National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 62

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Today’s stories include acts of love, stiff pants, angry neighbors camp ghosts, Gila monsters and cougars in Maine. Outsiders Only bonus stories available for Patreon and Apple Subscribers!For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @nationalparkafterdarkTwitter/X: @npadpodcastTikTok: @nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to the week’s partners!Acorns: Use our link download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today!Zocdoc: Use our link to download the Zocdoc app for free.Graza: Use code NPAD to get 10% off your Graza Starter Kit.Crime Weekly Podcast:  Listen to Crime Weekly every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to another Trail Tales episode. And today we have a lot for you. But before we get started, I actually have a trail tail of my own that I want to share. Okay. Well, we're just jumping right in. I would love to hear it. Is it from your recent endeavor? Yes. It certainly is. And I, it's so funny because so I recently traveled to Death Valley National Park and it was my first time there. And while this

particular incident was happening, I was like, oh no, I have a trail tales now. So I thought I would tell it today. Okay, please do. So we went, I didn't write this down either. So I'm just like riffrapping off of my own experience, so I apologize if I stumble around a little bit. So my friend and I, basically, we planned a trip to Death Valley, and we were there in the region for about six days, and we planned four days in Death Valley, and then two days in Vegas. And we decided to rent a camper van. We just did it off of Chura. We did one of those Mercedes sprinters. And when they're huge, I didn't realize how big sprinter van. I mean, I've seen them in real life, but I've never driven them before and they are massive. So we pick up this rental. We're super excited. We pack all

our stuff in. It has a bed. It has a kitchen. We're so stoked. And my friend starts driving first and she's a little nervous because it's so big. So we go to a parking lot to practice. And then we have to go to a drive-through because I was hungry. And we thought that it was, we thought that we could walk up and she wouldn't have to go through the drive-thru with this massive thing. And anyway, we go through the drive-thru, and the first thing that she does is she doesn't take the turn wide enough, and she hits the wall of the building. Oh, my God. I'm just a girl. I'm just a girl.

That was our whole theme for the whole trip, but I just wanted to preface of how our driving is going from the get-go. But anyway, we head into Death Valley, and we decide that we want to camp on BLM land outside of the park because it's free, it's beautiful. And we find this spot pretty close to Death Valley. It's called Big Dunes Recreation Area. And it's beautiful. It has these huge sand dunes.

There's mountains in the background. It just looks amazing. And we drive out. It's about a 15, 20 minute drive to get there. And it's on these dirt roads that are washboards. You're just going da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. The entire way out. And I see on the map that it keeps us going straight.

But I wanted to get closer to the dunes. So my friend who was driving, I was like, oh, turn down this road. That goes towards the dunes over there and we'll just park off the side and get a campsite. She's like, yeah, yeah, that sounds great. And we're driving and we're driving. And we're like, let's get close because I had seen pictures online of people camping pretty close to it. And unbeknownst to me and her, I guess, is that it was mostly for off-road vehicles. And our Sprinter van was decked out.

We had like really big wheels and everything. But we're like chugging along. Everything's going great. And suddenly the sand starts getting really soft and loose. we're not on this dirt road anymore. And seconds later, we find ourselves totally stuck. We have nothing with us to get us out except for some firewood that we bought. So we're like digging under the sand, putting this wood underneath the tires to try and get out. And nothing's working. We're just revving. We're digging ourselves actually deeper on one side. And then we just sat there like,

okay, we are stuck in the middle of the desert. Thankfully, we had reception. But there was no one around, not a single person anywhere. You couldn't, I mean, we could walk, but it was several miles before we would get to a person or like a house or whatever to ask for help. So we call AAA who says that they will not come get us because we're too far off the road. And then we call a tow truck company and they say that they will not come out at night. And it was almost sunset. They're like, no, we're not going to come all that way out there.

so you can either call for a four-wheel drive pickup truck from Vegas to come get you, which they quoted us $1,200 for. Like, no, you know, we'll just stay the night. We were planning to camp here anyway. We have food. We have a whole camper vehicle. Everything will be fine. So we just drank wine and ate chocolate and snacks for the night and we just camped out and it was great. It was fine. And then in the morning, we called the tow truck driver again and he's like, yep, I'll come out and see if I can come get you. And he comes out. He sees us from very far off the road. And he has to walk out to get us. And he's like, I don't think my tow truck is going to get out here. And you are so far in the sand. And we felt deflated at that point. We're like, how are we going to get out of here? We just started the trip. We didn't even

enter Death Valley yet. And then he's like, you know what? I'll just try. Worse comes to worse. The tow truck's going to have to come out here anyway and come tow me out. So let's try it. So he takes this huge tow truck, like exactly what you picture. with multiple wheels, the huge back end on it, and he backs it down this dirt, sand road. It's like, I don't know, like, if this is going to make it, but we're going to try. And he gets there and he gets to us. He hooks us up, and then he tries to pull us out and get stuck. Oh, my God.

Of course. And we're like, oh, no. And we see him maneuvering and doing all this stuff. And he, I don't know what he did, but he did something to actually pull himself out of the sand. But when he did that, he created these huge bumps and like divots and holes in the sand itself. And he was pulling us. So he was like, all right, well, just hold on because we got to go over these bumps. And just so you know, this sand is something I can't really slow down in.

So once I get going, we're just going. And we're like, okay, sounds good, not too worried about it. And he just like floors it. He's going, I don't know, probably like 35, 40 through these sand. and he's pulling us backwards and we go over these bumps and holes and we launch into the air. What a ride. What a ride. Yeah, it was really funny.

And he finally pulls us out and we pay him not $1,200 because it wasn't the four-wheel drive vehicle, thankfully. And then we got to go into Death Valley. But that was our first experience. And then we kept seeing in Death Valley, there's all these roads that are like, make sure you have high clearance. make sure you have four-wheel drive and all this stuff. And we were so nervous after that. We're like, we're not getting stuck in the middle of Death Valley. So we were a lot more careful during our trip, which maybe it was just meant to be that way. So we didn't get ourselves in deeper trouble out in the middle of Death Valley where there was no reception. So that's my trail tale. Just a little fun tidbit of my Death Valley adventure. Well, it sounds pretty similar to, well, without the tow truck and all that, but my first night with Ian on our cross-country. endeavor. We got stuck in the sand. Well, he, okay. He got us stuck. And he would agree with me. I'm not

just blaming him because he's not here. But he got us stuck in the sand, the camper, my camper, stuck in the sand in Grand Junction, Colorado out similarly like BLM land, like just way out there or whatever. Yeah. And someone happened upon us because we didn't have reception and someone happened upon us with some four-wheel drive vehicles and helped us out and stuff like that. But I had the same thought of, I'm so glad this happened right now and in this way before this two-week trip of all of our campsites were down logging roads and off, you know, off the grid. We're no one's going to find you. Where no one would find us if, and I'm like, this is a lesson learned that we need to be more careful and aware of where we are in like, what, because my camper is

built to be four-wheel drive and or four-wheel drive just like all-terrain it has giant massive wheels it's not like a I don't know if I've ever posted pictures of it but um it just doesn't have the little tiny like scamper wheels or anything like that there it's it's a yeah it can get beat up and it can go wherever my Jeep could go at the time it would follow with no issue so that was it was tempting you know it's like I want to get to places that are off beaten path. And that was just kind of a warning to be like, hey, heads up. Maybe don't do that. Maybe don't do that. This could have gone a lot worse than it did. And it thankfully did not. But yeah, I feel like things happened for a reason. And it definitely made us more aware throughout the whole trip to be a little bit more careful, especially when we didn't have reception

in the park for the most part. Yeah. And you got to see the pupfish. And I got to, oh yes, how could I forget? I got to meet the famous pupfish, the rarest animal in the world. It's it truly yeah wow yeah did you tell me that before it's a celebrity it is a celebrity i mean there's only a handful of them right yeah there's only a handful of them and they only live for like up to 14 months so their populations have a rough time and you adopted one and i adopted one yeah they're sending me something in the mail i haven't gotten it yet okay well i'm excited to see what it is we're the i mean we don't have shared custody of that pupfish but yeah you do have no i'm saying me and you. Oh. Right, right. But we do have shared custody of an orangutan. I forget her name.

Nami. Nami, yeah. I have Nami on my, I have a stuffed animal of Nami on my bookshelf over there. Yeah, that tooth and claws got for us. Yeah, it was so nice. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, Irresistible love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.

Okay. We have stories of other peoples to share. Yeah. How about you go first since I just told one? Sure. Okay. So my first story is titled A Ghost Lurseller. apparition and the best job in the world.

Recently while recovering from a... Sorry, there's just no intro. I'm like, oh, we're cold starting. There's no... Don't you have anything nice to say to us first? Where are my flowers? First of all. Just kidding.

Recently while recovering from a migraine, I discovered this podcast and immediately knew I had to submit a story from this summer. I worked as a counselor at an incredible summer camp in the mountains of North Carolina near Piscan National Forest. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and being able to share it with kiddos from all over the country was such a treat. Every new session of campers meant new challenges and triumphs, but it was my second cabin that gave me the best stories. The camp is nestled in the Appalachian rainforest, which many staff members took very

seriously in terms of cryptid-like stories. There were tales of strange creatures roaming the camp at night, messages and dreams, etc. At the time, I didn't believe in any of it. However, a week into the session, the other counselors from the girl's side of the camp were complaining about a strange figure that was trying to get into their cabins at night. They felt so spooked, they didn't want to walk alone at night and were trying to find ways to keep the thing off of the steps of the cabins. For the sake of my sanity, I decided to write it off as a classic campfire story with no merit. That is, until one particular morning when one of my campers came up to me and said, Olivia, something was in the cabin last night. I was instantly confused and asked for more details.

She said, a tall, dark figure ducked its head in and came through the door, then stood in the corner for about five minutes before leaving. The corner she pointed to was right at the foot of my bed. I didn't know what to say. Minutes later, another girl came up to me and said she didn't sleep well. I asked why, and she responded, there was something shadowy and tall in here last night. It had no face, but it seemed to just be looking at me. I felt scared, but it seemed like it was just watching. I was stunned.

I had gone to bed after and woken up before the campers and had not seen them talk to each other before coming up to me. I told my co-counselor about it, and she called in another staff member to smudge the front steps just in case. We never heard about the figure from those campers again, but later in the summer, other kids expressed feeling watched by shadows while walking back from the lodge at night. To this day, I have no explanation for it,

but this story remains one of my favorite. favorites, even if it kept me up at night staring at the cabin door for a week afterwards. This summer was magical in so many ways, and I'm so grateful to have worked near a national forest for a couple months, even if it was a bit haunted. And I love that story because I love camp stories. And it reminded me a lot of kind of an experience of my own, but not really. Okay. So have you been to sleepaway camp? Like when you were a kid? No. Okay. My horse girls. going to come out really quick. I used to go to horse camp every summer. And when I was young, like young, young, I would go with my cousin. It would just be like a day thing. Like my parent,

like we would take a bus to the barn and it would just be like a day thing and come back. But there was a year that I wanted to go to a different camp that was two week sleepover camp, summer camp for horsemanship. So I did that. I did that. And I stayed in like the, there was like the girls' cabins with bunk beds, like rustic. It was just, it was great. But anyways, so the camp counselors, and I, my mom's going to have to like, fact check me on this. I don't remember how old I was. I want to say I was maybe around 12 or 13, maybe. So anyway, the camp counselors who are probably just like teenagers, you know, like. Yeah. But they seemed like so much older. One night, I remember they were telling us like a spooky

story about the camp or something like and now looking back on them it was all it was all made up but they made up this huge elaborate story about this girl who like died at the camp and haunts the camp and all this stuff and they're like and it said that she carved her initials with like the symbol into the wall of her bunk bed like when she stayed here and like they told her name and the initials and the symbol and whatever. And they went as far as carving that into the wall next to a bunk and guess who's freaking bunk it was. Yours. Mine. Out of all the people and I was so scared and they're like, oh, looks like you have her punk. And I'm like, shit, now I have to, and it was early on in the session. So I had to spend two weeks stressed out. And this girl's

out in this murder victim's bed that I thought. I'm like, I am 12 years old. Give me a break. Okay. That's a little, that's a little rough. I mean, that's pretty. It was the early 2000s. They didn't care. That's true. There were no rules back then. They're like, what are you going to do? Call your parents. You don't have a phone. There's no phones. There was no such thing. Self, like, I literally wrote letters. We're just going to bully you. Truly. Yeah. And that's how you build character. And that's why I'm so resilient. story came full circle. And that's why I'm so funny and resilient from my trauma. It was a character-building experience.

Experience, yeah. Is it my turn to tell the story? Yep. You're looking at me like, hello. Okay, my story is titled An Act of Love. I have been a longtime listener and love all of your episodes. My absolute favorites are always hearing everyone's trail tales. I just listened to your latest one this morning and had to stop to share an act of love story

that isn't mine or even real. Bear with me. It's a story my mother used to tell me before bed when I was a child that quickly became my most favorite story that I would ask for every night and is one of my most early childhood memories. I don't remember the story's name, the main character's name, or even the town it was said in. I don't even remember the full story, but I do remember the main parts and it does take place in a forest. So I'm hoping that there can be a crossover that lines up enough for you to want to share this with your listeners. morning, this story has a bittersweet ending and may not be for all listeners. My mother is a Ukrainian immigrant who moved to the United States in the 70s. Maybe it was because I was a child and children seemed to gravitate towards dark and heavy things, or maybe it's because of my Slavic badass bloodlines that I just tend to gravitate towards dark and heavy things. But all of the mother goose stories that were told to me as a child, no story ever impacted me like the one I'm about to share with you.

I partially am hoping maybe another listener may be able to help us learn the real names of the story because it's so very powerful and has absolutely influenced how I live my life and how I choose to view the world around me. I can never find it when I try to search online and no one else in my life other than my mother has ever heard of it. I hope you find it as impactful and interesting as I do. Without further ado, once upon a time, there was a town of people surrounded by a very dark forest. The town was not doing well. The crops were not growing, the animals and people were becoming sick and dying. The people of the town knew that they would have to find another place to live,

but the forest that surrounded them was so overgrown and dark that they feared needing to travel through it. Eventually, after much famine and continued despair, they were left with no choice. The town's people gathered up the remaining animals and food and ventured into the forest. Days turned to weeks and they became lost in the darkness. As they continued to look for their new home and find a way after, of the forest, the suffering did not stop. The food ran out and the animals started dying. The children and elderly were becoming very sick. They needed to get out of the forest very soon or the whole village would perish in the deep dark woods. There was a man from town who had loved his

people very deeply. Over the course of the past month, it had pained him greatly seeing his family, friends, and neighbors suffer. He knew they were good people and their continued misfortune weighed very heavy on his heart. One day, they had reached a point where they could go no further. The forest was much too dark to see and the whole village was too tired to keep going with no direction. The man's heart started to ache and throb. He felt such a stabbing pain deep in his chest for all the love he had for his family and his people that he couldn't bear to take it any longer. To stop the pain of his heartache, he reached inside his chest, grabbed his heart and pulled it out. As he did, it shined with a love so bright that it completely lit the entire forest with the power

of his love. He raised it up and held his heart over his head. His people, were able to finally see and they found the path which led them out of the forest to their new fertile land and the whole town was saved. The man then lowered his arms, sat down on a rock and died. My mother always used to tell me growing up that love is what you do for each other and that real love is a sacrifice. My mother is one of the kindest, most giving people you will ever meet. She will always go out of her way for anyone in her life who needs her or her help. She has absolutely impacted me and how I choose to be and interact with this world. I've heard people call her names for going to the extent that she does for others. I'm certain she has been taken advantage of, but I'm also a believer in karma and what goes around, comes around.

I watched my mother choose to operate from a place of love and kindness growing up and her example, combined with the stories like this, have absolutely impacted how I choose to live my own life. I hope you guys enjoyed it and I appreciate the opportunity to share it with you. If you choose to share it, I would love for you to please ask if anyone may recognize the story as I would love to be able to look it up and read it. I only recall the major points from the bedtime tales I was told, but would love to be able to read it fully. Wishing you and everyone a beautiful rest of your holiday season and thank you again for creating such a wonderful place for all of us outdoorsy folk to interact with and enjoy. I loved that. I think that's the first fake story that we've done and I thought it was a really beautiful tale. Yeah.

Like, did she say it was like more like a fairy tale or? Yeah. Yeah. Like a bad time story of fairy tale. I loved the sentiment of that and love being at the core of everything. And it really is the most important thing. Okay. My next story is titled, You've heard of the Heala monster, but what monsters are really in the Heila?

Hi, ladies. My name is Riley. I have been listening to your show since August of 2024 when my friend Laura recommended you while on a backpacking trip around Mount Hood in Oregon, which is the area I grew up in. Growing up in the PNW, I always knew about Bigfoot, whom I am a big believer in, and believe her to be my mountain mama. But besides that, I have never really been interested in other cryptids, nor have I ever really heard about them. That is, until I moved to northern Arizona, embracing all there is in the southwest, including the folklore of the area, much of which are stories from the Native American populations and culture in this area.

In April of 2024, some peers and I went on a 17-day track through the Gila National Wilderness in New Mexico. This national wilderness covers nearly 600,000 acres of New Mexico and was the world's first designated national wilderness area in 1924, making it quite rugged and remote. The Gila ranges from rich riparian terrain down into the canyons along the Gila River to desert mountain terrain on the mesas up to Ponderosa pine forests. On our trip, we hiked all over these terrains, with a route we chose that was well off the beaten path. We enjoyed hot springs, saw old Native American dwellings, and markings. river crossings, and plenty of flora and fauna. Overall, it was one of my favorite backcountry trips to date, except for day 12. On day 12, we had planned to camp at an area that is not named or marked, but based on the topo map, looked like it would be flat enough for a group of seven to camp at.

Upon nearing our camp for night 12, we noticed the area had been severely burned by wildfire at some point in the previous years. I don't know if you or any of your listeners have ever camped in burned areas, but it has quite an eerie feel to it, just with the dead vegetation and lack of life about, as well as the abundance of widow makers, which, if you don't know, are dead but standing trees that could fall at any moment. Thankfully, I had a wildland firefighter in my group who understands the nature of burnt trees, and he declared an area that should be safe enough for us to set up camp, which we did, and then designated a kitchen 200 feet from camp since the Gila wilderness is bear country. We made dinner, made our bear hangs, and hung up.

our food and played a few hours of farckel. The evening was normal enough, except for a horribly spooky feeling in my gut, but I chalked it up to being in the dead area that we were camping in. Eventually, we went our separate ways to bed and settled in for the night, but I could not sleep to save my life. And let me say here, I have no problem sleeping in the backcountry after a day of hiking. Maybe an hour or two after getting into bed and laying there, I heard the wildest noise. It was like a scream, howl, banging noise, and it sounded. close. Again, we were remote. We hadn't seen another person on the trail in eight days up to this point. At this point, my heart was racing, but I tell myself, well, there's nothing I can do. And if I'm

in danger, I'm not escaping this thing in the dead of night 100 plus miles away from any civilization. If I am supposed to only live to 23, at least they were pretty good damn years. And then I fell asleep. That reminds me so much of you. Cassie. I can relate for sure. What's going on outside of my tent? It's none of my business. There you go.

That night I had a dream that raider squirrels came through our camp and kitchen and took all of our stuff. When I awoke in the morning, I stuck my head out of the tent and said, did you guys hear the raider squirrels? I got really weird looks from my friends and told them about my dream. My dream that turned into a premonition. When the first person walked over to our kitchen, she yelled, guys, something got into our camp. We all ran down to check out the scene and our belongings in the kitchen were everywhere and nowhere. In our kitchen, we had left out our stoves, hiking poles, some shoes, camp chairs, pads, etc.

The hiking poles were thrown across the area. Shoes were moved up to 50 feet away. Stoves were missing. We had some cleaned and dried eating vessels that were round and shaped. Think double bowls that twist on top of each other, not easily grabable for smaller critters, that were missing. We searched the whole area for the missing stuff, mainly because of leave no trace and we didn't want our stuff to be left out there. Some was found, but some were completely gone. Like my round eating vessel, hashtag sad.

I hate out of a peanut butter jar as a bowl for the rest of this trip. We made a quick breakfast, eager to get out of the area and started on the trail. After leaving, my friend Maggie asked, So did you guys have an awful feeling yesterday evening in camp too? And every single person said they had a pit in their stomach, felt unsafe or on edge the entire time we were in that camp. We were discussing what it could have been. Initially, we thought a bear, since no critter could move some of those larger items. But because the trees were dead and awful, our bear hangs were not great.

And if a bear was there for food, it realistically could have got to our food bags. Yet all of the food was untouched and there were no claw marks on the trees. Sure, it could have been a critter, but why go after things like hiking poles or our fuel tanks? Also, we looked closely for tracks and there wasn't anything to be noticed on the ground. We decided that we had a southwest crypted that we hear about down here, but don't talk about. Visiting us during the night, while thinking back about it to this day and while writing the story, the hair still stand up on the back of my neck. But also, it definitely could have been aliens, and I know my extraterrestrial brothers and sisters were just trying to say hi.

Anyway, that's my tale. Thank you for reading. enjoy the view but watch your back and watch out for raider squirrels warmly riley i like the alien the alien theory really i think i don't know i my gut just says raccoons because raccoons are yeah realistically i think it was probably raccoons or some type of critter but i just like the direction of aliens yeah they're just like investigating like what is all this stuff what is a hiking pole we don't need it and they just throw it 50 feet it definitely sounds like raccoons are so destructive.

I know. And they're so, did you see the, oh, my God. I don't know if it's recent because sometimes my algorithm shows me things from like a month prior. But there's this woman who has been feeding raccoons for years at her home, at her residence. And there's like hundreds of them, right? And she had to call 911 because there was over a hundred of them that swarmed her. That's crazy. Right?

Did you see that? I don't know if I saw, I might have. I feel like I saw it a while ago and it, I can picture it because I do remember seeing something about a woman feeding raccoons and she had like hundreds on her doorstep. Okay. Yes. Okay. It's from October.

I just looked, October of 2024. It's the New York Times. This made the New York Times. Okay. And it says, woman calls 911 when a hundred aggressive raccoons show up in her yard. And there's just a picture of like. These, just this whole yard scape full of angry raccoons. And it says, okay, and this is the problem, okay?

I won't read the whole article, of course, but just the first sentence. For more than 35 years, a woman in Washington State would leave some food in her yard for about a dozen resident raccoons. 30 years? 35 years. That's older than me. Yeah. And then she just had to. And then they turned on her.

They sure did. 35 years of dedication and they turned on her. Yep. I can't be really cute. But I would be nervous about feeding raccoons in particular just because they do get rabies. And I would be very nervous to have. One, I don't think you should feed wildlife like that in general. But also because they are prone to rabies, I would be concerned.

The sheriff's department said that trappers had been asking $500 per raccoon to take them away. Oh, my God. Damn. They're not messing around. like, hey, we shouldn't even have to be doing this. So pay up. Oh, they weren't getting. So I thought, oh, for some reason I thought she was getting $500 per raccoon.

No, to get them to remove them. Yeah. I mean, that you got to pay. Like that there has to be some sort of repercussion. 50,000. No, wait. Math. What's happening?

100 raccoons. Yeah. Times $500. Yeah, $50,000. That's crazy. Just stop feeding them. They'll disappear. They'll go around on their own.

It seems like she was being held hostage is the problem. Okay, anyway, wow, we're really off track. Well, my next story is titled, I went to the deton, saw bear, and peed myself. Hello, lovely ladies. My name is Bridget, and you can use my name. I'm a longtime friend of the pod and enjoy listening while hiking, running, or just unwinding for the day. I've been recently enjoying listening on my now favorite long drive to Wyoming from Colorado. I'm from Georgia and my boyfriend and I like to do great seasonal work migration out west in the summer and back south in the winter to take classes in kayak.

This summer I'm working with the Forest Service in Colorado on a trail crew while my boyfriend is on a wildland fire crew in Wyoming. We get to wear matching green pants. Luckily, we're only seven hours apart from each other and he is only about an hour and a half from Grand Teton National Park. After my first month of trail maintenance, I got four whole days off to go visit him. We decided to visit the Teton's together. He had visit multiple times before, skiing in Jackson Hole and doing the Teton Crest Trail, but this was my first time exploring the parks out west. I had more experience with National Forest and section hikes of the Appalachian Trail,

so I was not prepared for how busy the park was going to be. I was also not prepared for how cold it was going to be. When I drove into Wyoming on my first day, it was snowing in the middle of the middle of of June. Being from Georgia, that was not okay. That being said, I still walked onto Jenny Lake Trail with him in my running sandals, tank top, and shorts, with the B-Bold Start Cold saying, as my personal motto for the day. About two miles into the trail, we saw what looked like the entire town of Jackson Hull walking towards us. We stepped to the side as about five minutes worth of visitors paraded down the trail. Multiple people asked if we saw the two giant moose that apparently came sprinting

towards us. We did not see the moose because moose aren't real. That's funny. One lady clearly shaken up told us they saw a giant grizzly bear in the middle of the trail that sent these two moose along with all the hikers back in the opposite direction. I asked her if I should put my bear spray on then or wait to see a bear before applying. She did not laugh. My fault for not reading the room. The trail my boyfriend and I were on our way to hike was another mile or two into the Jenny Lake Trail and we were determined to do it. So we waited by the side of the trail for a little while after the mob passed. We eventually decided it was safe enough to continue and talked very loudly to scare the bears away.

After about five minutes of walking, I really had to pee. There was no way I was going 40 feet into the woods where a giant grizzly bear was waiting for me, so I decided to walk five feet off the trail, half hiding behind a rock. Working in a national forest about two hours from the nearest Walmart, I was used to seeing maybe three people on a Saturday. Seeing anyone on a weekday was almost unheard of. I honestly expected the trail to be empty because of the bear, so I tasked my boyfriend with watching the trail while I peed.

A task he did not take seriously. My precious tree boy of a boyfriend immediately focused all of his attention on a nearby Aspen, deciding that its leaves quaking in the wind was far more interesting than both watching the trail and his now shortless girlfriend standing five feet from him. I guess I cannot compete with the beauty of Mother Nia. The second I dropped my shorts and started doing my thing, I saw heads coming around the corner of the trail. I immediately threw my shorts up seconds away from flashing a family of four, facing charges of indecent exposure and permanently petrifying two young children. However, my brain forgot to send the

message down to stop peeing. I stood there awkwardly smiling with my face bright red as the family passed and pee came running down my legs. I guess I was in such a state of shock that all signals just failed to be transported throughout my body. Thankfully, the family did not seem to notice that I was standing there, quite literally peeing myself right in front of them. My poor boyfriend looked right at me with tears in my eyes, not knowing what to do. I went through all five stages of grief, having an internal crisis of being a 21-year-old who just peed themselves in a family environment.

I ultimately started laughing, giving my confused boyfriend permission to finally laugh at me, too. I had enough water on me to sacrifice some for the purpose of cleanliness and dumped a leader down my shorts telling myself that it definitely washed all the pee away and I was now wet and cold, but at least I was clean. I was indeed not clean and those shorts were stiff the next day when I picked them up. Yeah, that's sickening. I'm just kidding. No jokes. We listen and we don't judge. Yeah, exactly. We continued on our hike with him instantly making fun of me telling me I had to sleep outside that night so he didn't pee on his blankets. As soon as we rounded the corner where the family had

somehow silently emerged from, not even two minutes after the incident, we saw a small black bear crossed the trail in front of us giving absolutely zero cares of our presence. Are you kidding me? Was this the giant grizzly? If the bear couldn't smell my pee, hopefully nobody we passed would either. This was the closest I had ever seen a bear and I instantly grabbed my boyfriend out of fear. He was a precious tree boy, but at least he was my badass firefighting, pack testing, passing, 5-10, 160 pounds of pure muscle tree boy who is going to save me from this black bear who was clearly just chilling on an afternoon walk. I accidentally pushed him away towards the bear while I moved to hide behind him. Sorry man, but I already peed myself, his turn to have some trauma. The bear didn't

even look at us and literally just walked away. After looking at me a disappointment for sacrificing him, we continued to hike the trail. We made it to the second trail branching off Jenny Lake where we went through the snow. Again, I was in running sandals to a frozen lake. On my way back, I slipped and slid about 30 feet down the slope into rocks on my butt. I was fine, just very cold and I'm sure my shorts needed the extra rinsing, and my boyfriend tripped down the trail on three different trees. Once making it safely back to Jenny Lake Trail to head home, I guess we looked mangled up enough and like experienced hikers, that three different family asked us if they were on the Jenny Lake trail about two miles into the only trail that was right next to the only Juddy Lake. Yes, they were on

the right trail. When we got back to the bunkhouse, his co-workers slash roommates asked how the day went. He said that we saw a bear and I peed myself, but the two events were unrelated. They did not question that statement. I also want to note that my boyfriend and I got matching tattoos of bears with cowboy hats on after exactly two weeks of dating, sorry, mom, and I had been sending him all the bear postcards I found prior to my first Wyoming visit. I told him, if anything, Were to happen to him while fighting fires, I want him to come back and visit me as a bear. I would really know it was him if he snuck up on me peeing. I hope the story made y'all laugh and anyone listening learned to always pee off the trail

and maybe not to wear sandals on a snowy hike. If you see a very dirty forest service employee with a Pulaski in hand in the White River National Forest, please stop to say hi. Keep up the awesome work and thanks for entertaining me on the long drives, Bridget. Have you ever peed yourself before? For sure. I can't think of an exact scenario. Okay, so it's not like...

I don't have like an incident where... I can't think of an incident where I did it in front of people. That's good. That's good. I feel like I peed myself in... I feel like I peed my pants as a little kid, though, at school. And I feel like people made fun of me and I've trauma blocked it. Because I found it...

I found a... And I'm saying this because I found a journal entry. That was really sad in one of my diaries. from when I was a little kid. And I don't remember the circumstance at all. But I remember I wrote, it was so sad. I wrote, Heather called me SeaWorld and it made me sad.

What does that even mean? I think it means that I peed myself because I just think SeaWorld and wet. But I don't remember the incident. I just saw the diary entry. So it must have happened. I get, yeah. Yeah. Or the first thing I thought of was like, like, is she calling you fat?

Like whales, Seaworld? No, I wasn't fat as a kid. I was tiny. Yeah, but girls are mean. Like, I'm not saying you were fat. I was the smallest kid in my class. Yeah. There was no way.

And this is before like body positivity and all that. Like when people were just mean. This journal and jail preface was from like first grade too. Yeah. That's messed up. Heather. Yeah. Yeah, Heather.

I won't say your last name, but I remember it. Oh, you do. I do. Okay. People don't forget. That's my favorite. Do you know what? that's from no oh my god my favorite thing to say just under my breath is people don't forget um

it's from super bad and it's oh my god it's so relevant because he's talking about when he piss his pants and it's dave franco's like only brief appearance in that movie and jona hill and michael sarah are talking on the soccer field and dave franco is like come on like why don't just keep going or whatever And they're like, why don't you go piss your pants again? And he was like, dude, that was like eight years ago. And then Jonah Hill just goes, people don't forget. This is so funny. Superbad is one of my favorite movies of all time.

And I know it probably has not aged well. But I can't help but just have a soft spot for it in my heart. Okay. I haven't seen that movie in so long, but I would rewatch it. I just always remember the scene where they're trying to get alcohol and he has this fake ID. This is Maclellan. it and it's Hawaii and they're just like, what is this? And it goes, oh my God, that is just, that was a time of movie making, like that era when all of those actors just always cameoed and worked

and collaborated together in a bunch of different movies. And I know, again, a lot of them probably did not age well, but they, it was a time for the film industry. It was the time to be alive. It's just my kind of humor. And I just really, like, this is the end. Why him? Super bad like just all those types of movies are just so funny and i know like i feel like the franco uh day franco is by everything first of all love him there's one of the franco's that it has been like exiled from hollywood yes and his brother is it james franco i get they look so similar i get them confused yeah yeah he did something he like was talking to people he shouldn't talk to or something um children mainly i think okay enough about the franco's even though i love

one of them. Okay. All right, my last story. God, I feel like we've been talking for a really long time. Okay, my last story is titled, Did We Just Find a Cougar in Maine? Ooh, I hope so. That would be cool. Hi, ladies. My name is Molly, and I'm also from New Hampshire, and I love your podcast. My boyfriend, Mike and I love to listen to your podcast, especially on the five-hour journey to his family's house in northern Maine that we tried to take at least once a month. Well, we just went on one of these journeys over Thanksgiving break to see his family for the holidays. day after Thanksgiving, we woke up to about seven inches of snow on the ground and Mike realized he he forgot to take his shooting target inside before the snow fell. So we went on a journey to go find it. Ideally, the plan was to take his truck and drive down the logging road and then it's only about a

500 meter walk through the snow to get to the target. As we approached the logging road, the snow was so wet and heavy, all of the trees fell down over the trail. Mike claimed that the logging road was only about a mile and asked if I wanted to walk it. I figured, well, it's just a short walk and won't be too bad and maybe we can find some cool animal tracks on the way. Well, we definitely ended up finding some tracks and the trail was definitely not a mile. We started off through the snow and it's a beautiful day with the sun shining through the trees and all we can hear is the sound of our footsteps and snow falling off of the branches. We end up clearing a lot of the trees off the road, having snowball fights, and finding animal tracks of cute little fuzzy animals like squirrels and bunnies. Well, that was short-lived as the animal

tracks started to become a bit larger and a little less cute. We saw some fish or cat tracks, which was a little nerve-wracking as they can be pretty aggressive, but I wasn't too worried. We continue along, and then we see much larger tracks in the distance. I took an ecology class at UNH, where I had to find animal tracks in college woods during the winter, so I'd like to say I have a fairly good grasp on identifying animal prints. And this print was approximately three to four inches in diameter, had no visible claw marks, and had three lobes on the pad of its foot. Oh my God, that is a huge cat track.

As anyone listening from Northern New England probably knows, the state claims we don't have cougars, but we definitely do. I've seen one myself at my parents' house in central New Hampshire, and I know plenty of people who have seen them as well. Holy crap, this was a cougar track, and we are alone in the middle of nowhere with no service, and no way to defend ourselves. The happy, playful vibe just turned pretty dark and anxiety-inducing. To top it off, in the distance, the sky turned completely black and looked like a snowstorm was

coming our way. And not to mention, we were running out of daylight. Also, it's been less than eight hours since that track had been there because the snow only stopped falling that morning. We also realized that the trail was a lot longer than we initially thought. I asked Mike what we should do, and he said we were much closer to the target than the truck. And if we go and get it, at least we would have some sort of weapon because the target is a giant steel plate, held up by three, four foot long steel pipes.

So at least we'd have something to defend ourselves with. I agreed, and we trudged on. As we continued, I constantly felt like something was watching me. We had just gone to Squam Lake Science Center a few weeks prior and watched a cougar there sneak up on a squirrel that was eating a nut on the other side of the fence. We were amazed at how silent that cougar was, despite stepping on the crunchy leaves. and I could not get that memory out of my head. There could be a cougar that is watching us in a tree right now, and we would have no idea. Thankfully, we were getting closer to the target, and the hill it was sitting on came into view.

Only 500 more meters to go. I started to feel really weak as we continued on, probably for a variety of reasons. We didn't bring any water, and I was extremely thirsty. Trudging through the snow was exhausting, and on top of that, I was sick with a head cold. I stayed at the bottom of the hill because I wasn't feeling well, and Mike ran up to get to the target. it. Finally, we had a weapon in case we got attacked. We finally turned back and I continue to feel more and more weak. We've listened to so many of your podcast episodes. We've hiked in the White Mountains and Mount Katahdin numerous times and I grew up binging I shouldn't be alive. Yet,

here I was, sick as a dog with no water, no food, soaking wet boots and just a steel bar to defend myself with. What in the world were we thinking? After a long, exhausting walk back with the sun just above the horizon, we finally saw the truck in the distance. Did we get eaten by a cougar? Not today. We made it back to Mike's parents' house after the quick one-mile walk ended up being over three miles and showed them the pictures of the tracks that we saw. Mike's dad, a very experienced hunter and outdoorsman, sees the picture of the cougar tracks and said, oh, that's just the links. Upon closer inspection, we didn't take into account the stride of the tracks and realize they were much shorter than a cougar's stride would be. All of that panicking for nothing. But the

then Mike's dad asked where we had been hiking. We told him and he said, oh, I just saw some wolves there the other day. Well, I guess the panicking wasn't for nothing after all. Take it from us. Always be prepared even for quick little walks and always watch your back, Molly. Well, that was a twist at the end. No cougars, but there's wolves up there. And I just love because we were just talking before this recording about the snow in New England and how Cassie has a lot up at her house and by my house. It snowed once and it melted within a couple days and now it's bare ground again and it's just it's just kind of sad but anyways i have some trail systems behind my house and i take chaska out there and i love going in the winter because i and i've never taken a professional any sort of professional

class or i don't have any formal education on tracking but i know the basics enough and the wildlife around here enough to be able to see what's going on i just love it just a little record of the last few hours and everyone that's been coming and going. And you can tell when like they started running or playing or rolled around or where they're crossing. And it's just I love, love looking at tracks in the winter. And even if sometimes it is a little nerve-wracking, I mean, we have like, there's a ton of coyotes back here.

And I hear them all the time. And just being able to see where they come up. Oh, my God. The other day when it did snow, I saw these little tracks. and there's a big set of stairs that come up to my office here. Yeah. And I could see where this animal came from the woods, came up, went up two stairs, and then turned around. That's cute.

It's like, oh, never mind. Never mind. Not for me. That's cute. Yeah. Yeah, I love after a snowstorm just walking up on the trails behind my house and seeing what's been up there. I've seen moose tracks. I've seen fox tracks.

I've seen deer, lots of deer. We have a lot of like grouse that are around. So I see their little tracks around. Yeah. I haven't seen coyote. I haven't even heard coyotes around here. So I don't know. That's very surprising to me. Yeah, me too. I've never heard them. I've never, same thing with Fisher Cats. I haven't heard Fisher Cats around. I haven't heard any here, but I used to hear them at my house in New Hampshire, my childhood home in New Hampshire. Me too. I'm going to send or maybe I won't send it to you. I don't even know where it is. It's somewhere on my phone. But I, when I was in Washington, oh, it's right here. I have a video of it and I have a picture of it. I'm actually going to send it to you

right now. And maybe I'll post it on this like Instagram post. I was hiking in Washington with Ian and we came across, uh, I, or I looked down and I saw this print. And I really think it's a cougar print. I don't know if that, if that video showed scale. And they look. scale I have. No, yeah, you have your hand next to it. Do I? Okay, yeah. And but there's no visible, again, like no visible claw marks. Yeah. And there's, clearly you can see what's either a dog or a coyote or, you know. Yeah. And it just to me looks like a cougar print, but I don't know, maybe we can get somebody's expert opinion on Instagram. Right? I don't know. What do you think? I definitely. see what you're saying, but there's no claw prints. And it's very, it's deep. Like there's

heavy to this animal. Yeah. Okay. Anyways. You have one more story, right? I do. My last story is titled that one time a huge spider almost got me arrested. Hi, Cassie and Danielle. I want to start by saying how much I love your podcast. I have been a long-time listener and I'm so glad I stumbled upon your podcast one day when I was making a trip from Massachusetts to Connecticut to visit a friend. I'll be listening to you both for as long as you continue telling stories. Okay, so my story is technically not a trail tale and it doesn't take place in a national park or even a state park, but it does take place outside and it involves a huge spider. I also hope this gives you a trickle or two.

My story takes place outside of my house in a suburb of Boston during the height of COVID-19 pandemic when people really weren't doing much or going anywhere. One day, my mom and I visited my brother at his apartment who also hadn't seen anybody at the time. and we got home kind of late close to 11 p.m. As I mentioned, I lived in a suburb of Boston, but my neighborhood is pretty woodsy. While we have neighbors close by, we have woods on three sides of us. Coyotes, fox, and deer live in the neighborhood. We also don't have streetlights, so people don't usually take walks in my neighborhood past sunset

because it's too dark and the wildlife is active. Anyway, if any New England listeners remember, the COVID summer, summer 2020, was so hot and humid. With this humid weather, a huge spider was visiting us nightly on our front porch. I have major arachnophobia, and my mom's fear of spiders is only slightly better than mine. Every night was first like a scavenger hunt to find the spider and then a struggle to scoot around it to get inside. After some research, I realized our nightly visitor was a wolf spider. So on this night, my mom and I get out of the car and start making our way towards the front door when I noticed a shadow go by at the end of our driveway.

I'm watching this figure now because, like I mentioned, nobody walks in our neighborhood after sunset. I have my flashlight on my iPhone on as I'm searching for our arachnid friend that showed up every night while still watching this figure at the end of our driveway. I noticed they stopped and I could feel them looking at us in the dark. I motioned to my mom that someone was at the end of our driveway looking at us. She kind of ignored it and asked if I saw the spider. Sure enough, our huge spider friend was sitting pretty on her front steps. My mom and I froze because neither of us wanted to walk by it. We were in the process of making a game plan to get into the house when a voice called out to us in the darkness.

When the shadow figure realized we had stopped and weren't going into the house, a woman's voice called out, Hi, what's going on? She seemed friendly at first. Thinking from her perspective now, I can see how fictitious my story seems, but still, maybe people should mind their own business at 11 o'clock at night. I said, there's a huge spider on our steps. We can't get into the house. She replied, friendly tone, completely gone with, Well, you can tell that to the cops when they get here.

I was so confused. The cops, I asked, why are you calling the cops? Because you're breaking into that house, she said. I think I laughed out loud at this, but I was becoming angry. Breaking in, this is our house, I said. The lady stood her ground and just kept saying we could explain our story when the cops got there. My mom had a few choice words with the woman as well. When the woman questioned why we were out so late,

my mom asked why she was out walking around a neighborhood in total darkness. She said, because it's a heat wave. Summer 2020 was definitely hot and humid, but on this night, it was a very comfortable low 70s. My dad was home sleeping and the windows to the bedroom was open. My mom started calling my dad to come downstairs to get rid of the spider. My dad is not the happiest person and is definitely not the happiest person when he is woken up in the middle of the night. He opened the front door, used his hands to brush the spider off the front steps,

and totally ignored the woman threatening to call the cops of my mom and I for walking into our own home. When the woman saw my dad open the door for us, she said, have a nice night and began to walk away. I called after her and told her that I hope she felt like a real hero. My mom and I still to this day have no idea who this woman was, and we never saw her again. We know most of our neighbors and can't pinpoint who she was. However, we appropriately refer to her as Neighborhood Patrol. The spider came back a few times that summer, but since the summer of 2000, we haven't seen any massive wolf spiders on our front steps since.

Knocking on wood as I type this. Moral of the story, enjoy the view, but watch out for huge wolf spiders on your front steps and crazy neighbors who think that you're breaking into your own house. Hope this story gave you a laugh. I'm attaching a photo of the spider so you can see how big it is for yourself. And yes, I love national parks, hiking, and the outdoors, but I draw the line at spiders, especially spiders of this size. Also, Cassie, you asked for rescue stories, a few trail tales back and wanted to hear if

anyone has gotten rescued from an elevator. Well, hey girl, hey, that would be me. This would be a story for another time. Keep up the great work, ladies. Thanks for keeping me company in the crazy Boston traffic. Your fellow New England friend, Michaela. I can commiserate with the Boston traffic. I just experienced it yesterday for the first time in a really long time. And it took me over three hours to get somewhere that should have taken maybe an hour and a half max. Yeah, Boston's rough. Dying inside. It was awful. But I don't know.

Like, it's kind of annoying in the heat of that story, but at least you know your neighbors care about what's going on in your neighborhood and are looking out for your house. I guess, but they don't even know who lives there. Yeah, I guess. So it just kind of feels like they're being nosy. Yeah. They just want the drama. Yeah.

I mean, even to not ask any follow-up questions, like, oh, is this your house or something, you know? You can tell that to the cops. Yeah. Yeah, she just feels like, I don't know, I feel like she should have minded her own business. I would be pissed if I was walking into my own house and someone was like, I'm calling the cops you're breaking in. That would piss me off. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Like we have our neighborhoods. We all like watch out for each other. And if I see something weird going on like a few days or a few months ago, I guess now. But there was someone parked at the bottom of my neighbor's driveway for a really long time, really late at night. So I texted them and was like, hey, is everything okay? I see someone's at the end of your drive. and they had no idea what I was talking about and it freaked them out. And then we discovered that it was someone's kid home from college smoking weed with his friends at the bottom of their driveway. And everything was fine. Amazing. But it was like you don't just call the cops without

like asking your neighbors. That's not a neighborly thing to do. Yeah. Like follow up questions would be appreciated. Yeah. It's like, do you want to come look at the spider? This is why we can't enter the house. Yeah. Like, ma'am, are you afraid of spiders? Would you take care of this for us. Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you everyone for sending in your stories and keep them coming. Again, we asked a few that elevator thing sparked my memory of things we've asked for in the past, which I don't remember at all now other than survival stories and elevator stories. And we asked for embarrassing stories. Oh, right. And the embarrassing, you guys really took it, but I think that we need to like cast a wider net other than just poop stories and like shitting your pants. You got a pee story today.

Yeah. But like, like, you know, Like the call for embarrassing stories when people are like, I have one and this is it, it always had to do with poop, which is, I will say it is embarrassing. Like that truly is embarrassing. But maybe. Arguably the most embarrassing. Yeah. Maybe think embarrassing stories that you, this is so specific, but embarrassing stories that you remember

after reading an entry in your diary from childhood. I already gave mine and Heather called me SeaWorld. So now the whole world knows. Yeah. And imagine if Heather listens, she's like, I remember doing that. Yeah, I hope she's like, shit, I was a bitch. In first grade, I was really mean. Yeah.

Okay, great. Well, outsiders, you have two more stories coming your way. Mine is titled Trail, A Sign from the Almost Beyond. And mine is titled Valentine's Day West of Denver. Lovely. All right. Thank you, everyone, for listening. We will see you next week.

In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale of your own you'd like to share, you can write to us at NPAD Stories at gmail.com or visit our website at NPADPodcast.com. Bonus trail tales and content are available to Patreon members and Apple subscribers. Follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and X at National Park After Dark.

And if you prefer to watch our episodes, you can find us on YouTube at National Park After Dark. And as always, if you enjoy the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount.

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