I took a weekday off after a cold snap in early November and
drove up Salmon River Rd. from Welch's to the Salmon River West
trailhead, just passed Green Canyon Campground.
The lot was quiet, two cars both dusty and empty.
I signed the register, put a folded paper map in my jacket
pocket, clipped bear spray on my chest strap, and started down
the Salmon River Trail. My plan was simple.
Hike a few miles in and turn around well before dusk.
The bridges had a thin skin of frost, the air in the low 30s,
leaves dry on top and damp underneath.
The river carried a steady hum that rose and dipped as the
Canyon narrowed and the ferns held last night's cold like
they'd been in shade all day. I noticed the first sign in a
patch of soft Duff just off the tread.
Deer tracks fresh enough that the edges hadn't slumped.
Overlapping them were rounder impressions.
With no claw Marks and a three lobed heel pad.
The stride looked measured, not bounding.
I'd sat through a safety talk at an ODFW Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife event the summer before.
Don't run, don't Crouch. Keep your face toward a big cat,
arms up if it closes, voice firm.
Bear spray as a barrier, not a punishment, I told myself.
I was just seeing what people always see after a cold snap
when the ground holds prints, and I kept walking. 10 minutes
later I passed a mossy log with two shallow scrapes and a musky
smell. A faint game trail cut uphill.
From there I shifted the spray from my hip to the chest clip
and shortened 1 trekking pole so I could hold it in one hand
without fumbling. The trail was the same mix you
get on that stretch. Sword ferns crowding the edges,
a few big Cedars, hemlock towering in the darker pockets,
Big leaf Maple leaves everywhere like yellow plates.
I made a mental note of landmarks for the way back.
An old cedar with a hollowed base, a bench flat on the
outside of a bend, and a wide section near some gravel bars
where sight lines opened. If something ever went wrong,
those open stretches would be where I'd want to stand.
The river would help cover sound, but I didn't like the
short tunnel of vine Maple ahead where the brush folded over the
path. I walked through it anyway and
kept my pace steady. At the bench flat, I saw the
tail. Not the whole animal, just a
tawny tail. Flick once through the dark
fronds, up slope. No noise.
The Fern that moved settled back.
Everything in me wanted to turn and stare uphill, but the voice
from that safety talk stuck face forward.
Keep your cadence hands loose. Don't run.
I kept my steps the same length and let my eyes work the corners
without snapping my head around. The trail crested a tiny rise
and I felt a light down Canyon breeze on my cheek.
That, at least, was in my favor. Anything uphill would get my
scent first. The sense of being paced is not
dramatic, and that's what makes it worse.
There's no instant of understanding.
It's a slow trickle of small signals that add up.
A quick parting of brush above and to the left, a single Pebble
ticking down through stems behind me, a brief gap between
trunks where the shoulder of a large animal moved in a line
that matched mine. I never heard a growl.
The river had enough volume to swallow the small sounds and the
cat didn't have to make any. I told the air in a normal
voice. I see you.
Because saying something out loud kept my breathing even and
made it feel like I wasn't pretending this wasn't
happening. I eased a step or two closer to
the Riverside of the tread to give the uphill side more
distance. I decided to back toward the
wide spot near the gravel bars I'd noticed on the way in.
I didn't turn around. I slowed just a hair so I
wouldn't trip on roots, and I took corners like I'd practiced
on other hikes. Stop, scan, take three steps,
scan again. The map in my jacket crackled
when I slid it to an easier pocket.
My chin stayed level. The urge to look small is strong
and it's the worst thing you can do.
I kept my hands low and relaxed and rehearsed in my head.
Raise arms, clip off short burst into open air.
If it closes inside 2 body lengths, save the direct spray
for only if it truly commits on a straight stretch.
I got the cleanest look I would get. 4 quarters sliding between
trunks, head low, heavy shoulders rolling.
It wasn't sprinting, it was making sure it knew where I was
going and where the terrain gave it options.
The choke I'd walked through earlier was ahead and to my
right now, the one with the vine Maple lean in.
I didn't like it on the way in, and I sure didn't like it now.
The cat's line put it roughly level with that tight spot.
I could see the geometry of it, how an animal above me could
drop to the trail with one move and own the space.
I stepped off the hard tread into looser gravel where the
river had thrown stones after spring runoff.
The ground gave me room to raise my arms without snagging
branches and a straight line back toward the trailhead if I
had to move. I took the spray in my dominant
hand and rotated the safety, but didn't pull it free yet.
The pole sat in my other hand, mid shaft, not as a spear, but
as something to make space if I needed to.
I loosened my sternum straps so I could lift my arms all the way
up. I told the slope.
Louder now, No back off. It came out sharp, no insults,
no acting tough, just a full volume command.
My hands started to shake a little and my mouth went dry.
I named what I was looking at to keep my focus wide.
Log, Fern, snag, trail. It sounds dumb written out but
it works. The cat stepped down into the
choke. I felt it before I saw it, more
a shift and how the uphill side stopped being vague brush and
turned into a shape. Then it was there on the tread,
40 feet ahead, shoulder blades high, tail twitching at the tip.
It didn't bolt, It didn't roar. It stood in the narrowest
section and watched me. I raised my arms as high as I
could, fingers spread and planted my feet like I had a
line drawn through my heels. I yelled again, as loud as I
could. The sound bounced off trunks and
the river carried it. The cat's ears rotated back,
then forward again. It came one step down the tread
toward me, slow. I pulled the safety and gave a
short 2 second burst of bear spray into the open air in front
of me, not at the cat's face. The orange mist hung in a low
sheet between us. It stung my nose and made my
eyes water, which is how you know it's there.
The cat wheel hopped sideways, blinked hard, and turned its
head like it was trying to clear the odor from its nose.
It didn't panic or roll. It lifted out of the choke into
the brush above the trail in two clean steps and stopped.
We stood in a standoff for maybe 5 seconds.
Then I said I'm leaving loud enough to carry and started
backing away toward the open gravel.
I kept my eyes on that slope and made it a count of 20 steps
before I let myself put one shoulder toward the trailhead.
I didn't run. I stayed loud.
I'm leaving every 5 or 6 steps. I checked the uphill side and
the line behind me. The river turned left.
The sound opened up and the ground under my boots got more
familiar. When I reached the bench flat
with the tail flick, I didn't stop.
When I reached the cedar with the hollowed base.
I did a bigger scan. No movement, no fresh sound.
I passed the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness boundary sign and
took a breath. I felt in my back.
The last quarter mile always feels longer coming out, but I
kept the same deliberate pace. I didn't want to arrive at the
trailhead shaking hard and drop my keys at the signboard.
I wrote the time in the margin next to my name and added cougar
encounter. Used barrier spray at choke.
No injury. Animal disengaged uphill.
I drove back down toward US 26 until my phone lit up with a
couple bars and called the zigzag Ranger station.
The person on the line asked calm questions.
Where exactly? How far from the West trailhead?
What did I see? How close?
How much spray? I gave distances and body
lengths and described the choke in the gravel bar.
I didn't make it dramatic, because it wasn't.
It was a real encounter that could have gone bad if I had
done the wrong thing. The next morning I met an ODFW
tech in a Forest Service staffer at the West trailhead.
We walked back into the spots I'd marked in my head.
The scrapes by the mossy log were still there.
On a damp patch just off the choke, we found a clean left
hind track with crisp edges. The tech knelt, measured it, and
pointed out the structure of the pad and the toe placement on a
nearby trunk. There were faint scores higher
than I could reach. He said they were likely from a
scent post, not a fight. His read was a mature male that
uses that corridor in fall. The pacing in the show at the
choke fit a territorial assessment, not a charge.
They took their own photos and GPS points, thanked me for the
report, and told me the barrier use was appropriate.
They didn't tell me a story. They didn't make it bigger than
it was. They wrote it down and said
they'd add a note to the district.
On the way home, I stopped in Sandy and bought a brighter
headlamp because I didn't like how fast the light dropped in
that Canyon. I added a small bell to my pack
for blind corners when I'm solo in shoulder season.
Later that afternoon, I typed a short incident statement and
emailed it to the district office with the trail section
and the landmarks. That was the end of it.
No return visit, no surprise headline.
Just a documented encounter with a cat that did what cats do and
a person who, for once in my life, followed the instructions
I've been given. If you hike the Salmon River
Trail in November, this is what I want you to know.
You can do almost everything right from your couch and still
panic when it's real. Don't run, don't Crouch, face
the animal, pick your ground, make your voice full, carry
spray where you can reach it and know how to pull the clip
without looking. Say what you're doing out loud
so your brain doesn't close down.
Give the barrier burst to claim space and leave.
Report it, even if it feels small compared to what you read
online. That stretch is beautiful and
close to town, and it's also a travel lane for something that
lives there full time. I walked out because I treated
it like that. That's my story.
Late October in Hocking Hills is my favorite kind of crowded.
The Gorge boardwalk at Conkle's Hollow turns into a parade of
strollers and cameras, but the Rim Trail stays just quiet
enough that you can hear your own steps.
My girlfriend and I chose the rim on purpose that day because
we wanted the fall colors without bumping elbows the whole
time. We parked off OH 664 near the
kiosk and vault toilets right at the front of the lot.
A compact sedan sat crooked in the space closest to the trail
sign. No plates, just the plastic
frame with nothing in it. Other cars were arriving and
unloading families and hoodies, a couple with trekking poles, so
it didn't set off alarms. We noted it and started
clockwise. The rim path was what I
expected. Narrow leaf covered soil packed
between sandstone blocks, a few roots standing up like knuckles.
The drop is there almost the entire way, screened by brush in
some places, open in others where the stone slants off in
long slabs. It had rained earlier in the
week, so the leaves over rock were slick if you didn't plant
your feet. We passed a pair of college kids
talking about where to get dinner in Logan and a dad with a
toddler on his shoulders. After that, the sound of people
thinned out fast. Cell service flickered and then
went useless. It felt normal for a weekday
afternoon, quiet but not empty. We met the first man at a pull
out where the trail bends right along a slanted slab.
He stood on the outside edge in a bright windbreaker, hands at
his sides. No pack, no water, no camera.
He didn't step aside, he just lifted 2 fingers and pointed at
a faint path drifting off toward the rim.
Better view that way, he said. His voice was flat, No smile, no
small talk. My girlfriend said we were
staying on the marked route. I said thanks anyway and we
moved past him. Single file.
I put myself on the inside and kept her away from the lip.
The path he indicated LED toward a narrow saddle between two
knobs of rock with loose leaves on the slope.
Even the short look told me it was a place where you could get
cornered. We kept our pace even and didn't
look back until the next marker. When I finally glanced over my
shoulder, he wasn't behind us. That should have ended it, but
less than 5 minutes later we turned another bend and there he
was again, ahead of us, planted at a spot where the trail
pinched between a waist high boulder and a slick shoulder of
sandstone. Same jacket, same posture.
He didn't look winded. He raised his hand and pointed
toward another faint trace angling off the main line.
It didn't make sense. There wasn't a visible shortcut
he could have used without us seeing him drop and climb.
People do cut across in Hawking Hills, though.
Unofficial traces are everywhere.
I told myself that was the answer.
The part that stuck with me was that he wasn't hiking.
He was waiting. Footsteps sounded behind us,
close enough that we didn't have to strain to hear them.
When we turned, a second person had appeared on the trail.
Neutral jacket, hands shoved deep in pockets.
No pack. He stopped when we stopped.
He went when we went. No greeting, no good afternoon.
He just set his pace to ours and let the distance shrink whenever
the trail narrowed. It felt choreographed without
being physically aggressive. One ahead, one behind, both
quiet, both standing where the path pushed a single file, and
closer to the shoulder than we liked.
I tried to slow the game down. I told my girlfriend I wanted to
check the paper map I'd taken from the kiosk.
Even though the rim is a loop, you can't really mess up if you
read the arrows. We stood with our backs against
the inside boulder and made a show of tracing the route with
my finger while the man in the windbreaker stayed right where
he was on the line we'd have to follow.
The one behind us hovered 20 feet back with his chin tucked
and his hand still buried. I switched places with my
girlfriend so I would always be the one at the outside edge if
someone forced to squeeze. I kept my head up so if either
man moved I'd see a shoulder twitch before I saw a foot.
We started moving again and they adjusted just enough to keep the
pressure. The guy in front drifted to the
side that put my girlfriend nearest the drop if we tried to
pass without stopping, the one behind closed space each time
the brush pinched in, then backed off again when it opened.
The whole stretch had these little bottlenecks, places where
a fallen trunk pushed the tread to one step wide or a slab of
sandstone tilted up to knee height.
I wasn't scared yet, but I felt a kind of cold focus from
deciding each foot placement and each glance.
My girlfriend squeezed my elbow once.
She didn't need to say anything. We heard people before we saw
them, kid Noise from the gorge boardwalk below.
It came from down and left, thin but clear.
I remembered there's a set of stone and timber steps that
drops from the rim to meet the boardwalk loop.
If we could get to that, we'd be among families and rails instead
of between 2 quiet men on a narrow line.
The next wooden sign confirmed it.
Arrow to the stairs. We angled toward it, and that's
when the guy in the windbreaker finally moved.
He slid a step to his right so he stood between US and the
first stair, close enough that you'd have to turn your
shoulders to pass. He looked at my girlfriend, not
me. The man behind stepped up until
I could hear him breathing. No words, no hands raised, just
placement. A herd without a hand on us.
I forced my voice to carry. Excuse us, we're taking the
stairway. I said, like we were already
committed. The windbreaker guy finally
spoke again. Trail goes this way, and he
jerked his chin along the rim toward the narrower line.
I said. We're meeting our group at the
boardwalk. They're waiting for us at the
bottom. That group didn't exist, but if
these two liked quiet, the idea of witnesses would be the wedge.
I didn't wait for a reply. I put my shoulder square and
stepped into the half space he'd left.
He reacted late, like he wanted to make contact, and then he
didn't. My girlfriend moved tight with
me and we started down. The steps were steep and the
leaves were packed into the edges.
Some risers were uneven. A section of handrail had a
broken span where a post had rotted.
I kept it controlled because running would have handed the
terrain to anyone who wanted us to slip halfway down.
A teen in a football hoodie leaned over the lower landing.
You coming down? He called.
Yeah, I said we're catching up. That put a name on us, as far as
anyone listening was concerned. Part of a group, not alone.
I glanced up once. The windbreaker guy stood on the
top landing, looking down with his hands at his sides.
He didn't start down. The one with his hands in his
pockets took two steps onto the upper flight and then backed up
as a couple of kids came into view below.
That was enough for me. We hit the boardwalk and merged
into a clogged section near a waterfall trickle.
I think I was breathing harder than I knew because a grandpa in
a ball cap asked if we were OK. I told him two men had been
trying to steer us onto side paths on the rim.
He didn't make a speech about it.
He just said we're headed to the lot, walk with us.
We did. His wife gathered their
grandkids and kept them between the adults.
We didn't see either man again. The climb back to the kiosk felt
longer than it should, but standing in a loose group of
eight changed everything. We came out into the lot and the
crooked car was still there. No plate on the back, just
smudges where a sticker had sat on the windshield.
The grandpa's wife kept talking to my girlfriend about the
leaves while I waved at a uniformed park officer who'd
just pulled in. He had gravel dust on his boots
and a calm face. The officer didn't brush us off.
He asked us to point out the spots on a paper map and to
describe what the men wore. We didn't have heights and
inches, but we had reference points.
Taller than me by a little, shorter than me by a little road
running, shoes in bright white, a jacket you could see through
brush. He asked the grandparents what
they had seen at the stairs. They said they saw two men
hesitate when they reached the landing and then turn away when
they looked up and saw the kids. The officer took down our
numbers and told us they'd sweep the rim.
He walked to the crooked car, ran the VIN on his radio and
said they'd give it a little time before towing.
He wasn't making threats, he was doing a set of steps he'd done
before. 2 Saturdays later, mid morning, he called me back.
He said they had ticketed a driver for expired registration
whose car matched the one we described, and that the same
person had been approaching hikers on multiple days with
path suggestions. No arrest, nothing dramatic,
just a documented contact, a citation and a conversation that
ended the behavior. He said patrols were increased
on the rim through the rest of fall and asked us to call if we
ever saw the same pattern again. I texted the grandparents to
thank them and got a thumbs up. And we walk there every year.
Good move taking the stairs. I've replayed it more times than
I want to admit. The way they placed themselves
wasn't random. One ahead, one behind, both
waiting at the choke points where the ground slants and the
brush forces you. Single file, no grabbing, no
chase, just the kind of pressure that makes you choose the bad
spot or slow down where someone can step into you.
What worked was boring inside edge, controlled pace, loud
voice, and heading for the public path with railings and
kids. If something feels off on the
rim, you don't need the lookout. Take the stairs, put people
around you, announce you have a group, even if your group is
strangers you haven't met yet. We still hike Hocking Hills, but
we pick our lines differently now, and we talked through the
exits before we step off. If you ever meet the man in the
neon windbreaker who points strangers toward a narrow side
path and the guy with his hands buried in his pockets who
appears right behind you on a quiet bend, be careful.
I planned a short after work section hike on the Wilson River
Trail with my buddy Nate Kings Mountain Trailhead to the
Tillamook Forest Center because early November gives you that
window where the crowds thin out and the air is cool enough to
move. We left a shuttle car at Jones
Creek in daylight, tossed a paper map in my jacket pocket as
a backup, and started W With headlamps ready, drizzle came on
as a steady sheet. It was in the low 40's.
The plan was simple. A few miles of rolling single
track, cross the footbridge by the forest center, walk the
highway shoulder to the shuttle if the parking lot was closed,
and be home for late dinner. A mile in, the trail cut across
a steep brushy slope. That's when we heard an engine
above us, not far up on a dotted spur Rd. the map labeled
decommissioned. We looked at each other and
stopped talking without even agreeing to it.
The sound moved slow, no RPM spikes, just a crawl.
Then the engine cut and a small flashlight started working the
brush below the road, sweeping side to side like someone was
searching the slope. Roads supposed to be closed,
Nate whispered. Yeah, the trail bench there is
narrow, with damp leaf litter packed into the outer edge.
Sword ferns crowd the inside. We moved quiet, stepping over
roots, listening to the river on our left.
A faint metal clink came from above, the kind of noise a chain
or tool makes when it taps A tailgate.
It felt wrong because the truck's lights were off.
I kept waiting to see a wash of headlights through the trees.
Nothing. Just the flashlight, Careful and
slow, probing the downhill side of the spur. 10 minutes later we
hit a seep across the trail and saw a dark speck scattered on
the wet leaves. I touched 1 diesel fresh.
The smell cut through the rain smell.
We checked the map under my jacket to keep it dry.
The spur above us curved in and out along the slope with no
legal junction to the trail. The dotted line had been punched
back to forest years ago, or at least it should have been.
If someone found a way to drive it again, they weren't doing it
for sightseeing with their lights off.
We kept moving. Voices floated down to men
talking. The tone, more than the words,
the cadence had that clipped pattern you hear when people are
working, not relaxing. We put our headlamps away.
No point in drawing attention to ourselves.
In the gloom around a blind corner, something blocked the
trail. A plank, a tube I with rows of
roofing nails driven through from the underside, lay across
the tread with leaves tucked along its edge to hide the
shine. The nail points were clean, no
rust. The plank was heavy enough that
it wouldn't blow there by wind. It was set.
We didn't say anything for a second, then Nate said OK.
We had trekking poles. I put my gloves on, crouched,
and used both poles as levers to slide the plank sideways off the
corridor, inch by inch until it was out of the line of travel
and buried in brush. We didn't fling it.
We placed it far enough that a trail runner in the morning
wouldn't clip it by accident. I pulled a small notepad and
wrote. 4:10 PM. Nail board before cedar snag
with lightning scar. Narrow bench, No photos, wet
pages, just a note and a landmark so we could tell
someone later exactly where it had been. 30 yards ahead we
found another. This one was angled, not
straight across, like it was meant to catch your ankle if you
tried to step around. Same new nails, same leaf tuck.
We repeated the process. Slide stash, Note the landmark.
Split Alder with orange flagging on broken branch boot prints we
didn't recognize overlapped the trail.
Different lug pattern, short and stride at each plank, like
someone had been bending and standing there.
Diesel specks kept appearing in the seeps, A dotted line of
scent. The truck rumbled again and
rolled farther up slope. Still dark.
A white glow bobbed through the trees.
Not a headlight, a phone light or a small flashlight.
It stopped directly above us and angled down the beam along the
slope rather than the road. I took a breath and waited for
the light to hit our jackets. It didn't.
It moved on probing. We should drop to the river, I
said. I'm not walking past another
plank and hoping that's the last.
Nate nodded. Same thought.
We stepped off the bench and went downslope, carefully poles
out to test the footing. It was all wet Alder shoots and
vine Maple for the 1st 20 feet. Then the ground turned to loose
rock and slick dirt. We slid on our heels until the
sound of the river got louder than the hiss of rain in the
trees. We reached cobbles.
The water had that pale metal look that shows up in overcast
foam. Lines slid along the slower
edges. We stepped onto the bar and
moved up river to downriver with the current on our left, using
the water as a handrail. Headlamps stayed off the river.
Noise covered our steps and made the voices from the slope thin
out. Every few minutes we stopped and
listened. Once we heard rocks tumble above
us as if someone had moved through brush.
Once we heard the engine idle and then go quiet.
It was the kind of sound that tells you the driver is working
by feel, not by sight. We counted little trickles that
drained into the Wilson and checked the map when the rain
lightened. The bend we wanted was the one
with a big boulder upstream of the bridge.
The boulder looked squared off on top.
A map hairpin matched it. That meant the footbridge to the
forest Center should be a short distance downstream.
We climbed back toward the main trail, at a spot where the slope
eased and the river noise dropped.
On the last approach to the bridge, the corridor narrowed
between a log and a little Cut Bank.
I lifted my foot and froze. A thin wire lay across the trail
at shin height. Both ends were tucked into wet
Duff. I grabbed Nate's sleeve.
He stopped, too. We crouched together.
In the dim light, we could see the wires twist where it ran
through something off to the side, maybe another length
hidden in leaves. I put my gloves back on and
followed the wire to its anchors, pulling gently so the
tension didn't send it whipping. When it came free, we coiled it
into a tight loop and shoved it behind a rotten log where nobody
walking in the morning would snag it.
I wrote another note. 5:36 PM. Wire across trail, approximately
50 yards east of bridge. That little line in soaked
pencil felt strange in my hand. It felt like the only record we
could make that wouldn't put us on someone's phone.
We crossed the foot bridge without headlamps, feeling the
boards with our boots. The river below was slow and
deep. The bridge vibrated lightly
under our weight. I kept thinking about how
visible 2 headlamp beams would look from the spur if anyone
cared to look. On the far side.
The forest center sat dark and empty.
The displays in the courtyard were tarped.
The windows were black, the drizzle ticked on metal edges
and signs. We kept our voices low, moved
along the path and cut toward the highway.
Behind us, a truck idled somewhere for a count of 10.
It faded. I couldn't tell if it turned
away or simply killed the engine.
Again, I didn't look back. My hands were steady, but my
neck felt tight. The highway shoulder on O R6 is
narrow in places, wide in others.
At night, even with reflective bits on our jackets, it felt
exposed. We walked single file packs
toward the guardrail, eyes front.
Traffic came in bursts. A pickup pulled onto the
shoulder far behind us, paused, and then rolled back into the
lane. I tried not to read meaning into
every set of tail lights. Jones Creek day use was dark,
too, but our shuttle car sat where we left it.
No slash tires, no notes. I checked the tread anyway.
My fingers came away clean. Nate unlocked his side.
I got in and locked my door. We merged E up toward the Coast
Range divide. My eyes flicked between mile
posts and mirrors until the trees grew less dense and the
highway opened out. We filed a report that night.
Nothing dramatic, just the facts, time, landmarks, hazards.
I emailed the local trail organization and left a message
with a contact listed for volunteer crews.
I attached nothing. No photos, just the words I'd
written in the rain. A week later we went back in
daylight with a small trail crew, four people, hand tools,
and a pickup with orange vests in the bed.
We walked the same section from Kings Mountain toward the
bridge. We didn't find new diesel specs.
We did find the two boards we'd stashed and brush the nail head
still had clean zinc. Both boards went into the back
of the pickup. We found a coil of wire under a
log near the place I'd written down, right where we'd shoved
it. That went in a bucket.
We brushed sight lines around the blind corner.
We flagged a couple of muddy seeps where the diesel had
pooled in little half moons. That felt like the right way to
end it, fix what we could so the next person's night didn't turn
weird. After the work.
We re hiked the section in daylight.
The river moved quiet. The bridge felt like a normal
bridge again. No engines on the slope, no
small light probing the brush. The forest center sat open with
families looking at displays. Hikers passed us with dogs and
day packs. It looked like how I've always
known that trail to look. I've told this the way I'd want
someone to tell me if I was planning to hike there after
work. You can do everything right?
Map headlamp, extra layer, and still walk into a situation made
by people who don't want you around.
There wasn't anything paranormal about any of it.
It was worse in a practical way. Someone took time to set things
where feet and tires go. Someone moved along a
decommissioned Rd. without lights and searched the slope.
For reasons I don't need to understand, we don't hike that
section after dark anymore. Not because the trail is cursed
or the woods whisper. Because some folks do business
out there that doesn't want unplanned witnesses and they're
willing to put hazards where the public moves in daylight with
other people around. It felt fine at night.
It didn't. If you take anything from this,
take the simple stuff. Carry a paper map.
Listen more than you talk. Trust your gut when the sound of
an engine shows up where one shouldn't.
And don't be shy about stepping off to safer ground and
reporting what you find. We got home, we helped clean it
up, and that's the only reason I'm writing this.
Stay safe out there. I planned the trip with a close
friend after the first real rain in late September when the Ho
River Valley cools and the Roosevelt Elks start calling it
dusk. We picked the Ho River Trail
because it is wide and clear near the river.
Our plan was simple, hike from the Ho Rainforest Visitor Center
to Five Mile Island, make camp, cook and then stand on the main
trail at dusk to listen at the desk.
We got our permits and the usual reminder for this season.
Stay on the main trail, give the elk space and report anything
odd. Hunting is not allowed in the
park. The Ranger also mentioned there
had been some off trail problems last fall near Mineral Creek
Falls and asked people to stick to the corridor at dusk.
The forecast called for a high in the 50s, dropping into the
40s after dark with light mist. The valley looked normal for the
time of year. Tall Sitka spruce, western
hemlock and western red SEDAR stood over vine Maple, salmon
Berry and thick sword ferns. The river moved steadily on our
left. This place was set aside more
than a century ago to protect elk and the land around them.
First it was a National Monument in 19109.
In 1938 it became Olympic National Park.
I try to treat that as a duty when I visit.
We reached Five Mile Island around 5:30 in the evening and
chose firm ground with a clearview of the trail.
A couple of small wrens ticked in the brush.
The mist was light and did not call for rain jackets.
We boiled water, ate and packed a small day bag with headlamps,
water, a paper map and an extra layer.
Our plan was to walk only as far as the wide bends between the
island and Mineral Creek Falls where footing is clean and you
can see the river through the Alder.
We would stay on the trail and be back before full dark.
The campground was quiet, a few tents, low voices and the sound
of the HO just before 7A bull elk bugled from upriver.
The sound was strong and clean, 1 long note, a smooth break and
then the short chuckles you expect at the end.
It came from the broad bend above the falls, a place you can
reach by staying on the main path.
We shouldered the small bag and set out with our headlamps
ready. We passed 2 camps, traded nods
and kept our pace steady. The call came again with the
same pitch in length. No change at all.
Repeating calls make sense during the rut, but the exact
match between them caught my attention.
A few minutes later, we rounded A gentle turn where the trail
widens My headlamp picked up a tiny reflective tack at knee
height on a hemlock trunk. You can buy tacks like that in
hunting shops. 10 yards ahead at the same height, a second tack
reflected from the side, pointing toward a sandy opening
through salmon Berry. I noted it and kept walking.
Then I saw another reflection higher up on a spruce.
When I stepped closer, I realized there were three newer
tacks on that tree set in a triangle, and two more behind us
on another trunk. If you followed the glints in
order, you would leave the corridor and wind into brushy
side channels. The bugle sounded again.
It matched the last two calls perfectly.
My friend stopped and pointed down on the trail just ahead.
On top of our earlier footprints were fresh lug soled prints from
two different boots, one wide and one narrow.
They angled off the tread and then back.
A heel scrape ran across the grit like someone had slid
sideways to get behind the Alder screen.
We crouched and checked our own tracks to be sure the scuff cut
across them. We did not need a debate.
We spoke in normal tones and made our plan clear for anyone
within earshot. We said we were returning to
camp and staying on the main trail.
I said it again a little louder. We turned around and walked on
the center line. I kept my headlamps straight
ahead and watched for scuffs that broke the trails texture.
The pattern of tacks bothered me more than the sound.
I have seen tacks used to lead people off a path before, but
the triangle was new. Too low lights to pull you in a
higher set to keep you moving once you were between the
trunks. The call sounded once more
behind us, the same as before, now roughly in line with the
tack route. We stepped into our campsite at
the edge of the island at the last of civil light and saw two
headlamps coming fast. Two men walked into our sight
from the dark edge of the corridor.
One said they were a little turned around and asked if this
was the way to the visitor center.
Both wore small day packs. Neither had a warm jacket, even
though the temperature had dropped.
The lug pattern on their boots matched what we had seen in the
grit. The second man asked if we were
alone and looked at our tent. None of that breaks a law by
itself, but the context mattered.
Our prints, the scuff, the markers drawing off trail, and
the exact same calls in the same pattern.
We moved together and kept our answers short and factual.
I pointed out the direction to the trailhead.
Then I said we were leaving now to check in with Rangers.
We started walking. There was no pause down the
trail. We passed three small parties
who had also been drawn by the bugles, and we're heading out.
They fell in behind us. After a quick word.
No one slowed down. The two men stayed behind the
last pair for a minute, then let us go ahead.
The corridor had not changed, but how we looked at it had.
We watched the edges, the blow downs, and the places where the
tread narrows. A local from Forks walking near
the middle said he had seen reflective markers near their
the previous fall and plan to report them this season.
The bugle did not sound again. Two Rangers met us near the
trailhead at full dark. One was a field Ranger and one
was law enforcement. They walked back up with us to
the island. Their questions were calm and
exact. Where did you see the first
tack? How high off the ground?
How far to the next one? What shape did the three make on
the spruce? How do you know the prints
overlapped yours? Where did the heel scrape cross
the grit? They did not rush us.
They stayed while we broke down the tent and secured the
canister. In the morning, law enforcement
spoke with every party that had been on that stretch.
At dusk. We LED them to the bend with the
first tack and describe the triangle and the staggered set
behind us. We showed them where the scuff
crossed our earlier footprints. We gave a clear description of
the two men who walked into our site.
Later that day, a Ranger told us they had contacted 2 people and
issued citations for prohibited guiding and aggressive behavior
tied to off trail activity that matched A poaching set up.
The markers were removed. A notice went up at the visitor
center asking people to stay on the main corridor, report
markers and decoys and avoid following sounds or lights off
the path at dusk. It did not feel dramatic, it
felt like the park doing the job it was meant to do.
The Ho Rainforest gets heavy rain through the year and thick
growth can hide A lot within a short distance.
The rules exist to keep elk and visitors in clear lines where
choices are simple and safe. I thought about the early 1900s
when the elk herd was in trouble from over hunting, about why the
monument and later the park were created, and about how methods
change but pressure on wildlife does not go away.
We went back the next September. We kept it simpler.
We camped at Five Mile Island, stood on the open trail near
Mineral Creek Falls during the last half hour of light, and
walked back as the color drained from the canopy. 2 bulls called
to each other across the river and cows moved through the Alder
with slow, heavy steps. We did not leave the corridor.
We did not need to. The view from the wide traveled
path was enough. I slept well that night.
I woke once to a quiet that comes with thicker mist, when
the rivers sound dulls a little and the forest holds still.
I lay there and counted the reasons to stay.
Where the trail is wide and everyone can see you coming.
I still think about how exact that first call was and how
easily someone tried to use it to move people.
It did not ruin the valley for me.
It did change how I act at dusk. I walk the center line.
I keep my light steady, I listen for what belongs and what does
not, and I go home with the feeling that the place is still
good as long as we treat it that way.
I live in Santa Fe and hike on weekends to keep my head clear.
I am not new to the high country above town, but I am not an
expert either. I know where the air gets thin
and where the trail usually holds shade late into the day.
I have done parts of Windsor Trail many times and had been to
Namby Lake once years ago with a group.
This was a solo day mid-september, cooling off after
the thick monsoon weeks. The plan was simple.
Park at Ski Santa Fe, take Windsor Trail toward the lake,
tag the shore and be back before dusk.
I packed like I always do for a short push at elevation, 2
liters of water, a filter, snacks, small first aid kit,
wind shell, headlamp, map downloaded for offline use, and
trekking poles. I did not bring spray or a
weapon. I was thinking about frost
heaves on Hyde Park Road and whether I would beat the evening
traffic, not about anything strange on the ground.
The lot at Ski Santa Fe was quiet.
Lift towers were still and the air moved enough to keep the sun
from feeling harsh. I started late morning to let
the cold drain out of the basin. The first piece of Windsor drops
from the resort into fur and spruce needles under foot, old
boardwalks over mud from the rainy stretch, a few slick roots
that catch your heel if you get lazy.
I passed 2 trail runners heading out, gave a nod, and later a
couple with trekking poles told me they turned back before the
lake because the turn felt confusing.
They mentioned an unmarked spur near a Meadow and said there
were small stacks of rocks in odd places.
I kept that in my head and kept walking.
Elk sign showed up almost right away, dropping, still shiny, a
musky smell in cool pockets. A soft bugle drifted from higher
slopes once or twice. Nothing out of place for the
season. I reached the last big Meadow
sooner than I expected. Grass had laid over in broad
swaths with Willow and young Aspen at the far side.
A weathered wilderness sign sits back on the approach, and after
you pass it, the woods take on that deep quiet that is more
about windbreak than anything else.
The tread fades here. Most people start doing small
circles, looking for the faint line that locals take toward the
lake. I saw the first odd stack there,
3 pebbles with one bigger rock set on top, not where a junction
would be, but in the center of the line.
I flattened it with the tip of a pole. 100 feet later there was
another. I could hear the thin trickle of
a creeklet somewhere to my right and the higher whisper of a draw
to my left. Twice I heard stone on stone
from up slope, not a fall or a slide. 2 raps with a pause
between them. I told myself it was nothing and
moved into the aspens on a faint path that braided and rejoined
like a foot wide stream through leaves.
I saw the first figure within a minute, 20 or 30 yards ahead in
the Aspen trunks. A tall shape crouched low,
balanced on the balls of its feet, a hide draped over its
shoulders. The hide was coyote mottled tan
and Gray, with thin rawhide lacing at the wrists of the
person wearing it. The head of the pelt hung off a
shoulder like a hood had slid back.
Hands were bare at the fingers. No pack, no visible weapon.
When I angled left to see around, the figure shifted
sideways. Not a full turn.
A smooth sidestep that kept me in a straight line with a
shallow draw that fell away through the trees.
It did not wave or call out. It was as if it was showing me
which side of the trunks it wanted me on without ever facing
me. When I checked the slope to my
right, I saw another person downslope closer to the draw.
This one wore a deer hide Cape cut square across the thighs.
The face looked the same color as wet granite.
The head stayed low in the saplings, as if trying to keep
profile under the level of branches.
It watched me without obvious movement.
I took two steps back toward the Meadow and the deer hide shape
slid along with me, never straight at me, always at the
angle that would keep me between it and the shallow cut of the
draw. More of the Little Rock piles
showed up ahead, not at Forks, but in the middle of the faint
tread, as if to suggest a line through thicker brush.
When I shifted right to skirt one, I heard a soft kick and
another small stack clicked together.
Farther along I realized the stacks were not for the lake,
they were for me. They did not talk.
The communication was stone and rustle and short sharp sounds
that died as soon as I stopped upslope. 2 slow taps down in the
willows, a measured stir like a foot brushing stalks once a
short whistle that sounded like teeth on a carved sliver.
Not a tune, just a cue. I stood still long enough to
feel the quiet press on my ears and understood the shape of the
ground they wanted. Forward into brush, where sight
lines vanish and footing gets busy, or back where they already
stood in a line that would funnel me, or down to water,
where the channel would carry my path to the main corridor
whether I could see tread or not.
Water made sense. Water finds the big trail
because it feeds it. I decided to give up the spur
and move to the creeklet. I cut hard down slope to the
right, aiming for the sound. Zedge and grass hid loose rock
under my boots and I made more noise than I would have liked.
That turned out to be a good thing.
I could feel the deer hide shape.
Try to stay below me, not in front, not behind, always off my
kneecap as if to cross my line. When the cover was thicker, I
took a steeper line, let the poles clatter, and slid the last
few feet into ankle deep water. It was cold and clear over
granite. I set my feet on stone where I
could and started following the channel downhill.
The creeklet was just wide enough to keep me in the center.
The sound covered smaller noises.
After a few minutes, I crossed a faint game path that cut the
water at an angle. I saw a thin cable loop fixed to
a sapling set at knee height, half hidden by bent grasses.
The loop was dirt colored and hard to see unless you were
already looking low. The bank nearby showed scuffed
soil and a small black zip tie poked out of the mud.
My stomach dropped like I had stepped off a curb.
I did not see. 10 minutes later a smell hit from the right bank,
heavy and sweet with age, not fresh, not old.
In a mat of deadfall, a contractor bag had been shoved
under logs. A smear of something dark had
leaked into the soil and held flies even in the cool.
A length of bone lay nearby, pale and cut clean at one end.
I did not stop to study it. I kept to the water.
I looked back once and saw the coyote hide person above the
bank moving parallel but staying behind trunks and never breaking
the straight line with the draw. They did not chase, they paced.
The function was pressure. Keep me on the line where
movement is predictable and noise is high.
Twice more I heard the two taps signal from the slope.
Once again there was a short whistle that ended as soon as we
paused. I say we because by then I had
matched my steps to the rhythm of the Creek and my body felt
like a metronome for the exit. The Creek flattened out and
widened, the banks became lower and the trees stepped back.
Voices reached me before the tread did.
Two men were talking in normal tones.
I rounded A shallow bend and saw them standing mid channel with
short fly rods, wet, waiting in sandals.
Pack sat on the bank within arm's reach.
I stepped out and said hello and asked if I could walk with them
back to the lot. I said there were people up
slope in hides who had been angling me toward a draw, and
that there were snares and what looked like a bait bag in a
thicket. I kept my voice level.
They looked at each other once, and one of them said, sure,
let's move. He clipped his forceps and
nippers to his vest, and the other rolled his line and looped
it to a guide. We stepped onto the main tread,
which here is as obvious as a sidewalk compared to the spur,
and we walked without stopping. We talked louder than normal.
Part of that was nerves, and part of it was the belief that
sound carries far in that basin and people with plans do not
like it. Once we heard a single rock
strike. Once a short whistle came from
behind and quit before the second note.
No one followed us into the open meadows low on the corridor.
We passed a family with a dog, and the dog did not notice
anything. The three of us reached the
upper lot at Ski Santa Fe with enough light left that I felt
foolish for how hard my heart was still working.
The men stayed while I called for law enforcement.
A white Forest Service truck came up the pavement within half
an hour. Two officers took our statements
and I walked them through the map on my phone.
They asked if I would be willing to show the spot at first light.
I said yes, but not alone, they said, of course at first light.
The next morning, I met the two officers at the lot and we hiked
in. Radios cracked on their belts.
We moved quietly, but with purpose.
At the last Meadow we slowed down and found the faint line
where I had stepped off. We followed it past the first
small stacks I had not knocked down and into the Aspen.
The evidence showed up fast once you looked for it.
Cable loops on game paths, some set across the creeklet, some on
faint crossings. A bag in a tangle of deadfall
that had been moved since the day before.
Or maybe the overnight cold changed how it SAT.
The smell was the same, heavy rot.
A bone pile behind a screen of Alder mixed pieces, some with
clean saw cuts, others broken or chewed boot prints with a tread
pattern in the damp Duff near purposeful rock stacks, a thin
length of rawhide cord snagged in a branch at shoulder height.
No people, no hides left in the open.
The officers marked locations and photographed what they could
without disturbing more than necessary.
They said they would call State Game and Fish.
They thanked me for not trying to follow anyone and for leaving
things where I found them. By that afternoon, a temporary
closure notice went up for the Spur.
It was posted at the kiosk near the resort and at a lower
trailhead. The notice said there was an
active investigation into illegal trapping and baiting
above the Meadow and asked visitors to stay on signed
trails and report suspicious activity.
A poaching advisory went out from New Mexico Game and Fish
with a phone number and a short list of what to look for and
what not to touch. I got a call 2 days later with a
brief update. They had cleared several snares
and collected materials. They believed the activity was
recent and organized. They asked me to avoid the area
for a while until they finished their work.
A month later, I returned to Windsor with two friends.
It was a bright Saturday with dry air and a steady breeze.
We started early, stayed on the main corridor, and turned around
short of the Meadow. New signage had been added and a
volunteer Ranger reminded people to stick to established routes.
We agreed ahead of time that we would not chase lake views or
follow any unmarked line in that zone.
We had a good hike and we're back at the car long before the
wind shifted. I changed how I hike alone after
that. I still go into the mountains,
but I start earlier and I leave a precise plan with a turn
around time. I carry a louder whistle.
I do not take faint spurs late in the day, no matter how
tempting the destination is. If something feels staged, I cut
to water and let the channel lead me to the larger path.
And I look for people and stay with them if anything seems off.
The Pecos Backcountry has been protected for a long time and
most of what happens there is quiet and lawful.
There are people who break those laws.
They use small tricks that work on animals, and those same
tricks work on us if we let them.
I am posting this so that someone reading it will
recognize the shape of a setup before the shape of a person.
Trust the sound of water. Trust the main trail.
Trust your gut. I go back now only in broad
daylight and with company. The last thing I hear when I
think about that day is not a voice or a threat.
It is the precise clack of 2 stones, far enough away that you
could tell yourself you imagined it, close enough that you know
you did not. I live in Portland and try to
keep my hiking simple. The Ramona Falls loop is one of
those routes you can do after work if you move with purpose.
It is about 7 miles. Starts from a gravel day.
Use lot off Lolo Pass Rd. near zigzag.
Follows the Sandy River, meets the Pacific Crest Trail and
climbs gently to the falls before looping back.
The river is the main variable. Channels shift with storms and
snow melt, logs move, and what felt safe in July can look
different in October. A person died there when a
temporary bridge failed years ago and the Forest Service took
the structure out for good. Since then, the rule is to read
the water and make your own safe choice.
The larger history is plain on the map.
The National Forest was renamed for Mount Hood a century ago,
the long distance trail running through it was signed into law
in the late 1960s, and the Sandy River has been rearranging its
banks long before either decision.
I went in with that in mind. My only plan was to finish
before full dark. I started late because I thought
I had the loop wired. I signed the trailhead register
at 3:30, ate a quick granola bar, put a small headlamp in the
top pocket, and left my phone on airplane mode to save battery.
I went clockwise. The first mile along the Sandy
was quiet. The corridor was wide in places
and narrow where cut banks had bitten toward the tread.
A handful of people were already headed out.
I crossed an early braid on a stable log with a worn flat and
a branch someone had tied to make a kind of hand hold.
From there I reached the Pacific Crest Trail junction, saw the
small white badge and felt that automatic easing that comes with
a known route. I moved at a steady pace, no
rush, and reached the falls a little after 5.
The water there spreads over dark rock and thin sheets.
It makes a low sound that lets your thoughts move around it.
I put on a light layer, took a small drink and turned for home
without lingering. I kept the return leg that
swings West, the one that gives you a slightly different angle
on the forest before dropping toward the river flats.
In the last crossings, the light cooled down another notch.
I could still see color in the leaves in the pale sand at the
edges, but the trunks were darker and the understory was
losing detail. About 1/4 mile past the fall
spur, I noticed movement uphill on my right.
It was a tall figure traveling parallel to me through the
trees. The first detail I registered
was a rough covering, something like a hide or blanket cut into
strips. The second detail was the way it
moved. It did not walk past trees so
much as slide from trunk to trunk while staying covered by
each one. I would move 5 or 6 steps and
see it move 5 or 6 steps. When I slowed to listen, it
stopped in place and shifted its weight without making brush
noise. I could separate from normal
wind. The distance between us was
maybe 30 yards. It felt like it wanted to stay
at that interval. When the trail bent toward a
sandy bluff, a second shape appeared down slope.
I caught its motion first, not its outline.
It was low to the ground, closer to the river, and it moved on
hands and feet. The limbs worked in a way that
took me a second to parse. The wrists took weight the way
ankles should, and the knees came up odd, as if the joints
were set to a different range. It did not crawl like a person
playing around. It covered ground at a practical
speed and kept brush between us. The higher figure and the lower
one began to angle, not toward me but toward a faint path that
cut away from the main tread. I had seen that spur on earlier
trips. It leads down into salmon Berry
and Alder, toward a lower braid of the river.
It does not connect cleanly back to the corridor most people use.
It is what you follow when you are tired and guessing.
I kept walking and the two shapes kept station.
The uphill one never gave me a clean look at its face or hands.
I saw a pale forearm once where a sleeve hung in strips and a
long narrow shape above the neck.
That red is a head, for lack of a better term.
The downslope mover stayed in brush that dampened sound, but
every few seconds I would hear grains of sand scrape
underweight. The main tread under my feet had
the usual signs, a heel scuff, a dog print from that day, a stick
someone had used like a pole and then dropped at a switch back.
The faint path they seemed to prefer showed wind ripples and
elk tracks older than the human prints around me.
I realized the line they were drawing would intersect me if I
eased even a few feet toward that spur.
It was not a charge, it was pressure.
If I took the hint, I would be below the bluff in brush with
failing light and no clear way up to the corridor.
None of that felt like a reason to talk.
I did not say anything. I took out nothing.
I put both hands free, adjusted my straps so there was no slack,
and made a rule that I would keep my feet on the most
compacted soil available. At the next turn, the uphill
figure changed tactics. It left the cover of one large
trunk and crossed a gap to the next with quick steps that ate
distance without the noise I expected.
It covered 10 yards in the time it should have taken to cover 5.
I heard one rock roll and then silence.
The lower shape adjusted its angle in response and took a
line that would meet me just below the base of the bluff if I
made a mistake. The main trail dropped a little
there and then rose in 2 short turns to a flat where you can
hear the river more clearly. I could sense that open sound
ahead and decided not to give these to the ground they wanted.
At the flat I saw a shallow braid of the sandy moving across
pale sand. There was no log laid over it.
The water would be shin deep and cold, but manageable on the
other side. The corridor was obvious from
cut log ends and packed tread. There was only one way to make
this work. I kept the current on my left
shoulder in my mind as a fixed reference, stepped straight into
the water and made as much noise as my body could generate.
My shoes filled the cold hit fast and moved up my calves, but
the bottom was firm and the push was steady rather than erratic.
I planted each foot down and brought the other forward in a
line that did not drift. On the far bank, I climbed a
small cut and hit dirt that was chewed by recent traffic.
A child's candy wrapper lay tucked against a root.
There were multiple dog prints, each with sharp edges.
I felt the difference. Immediately.
Sound returned to its normal pattern.
The open corridor meant anything that wanted to follow would have
to step into the open as well. I turned to check the far side
only once the tall figure was not in the sand.
It stayed half covered by a trunk at the edge of the brush
where the shallow channel met the bank.
It paced one tree and then another.
I watched long enough to decide I was not seeing a trick of
light. Then I left it alone and moved.
The lower one never stepped out of the bushes.
I heard a single scrape of rock, then nothing I could separate
from water noise. I kept the river's push on my
left as a guide and followed the signs of regular use.
Cut logs with clean saw marks, a short fence built from split
rails. The ground under my shoes went
from soft to firm, and the line of the tread widened until I
could walk without drifting into brush.
The last half mile felt longer than usual, not because of
visibility, but because I was fully aware that I was between
two kinds of ground, the fading forest on my right and the
active river on my left. The kiosk appeared as a dark
rectangle before it resolved into wood.
And then the day use lot opened in front of me.
With two cars still parked and quiet.
I put my pack in the back seat, turn the key and let the
headlights throw dust forward onto the road.
I did not sit there to process anything.
I put the car in gear, turned down Lolo Pass Rd. and joined
Hwy. 26. Only when I was past
Rhododendron did I call my friend and tell him what I had
seen. I said the word people use when
they do not have another label, and I said it once.
I know that term belongs to a specific culture and a specific
place, and I do not trade on it for effect.
I used it because I had to choose a name for two figures
that moved with purpose, work together to steer me off a safe
tread, and did not act like any people I have dealt with in the
woods at home. I pulled up maps and looked hard
at the section where the faint path drops from the switchbacks
toward the river. The satellite images showed
green thickets that did not have a clean exit, a Cut Bank that
would make you walk farther down the channel to find a place to
climb, and a short flat section where a person would lose sight
lines quickly. It confirmed what my feet had
felt. If I had given up the corridor,
I would have been stuck working through brush at the hour when
light shuts down. I went back to the notes in my
head about that area. There is no official bridge
because of what happened in 2014, which means you accept
that the river decides the safest crossing each season.
A person caught at the wrong bend at dusk can be held in
place not by force but by terrain.
I thought about the way the uphill figure kept trunks
between US and the way the lower one adjusted its angle whenever
I did. It looked like teamwork.
It looked like practice. It did not look like chance.
I am not going to argue with anyone who wants to put a human
explanation on this. The forest around Mount Hood
sees all kinds of people. Hunters, mushroom pickers, day
hikers, long distance hikers, people living rough, people who
want to scare someone for their own reasons.
But I have had odd encounters before and every one of them had
a tell. Shouting, laughter, the sound of
boots or cheap radios, the smell of smoke or fuel.
This did not have those tells. It had quiet movement that
covered ground. It had angles that made sense
only if the goal was to push me onto a losing line.
And it had the kind of patience that outlasts a tired person.
That is what stayed with me more than anything I saw.
Not the rough hide or the narrow head shape, but the simple fact
of two moving parts guiding me toward a worse place.
The ending is ordinary. I got in my car and went home.
I slept without waking up to check the window.
The next morning I put my wet shoes out in the garage and
cleaned grid out of the insoles. I sent my friend a note with a
screenshot of the map and drew a line where the faint path ends.
We made one rule about that loop, which is that we do not
start it late. If we go back, it will be a
morning with clear weather and a plan to be at the falls when
there are still voices on the trail.
I've not set foot on that section since and I'm all right
with that. Every so often I drive that
stretch of Hwy. 26 and see the turn for Lolo Pass.
The sign is just a sign. The lot is just a lot.
The loop is still a popular hike, the water still runs, the
channels still change, and the official advice about the
crossing still stands. I do not avoid the area because
of a story I told myself. I avoid it because the pieces
lined up in a way that felt like a test and the only part that
mattered was making a choice that kept me on ground.
I understood that is the only thing I took from it.
Keep your feet on the real tread.
Make noise. When noise helps, leave the rest
alone.