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13 Nights in Appalachia That Campers Still Refuse to Explain | Horror Stories · Appalachian Horror | Horror Stories

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Speaker 1: Welcome back. If you're new here, this channel is dedicated
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Speaker 1: to real stories sent in by our subscribers. Camping trips,
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Speaker 1: remote trails, deep forests, and the things people encounter out
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Speaker 1: there when they're far from help and far from anyone
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Speaker 1: who would hear them scream. These are submitted by our subscribers.
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Speaker 1: We don't sensationalize. We don't editorialize. We just read what
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Speaker 1: they sent us. So if you're comfortable, settle in. This
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Speaker 1: one's going to be a long night. Story one. I
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Speaker 1: want to start by saying I am not someone who
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Speaker 1: scares easily. I've been hiking and backpacking since I was
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Speaker 1: a teenager, and I've done trails across Virginia, North Carolina,
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Speaker 1: and Tennessee. I've slept alone on ridgelines in the middle
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Speaker 1: of thunderstorms. I've had bears walk through my campsite at
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Speaker 1: two in the morning and just calmly went back to
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Speaker 1: sleep after they left. So when I tell you that
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Speaker 1: What happened to me on a trail off Skyline Drive
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Speaker 1: three years ago genuinely changed the way I approach being
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Speaker 1: alone in the backcountry. I need you to understand that
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Speaker 1: it is coming from someone who considered himself about as
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Speaker 1: unshakable as you get. It was mid-October, peak foliage season
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Speaker 1: in the Shenandoah. I'd taken a long weekend, Thursday through Sunday,
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Speaker 1: to do a solo loop I'd been planning since the spring.
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Speaker 1: The loop wasn't particularly technical, maybe 30 miles total, with
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Speaker 1: campsites at decent intervals. I'd done similar mileage before and
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Speaker 1: wasn't expecting any trouble. I parked at the trailhead early
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Speaker 1: Thursday morning while it was still dark, strapped on my headlamp,
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Speaker 1: and started walking. The first day was perfect. Cool air,
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Speaker 1: leaves coming down in sheets of orange and red, barely
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Speaker 1: anyone on the trail. I passed a couple of day
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Speaker 1: hikers heading back toward the road around midday, exchanged a
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Speaker 1: few words, and then didn't see another soul. By four
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Speaker 1: in the afternoon, I'd covered about 11 miles and set
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Speaker 1: up my tent at a designated backcountry site. I cooked,
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Speaker 1: sat by a small fire, and was asleep by eight.
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Speaker 1: Everything was exactly what I'd hoped for. Day two is
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Speaker 1: where things started going sideways, though it took me a
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Speaker 1: while to realize it. I left camp early, around six,
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Speaker 1: before the sun had fully come up. About two hours in,
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Speaker 1: I came to a junction that I didn't remember from
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Speaker 1: my research. There was a blaze on a tree going left,
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Speaker 1: and another going straight. And according to my map, I
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Speaker 1: should have been continuing straight, but something about the terrain
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Speaker 1: felt off. The ridge I was supposed to be following
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Speaker 1: seemed to be on my left, not in front of me.
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Speaker 1: I stood at that junction for probably ten minutes, going
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Speaker 1: back and forth on it, before deciding to trust the
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Speaker 1: map and continue straight. That was the wrong call. About
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Speaker 1: 45 minutes later, the trail started narrowing in a way
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Speaker 1: that didn't match any of the notes I'd made when
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Speaker 1: I planned the route. The ground cover was thicker, and
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Speaker 1: the blazes on the trees were older and faded, not
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Speaker 1: the fresh bright orange paint you'd expect on a maintained trail.
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Speaker 1: I stopped and checked my compass. I was heading northeast
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Speaker 1: when I should have been heading east-southeast. Somewhere I had
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Speaker 1: gotten turned around. I backtracked to the junction and this
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Speaker 1: time took the left fork. By the time I got
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Speaker 1: myself sorted out and on the right path, it was
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Speaker 1: past noon and I'd lost almost three hours. I was
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Speaker 1: annoyed but not panicked. I adjusted my plan, cut out
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Speaker 1: a side trail I'd intended to take, and pushed to
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Speaker 1: make up some time. The goal was to reach the
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Speaker 1: next designated campsite before dark, which was now going to
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Speaker 1: be tight. I was moving fast and not paying as
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Speaker 1: much attention to my surroundings as I normally would. I
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Speaker 1: was focused on making miles, and that's probably why I
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Speaker 1: didn't notice the man until he was less than 50
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Speaker 1: feet behind me. I only caught him because I stopped
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Speaker 1: to take a drink of water and happened to glance
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Speaker 1: back down the trail. He was there just walking, hiking
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Speaker 1: clothes packed on his back, nothing immediately alarming about any
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Speaker 1: of it. I waited for him to catch up because
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Speaker 1: the polite thing to do on trails when someone's clearly
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Speaker 1: moving faster is to let them pass. But as I waited,
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Speaker 1: I noticed that he wasn't actually moving faster. His pace
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Speaker 1: was the same as mine had been. He wasn't trying
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Speaker 1: to close the distance. He was maintaining it. I started
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Speaker 1: walking again. About 10 minutes later, I stopped again and
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Speaker 1: looked back. He was still there. Same distance. 50 feet.
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Speaker 1: I told myself it was a coincidence. Two people hiking
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Speaker 1: at the same pace on the same trail isn't suspicious.
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Speaker 1: It happens. I kept moving. The next time I stopped
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Speaker 1: to check my map, he was still there. Same distance.
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Speaker 1: 50 feet. Now I'm starting to do the math in
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Speaker 1: my head. This man has been behind me for at
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Speaker 1: least half an hour. Every time I stop, he stops.
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Speaker 1: Every time I move, he moves. There are no other
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Speaker 1: junctions on this section of trail for another four miles.
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Speaker 1: so it's not like I could verify he was going
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Speaker 1: somewhere different. He was just there, right behind me, constant.
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Speaker 1: I picked up my pace deliberately to see what happened.
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Speaker 1: I moved into a near jog for about five minutes.
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Speaker 1: When I slowed and looked back, he was still 50
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Speaker 1: feet behind me. He had matched my pace exactly without
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Speaker 1: closing the gap at all. At this point, my stomach dropped.
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Speaker 1: Whatever this was, it was not a coincidence. I started
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Speaker 1: running through options. I could confront him, just stop and
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Speaker 1: let him catch up and ask him straight out what
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Speaker 1: he was doing. I could get off trail and let
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Speaker 1: him pass and see if he kept going or stopped.
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Speaker 1: I could push hard and try to get to the
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Speaker 1: campsite before dark where there might be other people. None
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Speaker 1: of these felt particularly good. I chose to get off trail.
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Speaker 1: There was a dense stand of rhododendron to my right,
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Speaker 1: and I pushed into it, crouching down behind the thicket.
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Speaker 1: where I could see the trail but wouldn't be easily
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Speaker 1: visible from it. I waited. Three minutes passed. Five minutes.
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Speaker 1: I kept my eyes on the section of trail where
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Speaker 1: he should have appeared by now. Nothing. Seven minutes in,
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Speaker 1: I heard footsteps coming slowly up the trail. Not the
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Speaker 1: pace of someone hiking. More like someone walking carefully, deliberately.
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Speaker 1: The footsteps stopped right where I'd left the trail. I
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Speaker 1: held my breath. There was silence for probably 30 seconds,
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Speaker 1: which felt like 30 minutes. Then the footsteps started again,
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Speaker 1: but instead of continuing up the trail, they were coming
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Speaker 1: off the trail, coming into the rhododendron, not toward me directly,
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Speaker 1: but into the thicket to my left, searching. The way
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Speaker 1: you'd move if you were looking for something that had
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Speaker 1: just gone into the brush. I didn't make a decision
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Speaker 1: so much as my body made it for me. I
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Speaker 1: pushed out of the rhododendron on the far side and ran.
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Speaker 1: I ran harder than I think I've ever run with
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Speaker 1: a full pack on. I didn't look back for probably
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Speaker 1: a quarter mile. When I finally did, there was nothing
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Speaker 1: behind me on the trail. I made it to the
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Speaker 1: campsite in record time. There was one other tent already
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Speaker 1: set up, and I have never been so relieved to
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Speaker 1: see a stranger's tent in my life. I set up
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Speaker 1: as close to them as reasonably possible without being weird
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Speaker 1: about it. I said hello to the couple inside when
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Speaker 1: they came out to cook dinner and stayed by their
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Speaker 1: fire until well past dark. I didn't see the man
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Speaker 1: again for the rest of the trip. I finished the
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Speaker 1: loop and got back to my car without incident. But
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Speaker 1: I never once stopped looking back over my shoulder the
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Speaker 1: whole way out. I've thought about it a lot since then.
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Speaker 1: The thing that stays with me isn't the fear of
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Speaker 1: what might have happened. It's the precision of it. Fifty feet, exactly.
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Speaker 1: Every single time I checked. The matching of the pace
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Speaker 1: with no attempt to close the gap. The deliberate entry
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Speaker 1: into the thicket when I left the trail. Whatever that
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Speaker 1: man was doing, he was practiced at it. He had
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Speaker 1: done it before. I still hike the Appalachian region. I'm
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Speaker 1: not going to stop. But I now carry more than
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Speaker 1: just bear spray. I never go without telling at least
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Speaker 1: two people my exact route and check-in schedule. And I
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Speaker 1: never once let someone walk behind me on a trail
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Speaker 1: without knowing exactly who they are and where they're headed.
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Speaker 1: Story two, four days on the Nolichock. This was about
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Speaker 1: five years ago when I was living in eastern Tennessee,
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Speaker 1: not far from the Nolichockie River Gorge. It's a beautiful
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Speaker 1: stretch of the Appalachians out there, and I'd done day
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Speaker 1: hikes in the area plenty of times, but had never
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Speaker 1: committed to a multi-day trip. I'd just turned 30 and
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Speaker 1: told myself I was going to do a solo four-day
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Speaker 1: backpacking trip as a kind of reset. Work had been rough.
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Speaker 1: My personal life was a mess, and I needed to
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Speaker 1: be somewhere with no phone signal and no people. I
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Speaker 1: got the no phone signal part. The no people part
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Speaker 1: did not work out. I'll skip over the first day
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Speaker 1: and a half because nothing happened, and it was everything
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Speaker 1: I'd hoped for. Quiet, hard work, good miles. I set
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Speaker 1: up my second camp on a narrow flat section above
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Speaker 1: the river, maybe 20 feet from the water's edge. beautiful spot.
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Speaker 1: I got a fire going, ate, and was sitting there,
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Speaker 1: just watching the river, and in the dark, I heard
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Speaker 1: something move on the opposite bank. Now, the Nolichucky isn't
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Speaker 1: wide at most points in the gorge. Across from where
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Speaker 1: I was sitting, it was maybe 60 feet of fast water,
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Speaker 1: close enough to hear someone moving through brush on the
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Speaker 1: other side. I looked over and saw a shape crouch
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Speaker 1: down at the water's edge across the river. My first
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Speaker 1: thought was an animal coming down to drink. but the
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Speaker 1: shape was wrong. Too tall when it stood up. Too
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Speaker 1: deliberate in how it moved. It was a person. They
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Speaker 1: stood there for a while on the far bank, not
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Speaker 1: doing anything, just standing. I couldn't make out any features,
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Speaker 1: it was dark and they were a shadow, but the
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Speaker 1: posture was unmistakably human. I waved, no response. I called
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Speaker 1: out a hello, no response. After a couple of minutes,
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Speaker 1: the shape moved back from the bank and disappeared into
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Speaker 1: the trees on the far side. I told myself it
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Speaker 1: was probably just another hiker who'd made camp on the
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Speaker 1: other side of the river and come down for water.
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Speaker 1: Completely reasonable explanation. I tried to believe it. I went
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Speaker 1: to bed and slept reasonably well. Woke up just before
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Speaker 1: dawn to get an early start. I was packing up
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Speaker 1: my tent in the gray morning light when I noticed
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Speaker 1: something at the edge of camp that hadn't been there
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Speaker 1: the night before. A small pile of stones, maybe ten
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Speaker 1: or twelve of them, stacked carefully just at the tree
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Speaker 1: line behind where my tent had been. A deliberate arrangement,
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Speaker 1: not something that happens by accident. Someone had been in
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Speaker 1: my camp while I slept. I packed up fast and moved.
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Speaker 1: I pushed hard the whole third day, covering more miles
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Speaker 1: than I'd planned and keeping my head up constantly. Checking
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Speaker 1: the river crossings, checking the tree lines. I didn't see anyone.
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Speaker 1: By mid-afternoon, I was at the spot I'd intended for
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Speaker 1: my third camp, and I almost kept going, but my
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Speaker 1: legs were done. I set up, made a cold dinner
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Speaker 1: because I didn't want to build a fire, and got
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Speaker 1: in my tent early. Sometime in the night, I woke
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Speaker 1: up to the sound of footsteps in the gravel along
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Speaker 1: the river, not animal footsteps, deliberate, evenly spaced human footsteps.
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Speaker 1: They came from upstream, moved slowly past my camp, and
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Speaker 1: continued downstream, I lay completely still listening until they faded out.
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Speaker 1: In the morning, I found prints in the soft mud
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Speaker 1: at the water's edge. Boot prints. Large, wide, deep tread.
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Speaker 1: Whoever it was had walked right past my tent in
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Speaker 1: the middle of the night, and I'd had no idea
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Speaker 1: until I heard them. I cut the trip short. Three
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Speaker 1: days instead of four. I hiked out that morning and
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Speaker 1: didn't stop for anything. I made it back to my
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Speaker 1: car before noon. Drove straight home and didn't touch my
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Speaker 1: gear for two weeks. The thing with the stones has
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Speaker 1: never left me. To stack those stones like that carefully, intentionally,
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Speaker 1: right behind where someone is sleeping, takes time and quiet.
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Speaker 1: It's not something you do accidentally. It was a message.
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Speaker 1: I've gone back and forth for five years on what
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Speaker 1: it was supposed to mean, and I still don't have
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Speaker 1: an answer that doesn't scare me. Story three. The Cabin
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Speaker 1: on the Ridge. I grew up in western North Carolina
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Speaker 1: and have been hiking in the mountains there my whole life.
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Speaker 1: When I was 24, I decided to do a solo
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Speaker 1: overnight trip on a trail I hadn't been on before.
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Speaker 1: A less traveled path that climbed up toward a ridge
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Speaker 1: about 7 or 8 miles from the trailhead. A friend
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Speaker 1: had mentioned it offhandedly and I looked it up. Found
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Speaker 1: minimal information about it, which honestly made me more interested.
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Speaker 1: I like trails that aren't crowded. The hike up was good.
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Speaker 1: Hard climb, decent views through the trees, no other hikers.
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Speaker 1: I made it to the ridge by early afternoon and
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Speaker 1: found a flat section that looked perfect for a campsite.
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Speaker 1: Set up my tent, collected wood, got a small fire going.
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Speaker 1: By the time it was dark, I was comfortable, warm,
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Speaker 1: and relaxed. I sat up reading until maybe 10 o'clock
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Speaker 1: and then turned in. I don't know what time it
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Speaker 1: was when I woke up, but it was deep in
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Speaker 1: the night. No particular sound had woken me. I just
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Speaker 1: came awake, the way you sometimes do. I lay there
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Speaker 1: in the dark, and then I became aware of a smell.
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Speaker 1: Wood smoke. Not from my own fire, which I'd put
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Speaker 1: out before bed. This was fresh smoke coming from somewhere nearby.
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Speaker 1: And I zipped my tent and stepped out. The sky
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Speaker 1: was clear, and the stars were bright enough to see
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Speaker 1: by once my eyes adjusted. I turned in the direction
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Speaker 1: the smell was coming from, and maybe a hundred and
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Speaker 1: fifty yards away, Just barely visible through the trees, there
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Speaker 1: was a light. Orange and flickering. A fire. I stood
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Speaker 1: and watched it for a while. It didn't move. Whoever
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Speaker 1: had built it was just sitting on the other side
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Speaker 1: of the ridge. And they had to have gotten there
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Speaker 1: after I'd gone to sleep. Because when I'd scanned the
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Speaker 1: area before turning in, there had been nothing. I went
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Speaker 1: back into my tent, but I didn't sleep. I lay
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Speaker 1: awake listening. Around what I estimated was three in the morning,
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Speaker 1: I heard footsteps. They were moving along the ridge in
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Speaker 1: the direction of my tent, unhurried. I reached for the
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Speaker 1: knife I'd keep in my pack and held it and waited.
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Speaker 1: The footsteps slowed as they got close to my tent,
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Speaker 1: stopped maybe 20 feet away. Then there was nothing. Just silence.
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Speaker 1: I couldn't even hear breathing. Whoever it was just stood
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Speaker 1: there in the dark outside my tent for what felt
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Speaker 1: like a very long time. Maybe two minutes. maybe five.
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Speaker 1: I genuinely couldn't tell. Then the footsteps started again, moving
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Speaker 1: away back in the direction of the fire. I stayed
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Speaker 1: awake until morning. As soon as there was enough light
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Speaker 1: to move safely, I packed up everything and started down
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Speaker 1: the trail. But before I left, I made myself walk
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Speaker 1: toward where I'd seen the fire, because I wanted to know.
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Speaker 1: There was a structure there. I almost want to call
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Speaker 1: it a cabin, but it was more like a rough
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Speaker 1: shelter built from cut logs, harshly roofed, with a fire
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Speaker 1: pit out front that was still smoldering. There were things inside.
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Speaker 1: A sleeping area with what looked like animal skins laid out.
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Speaker 1: Cans of food on a rough wooden shelf. Tools hanging
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Speaker 1: from the walls, hatchets, knives, things I didn't examine closely.
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Speaker 1: Whoever lived there had been doing so for a long time.
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Speaker 1: There was no one home, I left quickly and didn't
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Speaker 1: stop moving until I was at the trailhead. I told
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Speaker 1: myself the person who lived there was probably just a hermit.
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Speaker 1: Someone who'd gone off grid and that the late night
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Speaker 1: walk past my tent was just curiosity. I've been telling
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Speaker 1: myself that for years. Some days I believe it and
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Speaker 1: some days I don't. If you've made it this far
17:03
Speaker 1: and you're enjoying these stories, now is a great time
17:05
Speaker 1: to hit that subscribe button. New submissions come in every
17:09
Speaker 1: week and we go through them all. You won't want
17:11
Speaker 1: to miss what's coming. Story four, what happened to Marcus?
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Speaker 1: I'm going to tell this story because I think it
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Speaker 1: deserves to be told even though my friend Marcus has
17:26
Speaker 1: never talked about it publicly and probably never will. I've
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Speaker 1: changed his name and I'm leaving out enough details that
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Speaker 1: he won't be identifiable. I was there for part of it,
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Speaker 1: and what I know of the rest he told me
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Speaker 1: in pieces over the two years after it happened. Marcus
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Speaker 1: and I had been going on camping trips together since
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Speaker 1: we were in our early 20s. He grew up in
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Speaker 1: southwest Virginia, right at the edge of the Appalachians, and
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Speaker 1: knew those mountains better than anyone I've ever met. I'm
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Speaker 1: not exaggerating when I say the man had a compass
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Speaker 1: in his head. He never got turned around, never misjudged weather,
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Speaker 1: never made rookie mistakes. He was the most capable person
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Speaker 1: in the outdoors I have ever spent time with, which
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Speaker 1: is why what happened to him made no sense to
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Speaker 1: me for a long time. We had planned a five-day
18:14
Speaker 1: trip in early September on a trail in the Unaka
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Speaker 1: Mountain area of Tennessee. Long, remote, serious terrain. The kind
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Speaker 1: of trip Marcus loved. The kind of trip I was
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Speaker 1: mostly along for because being around him made me confident
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Speaker 1: enough to attempt things I wouldn't have tried on my own.
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Speaker 1: The first two days were uneventful. We covered good ground,
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Speaker 1: camped in nice spots, cooked decent food, and talked the
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Speaker 1: way you do when you're deep enough in the woods
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Speaker 1: that there's nothing else to think about except the conversation
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Speaker 1: in front of you. On the third morning, Marcus said
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Speaker 1: he wanted to take a detour to check out an
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Speaker 1: area off-trail that he'd found on an old survey map.
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Speaker 1: He described it as a high meadow that most people
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Speaker 1: didn't know about. A few hours' round trip I chose
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Speaker 1: not to go. My knees were bothering me, and an
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Speaker 1: unplanned off-trail detour didn't appeal. We agreed to meet back
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Speaker 1: at camp by mid-afternoon at the latest. Marcus was not
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Speaker 1: back by mid-afternoon. He was not back by sunset. By
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Speaker 1: the time it was fully dark, I was seriously alarmed
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Speaker 1: because Marcus did not miss time checks. It wasn't in
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Speaker 1: his character. I had a satellite communicator, and I used
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Speaker 1: it to send a message to his wife giving her
19:30
Speaker 1: our general location and telling her I was concerned. I
19:34
Speaker 1: also started a very large fire. He came back around
19:38
Speaker 1: 10 o'clock at night. I heard him before I saw
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Speaker 1: him because his footsteps were wrong. Too quick and uneven,
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Speaker 1: not his usual pace. He walked into the firelight, and
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Speaker 1: I knew immediately that something had happened. His jacket was torn.
19:54
Speaker 1: His face was cut above one eyebrow. A clean looking
19:57
Speaker 1: cut that had dried blood tracking down the side of
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Speaker 1: his face. He sat down by the fire without speaking.
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Speaker 1: I asked him what happened. He said he'd gotten disoriented
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Speaker 1: off trail. I told him That was impossible and he
20:11
Speaker 1: knew it. He didn't respond to that. I asked about
20:15
Speaker 1: the cut on his face and he said he fell.
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Speaker 1: I let it go for the night because he clearly
20:20
Speaker 1: wasn't going to talk. I cleaned up the cut, made
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Speaker 1: him eat something, and we both turned in. He slept
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Speaker 1: for 14 hours straight. When he woke up the next morning,
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Speaker 1: he was more himself but still quiet. We broke camp
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Speaker 1: and hiked out without him saying anything about what had happened.
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Speaker 1: On the drive home, he stared out the window the
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Speaker 1: entire time. Over the following months, I got pieces of
20:45
Speaker 1: it out of him, never all at once, never willingly.
20:49
Speaker 1: What I understand happened is this. He found the meadow
20:53
Speaker 1: on the map, and it was real, exactly where the
20:56
Speaker 1: survey said it would be. While he was up there exploring,
20:59
Speaker 1: he encountered a man, not a hiker. The man had
21:03
Speaker 1: a structure up there, not a tent, something more permanent,
21:07
Speaker 1: and he was not welcoming. Marcus is not someone who
21:11
Speaker 1: is easily frightened, and the fact that this man frightened
21:14
Speaker 1: him tells you something. Marcus tried to leave, and the
21:18
Speaker 1: man followed him back into the tree line. There was
21:22
Speaker 1: a confrontation of some kind, physical, which is where the
21:25
Speaker 1: cut came from. Marcus got away. That's all I know
21:29
Speaker 1: for certain. Every time I've tried to get more, he
21:32
Speaker 1: changes the subject or gives me one-word answers. He still
21:37
Speaker 1: goes camping. We've been out together since. But he won't
21:40
Speaker 1: go back to that area. Won't look at maps of it.
21:44
Speaker 1: Won't discuss it. The Marcus who came back from that
21:47
Speaker 1: meadow on day three is not exactly the same person
21:50
Speaker 1: who walked away from camp that morning. And I don't
21:53
Speaker 1: think he ever fully came back from whatever he encountered
21:56
Speaker 1: up there. Story five. Three weeks alone in southwest Virginia.
22:04
Speaker 1: In the summer after I finished graduate school, I gave
22:07
Speaker 1: myself a trip as a graduation present. three weeks solo,
22:10
Speaker 1: moving through the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in
22:14
Speaker 1: southwest Virginia, roughly following the Virginia Highlands Horse Trail, before
22:18
Speaker 1: cutting south toward Mount Rogers and the Grayson Highlands. I'd
22:22
Speaker 1: been planning it for two years. I had good gear,
22:25
Speaker 1: solid backcountry experience, and a very detailed route worked out.
22:30
Speaker 1: The first week was the best week of camping I've
22:32
Speaker 1: ever had in my life. No exaggeration. The scenery is stunning,
22:36
Speaker 1: the trail was quiet, I had the campsites almost entirely
22:39
Speaker 1: to myself. I got into a good rhythm of miles
22:43
Speaker 1: and felt strong every day. By the end of week one,
22:46
Speaker 1: I was ahead of schedule and in better shape than
22:48
Speaker 1: I'd started. Week two was different. It started on the
22:52
Speaker 1: ninth day. I was moving through a heavily forested section,
22:56
Speaker 1: long miles with no views, just canopy and trail. Late
23:00
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, I came around a bend and found
23:03
Speaker 1: something sitting in the middle of the trail. It took
23:06
Speaker 1: me a second to process what I was looking at.
23:09
Speaker 1: It was a doll. A child's doll, the plastic kind.
23:14
Speaker 1: Seated upright in the center of the trail with its
23:16
Speaker 1: back to me, so I was looking at the back
23:18
Speaker 1: of its head. Old and weathered, the plastic yellowed. Some
23:23
Speaker 1: of the hair missing. I don't know why, but I
23:26
Speaker 1: didn't touch it. I stepped around it and kept moving.
23:31
Speaker 1: But I thought about it for the rest of the afternoon.
23:34
Speaker 1: The next morning, I found one of my food bag's
23:37
Speaker 1: hang cords on the ground. I hang my food every
23:40
Speaker 1: night using a bear hang, and the cord I use
23:42
Speaker 1: goes up over a branch and back down where I
23:45
Speaker 1: tie it off. The bag itself was still in the tree,
23:48
Speaker 1: perfectly intact, all the food still there. But the cord
23:52
Speaker 1: had been untied from where I'd secured it at the
23:54
Speaker 1: bottom and laid on the ground in a careful coil.
23:58
Speaker 1: Someone had found my camp in the night, located my
24:01
Speaker 1: food hang, untied the cord, and then done nothing with it.
24:06
Speaker 1: Just left the cord on the ground. I broke camp
24:09
Speaker 1: fast and put in long miles that day. On the
24:13
Speaker 1: 11th night, I was camped near a spring when I
24:15
Speaker 1: woke up to the sound of someone talking. Not near me,
24:19
Speaker 1: maybe a hundred yards off through the trees. Not loud,
24:22
Speaker 1: more like someone having a conversation at normal volume. I
24:26
Speaker 1: couldn't make out words. After a few minutes, it stopped.
24:30
Speaker 1: I want to be careful here, because I know how
24:33
Speaker 1: this sounds and I want to be accurate. The talking
24:36
Speaker 1: didn't sound threatening on its own. People camp in these forests.
24:40
Speaker 1: People talk. But it was nearly two in the morning,
24:43
Speaker 1: and as I lay there listening, I realized that I
24:46
Speaker 1: was only hearing one voice. Not a conversation between two people.
24:50
Speaker 1: One person talking. Steadily without pause for several minutes. It stopped,
24:56
Speaker 1: and I didn't hear it again. I lay awake for
24:59
Speaker 1: a long time. On the twelfth day, I came across
25:03
Speaker 1: a campsite that appeared recently used. Ashes in the fire ring.
25:08
Speaker 1: that were still slightly warm when I held my hand
25:10
Speaker 1: over them. A tin cup next to the ring, boot
25:14
Speaker 1: prints all around. Whoever had been there had left within
25:18
Speaker 1: the last few hours. What stopped me was what was
25:22
Speaker 1: arranged in the ashes, bones. I am not a hunter,
25:26
Speaker 1: and I'm not trained in any relevant way, but they
25:29
Speaker 1: looked like they were from a small animal, probably a
25:32
Speaker 1: rabbit or something similar, and they were laid out in
25:35
Speaker 1: a deliberate pattern in the center of the fire ring.
25:38
Speaker 1: Not just dumped. Arranged. I didn't camp that night. I
25:43
Speaker 1: kept walking until I ran out of light and then
25:46
Speaker 1: set up my tent with no fire, ate cold food,
25:49
Speaker 1: and lay awake listening to the forest. Day 13, I
25:53
Speaker 1: saw someone. They were maybe 200 yards ahead of me
25:57
Speaker 1: on the trail, moving in the same direction. I only
26:01
Speaker 1: had them in view for a few seconds before they
26:03
Speaker 1: turned off the trail to the right and disappeared. They
26:07
Speaker 1: were wearing dark clothing and moving at a good pace.
26:11
Speaker 1: No pack that I could see. I slowed down. I
26:15
Speaker 1: waited at the point where they'd left the trail for
26:17
Speaker 1: a full five minutes, watching the tree line before moving past.
26:22
Speaker 1: I didn't see them again that day or the next.
26:26
Speaker 1: I completed the trip all three weeks. But I want
26:30
Speaker 1: to be honest and say that the last nine days
26:32
Speaker 1: were not the experience I had planned. I was vigilant
26:36
Speaker 1: in a way that was exhausting. I barely slept. I
26:39
Speaker 1: didn't make fires for the last five nights. I moved
26:42
Speaker 1: faster than I'd intended and cut out some of the
26:45
Speaker 1: side trails I'd wanted to take. When I got back
26:48
Speaker 1: to my car and drove out of the mountains, I
26:51
Speaker 1: sat in a gas station parking lot for 20 minutes
26:53
Speaker 1: just breathing. I've never been so relieved to be somewhere
26:57
Speaker 1: with streetlights. Story six. The sound outside the tent in Pisgah.
27:06
Speaker 1: Me and two friends, I'll call them Derek and Sadie,
27:09
Speaker 1: went camping in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina
27:13
Speaker 1: about three years ago. We were all in our late 20s,
27:16
Speaker 1: all had camping experience, and had done a few trips
27:19
Speaker 1: together before. This was a long weekend, Friday night through
27:24
Speaker 1: Sunday morning, on a trail we'd done once before and liked.
27:29
Speaker 1: Nothing ambitious, just a comfortable trip into familiar territories. We
27:34
Speaker 1: got to the trail at early Friday evening, hiked in
27:36
Speaker 1: a couple of miles to a campsite we'd used the
27:39
Speaker 1: previous year, and got set up while there was still
27:42
Speaker 1: enough light to see what we were doing. Three tents,
27:46
Speaker 1: a group fire, a relaxed night of cooking and talking.
27:50
Speaker 1: Nothing unusual. We turned in around midnight. I'm a light sleeper,
27:55
Speaker 1: and I woke up sometime in the very early hours
27:57
Speaker 1: of Saturday morning. I'm not sure of the exact time.
28:02
Speaker 1: I lay there in my tent for a minute, trying
28:03
Speaker 1: to figure out what had woken me. The forest was
28:07
Speaker 1: doing its normal nighttime thing. Wind moving through the trees,
28:10
Speaker 1: occasional sounds. And then I heard it. Breathing. Not from
28:16
Speaker 1: inside the tent. From directly outside. Close, maybe two or
28:22
Speaker 1: three feet from the tent wall. Slow and steady and
28:26
Speaker 1: very clearly human. I reached for my headlamp without turning
28:29
Speaker 1: it on and just lay there listening. The breathing continued
28:33
Speaker 1: for what felt like several minutes, but was probably only
28:36
Speaker 1: 30 seconds or a minute. Then it stopped. Then I
28:41
Speaker 1: heard movement, weight shifting, the soft compression of leaves under feet.
28:47
Speaker 1: The footsteps moved away from my tent, and I heard
28:49
Speaker 1: them moving toward where Derek's tent was set up, about
28:52
Speaker 1: 15 feet away. I got out of my sleeping bag
28:56
Speaker 1: and unzipped the tent as quietly as I could and
28:59
Speaker 1: stepped out. Derek's tent was dark and still. I stood
29:05
Speaker 1: in the clearing and looked around the campsite. The fire
29:08
Speaker 1: had burned down to coals and was giving off almost
29:11
Speaker 1: no light. I turned on my headlamp. Nothing in the
29:15
Speaker 1: clearing with me. I walked the perimeter of the campsite,
29:18
Speaker 1: shining the light into the tree line in every direction. Nothing.
29:23
Speaker 1: I woke Derek and Sadie, and we sat up together
29:25
Speaker 1: until it got light. Neither of them had heard anything.
29:29
Speaker 1: Both had slept through it. In the morning, we looked
29:32
Speaker 1: at the area around the tents and found the leaves
29:35
Speaker 1: disturbed in a way that was consistent with someone having
29:38
Speaker 1: stood right where I'd heard the breathing. No clear boot prints,
29:43
Speaker 1: the ground was too dry and leaf-covered, but the disturbance
29:46
Speaker 1: was there. We packed up and moved to a different
29:49
Speaker 1: campsite Saturday night, a couple miles further down the trail,
29:54
Speaker 1: more exposed, near a stream crossing where we figured sound
29:57
Speaker 1: would carry and we'd hear anyone approaching. Saturday night was quiet,
30:02
Speaker 1: and nothing happened. But here's the part I haven't been
30:05
Speaker 1: able to stop thinking about. When we got back to
30:08
Speaker 1: the trailhead Sunday morning, there were two vehicles parked there,
30:12
Speaker 1: one of which was ours. The other was a truck,
30:14
Speaker 1: an older model, dark-colored. It had been there when we
30:18
Speaker 1: arrived Friday evening, and we'd assumed it belonged to someone day-hiking.
30:23
Speaker 1: But it was still there Sunday morning. Whoever owned it
30:26
Speaker 1: had not returned to the trailhead in two full days.
30:29
Speaker 1: I don't know if that truck had anything to do
30:31
Speaker 1: with what I heard outside my tent Friday night, but
30:35
Speaker 1: I've never been able to stop connecting them. If these
30:39
Speaker 1: stories have you second-guessing your next camping trip, drop a
30:43
Speaker 1: comment below telling us where you camp and what trail
30:46
Speaker 1: you've had your most uncomfortable experience on. We read every
30:51
Speaker 1: single comment, and some of the best ones find their
30:53
Speaker 1: way into future videos. Story 7 He was in the water.
31:01
Speaker 1: I need to get this out, and I've been sitting
31:03
Speaker 1: on it for about two years, so bear with me
31:05
Speaker 1: because it's still hard to talk about, even in writing.
31:09
Speaker 1: I do a lot of solo kayak camping. For people
31:12
Speaker 1: who don't know, that's exactly what it sounds like. You
31:15
Speaker 1: paddle in with all your gear loaded in the kayak
31:18
Speaker 1: and camp on riverbanks or sandbars or lakeshores. I've been
31:23
Speaker 1: doing it for six or seven years in various river
31:26
Speaker 1: systems throughout the Appalachian region. the New River, the Gauley,
31:30
Speaker 1: the Greenbrier, smaller creeks throughout West Virginia and Virginia. It's
31:35
Speaker 1: a specific type of backcountry camping, and the advantage is
31:38
Speaker 1: that you can access spots that trail hikers can never
31:42
Speaker 1: get to, and you can move fast if you need to.
31:46
Speaker 1: The disadvantage, which I didn't fully appreciate until this trip,
31:50
Speaker 1: is that you're working on a river corridor. You can't
31:53
Speaker 1: just cut cross-country if something goes wrong. You're moving in
31:57
Speaker 1: one direction with the water. This was a four-day trip
32:01
Speaker 1: on the Greenbrier River in West Virginia in late September.
32:05
Speaker 1: A section of it that I'd done once before, calm water,
32:09
Speaker 1: beautiful valley, very isolated. I had put in at a
32:13
Speaker 1: small access point and had roughly 40 miles of river
32:17
Speaker 1: ahead of me. The plan was to paddle 10 to
32:19
Speaker 1: 12 miles a day and camp each night on the bank.
32:23
Speaker 1: First day and night were fine. Good water, found a
32:26
Speaker 1: nice sandbar to camp on, slept well. Second day, I
32:31
Speaker 1: started noticing something following the river, on the bank. It
32:35
Speaker 1: would have been easy to miss if you weren't paying attention.
32:39
Speaker 1: But I was out there alone, and I had nothing
32:41
Speaker 1: else to focus on. So I was watching everything. There
32:45
Speaker 1: were sections of bank where the vegetation had been pushed
32:49
Speaker 1: through recently. Broken branches, bent grass, in a way that
32:52
Speaker 1: was consistent with something large moving parallel to the river.
32:57
Speaker 1: Too sustained and directional for deer. Moving at roughly my pace.
33:02
Speaker 1: I paddled faster. Whatever it was matched the pace. I
33:07
Speaker 1: want to be very clear that I told myself this
33:10
Speaker 1: was an animal. Black bear or possibly deer, even though
33:14
Speaker 1: the pattern seemed wrong. I wanted it to be an animal.
33:19
Speaker 1: I pushed my daily mileage and made camp on the
33:21
Speaker 1: second night well after dark, setting up my headlamp on
33:24
Speaker 1: a high bank above the river. I was tired enough
33:28
Speaker 1: to sleep despite being uneasy. Around three in the morning,
33:32
Speaker 1: I woke up to a sound from the river below me.
33:35
Speaker 1: A quiet, methodical sound that I couldn't immediately place. I
33:40
Speaker 1: lay in my tent trying to figure out what I
33:42
Speaker 1: was hearing. It was rhythmic, evenly spaced. After a minute,
33:47
Speaker 1: I realized it was the sound of someone walking in
33:49
Speaker 1: the shallows. The quiet splash of each step and a
33:53
Speaker 1: few inches of moving water. The steps came up the
33:56
Speaker 1: river from downstream. They slowed as they got below my campsite. Stopped.
34:02
Speaker 1: I was 12 feet above the water line on the bank.
34:06
Speaker 1: From where I was lying in my tent, I couldn't
34:08
Speaker 1: see the river. I could only hear it. The footsteps
34:12
Speaker 1: in the water didn't move for a long time. Maybe
34:15
Speaker 1: 10 minutes. I lay absolutely still, not even wanting to
34:19
Speaker 1: shift my weight in the sleeping bag. Then they started again,
34:24
Speaker 1: this time going upstream, past my position, and fading out.
34:29
Speaker 1: I did not go back to sleep. At first light,
34:32
Speaker 1: I looked over the bank at the river below. There
34:36
Speaker 1: were impressions in the sandy mud at the water's edge
34:39
Speaker 1: directly below my campsite. Shoe prints. Someone had been standing
34:44
Speaker 1: in the river below me. for an extended period of
34:47
Speaker 1: time in the middle of the night. I was on
34:51
Speaker 1: the water by 6 in the morning and I pushed hard.
34:54
Speaker 1: I paddled until my arms gave out, took short breaks,
34:57
Speaker 1: and paddled again. I covered 16 miles that day and
35:01
Speaker 1: took out at the first road access point I could reach,
35:05
Speaker 1: which was not the planned take-out point. It took me
35:09
Speaker 1: a week to stop jumping every time I heard an
35:11
Speaker 1: unexpected sound. I've thought about it so many times. The
35:16
Speaker 1: thing about the river corridor that gets me now is
35:19
Speaker 1: the thing that should have scared me going in. You
35:22
Speaker 1: are visible on the water. Anyone on either bank can
35:25
Speaker 1: see you at all times. A person could follow a
35:28
Speaker 1: kayaker down a river for days and the kayaker would
35:31
Speaker 1: never know. Because you're looking forward, not at the banks.
35:35
Speaker 1: I don't know how long someone had been tracking me
35:37
Speaker 1: on that trip. It might have started that first day.
35:41
Speaker 1: It might have been longer than that. I don't know.
35:46
Speaker 1: Story 8. What we found at mile marker 23. My
35:53
Speaker 1: hiking partner Sarah and I have been doing a section
35:55
Speaker 1: by section completion of a long trail in the southern
35:58
Speaker 1: Appalachians for the past four years. We work it in
36:02
Speaker 1: chunks whenever we can, both get time away. Usually long
36:05
Speaker 1: weekends and the occasional full week. We've covered maybe two-thirds
36:09
Speaker 1: of it at this point. Most of it has been
36:11
Speaker 1: beautiful and uneventful in the best way. One section about
36:15
Speaker 1: two years ago was not. We were doing a four-day
36:19
Speaker 1: stretch that crossed some of the more remote parts of
36:22
Speaker 1: the trail, away from the popular sections that see heavy
36:25
Speaker 1: through-hiker traffic. We weren't expecting much company, and we got
36:29
Speaker 1: very little. Saw three other hikers the entire first day,
36:34
Speaker 1: and nobody after that. On the afternoon of the third day,
36:37
Speaker 1: somewhere around what a trail marker told us was mile
36:41
Speaker 1: 23 for that particular section, we found a pack It
36:45
Speaker 1: was a serious pack, an internal frame, the kind you
36:49
Speaker 1: buy for long, multi-day trips. It was leaning against a
36:53
Speaker 1: tree about ten feet off the trail, as if someone
36:56
Speaker 1: had set it down and walked away. Not dropped. Placed.
37:02
Speaker 1: We stopped and looked at it for a minute without approaching,
37:05
Speaker 1: just taking it in. There was no one nearby. No tent,
37:10
Speaker 1: no sign of a camp. The pack was sitting in
37:13
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere. miles from any trailhead. Sarah and
37:17
Speaker 1: I debated for a minute and then approached it. The
37:20
Speaker 1: pack was loaded. Full, heavy, fully loaded. The hip belt
37:25
Speaker 1: was fastened. The compression straps were done up. Everything was
37:29
Speaker 1: organized and ready to hike. Whoever had set this down
37:32
Speaker 1: had not been planning to leave it. We opened the
37:35
Speaker 1: top pocket. Inside were the usual small items you'd keep accessible.
37:40
Speaker 1: Energy bars, a lighter, a small first aid kit a
37:45
Speaker 1: folded piece of paper. We unfolded the paper. It was
37:49
Speaker 1: a hand-drawn map, detailed, careful. It showed a section of
37:55
Speaker 1: terrain that did not correspond to the trail we were on,
37:58
Speaker 1: a different set of ridges, a creek, and a location
38:01
Speaker 1: marked with an X. Below the X, written in the
38:05
Speaker 1: same careful hand were the words, Don't come here. We
38:11
Speaker 1: put the paper back. We looked at each other for
38:14
Speaker 1: a moment. We stepped back onto the trail and kept moving.
38:18
Speaker 1: Neither of us suggested anything else. We just kept moving.
38:23
Speaker 1: We reported the pack to trail maintenance volunteers when we
38:26
Speaker 1: got out, and eventually it made its way to the
38:28
Speaker 1: local sheriff's department for that county. About a month later,
38:32
Speaker 1: I followed up with a call to that department. They
38:35
Speaker 1: had found the pack's owner through a tag inside. The
38:39
Speaker 1: owner had filed a missing person report, not for themselves,
38:42
Speaker 1: for a friend they'd been hiking with. who had not
38:45
Speaker 1: come back from a solo walk-off trail in that same section.
38:50
Speaker 1: As far as I know, that person was never found.
38:53
Speaker 1: I've wondered for two years who drew that map and
38:56
Speaker 1: who wrote those words. I've wondered if the person who
38:59
Speaker 1: was lost knew about the X on the map and
39:03
Speaker 1: walked toward it anyway, or away from it. I've wondered
39:07
Speaker 1: what is at that location. Sarah and I finished that
39:12
Speaker 1: section on a subsequent trip, and didn't stop at mile 23.
39:15
Speaker 1: We didn't even slow down. Story nine. The last night
39:23
Speaker 1: on Roan Mountain, I was 26, and this was my
39:28
Speaker 1: first solo backpacking trip ever. I want to be upfront
39:32
Speaker 1: about that because it matters. I had done plenty of
39:35
Speaker 1: camping with other people and had good basic skills, but
39:39
Speaker 1: I had never been out overnight completely alone. I chose
39:42
Speaker 1: Roan Mountain in Tennessee partly because I'd read it was
39:45
Speaker 1: stunning and partly because the trail was clear and well-maintained,
39:50
Speaker 1: and I figured I couldn't go too wrong. I was
39:53
Speaker 1: wrong about that. I'm not going to pretend the early
39:56
Speaker 1: part of the trip was anything but great, because it was.
40:00
Speaker 1: The balds on Roan are unlike anything I had seen before.
40:03
Speaker 1: Wide open grassy areas above the tree line with views
40:06
Speaker 1: in every direction. I felt confident and capable all the
40:09
Speaker 1: way up. Made my first camp at the edge of
40:12
Speaker 1: a forest below the bald, cooked a good meal, sat
40:16
Speaker 1: out watching the stars, felt like I had this Whole
40:19
Speaker 1: solo camping thing completely figured out. Day two, I walked
40:24
Speaker 1: the bald and explored, and it was everything I hoped
40:27
Speaker 1: it would be. By mid-afternoon, I was setting up for
40:30
Speaker 1: my second night, this time in the trees a bit
40:33
Speaker 1: further down the mountain to get out of the wind.
40:36
Speaker 1: Still within a reasonable walk of the open bald. This
40:40
Speaker 1: is when I noticed a man watching me. He was
40:44
Speaker 1: at the edge of the tree line, maybe 60 yards away,
40:47
Speaker 1: just standing. Not hiking. Not looking at the view. Looking
40:51
Speaker 1: at me. I noticed him while I was pitching my
40:54
Speaker 1: tent and I stopped what I was doing and looked
40:56
Speaker 1: at him directly. He didn't move or react to being noticed.
41:00
Speaker 1: He just kept watching. After a minute he turned and
41:03
Speaker 1: walked into the trees and was gone. I finished setting
41:07
Speaker 1: up camp and tried not to think too much about it.
41:10
Speaker 1: There were other hikers on the mountain. I'd passed several
41:13
Speaker 1: that day. The man was probably just pausing. Probably just curious.
41:18
Speaker 1: I told myself this for about four hours while I
41:21
Speaker 1: sat at my campsite, increasingly unable to relax. I made
41:25
Speaker 1: dinner and cleaned up and got everything into my bear hang,
41:28
Speaker 1: and was in my tent by 8.30, much earlier than
41:31
Speaker 1: I'd planned. I lay there reading and listening to the
41:34
Speaker 1: wind in the trees. Around 11, I heard footsteps near
41:39
Speaker 1: my tent. Not right outside it, more like someone moving
41:42
Speaker 1: through the trees and maybe 20 or 30 feet away.
41:46
Speaker 1: The footsteps moved around the perimeter of where I'd set up,
41:49
Speaker 1: not in a straight line, in a way that suggested
41:52
Speaker 1: someone circling the campsite. They made a slow circuit and
41:56
Speaker 1: then moved off. I told myself it was an animal.
42:00
Speaker 1: I told myself this very firmly. Forty minutes later, the
42:04
Speaker 1: footsteps came back. Same pattern. A slow circuit of the campsite,
42:10
Speaker 1: staying 20 or 30 feet out in the trees, not
42:13
Speaker 1: approaching but not leaving. This time they stopped on one
42:17
Speaker 1: side of the tent and stayed there for a while,
42:20
Speaker 1: long enough that I stopped telling myself it was an animal.
42:23
Speaker 1: I am not proud of how scared I was. I
42:26
Speaker 1: lay in that tent holding my knife with both hands
42:29
Speaker 1: and trying to remember how to breathe normally. The footsteps
42:34
Speaker 1: eventually moved off again. This time they didn't come back.
42:38
Speaker 1: I stayed awake until four in the morning and then
42:41
Speaker 1: exhaustion took over and I fell asleep. I woke up
42:45
Speaker 1: with the sun and packed up in record time. I
42:48
Speaker 1: was off the mountain and back at the trailhead by nine.
42:51
Speaker 1: On the way down, I passed a man coming up. Middle-aged,
42:55
Speaker 1: hiking alone, no acknowledgement as we passed. I can't say
42:59
Speaker 1: it was the same man I saw watching me from
43:01
Speaker 1: the tree line. I genuinely don't know. The clothing seemed similar,
43:06
Speaker 1: but I can't be sure. What I can say is
43:08
Speaker 1: that the feeling I had in that tent, lying still
43:11
Speaker 1: in the dark while something circled me outside, is one
43:14
Speaker 1: that doesn't fully go away. I've done six or seven
43:18
Speaker 1: more solo trips since then. I go, I camp. But
43:22
Speaker 1: I am different out there than I was before that trip.
43:26
Speaker 1: I am more careful, more aware, and I have a
43:29
Speaker 1: much clearer understanding of what it means to be alone
43:31
Speaker 1: somewhere where no one knows exactly where you are. I
43:36
Speaker 1: still love backpacking. I'm not going to stop. But I
43:40
Speaker 1: will never again be the person who sets out thinking
43:43
Speaker 1: nothing can go wrong story 10 the photographs i want
43:53
Speaker 1: to preface this by saying i still don't have a
43:55
Speaker 1: complete explanation for what happened i've gone back and forth
43:59
Speaker 1: on whether to submit this because one piece of it
44:01
Speaker 1: is so strange that i worry it's going to undermine
44:04
Speaker 1: the rest but i've decided to just tell it as
44:07
Speaker 1: accurately as i can and let you draw your own
44:09
Speaker 1: conclusions my name isn't important What matters is that I'm
44:14
Speaker 1: a woman in my mid-30s, and I've been hiking solo
44:17
Speaker 1: in the Appalachians since I was in college. Twelve years
44:21
Speaker 1: of solo backcountry experience, a lot of it in the
44:24
Speaker 1: mountains of Georgia and North Carolina. I know what I'm
44:28
Speaker 1: doing out there, and I take my safety seriously. I
44:31
Speaker 1: say this not to brag, but to establish that what
44:34
Speaker 1: happened to me was not a result of inexperience or carelessness.
44:40
Speaker 1: Two summers ago, I did a six-day solo trip in
44:43
Speaker 1: the Chattahoochee National Forest in northern Georgia, moving through a
44:47
Speaker 1: remote section of trail that sees very little traffic. Day
44:51
Speaker 1: one through day three were completely normal. Hot, beautiful, hard miles,
44:56
Speaker 1: no other hikers. I was deep enough in by the
44:58
Speaker 1: third night that I hadn't seen a road or structure
45:01
Speaker 1: since the first day. On the morning of day four,
45:04
Speaker 1: I woke up and came out of my tent to
45:06
Speaker 1: get water from a nearby creek and found a digital
45:09
Speaker 1: camera sitting on the flat rock I'd been using as
45:11
Speaker 1: a prep surface the night before. just sitting there. A
45:16
Speaker 1: small point-and-shoot camera, relatively new, no case, left in the
45:20
Speaker 1: center of the rock like a gift left out deliberately.
45:24
Speaker 1: I stood there for a long time looking at it.
45:27
Speaker 1: I'd heard nothing in the night. There had been no
45:30
Speaker 1: sign of anyone else in the area. And yet here
45:33
Speaker 1: was this camera that had not been there when I
45:36
Speaker 1: went to bed. Against what was probably good judgment, I
45:40
Speaker 1: picked it up. It was a standard camera, no identifying
45:44
Speaker 1: marks on the outside. I turned it on. The battery
45:48
Speaker 1: was about half charged. I went to the photo viewer.
45:52
Speaker 1: There were 43 photographs on the camera. The first 30
45:57
Speaker 1: or so were mundane. Landscape shots, trail photos, what looked
46:01
Speaker 1: like images from several different hiking trips. Over what I
46:04
Speaker 1: guessed was a period of years based on the varying foliage.
46:08
Speaker 1: A few photos of what appeared to be a campsite.
46:11
Speaker 1: Nothing alarming. The last 12 photographs were of me, all
46:16
Speaker 1: taken in the previous three days. I recognized the locations immediately.
46:22
Speaker 1: The creek crossing on day one, the open ridge I'd
46:26
Speaker 1: crossed on day two, my campsite from the night before.
46:30
Speaker 1: In several of the photos, I was close enough to
46:32
Speaker 1: the camera that whoever took them had been within 30
46:35
Speaker 1: or 40 feet of me without my knowing it. In
46:39
Speaker 1: one of them, I was asleep in my tent, and
46:41
Speaker 1: the image had been taken through the mesh panel on
46:44
Speaker 1: the tent door. I could see my own face in
46:47
Speaker 1: the photograph. I put the camera in my pack, broke
46:51
Speaker 1: camp in about eight minutes, and did not stop walking
46:54
Speaker 1: for five hours. I covered 18 miles that day, the
46:59
Speaker 1: most miles I've ever done in a single day with
47:01
Speaker 1: a full pack. I came out at a forest service road,
47:05
Speaker 1: flagged down a passing truck, and got a ride to
47:08
Speaker 1: the nearest town. I reported the camera to the local
47:11
Speaker 1: sheriff's department along with the photographs. They took it seriously,
47:15
Speaker 1: took a report, kept the camera as evidence. I gave
47:18
Speaker 1: a full account of where I'd camped each night and
47:21
Speaker 1: which trails I'd been on. A deputy drove me back
47:24
Speaker 1: to retrieve my car from the trailhead where I'd parked
47:28
Speaker 1: at the start of the trip. As far as I know,
47:31
Speaker 1: no one was ever identified or charged. The deputy I
47:34
Speaker 1: dealt with was professional and took everything seriously, but he
47:38
Speaker 1: also told me that Without more information, there wasn't a
47:41
Speaker 1: lot they could do. I never heard back from that
47:43
Speaker 1: department with any update. I have not done a solo
47:47
Speaker 1: trip in Georgia since. I've gone back to Virginia and
47:50
Speaker 1: North Carolina, where I have more established trail networks and
47:54
Speaker 1: more familiarity with the terrain and the people. I've told
47:58
Speaker 1: myself that what happened was an isolated incident, that there
48:01
Speaker 1: is no reason to believe I would encounter something like
48:04
Speaker 1: that again. Most days, I believe that. but I still
48:08
Speaker 1: think about whoever was 30 feet away from me while
48:11
Speaker 1: I slept, close enough to photograph my face through the
48:14
Speaker 1: door of my tent, and then walked away and left
48:17
Speaker 1: the evidence sitting on a rock for me to find
48:20
Speaker 1: in the morning like they wanted me to know. That's
48:23
Speaker 1: the part that I can't make sense of. They left
48:26
Speaker 1: it there on purpose. What does that mean? I've turned
48:30
Speaker 1: it over in my mind hundreds of times, and I've
48:32
Speaker 1: never come up with an answer that doesn't keep me awake.
48:37
Speaker 1: Story 11 The road that wasn't on the map. My
48:41
Speaker 1: brother and I have a tradition of doing one big
48:43
Speaker 1: camping trip together every year. We grew up in Kentucky
48:47
Speaker 1: and have spent a lot of time in the Daniel
48:50
Speaker 1: Boone National Forest and the Red River Gorge area. But
48:53
Speaker 1: a few years back, we started pushing further into the Appalachians,
48:57
Speaker 1: trying sections of trail we'd never been on. We're both
49:01
Speaker 1: in our 40s now, experienced enough to handle most of
49:03
Speaker 1: what the backcountry throws at you, and we've had our
49:05
Speaker 1: share of hard trips. Weather, injuries, wrong turns. We've managed.
49:11
Speaker 1: What happened on this trip was different because it didn't
49:14
Speaker 1: feel like something nature did to us. It felt like
49:17
Speaker 1: something a person did. This was a five-hour trip. trip
49:21
Speaker 1: in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, moving through a section
49:24
Speaker 1: of trail that cuts through some genuinely remote terrain. The
49:28
Speaker 1: kind of country where old family land and national forest
49:31
Speaker 1: overlap in complicated ways. Where you cross from public land
49:35
Speaker 1: to private land and back again. And the boundaries aren't
49:38
Speaker 1: always obvious. We've hiked in areas like that before, and
49:43
Speaker 1: we know to be respectful, stay on the trail, don't
49:46
Speaker 1: camp near posted land. The first two days went without incident.
49:51
Speaker 1: On the morning of the third day, we came to
49:53
Speaker 1: a section of trail that should, according to our map,
49:56
Speaker 1: have crossed a forest service road, passed through a small clearing,
50:00
Speaker 1: and continued up a hollow toward a ridgeline. That's what
50:03
Speaker 1: the map showed. What we actually found was a gate,
50:08
Speaker 1: a heavy steel gate across the trail, padlocked with a
50:11
Speaker 1: hand-painted sign on it that said, Private. Do not enter.
50:16
Speaker 1: The gate ran into a fence on either side, maybe
50:19
Speaker 1: a hundred yards of chain link in both directions, cutting
50:22
Speaker 1: directly across the trail corridor. We stood there looking at
50:27
Speaker 1: it for a while. The trail was supposed to continue
50:30
Speaker 1: through here. It was on the map. It was a
50:33
Speaker 1: maintained trail. We'd confirmed it with the ranger station before
50:36
Speaker 1: we left. And here was this gate. My brother walked
50:40
Speaker 1: the fence line looking for a way around. The fence
50:43
Speaker 1: was solid and well-maintained, and the terrain on either side
50:47
Speaker 1: was dense enough that getting around it would have meant
50:49
Speaker 1: serious bushwhacking on a hillside. I tried my phone. No signal.
50:55
Speaker 1: We had a satellite communicator, but using it to call
50:57
Speaker 1: for a ranger response over a locked gate felt like
51:00
Speaker 1: an overreaction. We were standing there debating our options when
51:06
Speaker 1: I noticed the truck. It was parked in the trees
51:09
Speaker 1: on the other side of the gate, maybe 50 yards back.
51:12
Speaker 1: An old pickup, dark green, partially obscured by the undergrowth.
51:17
Speaker 1: It had been there for a while, judging by the
51:19
Speaker 1: leaves on the hood. And there was someone in it.
51:24
Speaker 1: I could see the silhouette of a person in the
51:26
Speaker 1: driver's seat, sitting perfectly still, watching us. I pointed it
51:30
Speaker 1: out to my brother quietly. He saw it. Neither of
51:34
Speaker 1: us said anything for a moment. I raised a hand
51:37
Speaker 1: in a wave, The silhouette didn't move. We discussed quietly
51:43
Speaker 1: with our backs to the truck. What to do? The
51:48
Speaker 1: presence of a person sitting in a parked vehicle, watching
51:52
Speaker 1: us through a locked gate in the middle of the woods,
51:54
Speaker 1: not responding to acknowledgement, not getting out, not saying anything,
51:59
Speaker 1: was enough to make both of us agree that we
52:01
Speaker 1: didn't want to stay where we were. We backtracked about
52:05
Speaker 1: two miles to a junction we'd passed that morning and
52:08
Speaker 1: took a different route, adding several miles to our day.
52:12
Speaker 1: It was late afternoon before we found a reasonable campsite,
52:15
Speaker 1: and by then, we'd both been quiet for a long time,
52:18
Speaker 1: just processing. Around nine that night and after dinner and
52:22
Speaker 1: fire and some time to decompress, my brother said he'd
52:26
Speaker 1: noticed something at the gate that he hadn't mentioned at
52:29
Speaker 1: the time because he wasn't sure what to make of it.
52:32
Speaker 1: Hanging from the padlock on the gate, he'd seen a
52:35
Speaker 1: length of cord, and at the end of the cord,
52:37
Speaker 1: tied carefully, was a small bundle of what looked like
52:41
Speaker 1: dried plant material and what might have been small bones.
52:45
Speaker 1: He'd thought it was odd, but hadn't wanted to say
52:48
Speaker 1: it out loud at the time, standing 50 yards from
52:51
Speaker 1: someone in a truck who wasn't moving. I don't know
52:54
Speaker 1: what to make of any of it. The gate blocking
52:57
Speaker 1: a legitimate trail, the truck, the figure that wouldn't acknowledge us,
53:02
Speaker 1: the thing hanging from the lock. Individually, each of those
53:06
Speaker 1: things might have an explanation Together, they made us both
53:10
Speaker 1: feel like we had stumbled into something we were not
53:12
Speaker 1: supposed to see, and that whoever owned that gate was
53:15
Speaker 1: making it very clear that we should go a different way.
53:19
Speaker 1: We finished the trip. We went home. I filed a
53:22
Speaker 1: report with the Forest Service about the trail obstruction, which
53:25
Speaker 1: was a legitimate issue regardless of everything else. They told
53:29
Speaker 1: me they'd look into it. I've checked back twice since then.
53:34
Speaker 1: The trail is still closed at that point. I don't
53:37
Speaker 1: know if it ever got resolved, and I've never gone
53:39
Speaker 1: back to that area to find out. If these stories
53:43
Speaker 1: have you second-guessing your next camping trip, drop a comment
53:47
Speaker 1: below telling us where you camp and what trail you've
53:50
Speaker 1: had your most uncomfortable experience on. We read every single comment,
53:55
Speaker 1: and some of the best ones find their way into
53:57
Speaker 1: future videos. Before you go, if any of these stories
54:02
Speaker 1: sound familiar because something similar happened to you, or if
54:05
Speaker 1: you have your own experiences, from the Appalachian region that
54:08
Speaker 1: you've been wanting to get off your chest, send it
54:10
Speaker 1: to us. The link is in the description. Every submission
54:14
Speaker 1: is read. We don't share names or identifying information without permission,
54:19
Speaker 1: and we keep everything confidential. The stories on this channel
54:22
Speaker 1: exist because people trusted us with them, and we take
54:25
Speaker 1: that seriously. Send us yours.