I grew up car camping all over Tennessee, but last fall was my
first time taking my younger brother and his fiance on a real
backpacking overnight. We did everything by the book
permit at Cosby Campground. Car parked by the trailhead
kiosk. Route planned up the Low Gap
trail along Cosby Creek to one of the designated sites.
A reasonable walk in. It was late October, cold enough
that the morning frost made the footbridge board slick, warm
enough by afternoon that you could unzip your jacket on the
climbs. The campground was half empty
and the air had that dry leaf smell you only get when the
color is past peak and the trees are thinning out.
I wanted them to have a gentle first trip.
Cook on the stove, hear the Creek at night, See how quiet
the Smokies get once you walk more than a mile from a Rd. 1/2
mile before camp. My trekking pole caught on
something I never saw. The pole flexed sideways and a
thumb sized bell gave 1 flat note knee high, almost invisible
in the shadow. Someone had run monofilament
between two saplings and tied the bell to a loop.
We crouched around it like we were looking at a leak under a
sink, all of us suddenly very aware of how still the woods
were. The line was too clean to be old
trash and too purposeful to be random.
I eased it off my pole and set it back exactly how we'd found
it. 10 minutes later we hit another rig, a coffee can with
pebbles strung on more line so it would rattle if you brushed
the thread. It sat right at shin height
across a faint side path. What is that for?
My brother's fiance asked. I said something stupid, like
maybe a way to spook deer, because I didn't want to say
what I was actually thinking, which was that someone wanted
advance notice of people moving around out here.
We stepped over it, reset it as best we could, and kept going
because the sun was already flattening out behind the Ridge.
We got to our site without seeing anyone.
It was one of the small, quiet ones.
A couple of flat pads, a fire ring someone had tried to build
out of rocks, but we ignored it and set the stove on.
A flat piece of mineral soil, a solid branch for a food hang a
little ways off, and a clean run of Cosby Creek 30 yards down
slope. We pitched the tent, hung the
food, filtered water and boiled dinner.
The air had that clear cold edge that makes aluminum pots ring a
little when you set them down. The plan was to eat, stretch the
legs with a short walk to confirm the exit in the morning,
and be zipped in by full dark. We followed A narrow path behind
camp that looked like it paralleled the main trail, just
to see where it rejoined in a rhododendron thicket.
Under those shiny leaves we found a square of tarp tucked
into the brush and dusted with leaf litter.
The corners were weighed with river rock Under the tarp.
The soil was fresh and dark and mounded in four lumps the size
of small loaves. There was a burlap sack tied
with paracord. I loosened the knot just enough
to peek and saw knobby tan roots with thin feeder hairs, dirt
still clinging. The smell was sharp, green and
medicinal. Ginseng harvesting any plant in
the park is illegal. People do it anyway because
those roots can sell for real money.
We didn't touch anything else. We put the sack back exactly how
it had been, pulled the tarp back over, replaced the rocks,
and backed out of the thicket the same way we'd gone in.
There was a short conversation right there about whether we
should pack out immediately. It was already dim in the
drainage and between leaves and a few blow downs.
Hiking out would mean slow going on slippery ground with
headlamps. I told them we would do a
careful night, follow strict bare protocol, and leave at
first light. That meant sticks out of the
vestibule so nothing snagged us if we had to move.
Spray can clipped where my right hand could find it without
looking. Headlamps with fresh batteries
and strobe modes ready. Stove on standby to roar if we
needed noise. All food and scented stuff hung
far from camp. We ate without talking much, and
I kept glancing back the way we'd come.
Somewhere on the trail behind us, a bell chimed once.
Just one note, then nothing. If you've spent time in the
Backcountry, you know the difference between animal noise
and human noise. That was human.
We killed the stove and listened.
The Creek stayed steady. Leaves ticked as the air cooled.
No voices. We went to the tent early, boots
lined up, ready to step into. It got truly dark without
moonlight. Everything past the headlamp
beams turned into the same Gray wall.
Not because it was alive or anything like that, just because
light only carries so far through brush and trunks.
We were half asleep when we heard footsteps on dry leaves
slow. The kind of careful pace you
take when you're trying not to make a lot of sound.
Then a pair of voices started speaking to each other just
outside the reach of our headlamps.
A man, A woman. The words were low and steady
every time one of us said hello. Can we help you?
The voices went quiet and stayed quiet until we stopped talking,
then picked up again. Not exactly whispering, and not
normal volume either. They never let us catch a full
sentence. We got out of the tent and
followed the plan. The three of us stood
back-to-back in a little triangle, headlamps on low but
with hands on the buttons to bump them, to strobe, stove
roaring to make noise and heat bear spray in my right hand with
the safety off but my finger clear.
I said in a clear voice that we were camping at a permitted
site, that the campground host knew our plan, and that we would
be leaving at first light to report what we'd found.
The woman's voice called from the trail.
Help. He's hurt.
The man's voice answered from a different angle, with the same
line, like an echo. If echoes had timing.
They kept moving just outside the edge of the light, and every
time we slewed a beam toward the sound, the footsteps shifted by
a few yards. Leaves crunched once or twice,
then nothing. The coffee can rattled as if
someone shook it gently with two fingers and went still.
When I swept my headlamp across the brush, I saw a line glinting
in a new place closer to us, strung between 2 short steaks
someone must have hammered into the Duff while we were cooking.
The bell gave a tiny metal tick, not a ring, like it had tapped
something and been steadied by a hand.
I repeated that we were staying put until daylight.
The woman called again, steady and calm, and the man said the
same words in the same rhythm. We didn't move.
The stove drowned out my heartbeat.
I could feel my brother's shoulder pressing against mine
harder than he probably realized.
We got back in the tent only when the footsteps had been gone
long enough to make it feel foolish to keep standing in a
circle. Boots stayed on, headlamps
around our necks. The spray cans sat between my
knees. The nylon felt like paper in
that cold. We were quiet for maybe 15
minutes, when breath moved the fabric just behind my head and a
voice said, not loud at all. You saw it.
The zipper tugged halfway before catching, as if whoever had it
didn't understand where the pole needed to go to clear the little
flap. I hit strobe and yelled, and the
whole tent flickered hard white. Whoever was there moved fast and
low through the leaves. Right after that we heard a
sharp twang, the sound of monofilament snapping right near
the vestibule. They had moved one of their
lines so close we could have tripped it stepping out from
down the trail. The woman called.
We're leaving. The man's voice at another
angle, said the same words with the same even tone.
We didn't answer. We sat there, headlamps off to
save batteries, sweeping a light every 10 minutes, trading
watches without saying much more than your turn.
The temperature dropped to the kind of cold that makes the tent
fly stiff. A little before dawn, 2 notes
from a whistle came from way down the drainage, then nothing
at all but the Creek when the sky went from black to that flat
Gray that means you can see the ground without a lamp.
We broke camp like we were running from a storm.
I've never packed that fast. Sleeping bags stuffed in
seconds, Tent shaken once and rolled.
Wet stove and cup thrown in the top of my pack.
Food bag yanked down and lashed without sorting.
I cut my index finger on the sharp end of a monofilament
leader near a stake and bled a little.
The slice was small but clean and bled like cuts do in cold
air. I wrapped it with tape and we
moved. We didn't talk, just called out
roots and slick spots. That two mile walk felt like 6.
We passed 2 day hikers coming up near the lower switchbacks, said
good morning and kept going. The first full sunlight hit the
gravel lot by the time we stepped off the bridge.
At the campground we went straight to the host.
He didn't act surprised. He radioed a Ranger and told us
to sit at the picnic table and drink water.
My hands shook a little more than I wanted them to.
When the Ranger got there, we gave our permit number and
walked him back in. Daylight turns the same ground
into a different place. We pointed out the first bell
line, the coffee can, and the side path into the rhododendron.
He photographed everything. Close-ups of knots, the exact
height of the line on the saplings, tread patterns in the
damp leaves on the side path. He snipped the monofilament and
pulled it into an evidence bag. He didn't let us touch the tarp.
He lifted it, took more photos, and then opened the burlap.
He wanted us to say what we had seen inside, but not to handle
anything. He bagged the sack and the
little hand scale and the short digging tool.
On the way out he stopped, pointed to a scuffed spot in the
leaves near our tent pad, and laughed.
Once, without humor. They tripped their own line.
He didn't give us a lecture. He said we had done the right
thing by not moving at night and by not trying to take the stash
down to the campground. He said he had dealt with a
local pair who used noise rigs and voices to clear people from
certain spots. He didn't name them.
He told us to write down everything we remembered while
it was fresh, even the parts that felt like nothing.
He thanked us, which felt strange because I didn't feel
helpful. I felt like we had been given a
very clear message to get out, and we got out.
Two days later, he called my phone.
His voice sounded lighter. They had contacted a man and a
woman the next evening, a couple miles from where we camped,
after another hiker reported lines across the trail, he said
citations were issued for ginseng poaching, trespass and
tampering with visitors. The roots matched fresh digs.
He didn't ask us to come in for anything else.
He said our names were in the incident report and told us
again that leaving at first light was the right call.
We got out with a sliced finger and a night I don't like to
think about when I'm trying to fall asleep.
There wasn't anything paranormal about it.
It was two people who didn't want witnesses near their stash.
They paced the edge of our light, moved their alarms
closer, tried to pull us off the pad with a simple script, and
came right up to the tent to tell us we had seen too much.
I keep going over the same details.
The way the bell gave a single note and then went quiet like
someone steadied it, the coffee can rattling right after they
spoke, the zipper catching on the flap because the hand on it
had never opened. That model of tent.
I tell myself we did everything simple and right.
We stayed together. We didn't chase voices into the
dark. We used our gear for what it was
for. We left the illegal stuff for
the people with badges and cameras, and I remind my brother
and his fiance when they talk about the trip that the scariest
thing out there that night was not the place.
It was two people who wanted us very far away and were willing
to work for it. I grew up in Arizona and I'm not
new to sleeping outside. My cousin Ty and I have done
easy overnights around Flagstaff for years.
Ashurst Marshall, a couple of quiet pull outs off Lake Mary
Rd. when we just want a calm night and a quick drive home.
We've heard the normal sounds out there.
Elk bugles that carry like a whistle, coyotes that start up
and quiet down. The steady wash of tires on the
highway when the air sits low. Early October felt like a safe
time for a weekday camp. A cold front was supposed to
push through overnight. Clear sky dropping temps.
North End of upper Lake Mary sitting flat and quiet.
We loaded the Tacoma with a two person tent, a cooler, small
bundle of wood, and the old mag light my dad kept under his
truck seat for years. We weren't chasing anything.
We wanted a simple fire, a quiet shoreline, and sleep.
We turned off Lake Mary Rd. onto a short cinder spur I'd used
twice before. The ground there sits level with
scattered juniper, some grass, and a low wash that runs toward
the water. The lake was a dark plate 100
yards out. It was calm enough to show a
clean curve of shore. We parked facing the tree line,
left the bed toward the water, and set the tent 20 feet from
the truck so the cab could block some of the breeze.
There were no other camps, Insight, no lanterns across the
Cove, nothing but a few day old tire tracks and rabbit prints in
the cinders. By sunset we had hot dogs going
and a small fire inside a neat ring of rocks.
The cold front announced itself the way they do up there.
The air turned dry in a different way and the breeze
sharpened. Sound started travelling.
I could hear a truck on the highway that had to be miles
away, and when a bird shifted in the juniper it carried clear
enough that I looked up even though it was 15 yards off.
We talked low and didn't say much.
It was one of those nights where each little noise has edges.
You can feel how far it moves. Around 10 we doused the fire
down to coals and set the cooler right by the passenger side rear
tire. We locked the truck on muscle
memory. I remember pressing the fob
twice and seeing the blink. Ty laughed at me for checking
the handle. Anyway, we both do that, touch
the handle just to feel the lock catch.
The temperature kept falling. We brushed our teeth and got in
the tent by 11 each with a headlamp around our necks and
our boots sitting where we could find them in one grab.
We zipped the fly and the world outside went from orange to Gray
to black. I could hear the lake more than
I could see it. The wind carried it the way a
hallway carries a voice. I was almost asleep when I heard
my cousin speak from the trees near the truck.
Not far. Not a shout, just the tone he
uses when he's trying not to wake anyone.
Dave, bring the light. I rolled onto an elbow and the
first stupid thought was that he'd gotten up to pee and needed
the mag light. Then Ty breathed out hard beside
me and bumped my shoulder because he was turning over in
the bag. I felt the bag move against my
arm. He was right there.
I whispered. You heard that?
He whispered. Yeah.
We both listened. The wind worked the fly a
little. I could hear the same small
clink in the poles you always get with a cold snap. 30 seconds
later I heard a single click from the truck.
Not a thud, not a rattle. A door handle click.
The sound of the little metal latch touching and bouncing off
because the lock is set. It happened once, then weight
shifted in the cinders. If you've camped in that stuff,
you know the sound. Shallow grit under something
heavy. There was a pause, like someone
trying to decide where to put a foot.
A lone coyote started up from the far side of the lake.
It was the clean kind of cry that comes from distance.
It was joined by another voice that didn't match the distance.
Then something else tried to follow the pattern of the yips
without getting the spacing right.
It came out like a run of syllables laid in the wrong
places. I felt my scalp pull tight.
I don't scare easy, but the wrong timing hit me in a way
that wasn't normal. I called out who's there because
that seemed like the honest thing to do.
The coyote sound stopped mid Yip.
The cut off was so sudden I knew it wasn't a coyote anymore.
The footsteps padded away through the cinders.
A few slow careful steps and then a burst that covered too
much ground for the sound it made.
We stayed in the tent for a minute trying to breathe normal.
I could hear Ty swallow. We didn't say names, we said OK
and you good in a low voice and then we unzipped together.
We kept our headlamps on the lowest setting and tilted them
at the ground so we wouldn't throw a target at chest height.
The Maglite stayed in my left hand with my thumb on the
button, but I didn't hit it. The last coals in the ring were
giving off enough light to show outlines by the cooler.
Plain as a photo was a barefoot print in the powdery cinder.
It ran long and narrow, and the toes were splayed in a way that
made my stomach dip. It looked like someone had
pressed down hard with the front of a foot to get purchase.
There was no shoe tread, no heel, just a faint suggestion of
it behind the deep toe marks. The angle of the toes pointed
upwind toward the South side, where the juniper stood thicker
and our scent was heading. Something moved at the edge of
the firelight. It crossed through the glow the
way a person would if they didn't want to walk straight in.
But it didn't hold itself like a person.
The shoulders sat wrong. The height was off for level
ground. The profile never gave us a
clear look at a face. It's skimmed between 2 low
bushes and was gone. I remember how my mouth tasted
dry from a dip of chew I'd had earlier and coppery now, like a
bloody lip. Ty didn't say anything until he
had to pee. He stepped behind the bed of the
truck, keeping the truck between him and the trees.
I stayed where I could see his boots from the far side of the
bed rail, close enough to be a whisper on skin.
I heard my own voice say Ty's nickname T over here.
He zipped up fast and said Dave. The way he said my name was a
question and a warning at once. I was in full view, 5 steps to
his right. He could see me, he knew where I
was. I felt my whole body go tight
like I just walked into a low doorway.
My mouth said I'm right here but it came out thin.
He backed around the bumper to me without turning his back to
the bed. We started watching the South
side of the clearing. The wind was steady from there,
carrying our smell toward the lake.
Whatever this was kept trying to stay upwind of us, not to catch
our scent, but to keep ours from touching it.
That clicked for both of us at the same time.
Whatever was moving out there didn't want our scent near it.
It wasn't afraid of the light so much as it was careful about
smell. We kept the headlamps low and
moved in small steps until our backs touched the doors.
I unlocked with the fob and timed the beeps between gusts
because I didn't want to give any extra landmarks.
The world narrowed to the rectangle of glass and the strip
of juniper beyond 30 feet out. Something slid between trunks
again, still refusing a full angle.
It held a person shape right up to the moment the high beams hit
when we turned the key and rolled the switch.
As soon as the bright light cut across it, it dropped to all
fours. It didn't bend like a person
bends. There was no break at the waist,
no knees folding the way knees fold.
It lowered in a straight wrong hinge and then vanished behind a
juniper that shouldn't have hidden something that size.
No eye shine at all, nothing reflective.
Just the sick flat knowledge that a big thing had been
standing there and was now gone. We let the engine idle and kept
the beams on the tree line. We didn't honk.
We didn't Rev. We watched for any flicker of movement that
would give us a path. For a few seconds the only sound
was the fan in the truck and the steady push of wind across the
lake. Then the cinders scraped again
in a short burst, like a quick launch, and stopped.
It had moved, I couldn't tell where.
The hair on my arms prickled under my jacket.
I don't mean that in a dramatic way.
It was a physical response I couldn't control, the same way
you blink when grit hits your eye.
We backed out, slow, tires grinding.
The beams washed over trunks in open space and then back to
black. After 30 yards, the juniper
thinned. I felt it pace us, not alongside
but ahead, at an angle, the way a dog will cut a corner to see
where you're going. We never saw it again.
We felt it in the way each short stretch of cinder sounded and in
the way the wind kept bringing our own smell back to us as if
something on the other side was staying just outside it.
We didn't talk until we hit the 24 hour station by Mormon Lake.
We pulled up where the lights hit the pavement hard and called
the non-emergency number. We didn't want to chase.
We wanted a record and a witness who could come back with us when
the sun showed the ground. The woman on the line took our
names and location and told us to sit tight.
We got bad coffee from the machine and watched the glass
doors like they might open on something we dragged in.
A Coconino County deputy met us a little after first light.
He looked tired in the way people do when their shift sits
on the wrong side of dawn. He followed us back down the
spur in his SUV. In the daylight the site looked
normal. Our ring of rocks was tidy, the
tent fly was stiff with frost. No mess, no tracks I didn't
expect until we showed him the area by the cooler and the
juniper. The print was still there.
The toes were wide from pressure, the length ran longer
than mine by a good inch and 1/2, and I'm not small.
He crouched and touched the edge of one toe mark like he was
testing how firm it was. He followed a spread of toe digs
into the brush line, where you'd expect to see heel marks if
somebody had moved at a walk. There were none.
He stood and rubbed his jaw and said odd for the weather.
He took a couple of photos on his phone and wrote an incident
report number on a card. He didn't try to name it.
He didn't tell us a story. He did the job the way I'd want
someone to do it, honest about what was there and what wasn't.
We broke camp fast. I didn't like turning my back to
the brush, even with the sun up. The cooler went in a trash bag
because I didn't want it in my house.
After that, we checked the truck for prints we might have missed
and found nothing where a person would have stood to test the
handle. It was clean except for a smear
along the door I couldn't place. Maybe it was from my own hand, I
don't know. I don't care.
Back at the store, while we waited for the deputy to hand us
the number, an older man came in for coffee.
He glanced at our faces, then at the deputies SUV outside, and
then at the dirt on our boots. He didn't play the local expert.
He didn't smile. He said quiet.
Don't camp alone out there when the wind's right.
I asked what he meant by right. He lifted his shoulder.
When it carries names, he paid and left.
That was it. People will say this is a trick
of the wind or some drunk out in the trees messing with us.
People will say coyotes do weird things and prints melt overnight
into shapes. You can read wrong.
I've heard it all and I don't care to debate any of it.
I know the sound of a door handle when it meets a lock.
I know my own voice. I know how a body should bend
when it goes to the ground. I also know the feeling of being
studied from a place where you can't get a look back.
And I know the kind of planning that stays upwind like it's
following a rule. We added a rule of our own after
that night. We don't answer names in the
dark. We don't sleep at Lake Mary when
a front is moving through. Not for a single night.
We kept the incident number and tossed the cooler.
Ty brings it up once a year, like you tap a bruise to see if
it still hurts. It does.
This isn't to entertain anyone or to sell some campfire talk.
I'm putting it down because it has sat in my head in the same
order since that night, and because there are places out
there where you should pay attention to the small things.
The way sound travels. The way a print looks when the
weight is all in the toes. The shape that refuses to turn
its face. The voice that calls you from 5
feet to your left when the person who owns that voice is 5
feet to your right. That was our last night at Lake
Mary. If you hike the Superior Hiking
Trail late in October, hear me out.
This is the kind of story people pass around at gas stations
along Hwy. 61 when the wind comes off the lake and your
coffee cools faster than it should.
I live in Duluth. My wife and I are weekend
hikers, not heroes with a medium rescue dog who usually thinks
everything in the woods is her business.
We've done most of the easy sections South of Beaver Bay and
a few overnights. We know how to run a stove,
throw a good food hang, and read a paper map when the trail
markers get sparse. That's all we brought to what
I'm about to tell you. Ordinary competence, a dog with
opinions, and one piece of luck we didn't earn.
We went for the color. The plan was simple.
Park at Gooseberry Falls State Park, step onto the Superior
Hiking Trail heading north, and crash at one of the Backcountry
sites before the Split Rock River.
Then push out at first light to the Split Rock wayside on Hwy.
61. Peak leaves were hanging on, but
you could feel the season trying to close the door, the forecast
said. Flurries possible low 30s wind
from the Big Lake. The air smelled like cold iron.
That's not poetry. That's what it smelled like.
Metal and water and old rock. The first miles were clean and
quiet. Blue blazes on trunks.
Boardwalk across a low wet spot. Birch and cedar mixed together
so the trunks looked like a set of ribs.
The dog trotted ahead on the line, checking back every 20
yards like she always does. The lake showed through the
trees once or twice, a sheet of dull Gray that swallowed light.
We found the first sign before we found our campsite.
A Birch stood just off the tread, pale and smooth with long
vertical scrapes cut into it, Not small, fresh like it had
been peeled with a dull chisel. The bottom of the marks were at
my chest, the top reached a place where I'd have to jump to
touch. I said moose.
My wife said maybe. The dog did not sniff the bark.
She stared past it, tail down, then moved us along with that
stubborn shoulder lean dogs use when they have an opinion.
We brushed it off because brushing it off is easy while
the sun is still up. We made camp an hour before
dark. Flat spot above a little
drainage, steel fire ring, a couple of sitting logs.
We pulled water from a shallow seep that moved just enough to
not freeze at the edges. The wind brought the sound of
the lake, sometimes a low hiss like tires on wet pavement.
We set APCT style food. Hang 30 or 40 feet from the
tent, rock bag, throw over a good limb, bag up 10 or 12 feet
and away from the trunk. The rope hummed once in a gust
and settled. I checked the angle and tie off
twice because it felt like the kind of night that would punish
lazy. We ate, cleaned everything that
smelled like food, and tucked in by 8:30, the dog loafing between
us like a space heater. Here's where the story tightens.
A single thud landed uphill from us as the last light went out of
the sky. Not a crack, not falling wood.
A planted heel somewhere in the leaves.
Then nothing. The kind of silence that isn't
peaceful. It's just the thing you hear
when other sounds stop. The dog gave 1 low growl.
The way a dog clears its throat. Then she crawled under my wife's
legs, shivering hard enough to rattle the pads.
She stopped looking toward the sound.
She stopped looking at all. We're not reckless.
We had a plan for a bear. Noise first, then heat and
light, then more noise. I set the stove in a fire
starter where I could reach them.
My wife had her headlamp in her hand, the map in the top of her
pack. The steps came again at 10:45,
give or take. Not a charge, not sneaking,
heavy, slow placed. They stopped and started as if
whoever owned them was testing wind.
They always stopped on the windward side of our tent, where
our scent should have been blowing.
They never crossed behind us into the Lee.
There's a trick a guide showed me once.
If you think something is out there and you don't want to
blind yourself or challenge it straight on, you can flick light
with a small mirror. I had one in the first aid kit,
a cheap square with rounded edges.
I angled my headlamp into it and sent a thin beam sideways
between 2 trees. When the light moved right, the
steps moved right at the same pace, keeping the same distance.
When I slid it left, the sound matched the slide, like it could
see the edge of our attention and keep just outside it.
You don't invent that in your head, you hear it in your bones.
Then the rope above us thrummed. A careful tug.
Another. The bag creaked on the line.
Whatever was out there plucked at the rope and knows the hang,
but it never stepped into the zone right under the bag where
it would be most vulnerable. My wife mouthed bare.
I nodded, because I wanted that word.
It's a good word. It has rules.
The dog tried to wedge behind our packs and vanished down to a
quiver I could feel through the floor.
Her breath showed in soft clouds in the beam.
Ours did too, each one hanging there between US in the mesh,
breaking thin in the wind. Out past the tent wall.
Something crossed the edge of light where a face should be and
left nothing in the air. No steam, no fog.
Just a gap that passed through the beam and was gone.
I unzipped fast. My wife put her thumb to the
stove control and I jammed a fire starter into the ring.
The stove gave that thin jet roar with a spark the starter
took all at once and threw a hard white glare.
In that flicker, something tall and wrong stood frozen between 2
dark trunks. Not bulky, not gaunt the way a
starving person looks. It was stretched as if its
joints had grown to clear some distance they weren't meant to
clear. The knees and elbows hinged a
little off. The head tilted, not in
curiosity but like listening was the whole point.
There was no plume at the mouth. Every breath I could see came
from us. It didn't run.
It slid behind a spruce and did not come out.
The quiet after the light felt like the space under a door when
the hallway goes dark. I don't care what kind of camper
you are. There is a speed beyond fast
when you know you need to leave. We reached it.
My wife stuffed the bags loose into the packs.
I yanked stakes and rolled the fly halfway and said forget it.
The food bag came down like a shot.
We left one boot lace coiled near the ring because I had
pulled it to fix an eyelet earlier and it never made it
back into the pocket. 90 seconds, give or take.
We left the site as if it had burned down around us.
N was the call. The split rock wayside is closer
than gooseberry from that site, and you can hear the highway
from the knobs before the river if the wind agrees.
We pushed the headlamps, showing that darker ribbon of tread
through leaves. Blue blazes flared, faded,
flared again on trunks. Boardwalks were slick from
flurries that didn't want to be snow.
Yet the dog who always runs point pressed against my calf
and tried to wedge under the swinging packs whenever the
trail tightened. She would not range.
She would not look backward. We kept time by sing, shouting a
kids trail song under our breath.
Not for courage, just to set a cadence we could hold.
The rhythm meant our steps didn't run away from us.
The first footbridge we hit had a handrail with a thin skin of
ice on it, and I can still feel the sting in my fingertips where
the cold cut through. We passed a spur sign for a
campsite and didn't talk about stopping.
The lake appeared through the black trees once, just a darker
strip where nothing else was. The wind pushed it into a shape
without edges. Every time the trail bent into
the wind, we'd hear it again, the measured weight uphill of us
adjusting as we did, never falling behind, never breaking a
branch. At 1 flat slab of rock, slick
with lichen and dust, I put a knee down hard when my headlamp
swung back. The steps stopped clean at the
sweep of the beam, like the mirror trick, but closer.
Then we went 100 yards with nothing but our own noise.
Then it returned. Same pace, same placement on the
windward side. Dawn makes a promise, even if
you don't trust it. It thinned the black at about
6:30. The grade tilted down, the smell
of wet gravel came in from the road, and the hiss of a truck's
tires carried through the trees. We didn't start to breathe
easier until the wayside opened under our feet and the asphalt
took our weight. I remember the blue of the vault
toilet door and the metal Sheen on the bear proof cans more
clearly than I remember faces from high school.
A State Parks truck swung in from Hwy. 61 and idled.
The man in the cab saw our packs, our dog, our faces.
He asked if we were OK. We said we were now.
We said we'd like a ride back to Gooseberry if he had the time.
He asked what happened while we warmed our hands over the heater
vents. We said bear because Bear is the
right size to stay inside a moving truck at dawn.
He asked if our dog was drooling or vomiting or acting off.
We said scared but steady. He told us about distemper and
trichinosis and scavengers, practical things that don't care
about stories, and he said to call a vet if she seemed sick.
He offered to swing past our camp on the way.
We're not brave. We said yes, because a truck is
a steel room with locks and we wanted to see the spot in
daylight from inside one. We found the pad where we'd
slept, by the churned leaves and the half impression of our tent
footprint. The ground was scuffed in arcs,
like someone pivoted on the balls of their feet while
testing weight. The rope was fine, the limb was
fine. Our food bag had tooth dents on
the tough liner, but nothing tore inside the ring.
There were deer bones we hadn't seen before, ribs with the ends
chewed clean, part of a lower leg.
Our forgotten boot lace lay nearby, frayed and slimed like a
toy you'd pull away from a board dog.
No clear tracks, no scat, nothing that Hans can hold up
and say, look, this is proof. He wrote it down as a black bear
encounter near a Backcountry site north of Gooseberry, late
October. Hikers exited before dawn.
No injury, he said. Bears push hard before real
snow. He told us again to watch the
dog. He didn't argue about our food
hang height. He didn't argue about anything.
Paper is good at swallowing corners.
We took the ride back, signed where he asked, and went home.
The dog slept like she'd been poured into her bed.
When she woke, she ate, drank and trotted to the door with the
same look she always gives me. No fever, no limp, no change I
could name. We sat over coffee and decided
what to do with the night. We did what people do when they
want to go to work on Monday and sleep through the next winter
without listening for steps. We accepted the line on the
report. We put the thing into the bear
box in our heads and slid the lid shut.
But here's the part that makes it a warning.
If you go out between Gooseberry and Split Rock late in October,
don't camp where the wind hits you in the face all night.
Don't count on noise scaring everything off.
Don't count on the tricks you learned from a search and rescue
blog to make you feel taller than you are.
Bring heat you can light without fumbling.
Hang your food right and know how to drop it fast if anything
out there moves in time with your light instead of from it.
If it keeps the wind between you like a rule it wrote for itself,
Leave, don't run, don't argue. Pack what you can in a minute
and go north by headlamp sing shouting.
If you have to. Aim for asphalt and steel and
morning paperwork. You don't need a name for
everything you met in the dark. Someone years ago used one
around a logging campfire and people still roll it around in
their mouth like a dare. I don't care what word you pick,
I care that you get out whole we did.
That's the end of it. That's enough.
I'm not the kind of person who goes looking for trouble.
I'm from Louisville, late 20's, the sort who packs rain gear
even if the forecast says clear. My buddy Tyler is the checklist
type. Bare cables, site number, print
out of the rules on the board by the pay station.
He's got it covered. We like Red River Gorge because
it's close and honest, trails that climb just enough to make
you breathe, arches that look like they've been holding the
sky since before any of us showed up. mid-october we took a
weeknight spot at Coomer Ridge Campground, planning to walk the
loop at dawn and see Gray's Arch through low fog.
The rain was steady but never heavy, the kind that darkens
leaves and keeps voices down. The campground was maybe half
full. Quiet hours posted 5:50.
It should have been a forgettable, damp night.
I'm telling you this by firelight because it's not a
ghost story. It's a human story.
And like most of those, the warning signs were plain as day.
We rolled in late afternoon and chose an outer loop site near
the bath house. The table was already glossed
with drizzle. We strung a blue tarp from the
post to a Maple and kept it low so water would run clean and not
pool. Tyler set a small legal fire for
morale, just enough to see our hands.
We talked through morning plans, park at the Gray's Arch
trailhead off Tunnel Ridge Rd. Circle the loop slow, be back by
lunch, nothing fancy. We were kicking mud off boots
when a man walked up like he belonged there.
Brown jacket, ball cap, worn work boots, a cheap watch that
looked like it came out of a blister pack.
He had a red light clipped to his brim, not turned on yet.
He opened with a smile that didn't reach anything and said
he was a volunteer trail host. Just making rounds, seeing who
was hiking what. I've met real volunteers.
They always show a laminated badge, ask if you've got
questions about rules or closures, hand you a number if
you need help. This man didn't do any of that.
He asked what route we plan to take, what time we were leaving,
whether we had extra AA or AAA batteries, if there was beer in
the cooler, if anyone else knew where we were going.
He kept his body turned just enough to sight down at the
cooler latch. Tyler said we were fine and that
we'd reviewed the rules. The man didn't leave.
He asked about batteries again, like he hadn't hurt himself the
first time. When he finally stepped back, it
wasn't with any. Have a good night, he said.
See you around the loop and headed towards sites that looked
empty. We weren't brave about it, just
practical. We moved the cooler to the truck
bed and looped a cable lock. The spare batteries went under
the driver's seat. We added a second guy line to
the tarp and snugged it hard. We told each other he was just
odd. That rain brings out the ones
who don't have anywhere else to be.
As dark settled, a red pin of light drifted past the lane like
somebody testing a headlamp on low.
It didn't stop, didn't swing around, just passed and went
quiet. It was early yet, quiet, hours
hadn't started, but I felt that small, tight place in my gut
that tells you to sleep in your boots.
We turned in anyway sometime after midnight.
The campground had that damp hush you get in a mist.
Not silence, exactly, just everything padded.
I woke to a soft footstep in wet Duff and a dim red glow bleeding
around the tarp edge. Steady and careful.
The guy lying on my side drew tight once, then again I told
myself it was stretched from the rain, but the line tightened 1/3
time sharp. And then there was the clean
snap of cord parting. No drama, just the sound a knife
makes when it does one job right.
My tent fabric pushed in an inch from a knee or a hand, and a low
voice said so even it almost sounded like a reminder.
I know you're up. Not a threat you could repeat to
a judge. Not a shout to bring neighbors.
Just a sentence meant for two sets of ears.
We didn't talk about it. We moved.
I palmed my keys, wallet, headlamp and stepped out into
the drizzle with my heart going like a boot on a hollow log.
Tyler had the same three things in his jacket.
We kicked dirt on the last glow of the fire.
The plan was simple. Make the lane go straight to the
host's RV by the entrance knock and hand the problem off to
someone who could call it in. In the lane we pulled up short,
a beater sedan sat crosswise like a shrug across the gravel
hood propped with a stick. One headlight was fogged from
the inside. The bumper was held together
with zip ties. The man in the brown jacket
lifted a palm like a traffic cop and said he needed a jump.
He said it soft, the way people talk to dogs they want near
them. We kept walking.
When we shifted to pass wide, he slid in quick and snapped a
short burst of pepper spray at our feet.
Not a full blast, just enough to sting our eyes and make us blink
and cough. And as soon as he did it, he cut
sideways into the trees and ran. He didn't want to fight.
He wanted us shaky and turned around second guessing our
choices. We didn't shout.
We didn't chase. The smart play was straight
ahead, eyes down to keep from rubbing them, one hand out to
keep us centered on gravel. The host's RV sat under the dim
cone of a light near the entrance, like a checkpoint you
were thankful for. I banged the side and said, Sir,
someone's messing with sights. The door opened on a man old
enough to be my dad in a T-shirt and a jacket, hair stuck on one
side from sleep. I told him about the volunteer
trail host. He shook his head once and said
we don't have volunteers tonight.
He made a quick call to county dispatch and stepped into boots
while we stood under his awning, blinking steam out of our eyes.
When you've got someone older, steady and official next to you,
you're calm, comes back. We walked the lane as a group
host in the middle with a big light, me on one side, Tyler on
the other, keeping to the center so we weren't giving anyone a
chance to reach from the brush. The sedan was still there, hood
up. The host aimed his beam but
didn't touch it. He called the plate into
dispatch and told us to hang on there with him rather than split
up on the way back to our site to pick up anything left out.
His light cut across a mossy stump near an empty pad and
caught plastic. Tucked behind the stump, wrapped
in a grocery bag was a bundle. Three tourist headlamps in mixed
brands, a rubber band wad of AA and AAA batteries, three cheap
folding knives with gritty pivots, and a Gray sweatshirt
stamped with the name of a park from out of state.
That wasn't a camping kit. It was a stash you keep where
you can reach it between rounds. A couple two sides down wandered
up as the light moved. The woman had a blanket around
her shoulders and the man had that tight jaw that says he's
trying not to show. He's mad.
They said someone in a brown jacket had opened their cooler
at dusk. Said he was checking for food
safety and left when they walked up.
They thought it was weird but figured it was a rule they
didn't know. The host told them calm and
clear that no one checks coolers without the host present, and
certainly not a stranger asking about beer.
We were all still standing there when a county deputy rolled in
with his lights off, quiet as rain.
He parked by the host lot, walked up and took in the scene
in three sweeps of his flashlight.
Us, the sedan, the stump bundle. He ran the plate from his car
and came back saying it belonged to a different vehicle.
He asked us to stay by the host while he did a quick pass of the
lane edges. It wasn't a search with a line
of people, it was one man shining a light into the places
someone might squat and wait. He didn't find our brown jacket
man right then. He did, however, open the sedan
door with gloves and show us what we expected to see.
Fast food wrappers. A pair of jumper cables, a cheap
red headlamp, and a crumpled paper map.
He photographed the setup, bagged the bundle behind the
stump with practiced motions, and radioed for a tow.
We gave written statements, times as best we could recall.
What? The man asked us where he stood.
How the pepper spray hit the deputy's face.
Didn't change when I said the words.
I know you're up. But he did look over at Tyler
and ask if the voice sounded the same.
We both said yes. He said they'd had similar
reports around a few parks, mostly theft at 1st and then
this kind of night thing where a man tried to shape people's
choices. When he finished, he asked if we
planned to stay or leave. We chose to drive out and come
back in the morning from the main road.
Plenty of other vehicles around, plenty of daylight.
He said it was a sound plan. We slept the last hours in a
highway. Pull off seats, back jackets
over us for warmth. The sound of trucks moving east
and West before sunrise. We drove to the Gray's Arch lot.
The sky the color of dishwater, the fog sitting low and shore.
The trail was slick but manageable.
The kind of walk where you place your feet and mind your step.
We moved quiet and kept it short.
The arch showed itself only as a big shape through wet leaves.
No payoff to write home about. Just a sense that rock doesn't
care if you're there. We didn't linger back at the
truck, heater on our hands. We didn't talk much.
The plan was simple again. Head home, answer any call from
the deputy. Let the people with badges
handle the rest. The deputy called two days later
to say the sedan had been impounded, that they were
working prints and cross checking with reports from other
campgrounds. He thanked us for the timeline
and the description. A few days after that, a short
local news brief made the rounds.
Arrest made man suspected in a string of campground thefts and
intimidation tied to multiple parks in the region.
The piece mentioned a stolen plate, a cache of headlamps and
batteries, and a habit of using fake rolls to get close and
learn people's plans. It gave a name, I won't say it
here. What matters is it wasn't the
guy in the brown jacket. It was a real person who now had
to answer to real charges. We didn't get the morning we
pictured. The fog never lifted and the
arch stayed an outline. Still, we drove home lighter
than we left because we didn't go to bed that week with an
unanswered question scratching at the door.
We had a report number, a deputy's follow up, and the
sound of a deadbolt turning that night in an apartment that
suddenly felt worth its wait. Since then, we do a few things
different. We don't share our route with
anyone who walks up and asks, not without ID in a reason.
We keep keys and wallets and one light on us after dark, even if
we're only walking to the bath house.
If someone tries to control the lane with a car or a story, we
don't argue. We walk to the host and let the
host call it in. These aren't heroic moves,
they're ordinary moves that keep your night yours.
So that's my story. Not dramatic, not tidy, but true
in the way a damp October night is true.
If you find yourself at Coomer Ridge on a weeknight with mist
in the air and quiet hours posted, enjoy it.
Boil your water, coil your lines tight, say goodnight to your
fire with a splash. And if a man with a brown jacket
and a thin smile asks you what time you'll be gone and who's
waiting for you, let the answer be this.
We're all set. Then go talk to the host.
Some arches look better in fog, some stories sound better by a
fire, and some people only get to run the dark if you let them.
Don't. I'm not posting this to scare
anyone into staying home. I'm posting it so I can stop
replaying it every time my house gets quiet.
Last September I flew into Salt Lake City, met my buddy Eric in
Moab and we drove S just asleep under a Big Sky for one night.
Nothing hard to one person tense, a cooler, a small camp
stove and my old two note whistle we use to check in on
hikes. Dispersed camping is allowed
along Valley of the Gods Rd. the dirt track that cuts between
US163 and UT 261 near Mexican Hat.
We rolled in late afternoon, picked a pull out under a
sandstone Butte, and kept our fire inside an existing ring.
The air already had that cold bite you get in the high desert
where sound carries farther than you think.
I remember saying it felt too open, like we'd parked on a
stage, and then laughing it off because there wasn't another set
of headlights anywhere. The sun didn't fade out there so
much as turn off. One minute the rock still had
color, the next it was a black cut out against stars so sharp
they looked close enough to touch.
We ate canned chili, kept the fire small, and laid out our
camp like we always do. Tents nose to nose, tailgate
down as a bench, boots lined up by the bumper, cooler tucked
under the truck. A sand wash ran 20 yards from
the fire ring. Coyotes started up way out there
and then stopped all at once, like someone clicked a switch.
I showed Eric the two notes I use when I want to ask you.
Good without yelling. It's a short call I've done for
years. He nodded, did it back, and we
joked about how we'd use it if we had to pee in the middle of
the night. We turned in a little after 10,
planning to drive to Gooseneck State Park at sunrise at 1:00 in
the morning. A voice outside my tent asked,
soft and normal. You got a lighter?
It was Eric's voice. My hand was already moving
before my head caught up and I touched his shoulder because he
was breathing inches from me. He didn't wake up.
I went cold in a way that had nothing to do with the air.
Whoever was outside sounded like him.
Same pitch, same lazy way of dropping the last word.
But the real Eric was right there, mouth open, asleep,
before I could say anything. 2 taps hit the tailgate.
Clean knuckle on steel, no shuffle of feet, not a rock
slipping 2 taps like someone checking if the truck was
hollow. I unzipped 2 inches and held
still. The coals were low but bright
enough to make a small circle of red light around the fire ring.
A shape stood right in that circle.
Tall shoulder, square head tipped a little as if it was
trying to figure out our layout. It didn't sway or adjust like a
person who has been standing for a while.
It was just there when it turned.
It didn't lean or shift weight first.
The whole outline pivoted and moved off and the leg motion
looked wrong, the knee not bending when it should.
I closed the zipper and put my mouth to Eric's ear and said his
name as soft as I could. He woke up and I could feel him
figure it out from the way his body went tight under the
sleeping bag. We didn't do the dumb movie
thing. We didn't yell or charge out
swinging. We lay there breathing through
noses and listened. The next sound came from the
wash. It was a deep cat type cry, the
kind you hear from a big Tom in the night if you've ever lived
near fields. It cut off too fast, then came
again from behind the truck at the exact same pitch and length.
Not like 2 animals calling, like the same sound done twice.
With the timing a little off, I told Eric I was going to unzip
and sweep the headlamp low and not to freak out when I did.
We counted to three and eased out.
Our camp looked normal. No boot prints around the fire
ring that weren't ours. The coals were settling.
The tailgate was down where we'd left it.
I took the headlamp to the wash and found the first thing that
still makes me feel sick to describe.
In the dust at the lip there was a single line of bare human
looking footprints. Not small toes splayed a little
like you get when someone walks barefoot a lot.
They cut straight across a set of fresh coyote pads for several
steps. The spacing matched exactly.
Human print coyote pads, Human print coyote pads.
Same rhythm, like the two sets were laid down by the same
metronome. I measured the stride the way my
dad taught me when I was a kid. Heel of 1 foot to heel of the
next. About 40 inches.
The toe marks bit a little deeper than the heels, like the
foot wasn't landing right. The coyote pads did the same
thing for those same steps, then drifted and came back into sync
again. I told myself I was reading too
much into it. I told myself wind patterns do
weird things in open sand. I knew I was lying to myself
even as I thought it. I was 10 yards from the truck
when I gave our two note whistle so Eric would know I was coming
back. It's a small sound.
It felt stupid to do it, but we had a system.
The same 2 notes answered from up the road, then the same 2
notes came from down in the wash, not overlapping one, then
the other, each with the same clipped little gap between them.
If you've ever heard your own voice on a recording, you know
how you can tell it's you. It was me.
Not close, not a neighbor. Kid me.
I stood there with the lamp angled at my feet and felt every
hair on my arms. Stand up.
Eric put his light on the shoulder of the road and found
the silhouette again for a second just at the edge of the
packed track, and then his beam caught brush and nothing more.
We pulled it together. We agreed to leave without
making a lot of noise. No sprinting, no tossing gear
all over. I doused the coals with the
water we had left and raked them with a stick until I could hold
my hand over the ring. We broke the tents without
rolling them. We set the cooler in the bed and
swung the tailgate shut. The only slip was me.
My hand started fidgeting with my lighter.
Flip open, flip closed. The small click loud in the
quiet. I couldn't seem to stop doing
it. We got in, doors shut, soft
belts on. I started the truck and kept the
lights on low so I wouldn't blind us on the washboard.
If you've driven that road, you know the surface gets a ripple
that will shake your teeth out if you go too fast.
I kept it steady around 25 windows cracked because I wanted
to hear if anything got close. Dust rolled behind us in clouds.
In the rear view. Between those clouds, I saw the
figure pacing us. Not sprinting, not even
obviously running, just appearing for 50 yards at a
time, keeping up without changing shape or stance the way
a person would if they were trying to run on that surface.
Twice I caught it in the passenger side mirror on the
shoulder. Same wrong leg motion, knee not
bending when the foot came down, then gone when the wash cut the
light. I told myself it was a trick of
dust and angle and headlight throw.
I told myself anything that would keep my foot steady on the
gas and not slam into a hidden rut every couple minutes over
the engine and the tires. Our two note calls sounded from
the side of the road. The timing of the two notes was
just a little too clean, like a loop instead of breath once it
came from ahead of us, which made no sense at our speed.
I kept clicking the lighter because if my hand wasn't doing
that it was going to shake, and each time I did it, the side of
the road version of our call came back 2 beats later like it
was counting with me. Eric had both hands on the door
handle, hard enough that the skin went pale.
He said without looking at me. Don't stop for anything.
We passed a small ranch gate with a cattle guard and a low
tin sign you can only read in daylight.
A dog lifted from the porch shadow and came at the fence,
barking in deep, steady barks that carried across the flat
ground. The figure in the mirror changed
course like it had hit a boundary.
No hesitation, no sizing up, just a fast veer away from the
dog's voice as if there was a fence we couldn't see.
The dog kept barking after we were passed and didn't break it
with growls or that spaced out rhythm dogs do when they're
confused. It was full angry noise.
It started to quiet around the curve and I realized I was
finally breathing normal again. We didn't stop at the turn out
where we'd usually check the load and the tires.
We came up on the curve where you can see Mexican Hat rock off
in the dark, and then the first gas station canopy lights showed
up, like a line we were allowed to cross.
We pulled under and parked right in the wash of those lights and
didn't move. Doors locked, seats upright.
No tough talk. No.
What the hell was that? Just the tired silence of two
people who used up their words a few miles back.
I didn't sleep. Every pair of headlights that
passed on US 163 made my shoulders jump, even though the
drivers were just locals heading somewhere the way locals do.
Around 8A, BLM Ranger rolled in to top off his truck.
He was older, sun creased, the kind of guy who sees tourists
all day and can tell when something's off before you
speak. He asked if we were OK.
I told him we were fine and then told him what happened anyway
because I needed to say it out loud to someone who knew the
area. I left out the part where I
thought the steps in the wash matched cadence for a few yards.
I left out the mirror. I only said we had a visitor who
didn't walk right and didn't talk right and that we wanted to
make sure we hadn't left the fire hot.
He didn't smirk. He didn't act like we were
pulling a stunt. He asked if we wanted him to
follow us back to check the ring and make sure we weren't about
to get a fine. We said yes.
Daylight makes that place look like a different planet, but it
didn't change the facts. He stood over the fire ring with
us and nodded at the white ash. Satisfied, he walked to the wash
and crouched without me pointing.
He ran 2 fingers along the edge of one of the prints and glanced
up the road the way I had pointed in my story.
Lot of open ground out here, he said.
Sound travels distances, play tricks.
You boys not from around here. We told him we were not.
He looked at the Prince again, at the way the toes dug in and
the heel didn't, and let his breath out through his nose.
He didn't say anything about animals.
He didn't say anything about people.
He didn't ask us to make a report.
He just stood, brushed dust off his palms, and gave the kind of
shrug that says he has a drawer in his head full of things he
can't put in a file. His only real advice was simple.
If you're new to these flats, he said, camp closer to town.
He reminded us to stick to existing sites.
Pack out trash, mind the private ranch turn offs, keep fires low,
he didn't add, and don't go looking for whatever that was
because he didn't have to. We understood.
We packed our tents properly this time without talking about
it. We didn't take a last look at
the wash. We didn't try to find more
prints. We didn't pick up a red rock to
take home. We pulled back onto Valley of
the Gods Road and drove toward US. 163 took the left toward
Bluff and let the miles do their job.
People are going to say the desert plays tricks, and they're
right. Cold air carries voices a long
way. Starlight turns distances into
flat pictures. But I know my friend's voice,
and I know how a knee is supposed to bend.
I know the tap of knuckles on metal.
I know my own two note call answering itself from 2
directions with the same tight timing I've used for years.
If you want me to put a label on it, there's a word the locals
have that fits, but I'm not going to throw it around to
sound cool. Whatever it was, it felt human
in the way that makes your body say no before your mind does.
It wanted our attention more than our gear.
That was the worst part. I can buy a new stove.
I can't unhear myself outside my own tent.
There isn't A twist ending here. No return trip, no late night
proof hunt. A Ranger told us to camp closer
to town if we weren't used to the open desert.
We were not. We left on purpose and kept that
promise. I still like the red rock, but
if I'm out there after dark now, I keep lights close and fences
closer. And I don't answer if I hear my
own voice again.