

Like this story is titled My Side of the Bigfoot story. Oh. So here we go. I love a big foot story. It's like kind of a callback to a previous story that we shared that you'll remember right away. But I just had to include it because it ties it together. Cool. Good day, National Park After Dark podcast. My name is Brandon. Way back on your March 2nd episode 132, Trail Tales 24, Andrea had told her Bigfoot story. Well, I've been meaning to tell my side of that story and finally had the chance

to do so. As I'm sure you recall, Andrea led a silly hike to find Bigfoot, only to encounter a crazed hiker who truly believed in Bigfoot and was seeking revenge against Bigfoot. Well, the people she chose to play Bigfoot for the hike were her husband and yours truly. I was the friend. I know. That's so fun. Here he is. Okay.

I was the friend. She said she roped into doing this hike. In total, I have played Bigfoot three times for Andrea. The story I'm telling is during the second time. First and foremost, I do not carry my phone while playing Bigfoot. Hard to convince people your Bigfoot when your phone is going off. Fair. Besides, her husband carries.

his phone and I trust him. So when her texts and calls did not reach us, I just remember thinking, okay, it is business as usual, since we have not heard from Andrea. Using our knowledge gathered from the first time, her husband and I formed a plan, then proceeded to go along with it. I never noticed his white sneakers, by the way, as I figure you know that was his problem. Lo and behold, though, everything goes amazing. We howl, we do wood knocking, and run on the trails right in front of the groups. There of course were some great spontaneous moments as well. Andrea's husband and I ran into each other, a bigfoot collision. We even tried to do wood knocking along with howling to the tune of journeys, don't stop believing at one point.

So after the second and last group was done, we headed back to the Nature Center. Of course, we were laughing and having a grand time reminiscing about the fun night we had. Now, a little bit of context for this next moment. The director of the force preserved. that Andrea works for was at this hike. She led one of the groups with the other group obviously being led by Andrea. As soon as the director saw us, she started to make Bigfoot howls at us. She mentioned how she had had a hard time containing her laughter over the noises and the general activities that we were doing. To top it all off, one of my college professors was on that hike as well. He emailed me the next day, talking about how much of an amazing time his family had on the hike.

The week after the hike, I came to visit Andrea's work as I am a regular volunteer. Of course, I go to Andrea with a big smile going, well, that Bigfoot hike was fantastic, wasn't it? To my shock, she responds, no, it was a miserable experience and proceeds to tell me the tales she told on the podcast about the crazed hiker that she was scared of. I did not realize how truly scared she was until I heard her story being read on the podcast. Oh my God. I feel bad for Andrea, but it proves how good her husband. and I were at playing Bigfoot. He came as a believer of Bigfoot and left still believing at Bigfoot. Luckily, though, her husband decided he was ready to give it another chance.

So with Andrea's reluctant blessings and of course the Forest Preserve, we are doing another Bigfoot hike. And yes, yours truly will be joining Andrea and company. Depending on when you get this, it will be sometime in November of 2024. Hopefully Andrea can have as much fun as the Bigfoot this time and get her confidence back. Thank you for telling my story. Brandon. I just love the added in part is like her story just proves that I was doing a really good job. Right. Meanwhile, she's like fighting for her life. She's like so afraid. But I just thought that was so funny. Like way to tie it together for us. I don't think we've ever had a second side, have we? Not to the same story, but we've definitely had people write in in conjunction to another story, like in the same location or. Not the same moment, but like in conjunction to another story. But that's the first time we've heard two sides of the same story.

Yeah. And it's awesome. Yeah, that was fun. Cool. Well, my story is titled, Do You Smell That? How We Almost Were Names on Missing Persons. Hello, ladies. Well, after listening to today's story, you can't grow weed in a national park,

I decided it was time to share my tale of how we almost ended up faces on a missing persons poster. My name is Hill and right after senior year of college, I got an amazing job offer to head to the north rim of the Grand Canyon to do spotted owl research for one of my professors. One of my friends, a classmate and two group leaders headed out in early May on our great adventure. We left Montana and headed straight south to start our summer gig. Upon arrival, we camped at the north rim and thankfully the Forest Service let us use their facilities to use the visitor center area. Next up was camp at the North Kabab Trailhead. Here we were treated to sharing our camp with horse trail packers who replenished our whiskey stashes and fed us steak and eggs for nights. Much better than the easy trail food we had been eating.

Each day was spent basically waiting for dust before departing in groups of two out into the wilderness of the Grand Canyon. Our goal was to make sure there were no nesting habitats of Mexican spotted owls in the area assigned. The Forest Service wanted to do prescribed burns in this area, but in order to do so, it had to be free of nesting owls. So I'm not sure what people think you do to find this out, but you literally hoot. You hike miles and miles in the dark and then you stop and hoot like an owl every mile and take note if anything hoots back. Legit spent hours and days perfecting the hoot and being judged by fellow hooters. It's very technical, clearly. This is my kind of adventure, honestly.

As you can imagine, each night was an adventure. First off, it was May at the North Rim, which sits at about 8,000. feet in elevation. It was cold as hell at night and hot during the day. We hiked in snow, rain, and sharp underbrush to accomplish our goals. After a week or so, we needed to move to a different location along the north rim, and this is where shit got real, real fast. The old extremely pothold road, if you can even call it that, was only perhaps 10 miles long, but it took us several hours to navigate in our vehicles. We had to place boards over the holes that were large enough to consume cars. Finally, we made it to the old abandoned fire lookout cabin. We decided it was

perfect for base camp for the next five days of our research. We were especially excited because there was a vault toilet and ladies know how nice it is to sit precariously perching to do your business in the woods. We unloaded, set up, and immediately noticed the extremely strong scent of Mary Jane. The crew we were with was, well, versed and smoking the stink, but no one had lit up so the hunt began. We searched for hours because, hey, it's daytime and you literally had nothing to do till dark. We tried to break into the cabin looking for the source. We searched the land nearby, and I mean everywhere. Everyone came up empty-handed, and we all kind of went about our night.

Night two. We all finished up our hoots and were heading back to camp. We all ended up meeting a mile or so away on the road that we drove in on. We're all having a laugh talking about the night, headlights on when we hear a vehicle. Like what the actual fuck? No one would ever, ever come up that terrible road at 1 a.m. We all looked at each other in disbelief and froze. A big black escalade was on us and it was too late to move.

A man cracked the window and our leaders approached the vehicle. Two Dobermans peered out from behind him. He asked what we were doing way out there at night in our group with notebooks and backpacks. He looked at each one of us as the leaders explained what we were doing. They showed him their notes from the night and previous nights. He gave them the stair down and kept repeatedly asking questions. Who are we? Why are we there? Y'all seem a long way from home.

Finally, by some luck, he rolled up his window and slowly rolled up the road towards home base. As he disappeared over the next small rise, the two who approached him told us, everyone lights out, run, and don't meet back up until dawn. Holy shit. Run. Run. Run. Oh, my God.

That's terrifying. The holy shit did we run miles in the opposite direction until we felt safe. My mind raced for hours about what had just happened. At dusk, we all slowly started to emerge from the forest. Once we made it back to our vehicles with him nowhere in sight, we looked at each other and all at once said, oh my God, the smell. He must have had a grow operation close to where we were and thought we were either stealing it or the feds. We packed up immediately and left as fast as we could. We are so lucky nothing happened to us that night because no one would have found our bodies.

That I'm certain of. We would have been the idiot hooters who disappeared into the Grand Canyon to never be seen again. Wish I had photos. It was 2006 and flip phones were the thing. Stay safe and always smell your surroundings. If you smell weed in a desolate area, run hill. Imagine trying to explain that. Like, sir, we're hooting out here.

We're hooting. We're looking for you just start showing off your hooting skills. You're like, who do you? Like that sounds like the most made up. Does that sound like the most made up thing though? Yeah. Like I know it's legit, but yeah. I'd be like, yeah, I get in the escalade.

You're all coming with me. Or like sick the dogs on you. Yeah. their protective yeah protection Yeah Yeah Damn hill Go hoot somewhere else

You know Yeah Don't go hoot in a national park That's not true Don't go weed in a national park So people can go about their little hooting duties And protect the owls Protect the owls

So Yeah protect the owls Not the men in escalades Alegal operations Yeah Yeah This episode is brought to you by Prime obsession is in session

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My second story is titled There's No Such Thing as Coincidences Nope, that's my story. Oh, you're right. Oh, my God. You're so right. Thank you. That's weird because it's not a coincidence that that is also a lifestyle.

That's so funny. Okay. Mine is actually called Hot Springs Horror. Ah, cool. All right. All right, right, right. Hi, Danielle and Cassie. In summer of 2020, I was woofing at a farm in New Mexico.

Mexico. Woof is a great low-cost way to travel. Same with Workaway. If you guys haven't checked them out, I highly recommend. And planning a road trip for my drive back home to Virginia. I was talking through national parks that I wanted to visit on the way, and one of my fellow farmers was really hyping up Spencer Hot Springs in Nevada. She had traveled all over the U.S. and kept saying this was the most beautiful hot spring she's ever been to. Hearing this, I of course decided to go there after Lake Tahoe with my friend who was joining in for the road trip. The drive took longer than expected, and after driving down miles of dirt road in the desert, we finally reached the hot springs around 10 p.m. It was pitch black, and the coordinates just said arrived, but there was no obvious hot springs around us.

We took our flashlights and were looking around when we started to feel like we were being watched and begin to hear very heavy footsteps and weird breathing and huffing all around us. Our phone flashlights were weak, and it was a new moon so we couldn't see anything, but we knew that we weren't alone. Having just talked in the car about the only predators in the area we may have to keep an eye out for, Mountain Lion, my friend started screaming that she sees a lion and that we're about to die. We both start screaming and crying, and we run back to the car, scared for our lives that we are surrounded and are about to get pounced on. I get in the driver's seat and frantically turn on the car and flash on the headlights and I met with a view of dozens of huge, scary, hungry-looking donkeys surrounding my car.

It's always something hilarious. We felt so silly and had a good laugh. Then went back outside to find the hot spring. We finally found it, but it was covered in donkey poop, so neither of us went in. Even though we didn't enjoy the hot springs, we still did enjoy the laughs and some of the brightest stars I have ever seen. I'd say Spencer Hot Springs is still worth the drive if there are no donkeys there. It was a beautiful little watering hole in the middle of the desert, which is very unique compared to most of the hot springs I've been to that are in the mountains or next to a river.

Thank you guys for all the laughs, entertainment, and lessons you've given in the podcast, May 2024 bring the best yet, Madison. And I picked that not only because it's funny as hell, but because I was like, this is bringing something up here. So I looked it up and it wasn't Spencer Hot Springs, but the description sounded so right down to the like, like the donkeys and the being in the middle of nowhere and whatever to one that Ian and I stopped at after Tahoe or before Tahoe like on our way up. I'm like, is what is this? So Ian and I, and I have to look up the, I know I have it somewhere, the name of the actual springs, but there's allegedly three of them. They're in the same thing. Like you're in the middle of fucking nowhere. And then all of a sudden it's just like arrived. And you, it feels like you're in the middle of this giant maybe farmland or like,

it's really weird. And of course we get there and it's pitch black. We can't see a fucking thing. And we're like, where is the hot What? Like what is going on? And so we see a bunch of people around one of them like a depression and it's in the middle of the night. So, but we didn't want to like roll up on them. And I was like, well, there's two more. It says on like online that there's two more somewhere around here. So we're literally like trying to navigate pitch black, not any light source anywhere except for our headlights. Pulling behind a camper. And we finally find one. And of course it's like, The lukewarm one. It's like not like the nice one. And we're like, oh, whatever. So we like go in. We let the dogs go in. We're in. Like we're all like, you know, whatever. And the next morning we wake up, same thing. I'm like, there is something outside. Like what is happening? What is here right now? What is here? And then he's like, oh, no, I don't. I think you're just hearing things. And I look outside and I was hearing things. There wasn't anything around. So we go in. We hadn't taken showers in a long time. So we went. And into the hot springs. Like I have a picture of Ian like going in naked like shower like to shower and stuff. Yeah. Or bathe off. And there's little fish in there. And like we're like, this is so cool. Like whatever. We get out to change inside of the camper look out the entire. I don't know where the fuck they came from. Like, because you can see for miles in every direction. So many cows. So many cows. They're in the water. They're shitting in the water. They're all over the place.

It's just disgusting. So water. You just bathed in. Just bathed in. And we're like, this is amazing. cows everywhere. I have videos and pictures of it. And I will show you or maybe I'll post them to. But it's just so funny because the night before we're like, this is amazing. And even that morning, like the sun's coming up. We're like, this is beautiful and it's so pristine and lovely. Pristine. And there's just cows shitting everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. They're literally in it like chest deep in it. And then some of them are like they were. It wasn't like they were drinking out of it. I'm saying. they were in it. Like, well. Cows like hot springs too. Yep, right. I'm like, we got to share the space.

Yeah. So they're entitled to the hot springs just as much as you guys are. It's just so funny. I'm like, where did they come from? Where did they come from? Must be some type of farmland. Yeah, but like when I show you the thing, like it is flat. Yeah.

You would see especially it wasn't one or two. Right. Maybe they were all like. on the ground and looked like rocks and then they stood up. That's actually a really good point. They like got up for the day and they're like, oh, well, time for our morning ritual. Because cows, they don't sleep standing up, do they? Or do they? I don't believe so. I think horses do. Horses do, but I think cows lay down more. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, so I had a similar ungulate experience at a hot spring in Nevada. I love that.

Okay. Now you may tell the story of coincidences. Ah, yes. How'd you know? My story is titled, There's No Such Thing as Coincidences. Hi, Danielle and Cassie. In typical NPAD fashion, you already know I have to start out this email by raving about your podcast, as if I'm telling someone about it for the very first time. I started listening to you guys in the fall of 2022 after a friend had mentioned it while we were hiking in Colorado Springs. On the flight home, I downloaded a few episodes, which quickly became some of my favorites, such as Episode 73, an Adventureworth. dying for and episode 100 frozen alive in the Scandinavian mountains and the rest was history during the time i started listening i was feeling as most 20-somethings do about life in general lost and unsure where to turn to next i had missed out on an opportunity that i thought at the time was my

quote-unquote dream job and was rather disheartened about it coincidentally or not i was also at the place in this podcast where ian had passed away and your newest catchphrase at the time was there's no thing as coincidences. Insert moment of silence or laughter in memory of Ian, whichever you think he would enjoy more because he seemed super cool. A laugh. A laugh. Typical, classic Ian laugh is the first thing I.

His laugh that just makes everyone else laugh. My adventure began when I was solo hiking in Arizona in, I don't know how to say this, but I'll try, by Paisua Peak. You may also know the spot from the Instagram real going around of the person who was is airlifted out of there on a stretcher spinning rapidly in circles. I have seen that. Oh, my God, yes. That is my nightmare. Although, there's like people commenting like, bro, just leave me here. Yeah, it's like, why do you even rescue me? It's not funny, but it's not funny, but also like if that's how you're going to rescue me, I'm good. Yeah, like, leave me here.

Yeah. Unless I'm like completely unconscious, just, I'm good. I think at that point they might have Ben. Yeah. They were whipping. They were going so fast. That was a horrific video. Oh, no. The next thing they say is, well, my story was slightly similar. Oh, no. I had hiked all the way up to about 20 feet from the top when I noticed there were two people standing on the bottleneck of the rocks right before the summit. It was a couple in their mid-50s, and I noticed the man was holding onto the arm of the woman. I stopped to introduce myself and ask, are you guys doing okay? Right as I did, I noticed the woman's eyes start to roll back and quickly came to their side, assisting her down to the ground safely without hitting her head. I told her husband to help me move her into the minimal amount of

shade near the edge of the rock wall to help her cool down. It was then that I decided it was time to call 911. Shortly after, she came to and was able to tell me that they had hiked camel back the day before and she had not eaten breakfast that morning. I had given her a liquid IV pack that I had luckily thrown duplicates of in my bag that morning. But when we attempted to help her stand, she was rather unstable. The chopper flew in and I was able to assist her to the summit to help her get airlifted off. It was in that moment when I knew what I wanted to do. I had worked as an ICU nurse all through COVID and while I had loved the hustle and bustle of critical care nursing, I was drastically burnt out from bedside. So what better way to incorporate my love of being outside

and my love of critical care medicine than to become a flight nurse? Almost one year later, I have accepted a position and completed my new higher training as a flight nurse and have never felt more affirmed that there is no such thing as coincidences. My other takeaway from this story is to always be prepared. From talking to this couple, I quickly learned that they were not novice hikers. They had done many trails prior, including the whole way up to Angels Landing and the difficult side of camelback. However, it only takes once to put you into a position that you don't want to be in. For this, thank you for including educating information in your episodes. I personally feel it makes more of a difference than you might know.

As always, keep up the great work. You guys rock. Sincerely, Caitlin. Oh, hell. Yeah, Kailen. Congrats. Cool job. Yeah, really cool job.

And no such thing as coincidences. Yep, there is a reason you were on the mountain that day. One, to find yourself and two, to help that woman out. Yeah, 100%. Sorry also for laughing about flight things. I thought that you were going to tell me that woman got lifted out the same way. And I'm glad that that was not the case. I'm so sorry.

My third story is titled Ghost Relatives in Acadia National Park. Hi, Danielle and Cassie. First off, I want to say that I absolutely love the podcast and really appreciate all of the time and care you put into giving us accurate, creative, and interesting stories. I started listening about a year ago and have been obsessed ever since and even saw your live show in Boston with my bestie, which was so much fun. Oh, cool. That is so fun.

Thank you for coming. I've been obsessed with the story of the Great Melasses Flood of 1919 and was so excited when Danielle covered it. Anyway, on to the story. People are probably listening like, what? Why did she cover that? It's interesting, okay? Yeah. And it's related to Boston, so it counted. Yeah. I'm not sure why I never thought I had anything interesting to send in, because when I think about it, I do have some pretty spooky encounters from my own relatives in a town called Southwest Harbor, Maine, which is only about five minutes away from parts of Acadia National Park. For a little backstory, my dad's side of the family.

is from Mount Desert Island, the family history goes back pretty far, way before Acadia National Park, which takes up a large portion of the island, was such a tourist destination. My grandparents were both born and raised in small villages on the island, Manset and Seal Cove, and have been together for over 60 years. The family names and legacies can still be seen throughout the island. For example, Beal was my great-grandmother's maiden name, and Beal's Lobster Pier is a very popular place to get an iconic Maine lobster role. Many of the places in town were originally founded by my ancestors. But this story focuses on just one house where the spooky events have taken place throughout

the years. The house my grandfather was raised in in Southwest Harbor is an old sea captain's house built in the 1800s and is still in our family today. I feel super fortunate to be only a three-hour drive from the National Park and to be able to visit there often and spend time with family and hike. kayak and enjoy the absolutely beautiful views. But when we visit, we never know if we are going to have a ghostly encounter as a couple ancestors died in the home. And it seems like others are attached as well. For many years, my grandparents rented the house to vacationers during the summer. Many guests

reported feeling like they were being watched and felt uncomfortable. One person reported feeling their feet being tickled in the shower. That one still makes me laugh. And many people's belongings have been moved around. My grandmother has had more experiences in that house than anyone, probably because her mother-in-law, who lived in the house for many years, was, let's just say, not the nicest woman, and in particular, wasn't nice to my grandmother. My Grammy's very old-fashioned decor has always been moved and messed with. She would leave the windows on her antique dollhouse closed, and every time she came back, they would be opened. No. Why do you...

Anything with dolls? Like, no. A doll house? There's an antique dollhouse in a old 1800s farmhouse. I mean, this sounds... You're asking for it. You might be. And I also feel like, maybe you'll explain later, but is this still up for rent? Because we're going to be in the area in a few months. And I would love to bring Cassie. Oh, my God. No, I don't want my feet tickled in the shower. That is a hard. That's a hard line for me. Okay. Well, let's see what else there is to be had. I'm just to put. putting that out into the universe for any spirits who may listen at any point if you tickle my feet in the shower. I wonder what that feels like. You know, because there's water dripping on them.

I'm picturing the bottom of my feet. I don't know. I don't know. But they're on the ground. Yeah. Well, ghosts can't do whatever they want. That is true. So I guess there's no rules.

In another room, she had a rack with hats placed a certain way, and many times they would be turned the complete opposite. sitway. In this case, she actually left a note that said, please leave my hats the way they are. Thank you. And they stopped moving after that. So, okay. That's nice. They're considerate. Another scarier experience my Grammy had was one night she was alone. She started to hear lots of noises coming from one of the upstairs bedrooms. It sounded like someone was banging on the radiator and dragging a metal pipe back and forth across it. Oh my God, no. The heat was not on, so it shouldn't have been making any noise. This event totally freaked out my grandparents' dog, who has always refused to go up the stairs even before this incident. That's a sign.

One other note about dogs, many other family dogs brought to the house have seemed very wary and scared of the home, particularly the stairs and the upstairs. My aunt's dog was fine until she ventured over to the stairs and came back with her hackles raised and tail between her legs. After years of these occurrences, my grandmother hired a medium and had some girlfriends overfirm. for a reading and a cleansing. Just a fun afternoon for the girlies. The medium said that she felt four adult presence isn't still in the house. Definitely family members who have lived there and were not ready to go. After the cleansing, it seemed as though most of the activity died down, but not for me. I have definitely always felt like there was something going on in the house, especially after both of my great-grandparents passed. For me, it's been mostly noises and mostly at night. Some of it

I chalk up to the wind or the old house shifting, but other times I'm not so sure. One night in particular, a couple summers ago, was one to remember. It was around 3 a.m. because, of course it was, and I was awoken by the sound of the door to the bedroom opening and felt distinct footsteps coming over to my bed. In that half-awake state, I for sure, in bold, everyone, also I for sure felt the eyes of someone leaning over and checking in on me. I was not scared. It felt very comforting. My first thought was that it was the morning time and my dad was checking to see if I was awake, which he had done on occasion before if we were getting an early start to a hike. But a few seconds later, I opened my eyes and saw that it was the middle of the night and the door to my room was completely closed.

No. No. That detail gets me. All of the details. I know it's a ghost. So I'm already... On top of that, I got up and. checked on my dad across the hall, he was sound asleep and definitely had not just been up and walking around. I can already hear Cassie saying, you got haunted. You did get haunted. And I feel like I for sure did, but it truly felt like a family member checking in on me. Now when I'm there before bed, I say out loud, hi great Grammy and anyone else here. I appreciate you checking on me, but I don't need to be woken up. Thank you. And it seems to do the trick. I apologize if the story was too long,

but I thought you might find it interesting. I know you. Oh my God. What are you about to say? I know you ladies have a group trip. Plan for Acadia next summer. I would love to meet up with you for a hike or some other activity if that would be allowed. Yeah. If we can go to this house.

Reach out to me directly. If we can have a seance in your house, for sure. I understand if not, since it's a closed group, but I would still love to give you any tips or recommendations for while you're on the island. Hopefully I can direct you to some places that might not be so crowded. Anyways, thanks for reading, love the pod, and happy holidays to you both. See, oh, here we are. What did we just say? It could be six months. She just said, happy holidays. Yeah, well. And that's what six months? Unless you're referring to Memorial Day, then yeah. Definitely not. Enjoy the view, but watch out for ghost relatives, Emily. Well, I'm glad you weren't scared because I would have been. And it is a cool story if it's your ancestors and they're being friendly. Yeah. Do you think that you would be, like if you had the knowledge that, or at least you had a strong feeling that any activity was coming from your family, like whether or not you knew them. Like if you were like, okay, this is my great,

great grandmother's house or whatever. I think that, does it change? Maybe it would have, I think it would have to be like family that I knew a lot about. Like my mom's dad passed away when I was really young and my dad's dad passed away before I was born. So if it was something like that where I know people who are directly very involved with them and close with them, I think it would be cool. But if it was like my great, great, great grandmother or grandfather or something, I think it would still freak you up. Yeah. It would still freak me out.

But if it was like someone that I knew in life or someone who, someone I love knew in life, then I think I would feel a little differently. Okay. That's fair. All right. What you got? This is my last one, right? Third one.

Well, we have bonuses. And bonus ones we always do. Mine is titled Bigfoot Encounter on Mount St. Helens. This is for you, Danielle. Hello, Cassie and Danielle. I have been an avid listener of the show for almost three years now, and I thought I was time to finally share a family story of mine that has been told to me and my brother since we were three years old.

I hope you guys might consider it for a trail tale episode. This is not my story, but my father's. For some backstory, I was raised in Castle Rock, Washington, which was in very close proximity, to Mount St. Helens, and we grew up hiking and being around the mountain for most of my life. My dad, however, spent all of his life in this area, not to mention having to evacuate his home in 1980 when the mountain erupted, though luckily his home wasn't damaged. Here's the story of when my dad and his two childhood best friends encountered Bigfoot in

1972. My dad was around the age of 12 and decided to have a sleepover with his best friend and brother on a summer weeknight. His friends lived up in the country, having at least 50, acres of dense forest and farmland to roam free and do whatever young boys did in the early 70s. The morning my dad was planning on going home, him and his friend decided to take a long hike out into Mount St. Helens' extremely dense forest. Along with them, his friends took their two very large Rottweiler dogs in case they happened to cross any bears or mountain lions. About

30 minutes into the hike, there was a large clearing in the forest and my dad explained that he saw something very large and dark in his peripheral vision. He did a 180 and was terrified. He saw it. About nine feet tall, dark brown, hairy with an orangutang face, about 30 yards away from them. Immediately he knew what he was looking at. He didn't move. He found himself unable to. Instead, he heard the two huge dogs whining and whimpering. Do you guys see what I see? His two friends were doing the same thing. Unable to move, stunned, terrified. The dogs took off in the opposite direction, and they all joined in and started to run. unbelievably, they heard branches breaking and the ground shaking.

They knew it was running with them, not at them, because they saw it running across from them. My dad to this day says that the way it was running was completely human and natural, not at all resembling a primate or bear. Luckily, the thing stopped running and they were able to make it back to the house. When they arrived, he and his friends didn't know what to say to each other, but they all knew it was Bigfoot. The local news was called and the report is actually registered on the Bigfoot's sightings webpage. When the news crews arrived, my dad and his friends had to locate the place that they

saw it and didn't find Bigfoot, but they found something else that is very confusing. Not too far from where they first saw him was a small pond. In the pond were his footprints. The footprints led into the pond, but never trailed out of it. It wasn't a deep pond, so it was obvious it wasn't in their hiding, but that confused them even more. My dad says that there were many more sightings in the area from when he and his friends saw it in 1980 when the volcano erupted. Since then, there haven't been as many, if not any, more sightings. My dad is almost positive that the eruption killed it and any other possible species in the area. This is a 100% true story.

My dad is no bullshitter and always retells the story exactly the same every time. He even took a polygraph test in 1977 when he was 17 and passed. Not that I believe in them, per se, but I know that it did happen and it terrified him. He now sees the encounter as being extremely lucky and awesome because not many people get to see Bigfoot the way he did. Because this encounter was so long ago, I couldn't find any news reports of that encounter. But they should be located in the Castle Rock Library and Chamber of Commerce. My dad has taken the family back to the spot that he encountered a few years back. While Bigfoot may or may not still dwell in this area, it's no wonder why he would have taken refuge here because it's absolutely stunning.

Mary. Love it. My first thought is... when you set a pond and the footsteps led in but never out. I just imagine Bigfoot sinking underground into like the mud into like an underground world for some other to mention. Have you heard that like, I mean, we haven't talked about Bigfoot in a while formally. So maybe we should. Just hear it to say Danielle believes. But like have you heard the theories that, which I have never really delved into because I don't know if they're far out like to say for me to say something's pretty

far out like I think it has to be pretty far out but I don't really know much about it other than some people think that like Bigfoot sightings and even UFO sightings and things are a result of like glitches in the not really glitches in the matrix but different glimpses into other dimensions and like overlaps in different dimensional timelines. I have read I have read that I don't know if I believe that though because that's saying that they're not real in this world which I have a hard time believing but I guess maybe like obviously there's something to be said about paranormal phenomenon like ghosts and spirits and hauntings with other dimensional realms that are kind of shimmering through into our experience so I don't know but those people existed in this world right I don't know I

maybe I'll do an episode it would be interesting it's been a while since we dived into paranormal I mean we've talked to paranormal I mean we've talked talked about Bigfoot before in the theories of, you know, maybe Bigfoot is some type of primate that hasn't been identified yet or formally found, which I think is a, I, from a scientific perspective, I think that that's likely. And we've talked about like other, you know, like homo Floriances, the episode I did in Sumatra. And obviously that's not Bigfoot. It's just another type of human species or was it a human species that died off before? like Neanderthals. Yeah. Yeah. And they were a lot smaller. Yeah. But yeah, anyway, so we've obviously

touched upon Bigfoot, but something that Mary brought up in the email that I've also, especially when I lived out there, like heard a lot about was the rumors and speculations about the government being involved in extracting bodies of Bigfoot or recovering remains or injured bigfoot individuals after the eruption of Mount St. Helens. Like that was a big thing. See, I could see that 100% because the government is definitely lying about some stuff. And I mean, they've known that aliens existed forever. And just recently they were like, hey, by the way, everyone, aliens exist. And we're all like, yeah, we know. Yeah, can we get health care or what? Yeah. It's like we have other problems. Clearly, there's aliens. They've been here forever.

but not really a pressing issue at that moment. Right. Like we also know that you have a big foot. You have big foot evidence, I'm sure. And among a lot of other shit that they are hiding from the public, I'm sure. Yeah. I don't know. Another day, another mystery.

Another government cover up. It would be fun to do like a conspiracy theory episode, like pick some conspiracy theories. Like maybe just short topics, not deep dives, but to do like a handful of conspiracy. theories and like just dive into them a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. I would love that.

Can we collaborate? Yeah, it would be like we could do a joint episode and we could just do. I've seen so many different conspiracy theories things. What constitutes a conspiracy theory? Like would Nessie or Champ be under a conspiracy theory or is that just a cryptic? Like what like where do we draw the line? I think that it would have to be a conspiracy theory where something's being covered up. So like if Nessie, if we're talking about Nessie and the government is covering up Nessie's existence, even though there were sightings, then that's a conspiracy theory.

But just to say Nessie exists and these are the sightings would not be a conspiracy theory. Okay. So there has to be some type of cover up involved. Okay. I will do this and I will put my life on the line. The government may come after us. It's like when we start saying that politicians. are all lizard people and we disappear.

And we go missing. You all know lizard people exist. Right. And they came for us. We're proof. Our missing is proof. Okay. I'm so down for this.

We'll talk about it. Okay. We have ideas brewing out loud. Wow, this is great. Okay. Well, we have two more bonus stories and they both involve poop. So if you're into that, you can come over. If poop is your thing.

Come on over to. to Apple subscriptions or Patreon become an outsider on either. You will get every Trail Tale episode ad free with two bonus stories. Yeah. Oh, I think we should also mention too on Patreon. We started doing, and we can't do it for Apple subscriptions just because of the way the platform is at the moment. But for Patreon specific subscribers, we are doing twice a month.

We're doing live episodes. And we've been typically sticking to Park News as of recently where we, you're discuss recent stories that are happening within the parks. Yeah. It's like your weekly news events with us. Cassie even printed out her notes once and came like a reporter. Yeah. So did you.

Well, I did that after you did it and then you didn't do it with me. But next time, if you join us next time for our next biweekly Park News, we'll both have printed news reports. Coming at you live. I'll even dress up like a news reporter. I don't have anything formal, but I'll try. You have to wear your hair like news reporters. How's that? You know how they all have like really hair sprayed?

Like it's like it can't blow out of. It's perfectly formed around their face. Like if the wind blows, it will not move. News reporters are always just like perfectly execute. Like their outfits to their makeup to their hair is just nothing is out of place. And that's how we'll be. I'll try it. I'll look up some YouTube videos because I don't even know how to do that.

I'll wear, they always have lipstick on. Always. Always. I will do that. And, hmm, do I have a blazer? I don't think I have a blazer, but I feel like they're blazer people. Anyway, well, you'll just have to find out what we do. But yeah, we do other things. We have other ideas. It's not always going to be Park News. But yeah, we do it twice a month. It's fun. It's interactive. So you can chat with us live. We can see the conversations. You can talk to other people. It's fun. Yeah. So come join us. And if you don't, that's fine too. But just consider it.

Yeah. We appreciate you anyway. We appreciate you all listening. you're all great and just keep in mind that we do do this maybe someday we can do like a one live episode for everyone so they can see what they're about before joining the pressure will be on with that one scary we'll have to really bring the big guns for that yeah we will okay more ideas thinking out loud so many ideas you're just dropping on me at 6 p.m. I know before a really big night for us we do have a really big night tonight because I don't know if anyone else has guilty pleasure TV that they watch, but ours, his love is blind and the reunion is on tonight. It's my only trash TV show that I watch.

Me too. And it just gets me every time. Except for Married at First Night, I also watch that one because that is just reality TV gold. But is that considered track? I guess Love It's Blindness and Trash. I don't think it's trash. They're real people, but it's like kind of a.

It's a guilty pleasure show. Like I'm not watching it and becoming educated or. learning. Right. I'm not evolving as a human. Yeah, to watch it. I'm just watching toxic relationships unfold on TV and people that I end up like getting attached to getting hurt, even though I've never met them. I know. It's a whole thing. Right now, you know how they film season simultaneously in different cities? They're filming in Denver, aren't they? I know. Right now. Ah, ha. Oh, my God. I know. I hope like, because they never, no one knows who it is when it's happening. But then, like, you see their faces later and you're like, wait a second, I know that person. I'm never going to know. I don't

go out enough to know. I never thought I would know someone on the show and I knew someone last season. You sure did. We've never talked about that. We're not going to publicly and we're not going to. But no, my biggest hope is that I just like, I want to just like go downtown and like to the places they might be filming at. You know what I mean? Like when they come home. Yeah. So you could be like in the background? Imagine. Imagine. If you're like out to eat and it's one of their like, please scout it out. I want to see you in the background just like listening to the tea. I know. It's like everyone pretends to be normal. But how can you be normal in a restaurant when there's a whole ass camera crew?

Focus on two people at a table. Like that's. And they're arguing. Yeah. They're having a fight. Usually. Or it's like a family meeting or something. Oh yeah. Meet the parents. Yeah. Meet the parents. Still things I want to ease drop on in a public situation. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's let's go on to this is a conversation we should be having for like it's trail tale so this is less informal this is less formal and more personal lives so this is us when we're not outside we're watching love is blind i just feel like i don't know like people are i don't know i just always have this thing in the back of my mind like shut the fuck up because people just want to hear you tell stories and then be quiet you know like but we already told the stories so i feel like the people who

are interested in just that because there's a lot of people who like conversations podcast too. So yeah. For the people who are interested in that part are still listening and the people who only wanted to hear the stories as soon as we started talking about love is blind they turned it off and we're like, what the fuck. So we're in a safe space. Yeah, we're in a safe space. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Yeah. Okay. I'm now I'm self-conscious and have to go. Okay. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you so much for joining us again this week.

If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at Stories at 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.

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