I went in late September because that's when the Smokies feel
honest to me. Cool mornings, dry leaves, and
fewer people clogging the pull outs.
I had one night free and wanted something simple.
Park in Cades Cove before dawn, walk out to Abrams Falls as a
warm up, then keep going and take Cooper Rd. to a numbered
Backcountry site near Abrams Creek.
I had my printed permit in a zip bag, a paper map folded to the
right quadrant, and the basics. Small stove, aluminum pot, a
handful of cotton pads in a freezer bag with a little fuel
on them in case weather turned, 50 feet of line for a food hang,
and a headlamp with batteries I should have replaced 2 trips
ago. I wasn't there to prove
anything, I just wanted quiet, 1 campfire and the kind of sleep
you only get after a long walk. I rolled into the Loop Rd. in
the dark and parked at the Abrams Falls trailhead.
There's a rhythm to getting ready at that hour.
Open the door. The Dome light hits your eyes.
You breathe once and see your breath in it.
Then you shut everything down and let the night settle.
I tied my boots on the bumper, cinched my pack and stepped onto
the trail right as the sky went from black to that flat early
Gray. Abrams Falls Trail is familiar
roots at bad angles, a path that hangs above the Creek in spots
where a stumble would be stupid, and stretches where you forget
about your legs because the sound of water keeps pace with
you. I reached the falls before
anyone else. The pool threw a little cold
onto my face and I didn't linger because slick rock and trail
runners at that hour is a good way to make the Ranger report.
I ate half a bar and turned to leave.
That's where I met him, thin in spotless trail runners and a
nylon wind shirt without a speck of dust on it.
Not just clean, new clean. I figured he'd started from the
loop Rd. after me and moved faster.
Normal enough, he asked about the trail conditions with a
friendly tone and then shifted the topic a degree at a time
until he was asking if I was camping, which site I liked,
whether I was alone, and how heavy my food bag felt.
He smiled a lot while he asked. It was a bright white smile and
it didn't match how still the rest of him was.
I don't give strangers my plan, I said.
I was just stretching my legs and had a long drive ahead.
I angled my body so he couldn't look into the side pockets of my
pack. When he shifted his weight,
something swung on a cord, short, curved, with a small
handle. Not a pocket knife, more like a
hook. He let it dangle for a second,
as if he was used to fidgeting with it.
I said I should get moving, wished him a good hike, and
walked. I didn't look back.
If you've been out enough, you learn what to feed and what not
to feed. I wasn't feeding that back at
the junctions near the Loop Rd. I picked up Cooper Rd.
It feels like an old track because it is wide in places,
rutted in others with leaf packed lanes where you can go
side by side if you have company.
I didn't. The day turned warm and still.
I passed 2 birders walking out and we traded a quick hello.
After that it was just the slap of my shoes on hard dirt and the
steady rush of the Creek somewhere off to the right.
The site near Abrams Creek looked textbook.
A compact clearing with a stone ring, a flat spot for a shelter,
and plenty of downed wood if you were willing to walk a bit.
Before I dropped my pack, I did the same loop I always do around
a new camp. That's when I saw the boot
prints. Not a lot of them, just enough
to be clear. A narrow tread had walked
circles inside the fire ring area.
Not like someone tending a fire, more like someone standing and
pacing while they waited. The prints were crisp, edges
sharp, no smudge from mud. A line of them ended at a tree
where the bark had a scuff at knee height, like someone had
leaned there for a while. Backcountry sights in the
Smokies get a lot of traffic, so I told myself it could be
nothing. I set up anyway, because it was
late to rethink the plan. I pitched low and clean and hung
my food with my own line. I kept the fire small and tight,
with a little pile of split wood within easy reach.
I raked a bare strip of earth in front of the ring, more out of
habit than anything, and set the freezer bag of cotton pads where
my boot could find it without me having to look.
I put water within reach, laid my small fixed blade on top of
the stove bag so I wouldn't have to dig, and decided to keep the
headlamp off as much as possible so my eyes could do the work for
me. I knew if I left now, I'd put
myself somewhere in the worst part of the walk at the worst
time of day. That's how people get lost or
turned around, and I wasn't doing that.
Dusk in that clearing wasn't dramatic.
The light just went thin and the shadows got simple.
I kept the fire healthy and steady and tried to read a map I
already knew, pretending I needed to think about the next
day's miles. That's when something tapped the
side of my aluminum pot. Not a pine cone, they aren't
there anyway, and not an acorn dropping straight down.
It was a small Pebble hit from the side Ting, the kind of sound
that doesn't happen by chance twice.
The second one came a few minutes later, on the other side
of my setup, the side I wasn't facing.
I didn't say a word. I didn't aim my light.
I just shifted my weight and fed the fire and listened.
No voices, no taunts. Leaves moved here and there.
Quiet, careful moves that didn't match a raccoon shuffle or a
squirrel's hop. The trick after dark is not
hunting every sound. You pick the ones that are
wrong. I tracked him by what stopped a
patch where the chorus of night insects went dead quiet all at
once. The dry crease of a leaf when
weight rolls off the ball of a foot.
The timing of his pauses when I turned my head.
He was smart about it. He made slow arcs around the
limit of the fire light, testing where the shadows fell and where
I never aimed my gaze for more than a second.
A few times he got close enough that the tarp slung across his
shoulders picked up a dull shine from the coals.
He stood behind trees and use them like Shields.
When the fire popped, he went still, Not startled, just
adjusting to hold in place without noise.
He never said anything. That part bothered me more than
if he had. If someone's trying to scare
you, they talk, they announce themselves.
This was different. This was patience.
I pictured the man from the falls, those two clean shoes,
that bright smile, the corded hook, and I stopped telling
myself it might be someone else. I placed one hand near the
freezer bag and kept the other near a stout stick I'd been
using to rake the coals. My plan wasn't fancy.
If he came in close I'd give myself a bright wall in a few
seconds, and I'd use those seconds to leave without
falling. Sometime after midnight, I
finally saw his face cleanly. The fire had settled into a low,
steady burn, and my eyes were used to the dark.
He stepped into the edge of the light not far away. 2 body
lengths passed my shelter, angled so a trunk split his body
in half from my view. He wore the tarp like a shawl
now, the windshirt unzipped. He looked thinner than he had at
the falls, but that's how faces look when the light is low and
you're seeing bone and shadow. He smiled the same bright smile,
quick and full, like he was happy to be recognized.
The hook swung once, and then his fingers closed around it
until I could only see the cord. He moved again, slow and
careful, and when I didn't chase him with my light, he took a
half step closer. There's a point on nights like
that where you're thinking goes flat.
All the what ifs just stack and you pick a line because not
picking one is worse. I'd raked that bare earth strip
in front of the fire for a reason.
I had my little fuel soaked cotton pads right where my boot
could find them. My water was ready.
My pack sat behind me with the straps untangled.
I waited until the fire began to droop and the coals glowed
without much flame. He took the bait, or maybe he
would have anyway. He leaned in to make a slow pass
toward the side of my shelter, like he was tracing the edge of
where the light ended. I didn't warn him.
I didn't say anything out loud. I put my boot into the ring and
kicked the brightest coals forward onto the pads they took.
Instantly the flame lifted fast and clean, a shoulder high sheet
that lit the trunks and threw everything into simple shapes.
He flinched and snapped up the tarp to cover his face.
He stumbled on a route and let out a short breath through his
teeth and that was enough. I stamped the ring's edge once
to make sure the flare stayed on bare dirt, grabbed my pack, and
stepped onto the line I'd picked for the exit.
I didn't run hard right away. I gave myself enough time to see
the ground and then widened my stride once I hit Cooper Rd.,
where it's broad and clear. The 1st 50 yards felt like
running in a tunnel. The trail has a center groove
where the leaves and dust get packed down, and I kept to that
dead center. I didn't cut corners.
I didn't take shortcuts. I counted footfalls to the next
bend and then the next because numbers were something I could
control. Behind me I heard one stick
snap. Then silence again.
He was moving, but not rushing. That was worse.
That meant he was keeping pace and waiting for me to mess up.
It was still dark enough that my headlamp would have blinded me
more than it would have helped, so I left it off and kept my
eyes soft. After a while the trail tilted
and widened and I let myself move faster.
Air pulled hard in and out. I kept my hands free and my
packs snug so it wouldn't bounce and throw me off.
I passed a junction I recognized even in the dim light and it
felt like a switch. Flipped the loop.
Rd. wasn't far. The smell changed.
Less leaf, more cold exhaust from the road waking up.
A few birds started up, and even though that's just the clock of
the place, it felt like the world had opened a door.
Cade's Cove slid into view, Gray and then silver, and then the
color of mourning. A green truck with the park
shield on the door rolled around the bend.
I stepped into the road and waved both arms.
The Ranger took one look at me and stopped.
I didn't try to make it sound normal, I said.
There's a man at the Backcountry site near Abrams Creek.
He followed me in after dark. He never spoke.
He had a hook on a cord, a tarp, zip ties maybe.
He threw pebbles at my pot to see where I was.
I was talking fast and I could hear how it sounded, which made
me talk faster. He said get in and keyed the
radio as we turned around. We went back slow with another
Ranger meeting us at the trailhead.
They were calm in that way people are when they've dealt
with worse. I walked them to the site and
tried not to fill silence with guesses.
My fire ring was cool and contained the bare earth strip,
blackened but clean around it. My shelter footprint was empty,
30 yards off the trail, tucked into a root ball where the
ground had hollowed out. One of the Rangers found a
stash, a cheap bivvy, a coil of zip ties, a small folding saw
with fresh bark, dust in the teeth, and jerky.
Not backpacker jerky, gas station stuff. 1 Ranger walked a
slow spiral around the clearing while the other kept talking
into the radio. You missing anything?
He asked. I did a mental inventory and
came up one thing short. My camp towel, I said.
He repeated it into the radio, possibly wearing a blue
microfiber towel. It felt strange to hear my towel
called out like evidence, but it was something to anchor to.
We packed the stash into a bag and hiked out.
I wrote my statement in a small office at the Townsend side that
smelled like coffee and wet wool.
They had me go through it twice and sign.
I was still shaking, but it was the kind of shaking that happens
after you're safe. Your body catches up and tells
you what it thinks about what you did.
While we were finishing up, someone leaned into the doorway
and said they had a thin male on the shoulder near Townsend with
a tarp slung over one shoulder and a blue towel around his neck
like a scarf. He didn't argue when they
stopped him. He didn't admit anything either.
He acted like a guy who had gone for a long walk and was being
inconvenienced. That was the whole point for me.
He wasn't mysterious. He was a man who liked the dark,
who enjoyed how close he could get without tripping an alarm,
who had the patience to stand in one spot long enough to scuff
bark at his knee. That's worse than any story
where you can write it off as something strange and nameless.
This had a face I'd seen at the Falls, shoes without dust and a
smile that stayed the same whether he was on a busy trail
or inside the edge of my camp. I drove home that afternoon by
myself. The road out of Townsend always
feels longer than the way in. I had the window down, even
though the air had cooled off, because I wanted the noise.
I kept seeing his hands, one holding that little hook and
then hiding it when he thought I wasn't watching.
I saw the tarp flash when the flame went up.
I thought about how quiet he stayed and how long he would
have waited if I'd let the fire die all the way.
I know the Smokies. I'll go back.
I'll change my batteries sooner, and I'll keep doing the boring
stuff like raking bare dirt in front of a fire ring and staging
water where I can reach it. That's not paranoia.
That's the price of being out there alone.
It's easy to tell yourself you'll be fine because you've
always been fine. It's harder to admit that
sometimes someone else has already picked you as their
evenings plan and is just waiting for your plan to get a
little weaker. To the thin man who followed me
from Abrams Falls to Cooper Rd. and smiled at me from the edge
of my camp. Let's not meet.
Here's how it happened and I'll tell it plain.
I live down in Phoenix. I go north when the air cools
and the leaves get a little color around Lake Mary Rd.
That weekend I aimed for Marshall Lake, the dispersed
spots you can grab in Coconino National Forest east of
Flagstaff. I had a small tent, a steel pot,
a little stove and enough wood for a modest fire.
It wasn't my first solo night up there, not by a long shot.
I wanted quiet sky, orange grass, early elk and a shot at
some sunrise views. Nothing fancy.
At the gas station on the way, one of those small places past
upper Lake Mary, an older guy filling a jug told me don't
sleep next to the game trails. He didn't smile, he didn't wink.
He just put his jug back in the truck and drove off.
I filed it under local advice. Good to hear.
Easy to ignore and kept going. I turned off Lake Mary Rd. onto
a grated spur and rolled toward Marshall Lake.
The water was low, as it often is, so there were broad flats of
dry grass and dark cinders. You know that surface around
Flagstaff? Black and rust red pellets that
hold a boot print like a stamp. Between the patches of
evergreens and the grass, I found what looked like a natural
lane cut through the trees, straight, as if animals wore it
down year after year. It felt convenient, close to the
water, open sight lines, quick walk to the car.
If the wind came up, I picked it without a second thought.
I set the tent on the upwind side.
I kept the fire small and steady.
The car was pointed nose out for a fast exit.
That's a habit I learned from windy nights.
I boiled water for tea, let the camp settle around me, and
listened. Somewhere off toward Mormon
Lake, a bull elk sent out that high bugle, thin and silver in
the evening. It's a sound that makes you feel
small in a good way. Right before dark, a coyote cut
across the edge of my sight. It wasn't healthy.
Ribs sharp, fur patchy, one leg moving with a hitch.
It crossed the lane, ducked behind a log and eased into the
trees like it had a map and was late.
I watched it go, made a note to keep my food clothes tight, and
went back to the kettle. When I came back from tossing
the first cup of water, I saw prints I did not like.
I'm no tracker. I can pick deer from elk and dog
from cat. Most of the time these prints
didn't sit right in the head. They were in my camp.
They cut a line straight through the loose cinders, then looped,
then crossed that same line again, like someone had paced
the exact track twice. No heel to speak of.
The pressure was up front ball heavy toes pressed deep enough
to show splay at the turns. The stride was longer than I
wanted to see. I told myself the cinders played
tricks. Dry soil smears, you know.
I added wood and sat so I could watch both the lakeside and the
forest lane. Keys into the right jacket
pocket, headlamp around my neck with the switch tucked inside my
collar so it wouldn't flash and kill my night vision.
Boil, pour, breathe. The kettle hissed, The wind
brushed the grass. Normal night sounds.
I told myself that twice. It took until full dark for the
smell to arrive. It wasn't skunk.
It wasn't rot. Imagine a wet dog that spent a
month in iron water, sour with a bite to it.
It sifted in on the breeze, faded, then crept back.
I lifted my head like a dog would, which made me laugh at
myself a little. Then I stopped laughing because
the smell thickened and I could hear steps.
Not the quick trot of javelina, not the scatter of raccoon, not
the do I run or don't I of a deer lifting its hooves.
These were steady and measured. Pause, move, pause.
You could tap your finger to it. It circled just outside, the
glow staying where the fire light got thin and Gray.
It didn't rush. It didn't bluff.
I couldn't pin it on any animal I knew by the sound alone, and
that bothered me more than the smell.
I stood and let the kettle go again.
The little pinpoints of water formed steam and drifted.
The steps halted. I took three slow paces toward
the lane and set the kettle back on the rock.
Then I saw a shape, low and wide behind a stump just inside the
shade. The stump threw.
It rose in a single motion higher than my car's roof, and
then it dropped to all fours and flattened until it vanished into
the dark strip between two trunks.
No bark, no grunt, only the sound of the grass parting.
I put both hands on my hips, like that was going to help, and
felt for my keys. I made a plan, and I set it in
my head like a checklist. Keep the fire up.
Keep the water near a boil. Three steps to the driver door.
Don't fumble the handle. Don't trip on the cord.
Get in lights on drive. I practiced the motion to the
car once with the headlamp off so I didn't blind myself.
It felt clumsy and loud. I told myself I was being
dramatic and sat back down. The steps started again.
Pause, move, pause. They tracked the same curve as
before. I could tell because the sound
landed against the same burned log, the same rock, the same
strip of dry grass. It was tracing its own line.
I've seen dogs do that while circling, but the speed here was
wrong. It wasn't nervous.
It was waiting. I tipped the kettle, filled the
pot to the top, and let it roll at a near boil.
The smell drifted in thicker, backed out and returned like the
breeze was giving me warnings. I wasn't going to handle it with
warnings. I stood when it did.
There was no growl, no display. The shape simply came.
It moved low and in the first 3 yards I lost how many steps it
took because it covered ground too fast for me to count.
The grass made a tight rushing sound, like someone skimming a
blanket over a floor. I didn't scream.
I didn't even spare a look left or right.
I grabbed the pot and hurled the whole rolling boil into the dark
and ran. I hit the driver door.
Keys were already in my hand the way I trained my brain.
The fob clicked, the handle came and I threw myself into the seat
with my knees tight to keep my feet from kicking the dash.
Ignition lights drive the high beams cut a white cone over the
lane I used to pitch the tent. I don't tell this part big, I
tell it exact. I saw a long thing wrong at the
joints, halfway upright, with both elbows lifted high, like it
had started standing and changed its mind.
It flashed pale at the front, as if its face or chest had less
hair. The lights hit it, and for the
blink of a blink it reared taller, taller than a man.
Then it folded to all fours and slid out of the cone with a
motion that did not look like a run.
Not like any run, I know. It didn't kick dirt, it didn't
buck. It glided, and it was fast.
I took the turn to the spur harder than I wanted.
My back tires barked on the cinders and the car sloughed,
caught and straightened. I could feel the open space to
my right, the flats of the low lake bed, and I kept the left
tires on the packed line. Back to Lake Mary Rd. up onto
the pavement and then to the big pull out where trucks sometimes
idle and anglers park in the morning.
I left the engine running. I cracked the window 1/2 inch
and watch nothing for an hour. Light comes slow when you want
it fast. When the sky softened, I eased
back to the highway and flagged down a Coconino County unit
deputy on early patrol. He asked what I had.
I told him plain. Not a show, not a ghost tale.
Just the tracks, the smell, the measured steps, the charge.
He didn't make a face. He didn't say I was crazy.
He said he'd heard a handful of calls out there about something
big moving through the gaps in the trees.
He said let's go pack you out. We drove in together.
The sight was quiet, like nothing had happened.
The ground told a little truth, but not as much as I wanted.
The long line of tracks I'd seen was there in pieces, but the
clearest parts were smeared in a way that didn't match the rest
of the surface, like someone had dragged a boot sideways to blur
the toes and break the spacing. The deputy squatted, looked, and
stood. He said Could be a dog, could be
a person messing around. Either way, don't camp at the
mouth of these lanes. Everything that moves will use
them. It's a bad place to sleep.
He didn't need to tell me twice. We packed fast, tent down, bag
in the trunk, ash scattered, ring soaked.
He didn't write a report in front of me and I didn't push
for one. He left me with the same advice
the man at the gas station gave. Don't sleep near the game
trails. I pulled back onto Lake Mary Rd.
kept my eyes on the trees without looking too long, and
took I-17. SI didn't stop for coffee in
town. I didn't even play the radio.
I let the road spool out under me and kept a steady 65 till the
desert took over and the smell of dry creosote replaced
whatever that was in my nose. Now I still camp in Arizona.
I go back to Flagstaff. I visit upper Lake Mary for the
fall rut, and I walk the banks where the water sits low and the
shore turns to crackled mud. I love that country.
But I don't pitch near those narrow cuts through the trees
anymore, those lanes that feel like easy access for whatever
uses them. I park nose out every single
time, even in calm weather. And I don't sleep alone out
there at Marshall Lake. Not again.
You'll ask me what it was. I won't gold plate it.
I won't build a myth where I don't need one.
All I'll say is this. I saw a shape stand and drop in
one breath and I saw it cross a gap.
Like distance didn't cost it anything.
The Prince cared about the ball of the foot and not the heel.
The smell was wrong, the patience was worse.
A word someone once gave me lives in the back of my head for
a thing like that skinwalker. And I don't say it out loud up
there. So if you're set on a night by
Marshall Lake, go. It's beautiful when the sky
clears and you can hear elk pick their way through grass.
Build a small fire. Keep it safe.
But when you pick your spot, don't sleep in the mouth of a
lane that cuts the trees. If you were sitting where I sat,
with a pot just shy of boiling and the hair lifting at the base
of your neck for reasons you can't name, you'd want those
extra steps between you and whatever uses that path.
And if anything comes in, quiet with pause, move, pause.
Go ahead and make your plan before it's on the edge of your
light. That's all I've got.
That's how it happened, and that's why I don't camp alone on
that lake anymore. I'm writing this down because I
don't want to forget the small choices we made, the ones that
seem harmless until they add up. Four of us, me, Tyler, Jess and
Mark, planned a simple overnighter on the Minister
Creek Loop in Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest late
October, a Friday cool enough that our breath showed up in
headlamp beams. We'd hiked pieces of the loop
before. It's the one off PA666, with the
footbridge and those big sandstone outcrops that look
like stacked bread loaves. Hunting season was close, so
we'd clipped orange beanies to our packs.
Nothing about it felt risky. 6 or 7 miles.
Plenty of bailout points to the road.
An easy spot to test our cold weather layers and get home by
lunch the next day. We parked by the trailhead
around 2:30. Signed the register because
that's what you're supposed to do.
Shouldered packs and talked about where to camp.
One of the flat spots tucked near the rocks on the north side
of the Creek. There was a man at the kiosk,
leaning on a pale green pickup, mid 40s maybe.
Stubble, canvas jacket, work boots.
Not sloppy, alert in a way that made me think of someone
counting things for a living. He watched us gear up like he
was taking inventory, the way our hip belt sat, how the weight
rode our shoulders. He called himself the caretaker
and said he kept an eye on people who stayed too long.
His tone wasn't a joke. When Tyler asked if he was a
camp host, he said not official and looked past us down the
trail like the conversation was already over.
He didn't try to sell us firewood or give the usual
warnings about water levels. He just watched.
We made a few jokes about it once we crossed the footbridge
and climbed into the leaf litter.
That kind of thing works better in daylight.
We chose a cluster of rock formations with two flat,
already used tent pads and a few logs set around a ring of
stones. It was after four by then.
There was a neat stack of wood waiting.
The cuts were uniform lengths matched to the inch, the kind of
stack you see in front of cabins.
It would have felt generous in a different context.
Jess was the one who noticed. Every piece had a shallow notch
carved in about the same place, a hand span from one end.
Most had a small nick. A few had deeper cuts.
Four of those were deeper. We decided to leave the mystery
stack alone and cut our own deadfall, which cost us 20
minutes of daylight we should have saved.
While we set up, we started misplacing tiny things.
One glove from a pair, a loose boot lace mark kept for
emergencies, a cardboard matchbook Tyler swore he'd
already put by the stove. No big failures, just friction.
We told ourselves it was wind or our own clumsiness, and made a
mental note to check for raccoons.
The Creek ran steady behind us. The trail was quiet, I carried
bottles to filter, and when I looked up at the ledge above
camp I caught a small glint, a sharp, quick flash of light low
to the rock. It could have been foil, it
could have been mica, it could have been a watch face.
When I aimed my headlamp there later, all I saw were ledges and
shadow. I didn't say anything right
away, because saying it makes it real, and because I didn't want
to be the one who started the scare.
We ate, kept the fire small and talked low.
Around 7, the wind went still. You know the way the forest gets
when the temperature drops and the leaves go flat.
It was that at 9. I stood to toss on a branch and
felt something cinch at my right ankle, tight and fine, a
pressure that turned into a bite when I tried to pull free.
I froze. Tyler slid his light across the
ground and found the line monofilament fishing line strung
low through brush and under a root, tied off to a stake at the
edge of the tent pad. It was positioned exactly where
you'd shuffle through half awake on your way toward the trees.
The line ran uphill toward the rocks and vanished into the
leaves like it had been cut from the far end.
The moment I felt it, we followed it 2 steps and decided
that was enough. We cut the loop off my boot and
put the piece in a zip bag for later, which sounds overly
careful until you're there. Once you know to look, you start
seeing the pattern. There was a second line, set
looser on the game trail behind camp that would tangle shins if
you moved fast. Jess found a tuna can tucked
under a root with three small pebbles inside, placed so one
kick would rattle loud enough to draw a flashlight.
We weren't dealing with a prank, We were being mapped.
We checked our gear and found more signs of handling.
Tyler's knife sheath was missing from the outside of his pack.
The knife was on his belt, but the sheath had been removed
carefully, like someone wanted to know if he was paying
attention. Jess's whistle lanyard had been
re tied shorter with a knot none of us used that day.
I don't know how to describe that feeling except to say it
made me want to put my back against stone and make our
circle smaller. Around 1:00 in the morning I saw
a human outline on the Ridge above us.
Not a face, a chest and head, shoulders flattened against the
pale rock, angled toward our fire.
It held steady for A5 count, then lowered out of view.
No words, no demands. It felt like a test of whether
we'd acknowledge it. We didn't.
We talked it through in low voices and drew a new plan.
Leave before first light. No big packs, just the
essentials in jacket pockets and one small day pack.
We'd stash the rest under a rock shelf we could describe to a
Ranger. Later.
We'd cut E off the loop to A2 track we had marked on the map.
Follow that down to a Forest Rd. and flag a truck if we were
lucky, or walk the gravel to PA666 if we weren't.
We laid the stacked notched wood in a visible pile a few yards
from the ring so we'd know if someone moved it while we slept.
We didn't sleep much. At 4:30 we doused the fire until
ash ran cold through our fingers, collapsed the tents,
shoved the big packs under the rock shelf, and zipped
everything important into our pockets.
Keys, IDs, phones, headlamp, batteries.
We set headlamps to low and started.
From the first bend we could hear him in the brush, parallel
to us, close enough to match our speed, far enough to vanish if
we stopped and turned. When we paused, the steps
paused. When we moved, they moved.
Not careless, not crashing, Just a steady body keeping pace
behind Laurel and trunks. Twice I caught a shoulder
through the branches. He didn't call out.
He didn't try to close. He didn't need to.
People do stupid things when they feel rushed.
We cut E toward the old two track between the oaks and
beach. The leaf cover hid roots and
stones, and it hid the next line.
Mark hit it high above the knee and went down hard.
It wasn't tight enough to break anything.
It was set to drop him, not injure him badly.
His shin started to swell. The three of us took turns
carrying half his weight. Jess walked rear guard with a
stick held like a baton because that was what we had.
We found the two track by the shallow wheel ruts and the way
the brush pulled back in a low muddy seep.
There was a fresh heel print with a Vibram pattern that
didn't match any of our boots. That was the only time I felt
anger instead of fear. The rest of the time it was
calculation. How far, how long to the road,
how to keep Mark moving. It started to Gray up through
the branches. We made better time on the two
track. He stayed with us at a constant
distance off to our left, The sound of his footfalls weaving
in and out with the ground cover, never breaking into our
path, never hammering straight at us.
It felt like being herded toward a spot he preferred.
When we reached the Gravel Forest Rd. and came around a
bend, headlights rose through the dip ahead like a slow
sunrise. We stepped into the lane with
our hands up and orange beanies high.
The driver slowed immediately, a local out checking sign before
the opener. He looked at our faces, then at
Mark's leg and told us to get in.
We climbed into the bed. As the truck moved, the three of
us looked at the same time at the tree line where we just come
out. There was 1 figure at the edge,
upright, hands at his sides and what looked like a small brown
spool in one hand. He didn't run, he didn't lift a
hand. He just watched us leave.
The driver took us straight to the Marionville Ranger Station.
We gave our statements. We turned over the piece of line
I'd cut and the map with our route marked.
A Forest Service law enforcement officer told us they'd had
complaints earlier in the fall. Low trip lines found and
removed. No one caught placing them.
No injuries. Our timeline?
The parallel movement, the lines at different heights, and the
missing small items moved it out of the weird category and into
something they could act on. We went home, showered, iced
Mark's leg, and waited for a call. 2 days later we went back
with an officer and a trooper to show them where we'd stashed the
big packs and where I'd seen the outline above.
Camp in a shallow pocket behind a vein slab just up the Ridge.
They found a cache, tarp roll, 2 pairs of handcuffs, protein
bars, a small coil of monofilament, a spare headlamp
battery, a boot lace tied into a neat bow that matched marks,
missing spare by color, and the little metal tip.
There was also a pocket notebook with dates and simple sketches,
arrows pointing to camp spots along Minister Creek and numbers
beside them. Under the date we'd camped, 4
short hash marks. Nobody made big faces or
speeches. The officer photographed
everything, bagged the items and called it in with coordinates.
They picked him up that afternoon, sitting in a camp
chair at A roadside pull off off PA666, the pale green pickup
behind him. Same canvas jacket, same
watchfulness. He told the officers he was the
caretaker, like it was a title he didn't fight.
They cuffed him and put him in the truck and drove away.
We were told later the charges included stalking and
harassment, plus recklessly endangering for placing hazards
on a public trail. Between the cash, the notebook,
and our statements, it was enough.
It wasn't a courtroom drama. We didn't sit through a trial.
He took a plea. He got probation with
conditions, a multi year ban from the forest, and mandatory
counseling. That's not a movie ending.
It's the ending you want in real life.
We went back one more time with an officer to collect the big
packs and see what we'd missed in daylight.
We found three more lines we hadn't detected in the dark,
each set at a different height. Ankle, shin, mid thigh.
The notched firewood had been re stacked since we left in the
damp Duff around it. One set of boot prints close to
our ring. Someone had pressed a heel into
the ground and pivoted as if deciding whether to step closer.
None of that was random. None of it was a
misunderstanding. He wasn't a ghost or a story.
He was a person who practiced and planned and stayed just
inside the line Until he didn't. A month after it happened, the
Ranger emailed a short update. Case closed.
Ban order issued, cash destroyed, lines removed.
Along that stretch, we drove up on a Saturday, hiked the loop in
daylight without camping, and stopped at the same rocks.
We didn't try to test ourselves. We didn't stand around daring
the woods to scare us, we left a small, ordinary bundle of
unknotched wood in a dry spot for whoever came next and hiked
out before sunset. I'm not sharing this to scare
anyone away from that trail. It's a good loop.
The problem wasn't the place, it was the man who decided it
belonged to him. If you go sign the register,
carry your whistle on your body, keep your keys zipped where you
sleep, sweep your camp low for line, and leave as soon as you
see a pattern that points to a human threat.
We didn't beat him, we just left before he could finish what he
started, and then we gave the right people enough to end it
for real. That's the only win that counts.
I'm going to tell you something simple first so you don't miss
it under all the details. If you head into the Porcupine
Mountains in the quiet weeks between summer crowds and real
winter, don't go alone, don't save bacon grease, and don't
camp where the wind can hide footfalls.
That's the lesson I paid for. After you hear the rest, you can
decide if it was worth the price. mid-october.
Northern Michigan. I checked in at the visitor
center off M107, filled out a Backcountry permit for a site
near Mirror Lake, and parked at the Lake of the Clouds Scenic
Overlook. The plan was routine.
Walk the Escarpment Trail east in the afternoon for those long
views overlake of the Clouds and the big Carp River Valley.
Drop down toward the interior and sleep one night near the
lake, the forecast said. Steady northwest wind, mid 40s
in the day, low 30s at night. Service was spotty.
I had a 20° quilt, a small stove, spray on the belt, and my
bad idea for the trip. A bag of cooked bacon ends and a
pot lined with the leftover fat to help start a morning fire.
Locals call the Porcupine Mountains the Porkies.
The escarpment there is real rock, dark and blunt.
The trail runs along the edge like a shelf, with the valley
dropping hard to one side. I hit the Ridge around 1:00 in
the afternoon. The wind pushed steady enough to
pull its sleeves and steel body heat, but not enough to shove
you off course. Maples and birches broke the
path into intervals of light and shadow.
After a mile, the chatter faded. No more tourists, no more
cameras, just boot tread on roots and leaves.
The land is honest. Up there.
You see where you could fall. You hear what your feet are
doing. You feel what the weather is
taking. I stayed to the Warren Center,
glanced often at the valley, then at the interior forest
where the trail would drop. I didn't rush.
I drank in short poles. I told myself the things solo
hikers say to keep their brain from inventing problems.
I smelled the deer before I saw it.
If you've been around a fresh kill, you know the scent.
Iron and sweet rot and something like pennies on the tongue.
Off the descent spur, 20 yards down slope, a whitetail lay with
the rib cage cracked open like a book.
Left face down, the front legs were folded back wrong, hips
wrenched. No tag, no drag marks.
I stayed upwind and scanned for sign without moving closer.
The leaves around the body weren't a clean mess.
They were pressed down in long arcs, like something large had
circled again and again. Not curious, fixed on the work,
I looked for prints that would settle my stomach.
I didn't find any. I trusted the only thing that
stuck with me, stupid as it sounds, was one rib jammed into
the dirt at an angle as if it broke and stabbed on the way
out. It wasn't arranged, it was just
wrong, the reasonable voice in my head said.
Black bear. Maybe wolves had started it a
few days earlier. Maybe some hunter had opened it
fast and left when the light died.
All of that lives inside what we know.
I backed up to the trail and kept moving, but I carried the
smell with me like it had soaked my clothes.
I dropped toward the Mirror Lake basin late in the day and found
my sight on a rise just back from the water.
The lake wore a skin of wind, chopped ripples, no loons, no
insects. The shoulder season strips out
the noise. I filtered water, strung the
bear line in a clean triangle away from the fire ring and the
spot where I'd sleep, and cooked noodles with the bacon ends.
I poured the leftover grease back into the cool pot and set
it where I could grab it without looking.
It felt smart at the time. It wasn't dark, came without
ceremony. Those last minutes of grey never
last as long as you think. In the forest, I fed the fire
just enough to keep a pool of light around my knees.
I spoke out loud now and then, the way people do when they're
alone and don't want to hear their own heart.
I told the wind it could take whatever heat it wanted and
leave the rest. Dumb lines.
Habit lines. The 1st loop around camp sounded
like a tall person moving through brush without hurry.
Not a crash, not a stalk, just a long stride that never tripped.
I called Hey bare firm, but even.
The steps paused, then continued.
Same pace, same distance. I rattled my pot lid once.
The loop widened, then settled back where it had been, like a
track stamped into the night around me.
I turned off my headlamp for a while to give my eyes a chance.
The wind covered smaller noises now and then.
A dry rasp carried air over teeth.
Not a growl, not a voice. Just a scrape in the breaths.
I don't sell this next part for drama.
At the edge of the beam, behind a trunk, something tall and
wrong swayed. You know how a person stands
square, knees and elbows, doing a certain geometry?
We've all grown up reading this Shape didn't have that geometry.
It held itself close to the tree as if height was easy and width
was an afterthought. I saw no eyeshine.
I saw no color. I saw line and angle in a place
I didn't want line and angle. I threw another stick on the
fire and said keep moving like you talk to a dog you don't
trust. The loop kept going.
It came closer twice and then widened again.
I carried the word with me for years before I heard it out
loud. A Ranger on a different trip
once shrugged at 1/2 joking question and said there was an
old word for hunger that never ends, Wendigo.
He said it like a joke he didn't want to unpack.
I hated that the word showed up in my head now, uninvited, as if
my brain wanted a label more than it wanted a plan.
Running at night is a bad move. Climbing out of a lake basin
before dawn is worse, but only if you fall.
I built my plan around that. I tightened the pack and left
the sleeping gear behind. I kept my spray on the belt,
headlamp, and back up on a lanyard, map and compass in a
pocket I could find blind. I added small wood to the fire
for a quick bright burn if I needed it.
I put on my shoes and tied them tight enough to hurt.
Then I waited for the canopy to go from black to the first hint
of Gray. When that Gray showed, I picked
up the pot of bacon grease and walked to the edge of camp,
opposite the trail out. I put my shoulder into the throw
and sent the pot deep into the brush.
It hit a trunk, rang once like a bell, and disappeared.
The footsteps outside my circle cut hard toward the sound.
Not a rush, not a scatter, Just a fast, efficient shift.
That was my space. I threw dirt over the coals
until they stopped showing red, swung the pack and hit the path
uphill. The grade slapped me
immediately. The switchbacks hid roots under
a thick layer of leaves. I counted steps out loud to keep
from sprinting into a fall. Every time I stopped, the
parallel movement below stopped. Every time I started, it started
again. It didn't follow the trail.
It traced a line through the trees that shared my pace
without touching it. At 1 hairpin, I broke my rule
and risked a glance down slope. In the bad light.
You don't get detail, you get shapes.
This shape moved uphill, without the heavy shoulder roll of a
bear and without the arm swing of a person.
It was too tall and too lean for the forest I knew, and it
covered ground like each foot barely committed weight before
the next step. I didn't shout.
I didn't throw rocks. I kept my feet right, hands
free, eyes on the tread. The escarpment arrived like a
hard border, open rock, shorter trees.
The wind hit like a wall on the Ridge.
The sight lines stretch. You learn quickly if something
is with you. I followed Cairns and worn tread
toward the overlook, staying well away from the rim because
pride dies quick out there. The parallel sound fell behind
and to the right. Back in the cover, the Gray
light lifted. A red jacket appeared ahead at
the guardrail. Then another person I called out
before I was close enough to startle them.
Just a flat hiker coming up and the spell snapped like a line
pulled taut too long. I didn't give them a show.
I told them what I saw and what I did in short pieces.
Carcass on the descent spur, Circling steps at camp.
Pot of grease the climb. One of them offered a ride to
the visitor center. I took it.
I filed an incident report with a Ranger who had the kind of
face that has heard everything and doesn't turn it into
folklore. He said a black bear can open a
deer in ways that look strange and that in fall they roam long
miles before they settle. He drove me back toward Mirror
Lake with another staffer to check the site while there was
still time in the day. Daylight takes the edges off
fear, but it doesn't rewrite the ground.
We found my camp as I left it. No tent, no quilt, but there was
a smear of grease on the bark of a trunk about 7 feet up, the
kind of thin shine you get when something rubs and licks the
same spot. The pot sat 20 yards beyond
where I thought it landed, wedged in brush, the lip wiped
clean like a plate. If you want a normal answer,
that's a good place to start. We walked back toward the
descent spur and the deer. It was further worked over, more
ribs gone, the belly cavity empty.
The leaves around it were churned now in a way that made
reading anything close to impossible.
The Ranger pointed out scoring on a bone and talked quietly
about tooth patterns. He wasn't selling me a story,
just showing me what he saw. Looks like a bear moving with
purpose. He said Wind and leaves make
liars out of tracks. That line lodged in my head
because it left room for both of us.
He told me not to camp solo in the interior when the park runs
this quiet, to ditch the grease trick for good, and to keep
spray and an air horn on the shoulder strap, not buried.
He said they'd post a note at the trailhead about carcass
activity near that junction. He didn't write me up for
anything. He didn't laugh.
He didn't lean into it either. I drove S that afternoon.
I found a cheap motel and scrubbed the smell out of my
clothes, even though I couldn't find a stain.
I slept with the lights on not because I thought anything
followed me, but because square rooms with doors and walls reset
something in the brain that the forest shakes loose.
The next week the Ranger called and said they closed the Mirror
Lake site for a few days due to increased bear activity, then
reopened it. That's the story that fits on
paper, and on a sign. It's probably right.
Here's what I keep. The Oval path around my camp
that never changed tempo. The scrape of breath that didn't
ask permission to be heard. The tall shape behind a trunk
that didn't match the math of a person, and the way those long
parallel steps cut toward bacon fat the instant I gave them a
better choice than me. That last part isn't mystical,
its appetite and opportunity. It's the only part that feels
like a rule I can use. So here are the rules I owe you
if you're alone. And it's that In between season,
pick a site with open sight lines and no deep brush behind
you. Don't save grease.
Hang your food high and well out from the trunk.
Keep your spray where your hand lives.
If you smell that syrup iron stink, back out slow and pick a
different plan. If something starts tracing
circles around your fire and doesn't change speed for you,
understand what that means. It doesn't need to test you.
It's waiting to see if you'll make a mistake.
I'm not asking you to believe in old words.
I'm asking you to respect hunger out there.
It wears whatever shape gets the job done.
I was lucky I traded a pot of fat for a Ridge run and a ride.
I kept my footing, asphalt, met my boots before anything else
did. That's the only ending I wanted
and I took it the rest. The call from the Ranger, the
sign on the board, the grease smear 7 feet up can live in your
head however you like. Mine is already full.
Before I start know this, I'm not out here to scare you with
tricks. No ghost talk, no strange
voices, no camera footage. Just a clean story about two
people, a canoe and a thing that moved where the water meets the
trees. This happened right after Labor
Day up in Minnesota at entry .30.
Lake One into Lake 2, then on to Hudson.
Nights were dipping into the low 40s, days still kind and the
northwest wind built like a habit.
After lunch we kept it simple, A Kevlar tandem rented near
Winton, paper map, 1 big pack, one small, and a plan to travel
early, make camp by mid afternoon, cook, clean, hang
food and stop making smells. It was me and my friend Nate.
We weren't looking to prove anything, just a quiet loop and
maybe a look toward Insula if the weather gave us a break.
The guy at the shop near Winton told us what folks tell you that
time of year, animals work, shorelines hard, trails and
points are busy even when you don't see anything.
We nodded. We both spent enough nights out
to know the rule. You keep camp tidy, you respect
the water, and you don't act bigger than the place.
We launched from the gravel at Lake One around 9:00.
That lake is a puzzle of islands and channels, all easy if you
read the wind. We stayed in the Lee when we
could cross the open parts tight and straight, and took our time
at the portages. Those first carries are short
and honest. Posted landings, firm footing,
nothing to write home about. We single carried because we had
packed. Right canoe on my shoulders, big
pack on Nate's back, day pack on his chest, down and up, clean
and steady. We ate at a small landing
between Lake 2 and the narrows that lean toward Hudson.
Summer sausage crackers and a little lake water filtered
through a pump. That's where we saw the first
sign, deep on the trunk of a cedar high up past my reach ran
3 long claw marks. Not a swipe that just peeled
bark. These bit in SAP was still wet.
I'm not short and I couldn't touch the lowest of the three
cuts with my fingertips. A bear, sure, that fits most
stories, but the height sat wrong in my head.
We found the second sign on the trail itself, a line of prints
in soft ground. Not many, maybe half a dozen,
lined out in a way I didn't like.
Moose leave a wider story. Wolves form a pattern you can
learn in an afternoon. This was narrow, deep at the
front, clean at the back, like weight, set down and lifted with
care. The spacing never changed, each
step measured as if by a tape. We didn't talk much about it.
There's a point where you don't say the wild thing out loud, you
just tighten your plan. We reached Hudson with daylight
to spare and passed a sight on a point.
It looked great, open to a view ring of Flat Rock right out
front for a sunset. We kept moving.
We chose a tucked sight behind a rocky knob with a good canoe
landing. The pit latrine sat back in the
brush. The fire grate was where it
should be. 1 solid tent pad under a healthy bow.
We built a small cooking fire. Boiled ramen, cut in summer
sausage coins and stayed neat. Grease got wiped with paper and
packed into a sealed bag. We rinsed pot and spoon away
from the lake and poured the water into a hole we'd scraped
in the Duff. The food bag went up high.
Rope between two trunks, bag centered and out of reach.
The canoe got pulled up on smooth rock with painter lines
tied off. Then we sat awhile and listened
to the water roll against the shore, not reading into it, just
breathing with our chests instead of our mouths.
Sometime deep in the night, the canoe moved.
Not a bump, not the little click you hear when waves slap and the
hole shifts an inch. This was a slow tug.
The line tightened. Then the faint scrape of
something long walking along the gunnel.
It sounded like a hand checking the edge of a table, finger by
finger. I reached for the headlamp and
stopped halfway. Light changes the way you feel,
and not always for the better. We lay still for a while.
It made a circle, like it was tracing where we had been.
The place where the cook pot had cooled held its attention
longest. Rock on rock, Wait.
Careful. No huffing, no lip noise, just
the sound of steps that knew where to put pressure.
I don't need to tell you how long an hour feels when you're
listening for exactly one thing, you know.
Near first light, the shape crossed the strip of beach.
Tall, too much length in the arms, shoulders high.
The head lifted, not like a bear testing the air with its nose,
but higher, like there was more neck than there should be.
It took the scent of us and paused, as if weighing that
information. Not a rush, not a bluff, Just
the facts. Then it turned.
Not hurried and stepped back into the brush as the sky
thinned from black to Gray. We didn't say the name, We
didn't say anything. We packed in silence, rolling
tent and bags with tight hands, skipping breakfast, tightening
straps to cut noise. We used the quiet water and
we're out by first light, paddles biting hard and even.
The lake lay flat in the coves and ruffled down the center with
that early wind line. We kept off points.
We cut across bays where the route was shortest.
We moved like we had a plan, because we did.
Twice we saw something that put the hair up on my forearms.
We were out from shore, not hugging it, and yet ripples ran
along the edge of water to our right, keeping pace.
Nothing crashing, nothing spooked, just movement in line
with our speed. If you've ever watched a dog
trail a boat from land, keeping even without sprinting, you've
seen the shape of what I'm talking about.
Only this wasn't a dog. At the first Portage back to
Lake 2, the landing rock had fresh gouges in a neat set
parallel the distance between them, just about the width of
two fingers. I saw them, put my boot down
next to them, and didn't look at Nate.
We both had the same thought, and it wasn't helpful.
We made a choice then. We carried the canoe in the main
pack across, set them down at the far side and left a sealed
dry bag and a fuel can where we could find them quickly.
The plan was simple. Hustle the big load first, come
back only if other paddlers were nearby.
On Lake Two we found them, a group of three canoes from
Wisconsin. Dads, grown kids, easy smiles.
We told them a bear had worked through our sight and we were
feeling jumpy. We asked to leapfrog the next
carry together. They said sure, without a joke.
People are good like that out there.
At the next landing, there was a small shake in the trees.
A ways back then, nothing. If it had been a moose, you'd
hear a body tell the brush where it was.
This was a single move, and then stillness.
The wind had swung more northwest by then and blew our
scent out across open water instead of into the trees.
If anything saved us at those landings, it was that the
Wisconsin crew talked like good company talks, names, little
stories, who wanted coffee at the lot, and the normal sound
held us together. We hit Lake One and felt our
legs go rubbery with relief. We didn't want to show it was
white capping across the middle. Quartering into it would be
work, but at least it was work. We knew.
We kept our angle, read the gusts, let the canoe ride when
it climbed and pressed when it dropped.
The last stretch into the public landing felt longer than it was.
Then the bough slid into the gravel and a dog barked.
Once, near a trailer, a kid laughed.
You'd think the noise would bother me.
It didn't. It reset something in my chest.
Back near Winton, we returned the gear and told our story the
same way I'm telling it to you. No drama in the voice, no soft
parts added. The man behind the counter
nodded and said the normal thing first.
A bear that learns camps mean food will test boats and bags.
Happens every year. Then he set down the recede and
said don't camp on points that stick into the water.
When the season turns things, use those as highways.
He didn't define things. He didn't need to.
We rented A bunk that night in Winton, slept under a roof with
the door locked, and went back the next day with a small group
to grab what we'd stashed. Middle of the day, good light, 4
canoes. We moved like folks move when
they're not alone. At the landing, we found our bag
where we'd left it. Still sealed, still tight, no
damage. That would almost be the end of
it if not for the marks. When we loaded the canoe onto
the truck, we saw them along the outer edge of the hull, right
where the side meets the rim. A neat row of score lines, not
scratches from rock. Those wander and change angle.
These ran long and straight, parallel and spaced with care.
If you've ever looked at the way teeth lay in a jaw, not a human
one, but something built for holding and pulling, you know
what the pattern looks like. The marks were shallow, like the
tester had understood how close it could get without breaking
the material. That, more than anything, took a
piece out of me. Curiosity with control, we drove
home. After that, we changed the
painter lines and buffed out what we could.
We adjusted our own rule book. Early fall, No point camps.
If the site sticks into water and gives you a view, let
someone else take it. We made a donation to the local
search and rescue because it felt like the right kind of
thank you to the place. And we told the story where
paddlers would see it. Not to stir folks up, but so
they'd think a little when the map shows a neat finger of land
and their gut says choose the basin instead.
I won't say the name here. Some words hang in the air too
long, and this doesn't need ceremony.
Call it a pattern if you want. Starved, lean, fixed on fat and
salt. Shoreline smart.
It moved with care, stayed out of the open and put its
attention exactly where we touched meat and grease.
It waited us out without hurrying.
It kept pace without showing off.
When the season shifts and the nights turn thin travel lanes
aren't just for canoes. That's the whole thing we
launched. We found marks too high on a
cedar and tracks that didn't sit right.
We camped off a point something, tugged the canoe and traced the
places we'd left. Scent.
We left at first light, watched ripples match us from land, and
moved with other people when we could.
We reached the lot, took advice we could use, went back in a
group, saw the neat lines on the hull, and drove home.
We're alive. That's the part that matters.
If you paddle that chain lake, one to two to Hudson, remember
this old tip from a counter near Winton When the season turns,
those points are highways. Eat early, keep it clean, camp
tucked, and if the canoe moves in the night like a careful hand
is checking the edge, well, borrow our rule and leave before
the wind has time to build.