National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 76

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Today’s stories include lightning drama, peeing with friends, and choosing the bear. Outsiders Only bonus stories available for Patreon and Apple Subscribers!Listen to Watch Her Cook on Apple and Spotify! Follow us on InstagramFor a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @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!Coyuchi: Get 15% off when you visit Coyuchi.com/npad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Limitless. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally. Breathe. Girl, winter is so last season. And now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders.

That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Hello everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. You're listening to a Trail Tales episode, and I'm Cassie. And I'm Danielle. And we got some stories for you. Oh, as normal. Sure do. Yeah. So my first story, small town legend with a scary story behind it. Hi, my name is Roger from just south of Denver and a longtime fan of the pod. I grew up in a then small town in Connecticut, a place called Wallingford. Oh, it's coming back. I'm like,

Roger, you're already being chosen because I, too, lived outside of Denver, and my dad lived in Wallingford. Oh, wow. So. Yep. Our small town legend had to do with a real event, but the legend was definitely built to scare people even more. The version of the legend everyone knows is that of shoebox lane, also known as Tyler Mill Road.

The story was that an old man lived in the creepy house off of this very desolate road and would murder people and leave parts of them around in shoeboxes for kids and wayward teens to find along this very, very scary road. Of course, the big thing was to drive down that road with not a single street light to be seen, late at night, and scare the hell out of yourself. There really was a spooky old house with abandoned cars and other machinery around it, and it was out there all by itself. Of course, the old guy who lived there was actually a very nice old guy, and his family had owned the home and land around it for so many years.

Nobody was really sure how long it had been there, but the story doesn't end there. The real story, almost 140 years old, includes a little used wooden path, an inquisitive dog, an old-style wooden shoe box, which was more like a shipping crate, and an odor that had to be investigated. Turns out, the dog's owner, Edward Terrell, approached the box that his dog was obsessed with, and he was nearly overcome by a stench coming from within it. Because Edward had found a dead body only weeks before, not sure the story about that,

as it just seemed to be noted in passing, he knew that smell, and before opening the box, he went to get some help. When the group of men Edward had gotten to come with him returned, they pried open the box, thinking they would find a dead animal. Instead, they found, wrapped in tar paper and packaged in straw, the new torso of a man with no head, arms, or legs included.

The medical examiner later determined that body had been dead for between five to ten days was a man in his 20s and who had likely weighed about 150 pounds. One final thing, there was arsenic in the dead man's stomach. There had been several theories of who that man was from a veteran who had recently collected a large pension to criminals killed by accomplices to various other missing men. but no person was ever identified as the victim, although arms and legs wrapped in the same tar paper were later found by a local farmer. There have been many theories and stories linked to the body in the shoebox, but the case was never closed, although 40 years after the body was found in the now

ancient police chief claimed he knew who the murderer was and the murdered were. He refused to ever tell anyone the names of those involved, saying he was keeping it to himself to protect the murderer's family. So the dark woods of Wallingford still holds its secrets and supposedly a ghost of the poor man whose body was stuffed into that shoebox and whose arms and legs were found months later. The story is that the body is still wandering the woods looking in discarded shoeboxes, crates, boxes, suitcases, and even the trunks of vehicles that might stop along that road late at night looking for his still missing head. And that's it. And that's it. And, and, and, the, This, uh, Roger did attach and I'll post them.

He did attach news articles and stuff about this murder case. Okay. Yeah. This is like a little morbid. I mean, this whole story is morbid, but how does a whole torso fit in a shoebox? Well, he did say it was like an old fashion. It was more of like a wooden crate. Okay.

Type of thing. And if you think about it, I mean, like just look at your torso. I'm not trying to laugh, but if you took your, maybe I have small shoes. boxes. I don't know. My torso could not fit in the shoebox. That's what you think. Hopefully, that's what I know and never have to be proved otherwise. I don't know. It just felt like a challenge, so I wanted to answer. Yeah, that's a really scary story. That's something out of a horror movie. Yeah, I haven't, I mean, I only split my time going to see my dad and stuff. When growing up, I spent my summers between my mom's house and my dad's house.

So maybe I wasn't like integrated enough into the local lore of Wallingford to hear that. But I did spend a lot of time in the woods and stuff with my cousins and his friends. And I'm sure if they knew it, they tried to scare me with it. So I wonder also what like, how old are you, Roger? Are you of the 90s children or not? Are you of the 90s? Anyway, yeah, so it was cool to hear something that I had a little bit of, like, crossover with. Yeah.

Hometown lore. Always love to hear it, even if that's really scary and creepy. My first story is titled Mount Mitchell Lightning Drama. Greetings National Park Queens on a five-week cross-country trip this summer, including four national parks, and wanted a new relevant podcast to enjoy. How cool to find NPAD. I have so enjoyed you two and your guests as well. Hooray for badass outdoor focused women and their stories.

After listening to last week's episode about the scary lightning strike, I decided I should share my story. So this was written in a while ago because the lightning strike story, depending on which one you're talking about. Well, that's what I'm just kind of pretty far away. Going through the Rolodex. I feel like we were just talking about lightning. Or maybe was that in a personal conversation?

I feel like lightning comes up a lot. It does. lightning scary and in summer it's always it's always about back in 1985 i was a 20-year-old forestry major and doing a summer internship with north carolina state university and the environmental protection agency to gather data on the decline of spruce first stands in the appalachian mountains the three other researchers were grad school guys it was an awesome assignment we were based at the top of mount mitchell the highest peak east of the mississippi river our primary mission was cloud collection you read that right, anytime there were, quote, cloud events, very common at 6,684 feet of elevation,

we took turns climbing 86 foot high aluminum tower every 30 minutes and collecting the liquid that had been captured in the cloud catcher and funneled into a container. I am so tempted to go into full-on science nerd detail here, but I fear I will lose you or other non-nerds, so I will carry on. There were several ways I could have easily died that summer, LOL, including peeing alone in the pitch black forest we shared with black bears and slipping and falling from an 80-foot tower in the rain being the front runners. But there was also lightning. It was summer so there were plenty of thunderstorms. On site on the mountain was considered safer than others for riding out these potential dangerous storms. Pre-cell phone, of course, so we communicated via walkie-talkies and each site,

while lacking electricity and plumbing, did have landline phones. One day, a particularly fierce storm was brewing and the weather radio insisted we hunker down. I was alone at the time and had no idea where the guys were, but I high-tailed it to site one. As I got out of the Jeep to unlock the metal security gate, an earth-shattering clap of thunder and nearly simutaneous lightning scared the shit out of me. It was clearly right overhead and left me seeing stars. I practically army crawled, soaking wet to the little work building and sat on the floor praying this would pass quickly. I was really concerned about the guys since I hadn't heard a word from them, so when the phone rang, I stupidly grabbed it to hopefully hear that everyone was okay. Instead of reassuring news, a bolt of lightning went through the phone line.

To this day, I don't know how, but it literally threw me to the wall as I threw the offending phone away from me and into the other wall. It was so loud, intense, and scary that I kind of blacked out for a minute and then gave myself a once over. My ears were ringing and my heart was racing, but I was indeed a lot. and unharmed. Yes, friends, lightning can travel through landlines. One more reason to let them go for good. Enjoy the view and maybe try to avoid high mountain peaks and landlines during electrical storms. Jill.

Imagine getting shocked through a cell phone and being thrown movie style into a wall. It's quite a story to be able to tell your friends later. I mean, I think I'm again going through our lightning episodes in my mind. It's got to be the bolt from the blue that you did all the. facts about lightning and like the different types of i don't know if it was actually it feels more recent than that i definitely went into how you die from a lightning strike and the bolt of the blue that's yeah it might be it that might be it i don't know i was just just thinking of like what that um category is because remember you went through all the different categories oh yeah like a direct

hit versus i clearly don't remember because it's been a while yeah i don't think it's a direct hit because it was a landline that was hit. And it came and it traveled through to her. To her. So, yeah. The things you don't really think about like when there's a lightning storm around. Like, I mean, her case was it was right on top of her and it was in the forefront of her mind. But just even for us, you know, when there's a thunder and lightning storm right over you.

And I remember growing up, I swear I was told to not take a shower. when there's a thunderstorm coming up And I don't know when I learned that too I was told not to take a shower and stay away from the windows Yeah Yep Yep That's what I was told

Yep Yeah Who knows if it saved our life before Maybe My dad says that he almost got struck by lightning as a kid He was looking out the window And lightning struck Next to him in the house

Oh I haven't had any close calls Knock on one but there's still time Yeah The story, just the landline made me think, I didn't even tell you. It's so exciting. I was, I fell prey to an Instagram ad, which is rare. Ah, welcome. Yeah, I know. That's usually your thing. And it was, I think the company started on like Kickstarter or something. It's really small. And I don't even know the, I don't even know its name. I was trying to look it up when you were talking. And they're like, we're such a small

company and there's kind of been a lot of demand. So just know if you order this, you might not get it for like three months. I'm like, that's fine. I'm not in a rush. But essentially it's a, this girl, this young woman created old style landline phones that you can plug in and hook up to your Bluetooth. So if you get a phone call on your cell phone, it'll ring to like an old style phone. And I want to keep it so, because I'm trying to be off my phone more. And I'm but if somebody's actually calling, I want to know. Yeah. So I have, I ordered it.

That's cute. Yeah. And there was like three styles to choose from. You know, the one, you know, in like classic older 80s, 70 80s movies where it's like there's the phone in the kitchen with a really long cord and there's always a mom talking on it and like spinning herself in the cord and stuff. There's like that style. There's an old style rotary phone.

And then one that looks more like 90s, early 2000s. But yeah. I'm excited. That's fun. So I'll let you know when it comes in. I'll have to call you. Yeah, I'll call you as soon as it comes in. Yeah.

It tested out. Yeah. 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. My next story is titled, I Chose the Bear twice. Hi, Cassie and Danielle. I hope this story finds you well. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but I promise it's worth a read and it comes with a good lesson in the end. To start, someone close to me put me on to the podcast and I want to acknowledge how appreciative I am for that. I wouldn't have had much to write you about had it not been for them, and I really do mean that. In 2024, my fiance and I had a falling out. I won't get into details because that part of my life is still hard to speak about, but he crossed a physical boundary that's pretty impossible to come back from.

After seven years together and no prior issues, it rocked me. My whole life, everything I had planned and everything I had imagined wasn't just being challenged. It was changing rapidly and all around me. We had a wedding date set for August 2nd of 2025, which made things all the more painful. We'll get to that date in a bit further into the story. Fast forward through some grief, still with him, and trying to figure out what I needed to do, I decided to go on a solo trip to my first national park for a bit of clarity. After some research, I mapped out a grand outing to Olympic. Aside from my much appreciated friend, no one in my life knew what was going on. Naturally, everyone around me just assumed I had lost it. Why else would an inexperienced, 27-year-old girl fly thousands of miles to be alone in the

woods. No surprise, my family quickly started theorizing all of the ways I might die on my big solo. My mom's final guess was that I would be eaten by a bear. Most people listening know that that was wildly unrealistic, but it was a real life example of the phenomenon. Who would you choose the man or the bear? And I think you may know my answer. Of all the places to start my park journey, Olympics set the bar incredibly high. It was beautiful, diverse, challenging, and the best part, nearly empty in April. It was like I had the whole place to myself, which is exactly what I needed. I even got to spend an hour on top of Storm King alone. NPAD was on in the background of every flight through every hike and every car ride, unless, of course, I was checking in to let everyone

know I was doing just fine and had, in fact, not seen any bears. That adventure was one of the most valuable lessons of my life, and I learned more about myself in those few short days than I could have ever anticipated. The trip was complete with hundreds of photos, several sketchy car rides, many, many tiers, and 14 locations checked off the bucket list. It left me wanting more for myself, not just in travel, but also in life. And I imagine I'd be in a very different place right now had I had not run off to Washington for clarity. From start to end, it took me 10 months to leave the relationship. And even with all that time, I struggled. I had to watch such a big part of my life go up in flames, and I was terrified of change. The situation

might have hurt bad enough to send me into a bit of an identity crisis. But the amazing thing is, it also helped kickstart a major part of my life. And I'm grateful I found beauty in such an ugly scenario. Looking back, that trip let a fire I hope never burns out. As we all know, sometimes prescribed fires are necessary to encourage growth. Now, about a year and a half later, I've traveled all over. Most trips were solo. Some were with my pup blue. And a handful were with new and old friends. I've done Acadia, Shenandoah, Mount Washington, the Oregon Coast, and Olympic twice for good measure. I've swam by waterfalls, explored caves, car camped, and pushed myself to the ends of more trails than I ever imagined. It's also worth mentioning that I planned an epic adventure to Yellowstone, glacier,

crater lake, and New Hampshire the weeks before and after I was originally supposed to get married. Part of that journey was the Wilderness First Aid training with the two of you and some amazing new friends. The best part over those two weeks was that I was lucky and enough to see two juvenile brown bears on the Grinnell Trail on, you guessed it, August 2nd, 2025. I'd like to believe those two grizzlies were a sign that I was exactly where I was supposed to be that day. It was truly one of the best moments of my life. I really did choose the bear in the end, and I know we don't believe in coincidences around here. All things considered, I have so much to be thankful for. The two of you for symbolically keeping me company on all of my

solos, my pup for following me anywhere and everywhere I go, the one friend who wouldn't let me give up and never let me drown, and the few human companions I trust enough to walk with. Even on these incredible solos, I've learned that I'm never really alone. So as promised, here is the lesson. Again and again, we have to change. It's something so simple and somehow so hard to digest when life gets heavy, that nothing changes unless something changes. So when it's time, we struggle and we preserve and we struggle. again. We push through pain. We never thought we'd survive. We take risks, make choices, accept failures, and find the strength to feel it all deeply, including the grief and especially

the loss, because sometimes what comes next is far less scary than what we've already been through. You just have to take it 10 steps at a time until you find whatever it is you're looking for. Again and always again. Thank you all. And for anyone out there who knows it's time for a change, I hope you find the courage to light the match. And when the smoke clears, enjoy the view. you, but watch your back. You might just find yourself looking at a bear. Jess. I knew this is just halfway through just because we had spoken a little bit on our trip about some of these things. But what a beautiful story. I mean, I think a lot of us can, I know I can relate to it so much. And I think a lot of people leave relationships for whatever

reason that turned out not to be in their best interest and find themselves instead. Yeah. And I think that this is a beautiful sentiment to that. And I think the fact that you found yourself in wild places is really special. Yeah. And I especially loved not just reading it because I knew who was from and I just really learned to love Jess as a person, just being with her, you know, over that weekend and getting to know her. But because this story is a perfect reminder because here especially, it's probably my fault. But we just. We just. We just. talk a lot about grief and loss, and that's great, but we do it through the lens of physical death. And while that is valid and a lot of people experience it and want to talk through it and need help with that, it's just a piece of the pie when it comes to what grief can be. And this is such a good example of that. Like, you know, tough times happen in all ways, shapes, and forms. And just because someone didn't physically die doesn't mean that your experiencing a tragic loss. So thank you, Jess, for being vulnerable and sharing your story in this

way because you're a great writer. It was, it was nice to read. I love the symbolism with the fire and finding growth. And it was, it was beautifully written. It was very nice. I related to it so much because I like a very small story, but I was in a really bad relationship that I finally left. And it took me a while to leave, but I knew I was going to. So I booked. a month-long trip to Europe solo that I would be going with a group. And I knew that if I told this person that they would like try to get me to back out of it, they would try to. It was very manipulative relationship.

But so I knew. And then it worked out really well because as soon as I actually like really, really ended it, I went to Europe and had the best time of my life. I have friends that have been there since then. And it kind of sparked a lot of my travels and who I am now. So I totally resonate with that story a lot. Yeah. So if you're ending a relationship, just go travel.

Just go see the world. Just get out of there. Sometimes you really do need new scenery. Yeah. So much easier set than done. But we co-sign that. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to leave a relationship and financially it could be hard to travel.

But I remember I like didn't. I would skip. I was so bad financially. I'd skip my car payment and be like, They give you 30-day leeway. And I'd like buy flights and I remember that wasn't that long ago because you were doing that when we were working together. That's true. I was.

I was like, it's fine. I have a $15 late fee, but it's fine. Yeah. Like every time we would go to lunch. And by go to lunch, I mean, we would go to, what was it, Walgreens or Rite Aid or something to get snacks. I would use my HSA money to buy snacks at Walgreens. because I couldn't afford food because they paid us so little. So badly.

And I asked for a raise and they said no. I was like, I literally can't buy a bag of chips, please. Oh, my God, I can't even laugh. My neck hurts so bad. And I feel like a stiff board, but I'm trying to laugh. I laugh with my body. I'm a body lapper. And I found that out when my neck's flaring up.

It feel weird being like, ha, ha, ha, ha. So stop making me laugh. Seriously. Sorry, I can't help it. You just know the struggle. I know. I was there. What was it?

I was there. I remember it all too well. It's a Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. Because she's everywhere. Life is a showgirl, baby. Yeah. I am excited for her new album. I...

She's growing on me. I... It's not that I never not liked her. I've just never really got it. I'm like, she's a talented artist, for sure, especially a talented songwriter. But, like, the fandom and, like, craze that is Taylor Swift, I just... I didn't really get it. Yeah.

You know? And I feel like there's... You can't speak like that. Like, you either have to be with you're a Swifty. or you're against her. And I'm like, I'm not. Look, I'm just, I'm afraid. I've been to her concert one time.

That's cool. My aunt's, this is one of the weird thing. Like my aunt's friend's daughter, whatever, I don't even remember her name, had an extra ticket. And I happened to be in Connecticut when the concert was. And I think it was her enchanted tour, if that's a thing. It was many years ago before she. became what she is now. I mean, it was like, it was a full concert.

It was a big venue, but it wasn't anything like it is now. Yeah. Yeah, I remember, it's funny, the first time someone dedicated a song to me, it was a friend of mine and we were fighting and she dedicated Taylor Swift's picture to burn to me. And that was the first time I had ever heard. She was like, this is our song. It was, we were in middle school or high school or something. And she was like, this is.

our song and she like sent it to me because she was mad at me and it's picture to burn do you know that song it's like you're just another picture to burn oh okay maybe anyway it's a very angry song it was the first time i ever heard tiller swift and i was like oh this is catchy but i'm kind of in the same boat as you as where i never disliked her anything like that and occasionally a song would come out and I would be like, yeah, this is great, whatever. And then when I started seeing all the opposition to her and how horrible people have been to her and how strong she's been through it all. And I don't know, she's just a powerhouse of a person. And I've always thought, I've always thought that she is just so good of a writer where she can tell you a story that you can envision when you're listening to

the lyrics. And I've always thought that was really impressive. But as soon as I really learned about how awful she's been treated and how much she is just like persevered through that. I'm like, hell yeah, you go girl. Yeah. I think more on my side, I'm like, what I'm super impressed by is her work ethic. Yeah. I mean, the girl doesn't take a day off. And I know that's part of being a creative. Like to her, I think a lot of this isn't important. Here we are. This is a Taylor Swift podcast all a sudden. I think, please be on our show. I hear you do podcast now. Um, But yeah, and I know that's part of being a creative. Like it's just always on your mind.

It's not like, you're like, I have to work and whatever. It's just part of who you are and like the fabric of who, you know, she is. But there's still, I mean, just you got to applaud the, she just works more than anybody, you know, and doing shows and writing. And I was at Barnes & Noble. I know she's not writing these books, but the amount of money she has also is crazy. Like everything is Taylor Swift. I was at Barnes & Noble. There was a whole shelf of Taylor Swift books.

Like you got to know she's getting some sort of cut about of them. And I'm like, what is, what are you guys writing about? Like in 50 different versions. Yeah. You know? She's the, I don't want to say, I was going to say she's the modern day Britney Spears, but it's different. It's very different than Britney Spears.

But it's a similar, it's a similar level of fame. But her fans are so much more engaged with her, I think. Well, it's also a different. She just has a whole, yeah, she just has such a big following of like the Swift's and I'm sure people who are listening. It's just you, you don't bash Taylor Swift. She will, I mean, people have come out and they're like, I'm not messing with her, I'm not messing with her fan base. They're going to come after me. I know.

But I mean, I think I become more and more of a fan of her every day, I think. Me too. And I listen to her recent podcast where she announced her new album. I just liked her even more. She's so... Did you watch the whole thing? Or look at me saying watch your podcast. Who am I?

Did you listen to the whole thing? Yeah, I did. Really? And I just think that she's so well spoken, too. When she was speaking, it made sense because her lyrics are so beautiful. But then when she was speaking, I'm like, wow. I just, yeah, I just like her. Like, wow, I could never.

And I do this for a living. Yeah. I could speak like this. Your first podcast and you're way more well spoken than me. But anyway, back into Trail Tales, enough. We love you, Taylor Swift. Don't come after us. My next story is titled, Peeing with Friends.

Hi, ladies, thank you so much for all the hard work he put into the podcast, Patreon, book clubs, trips, and everything else you all do. I have lived in Colorado almost my whole life, and I have loved the outdoors ever since my dad started taking me camping, hiking, and skiing from a young age. I am also a lover of all things spooky and creepy, so I have been. hooked on your podcast ever since I found it. I just listened to your Trail Tales collab with tooth and claw and the big horn sheep story you shared on that episode reminded me of my own close and extremely personal animal encounter. As I am writing this, I am just now realizing that my story involves a mountain goat, not a bighorn sheep, but here we go anyway. Quick background to set the scene. Colorado has 58 mountain peaks over 14, over 14,000 feet that we

refer to as 14ers. It is a pretty common goal to try and summit all of them, which is a is what I am currently working towards. As of writing, I have made 44 unique summit since I climbed my first with my dad in 2010-ish. This story happened on a backpacking trip at the Chicago Basin area in the San Juan Mountains. This is a relatively remote area that can only be accessed by a train ride and a six-mile backpack, or if you're too cheap to buy the train ticket like yours truly, you can backpack in about 14 miles in from a nearby ski area. Our backpack in was fun and relatively uneventful other than a ton of deadfall we had to climb over and under with fully loaded packs. We finally turned around a corner to the most beautiful basin I have ever seen. We took a long break for pictures before the

final push into the basin to set up camp. From the basin, you can access four 14ers, which was our objective for the week. In my preparation for the trip, I had read that the basin is home to a large number of mountain goats that have been very habituated to human urine as a source of salts and minerals. As part of L&T, in this area, leave no trace. It is a recommended to pee only on rock or dirt surfaces to keep the goats from digging up and eating the tundra plants in search of urine. What I hadn't read about was the lengths that these goats would go in order to get your pee. Our first summit day was absolutely incredible. We got an alpine start and reached our first summit, wind and peak at sunrise. We had snacks, took about a million

pictures, and headed down to the saddle for our second summit. Near the top, we reached a fun section of scrambling and we were quickly at our next summit. To reach the true summit of this peak, you have to make a big step over an open drop to the tiny little summit block. Lots of people chose not to go to the summit block because it's kind of sketchy, but I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so over I went. The scariest part is that on the way back, there is no way to simply step back like you did going across the first time. Because of the way the blocks are angled, you have to leap the two to three foot gap

back onto the angled slab. It was terrifying, but I landed safely and was feeling absolutely hyped off of adrenaline and smiling ear to ear. I attached one of my favorite pictures my friend God of me mid-jump. We could see some clouds rolling in, so we decided to leave the other two summits for the next day and head back to camp to chill. We had our first goat encounter that afternoon in camp. We were just relaxing by the stream, filtering water, and talking when a small group of goats came sprinting

full speed at us and just stopped in a small clearing about 15 feet behind us. We think that they had gotten startled by some other campers' dogs. However, they were not scared of us at all and just looked at us. We decided they were too close for comfort and just slowly walked away from the stream in the opposite direction of them as they slowly followed us. We thought it was interesting how obituated to humans they seemed, but didn't think anything of it until my experience the next day. We got a similarly early start the next morning. We made better than expected time past the turnoff for the other summits, and it was just barely starting to get light when we got to a section of the trail and had some technical areas along the ledges that we didn't want to navigate until we had to. better light. We found a really nice little place to take a break and watch the sunrise. Since we

were already breaking, I decided this was a perfect time for a potty break. If there's one thing about me, I will always start my morning with a coffee, even at 4 a.m. in the backcountry. Well, that coffee had finally hit, and I really had to go. I walked off a bit from the group and I found a nice flat area of rock surrounded by bushes. A cute little private backcountry bathroom, perfect. I dropped my pack at the front of the clearing and took a few steps towards the middle and dropped my drawers. As I'm squatting there, half naked and vulnerable, I see a goat wander up to my pack and start sniffing it. I froze. On one hand, I didn't want him to start chewing my pack to get the sweat. And on the other hand, I didn't want to startle him and be found by my friends trampled with my pants down.

I decided to start making some noise, quietly at first, and then getting louder to hopefully drive him away without scaring him. I was talking to this goat while peeing like an absolute madwoman and he was not reacting at all, just happily licking the inside of my helmet that was strapped outside my pack. As I'm fixated on the go eating my pack, what I didn't notice was another one right behind me. I found out about this one when he literally stuck his head under my butt and started licking up the pee right below me. Oh my God. Well, this scared me so badly that I literally screeched and sprinted back to the group pulling up my pants as I went. After getting laughed at by all of my friends and letting my heart rate come back down,

I realized that I had to go back to get my pack. I slowly creep back to the clearing, and now there were three goats all grouped around my pee. Gross, guys. Luckily, this meant that the one who had been licking my helmet had moved on, and I could sag my pack and get the fuck out. The rest of the day was filled with fun climbing, two more summits, and beautiful views, and all of my friends making fun of me for getting attacked by a goat with my pants down. The whole trip was filled with amazing memories, but hands down, the most memorable part was getting accosted by a mountain goat who just wanted my pee.

I forgot y'all's advice and didn't watch my back. Thanks for the amazing podcast. I get so much joy and learned so much from listening to you ladies. Lots of love, Rachel. Thank God he just went for the stream. Imagine you don't know there's a go behind you. Your pants are down and he comes up and starts licking you down there. God.

Ew. Ew. Or just get rammed. Head butted. Head butted as it's trying to get your pee. That's so funny that you're peeing and look down. And there's just a little goat tongue lapping it up. It's like sick.

It's out of here. It's disgusting. That's a story that for people who, I mean, it tracks, and she obviously explained it a little bit at the beginning about their draw to urine and why and things like that. But for people who aren't familiar with that, if you told them that story, they would absolutely not believe you. They'd think you were nuts. Yeah, they'd be like, that's a really weird story to make up. It's like, why would you say that?

Oh, gross. Okay. Well, yeah. Well, I guess because we're in the land of gross, this one's titled, Really Gross Story, definitely not about poop. So. Is it about poop? Probably. Hi, Cassie and Danielle.

I'm a new listener. My twin sister and built-in hiking buddy introduced me to your pod a few weeks ago and I've been hooked since, binging your episodes on my training runs for our upcoming adventure, a through hike of the John Muir Trail. Very glad to be summoning Whitney in August when there's very little chance of a snowstorm. All respect and awe to Jean Munchrath of episode 228 Survivor Woman, whose story I found deeply inspiring. My story takes place in the summer of 2022 when I have a story.

I spent the months before my senior year of college in the back country of Vermont, working on a trail crew for the Green Mountain Club, the organization that protects and maintains Vermont's long trail system. For those who don't know, the long trail spanning 272 miles over the spines of the Green Mountains from the Massachusetts Vermont line to the Canadian border is the oldest continuous footpath of its kind in the U.S. and actually served as the inspiration for the Appalachian Trail. I love New England. The GMC has a mixture of of public and private conservation partners. Originally, farmers were like,

yeah, totally build this trail through my land. Sounds cool. But now we have ski resorts and assholes to contend with. So when they can buy up land and turn it over to the Green Mountain National Forest, that's what the GMC does. So there's my tie-in. Now, at that point, I belonged to the cult of Division III College Cross Country and was flailing at balancing my cool back country work

with my rigorous training schedule. My delusional 21-year-old brain thought, what better place to train than Vermont's second tallest mountain, Camel's Hump? I love Camel's Hump. We were working on a top-to-bottom restoration of the century-old trail, creating stone staircases, water bars, and stepping stones to maintain erosion, since those good old Green Mountain Boys had not yet heard of the game-changing technology known as switchbacks. Which is true.

There isn't a switchback to be found in New England. Like, what are we doing? This is to say that in addition to the grueling work of digging up and moving rocks around all day, my training grounds were steep, rocky, often wet trail. Most days, I'd manage a two or three mile run from camp to summit and back, which always took at least an hour. Don't get me wrong. I savored this time alone, taking in the views as the sun began to sink, the mountains

lit up, and the crowds thinned out. It just wasn't actually very effective training. At the time, I was not what you would call it. a season trail runner, just a girl who happened to be running in the woods. I stomped around the forest with no fancy vest for water or snacks and no means of contacting anyone if I got hurt, just a downloaded podcast and good vibes. Halfway through one of these jaunts, I stopped to splash some creek water on my face to cool off. Almost involuntarily, my tongue crept out for a wee taste. Of course, I knew all about the dangers of Giardia, but what could one little droplet of creek water do to me? It was fresh

and cold. Plus, I was 21 and therefore invincible. I returned to camp, washed up, ate whatever slot my crewmates cooked that evening, and hit the hay. Halfway through the next workday, you guessed it, I began to feel queasy. It turned out that the sparkling creek on a popular hiking trail in Vermont was not the pristine glacial snow melt I had imagined it to be in my time of need. I ignored my worsening stomach cramps until I couldn't, grabbing the toilet paper and trowel and excusing myself from my crew. I frantically searched for a good spot to dig a cat hole, but we were pretty high up and the best I could do was a soft patch of earth beneath a mossy boulder. I ignored all my backcountry steward instincts and ripped up the moss, digging into a very

thin layer of soil before it I hit rock. It would just have to do. I braced myself against the boulder and I'll spare you the details. I just spent the next hour of my life there. I could describe every tree and rock in that corner of the forest in picture perfect detail. Each time I thought I was in the clear, a fresh wave of nausea would wash over me and I'd be back down, wondering which end it was going to come out of. Once my body was an empty, deflated sack of what it once was, I stumbled back to my crew, probably white as a ghost, reassured them I was okay, and somehow finished the workday with my head hung down in shame. I felt much better the next day and was so relieved to find that

the reaction was proportional to the amount of water I consumed. Imagine if I had had a full sip. After a hard day's work, probably shimming about three more rocks into place for our beautiful little staircase, we were taking a rest before heading back to camp when a black lab trotted over to us all smiles and wags. Cute dogs are one of the many perks of working on a popular hiking trail, but as we began to greet the friendly pup, a frantic voice stopped us. Don't touch him.

Please, I'm sorry, but he must have rolled in something. Oh, no. It's as bad as you think it's going to get. No. Oh, my God. Okay, continue. The man trailed off and shook his head sadly as he came into view. Suddenly, our noses registered the noxious smell coming off of this dog

and that his shiny coat was slick with shit. Likely, my shit. The man lowered his voice and said, honestly, I think it's human. But I mean, who would do such a thing? Who would do that? My crewmates shook their heads in solemn commiseration as I sat in quiet shock. I quelled my inner voice that wanted to blurt out. Whoever did that was probably really suffering.

Or I'm sure no one would do that unless they were desperate. it since those sound like things that a pooper would say. I'm sorry. Those are things a pooper would say. Immediate suspicion would fall on you. The man's voice softened and I could tell he was a nice guy, just exasperated from a well, shitty dog. Oh, shitty day. Or both, I guess.

Or both. Is there a creek or something nearby where I could clean him up a bit? I saw my chance for redemption. This was it. Not in the eyes of my crewmates who politely pretended that they made no connection between the poopy dog and my hour-long disappearance the previous day. No, this was between me and Mother Nature. Me and the hiking community, I was so proud to serve.

I had to do something. There's one a little ways down from here, just a few feet off of the trail, I piped up. We're actually about to head down there for the day. I'll show you. I've got some Dr. Bronner's too. His eyes lit up at Dr. Bronner's. This man was so sweet. He washed up his pup as I waited to retrieve my soap, and on the way down, we swapped stories

of trail adventures. Painfully, he insisted on carrying my rock bar, an 18-pound metal rod with a beveled edge used for lifting and scooching heavy rocks, the entire mile down to our campsite. As I could not bring myself to reveal that I was the cause of all his pain and suffering, I had no choice but to grit my teeth and accept his misplaced gratitude. Also, I'm just envisioning this. He washed his pup up, so he's like putting his hands in your shit. Oh, yes.

It's like we are so much closer than you think, sir. You think of me as a mere stranger, but alas, you know my insides. My crewmates never brought up the poopy dog again, and we all moved past it as if nothing happened. I was so mortified it wasn't until later recounting the events to my sister and my girlfriend that I could finally laugh at myself. And now you all can too. Thanks to you too and all the NPAD listeners for creating such a welcoming, magical, and hilarious space. Enjoy the view.

But remember, if you fuck with Mother Nature, she very well may embarrass the shit out of you. Lots of love, Emily. Emily, thank you for sharing that story. That was brave, Emily. very brave and hilarious. That poor man swapping stories with you. Meanwhile, he has your poop

under his fingernails. Okay. Cassie, it's 11 a.m. You're the one who wrote that story. It's just such like a I mean, also for her crewmates

to just be so gracious about that, feel like that's a perfect opportunity to just like completely bully the crap out of you, you know, just like never let that go or let you live it down. And especially in like trail crew type of work environments where you're always kind of just like jabbing one another. Unless they truly didn't connect the knots on. There's no way. Of her disappearance and then, oh, if you're busy doing your own thing. I guess. I don't know, whatever. If they did know, They were very gracious if they did know. If not, think a little harder.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I'm glad I ended mine with that. It was a good one. My next story is titled, A Big Bear in Hour Brush with Death, the Day a Bear and I almost died together. Hey, Cassie and Danielle, I spend a ton of time driving for work, and your podcast is what keeps me sane during all the windshield time. Bless y'all for that. I figured I'd share a scary work story with a part two that's a little bit funny.

I'm a wildlife biologist in beautiful Utah, where I often capture and track various wildlife species. I've spent many hours working up close and personal with mountain lions and bears, but nothing scares me quite as bad as the following. Strange men, flash floods and lightning storms. Last summer, myself, along with a houndsman and two co-workers captured a sow, a female black bear to place a GPS collar on her. Many species we work with have to be tranquilized and bears are one of those species. Once we fitted the animal with the GPS color and collected data, we give the animal a reversal

drug that wakes them back up. As part of our agency's policy, we must stay with the animal until they are fully alert and can walk away on their own. As we were wrapping up with the spare, a storm was rolling in quickly. This is a place you don't want to be during a storm because of flash flooding. I quickly administered the reversal drug to the spare, which usually wakes them up within a few minutes. However, she was taking forever to wake up and the storm was really beginning to rage. The lightning and thunder were hitting so close, my hair was static and we could feel the thunder shake us. We knew we needed to get out of their ASAP, but we didn't want to leave this bear until we knew she was all right. She was out cold despite the commotion around us.

I have no idea how she slept through it for so long. Suddenly, we watched a bolt of lightning strike the ground about 25 yards from us. I could feel the electricity moved through my body and the thunder clap was so loud it seriously made my teeth rattle in my mouth. We were panicking at that point and I was switching between trying to push this bear onto her feet and clapping in her ears to trigger a reflex to wake her up quicker. After what felt like forever, she casually opened her eyes, looked around at us and strolled away like she was going for a Sunday walk without a care in the world. Meanwhile, I was fairly certain we were all going to die.

Once she left, we made it back to the truck safely and got off the mountain without too much trouble. In hindsight, our bosses probably would have told us to get out of there for our own safety, but we just couldn't stand to leave this bear. Now, this is not the end of experiencing a heart attack in the company of this bear. There's a funny side story involving her again. This past winter, I went to visit her den site with the same coworkers as before. We visit our female bears in the winter to make sure their colors are fitting properly and collect data on their cubs. This is an old bear, so I figured she wouldn't have any cubs, but she's a big bear, so I wanted to check her collar fit.

We hiked a pretty long ways, and after searching around with the radio telemetry for a while, we found her den. It's important to note that bears are not true hibernators, and they're not asleep all winter in their dens. They actually undergo what's called winter torpor, where they lower their metabolic rate and core temperature. They are lethargic, but still awake in their dens. When we get to the den, the first thing we do is quickly and quietly seal off the entrance using our backpacks. This helps keep the bear from running out and potentially leaving behind cubs and reduces stress. When sound and visuals from us are blocked out, the bears stay pretty calm. My two co-workers got to the den first and set their backpacks down in the entrance.

Immediately a commotion began with them both yelling, Hey, hey, bear! I watched as these two men tried with all their might to use their backpacks to keep the bear in her den while she was squeezing her head out of the den between their knees. Have you ever pushed your dog's face back with your hands when they look kind of goofy? This is what the bear looked like trying to squeeze between them. The guys tried so hard, but once she got one paw out, she steamrolled right over the top and took off. The coworker, who's a pretty legit cowboy, actually tried to chase her down and grab her

as if a 150-pound dude is going to restrain a 300-pound bear. A for effort, though. It's important to note that she didn't try to bite or swat at anyone at any point. She just wanted to get out of there. I think it shows how flighty black bears really are. Even if they're cornered in close range with people, they rarely want to fight. We looked into her den and she surprisingly did have three cubs with her. We decided not to take any data and just get the hell out of there so she'd come back.

Her GPS caller sent points shortly after we left, indicating she came right back for her cubs. I knew she would. She's a great mama. Anyway, that was certainly a crazy and stressful day, both from her plowing through my coworkers and me worrying about her cubs. Over decades of denning countless bears, this has never happened, so it was quite a surprise. But since it all worked out in the end and no people or bears were harmed, it's now a funny story. I'll include a few pictures of her from below my trail camera, her capture, and the cubs. She's in a, quote, color phase, bear.

Most black bears in Utah aren't black, fun fact. Thanks for all your hard work researching and sharing. the stories of people, wildlife, conservation, and our wild places. Keep up the good work. And if you ever find yourself in Utah and want to call her a critter, hit me out. Best, Morgan. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Morgan. Sign us up, Morgan. I would love to go to Utah for that. That sounds really cool. And I love hearing inside stories of people who do these kind of things for work and your experiences because most people when they're like, yeah, I was at work today. have stories like this to come back with. So it's really fun. Yeah. I just love the visual of a bear squeezing.

Like, because I have one of those nets or I used to have one of those nets in the Jeep in my Jeep that went behind the driver's seat and passenger seat to have kind of like section off Choska and blue. And the squares were small. Like they were designed to keep them out. And they would both squeeze their head so tightly through the little holes that they would have to like rip their like when they wanted to back out of it they had to use their whole body to force their head back out of it but if I looked back at the exact right moment when they were trying to push their head forward they looked so crazy like just like their eyes were bugging out squished and stretched back yeah yeah their ears were non-existent it was wild so to think of a bear doing that between two people like just excuse me

I'm just trying to get out of your realm. Don't mind me. Yeah. Cool job, though. Okay, great. Well, we each have one more that we share over on our subscription platforms, whether it be Patreon or Apple subscription. We both have one additional story, every single Trail episode. Mine this time around is titled Small Town Legend, Ghost Wolf of the Alagash.

Oh, interesting. Mine is titled, Enjoyed the View 63 times. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone, as always, for sending in your stories. You know where to do it if you desire and enjoy the view. But watch you're back. See you next week. Bye.

Bye. 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 npadepodcast.com. 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. Visit Progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed, who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.