Sasquatch Chronicles - A Christmas Short Story

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

A scary night in the Smoky Mountains

I want to tell you what happened to me. I was attending the University of Tennessee, and I had the unique privilege of working for the Smoky Mountain National Park. I got college credit, didn't get paid for it. I got along with most of the Rangers. They liked us young guys. The price was right, didn't cost them anything, and they used us around the park, you know, strong back, strong legs,

to do a lot of the work that they didn't want to do. I enjoyed it. You know, we had a lot of unique privileges. We had access to different areas of the park. no one else had access to, and I knew most of the trails like the back of my hand. On this particular day, the rangers had called us in all this young guys, and they needed some legs on the ground. There was a search and rescue going on. I believe it was a father and son that went missing.

The father and son weren't actually missing. They had checked out a permit. When you go to these parks, you get to check out a permit, and then you return the permit when you're done. Well, they never returned. After we took a look at his permit, it looked like he was going to be on top of the permit, be on top of Mount McCann. Mount McCann is one of the tallest mountains in the Smokies. Now the father and son had changed their plans. We didn't know that at the time. Mount McCann isn't the easiest thing to get to. Some of these trails it takes six to nine miles to get there and you're basically going straight up a mountain. The worst part was a storm

was coming in. I mean an unexpected heavy heavy snowfall coming in. So we packed our bags and started down the trail. So six of us young guys took off. Three went up one trail. trail and me and two other guys went up another trail. And I'm knee-deep in snow. I'm wearing all my pack, all my gear. It was a long, long day, especially with the elements and trying to get through the snow and the wind. I was exhausted. I went about nine miles that day. We get to the top of the mountain. And as we get up there, there's a cabin up there. Now the rangers take care of that cabin. It's meant for workers, it's meant for guys like us, volunteers, guys doing trail maintenance, and I was so happy to see the cabin. To describe the cabin to you, it's basically the size of a one-car garage,

maybe a little smaller. There's two sets of bunks that sleep three high. There's a little wood stove in there, there's a huge heavy door with a latch on it. It's not a hotel, but it sure was a site for sore eyes after hiking in the snow all day. I took my pack off. sat down, made something neat, talked with the guys, took some clothes and set them off to dry. Couldn't wait to get in my bed. I was exhausted. We had these sleeping bags. They're zero-degree sleeping bags, mummy style. So basically if you sleep in it right, the only thing's showing is your eyes. I finished up eating, crawled into bed. I was so tired. And it was one of those nights to where you could just hear the wind outside. And I was so happy to be inside that cabin with a nice fire going.

Now I can't tell you how long we were asleep. I know I was asleep. But then, this thing started screaming and howling outside the cabin. I woke up. It was horrific. Leave the sound the sing was making. And it was right outside the cabin wall. And it wasn't screaming a little bit.

It was screaming a lot. Now, I have a lot of experience with black bears, as you can imagine with my job. and they scratch and they claw and they hit, but they don't hit like this. Whatever this thing was, whatever was screaming out there, began hitting the cabin. Now this cabin was bear-proof, so it had this huge, heavy front door. It was the only door to the place, had a latch, and it was a solid door. And this thing was hitting the door so hard, the top of the door was flexing into the cabin. It was sheer terror.

Now I'm laying there in my mummy bag. looking straight across from me is one of the guys I was with. And his eyes are as big as saucers, and he's looking directly at me. Now you would think, six tough ex-football players that have been hiking all day, we're outdoorsmen, we're the tough guys, you'd think we'd get up and do something. No one said a word. I don't think anyone breathed. When you have true fear, you freeze. I remember feeling so helpless.

listening to this saying bang on the cabin door, bang on the cabin walls, and just screaming. Whatever it was, it wanted to kill us. If it could have came in, it would have killed us. The last thing the creature did, as it was banging on the door, it stopped screaming. And did this weird vocal. I'm not sure what it was saying, but it was gone. The cabin had returned to silence. Nobody had said a word.

sometime that night I fell asleep I think everyone fell asleep I can't tell you when the next morning we all woke up and normally as a couple guys we all screw around mess with each other joke around there was none of that this morning we ate breakfast

finished packing no one said a word we opened the door and that's when we saw the tracks they were huge huge impressions it had snowed all night and had been windy, so there was no real definition to the tracks, but they looked huge, and you could see where it walked right up to the cabin.

Now I want to make one more comment. I know all the park rangers, and we were communicating via radio prior to going to bed that night. I knew where every one of the park rangers were that night, and they were not on top of Mount Makan. The weather was too bad. Whatever this thing was, it was not happy we were there. We started the long hike down. No one's saying anything. We hiked about two or three miles and stopped to take a break.

We all took our packs off. One of my friends said, Okay, guys, what the hell was that last night? We all talked about it. We finished a trip and made it back. I returned home and went back to college. People asked me today if I believe in Bigfoot. Well, I can tell you that one exists in the Smoky Mountains.

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