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Tales of Terror Vol. 15

Tales of Terror Vol. 15

Released Friday, 25th October 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Tales of Terror Vol. 15

Tales of Terror Vol. 15

Tales of Terror Vol. 15

Tales of Terror Vol. 15

Friday, 25th October 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

So I'm in this booth set

0:02

to record a pitch

0:04

for you to join the Diaries Plus. Diaries

0:06

Plus, if you have not heard of it,

0:09

is the way that we will keep the

0:11

show running. We've got enough money to keep

0:13

it going through the winter. Beyond that, we

0:15

do not know. So many of you have

0:17

responded and stepped up. It's given us hope

0:19

in a year where we have not always

0:21

had a lot of hope. So

0:24

I need to ask you to do this. The one problem

0:26

right now is the light bulb above me just

0:28

burned out. Seriously, it's like a

0:31

metaphor or something. I need

0:33

a new light bulb. You have allowed me to

0:35

do this for so many years and I have

0:37

to come back and ask you to do it

0:39

more because I believe the show matters and many

0:41

of you have too. We need 3,000 people to

0:43

make this work.

0:45

Right now we have 1,200. We think we

0:47

can get to that number and if we

0:49

can, we can keep this

0:51

show going, right? And so if

0:54

you're one of the people that we have

0:56

connected with, one of our stories has meant

0:58

something to. If a story has made you

1:00

think, if it's made you laugh, it's made

1:02

you believe, if it's connected you to your

1:04

community and to the world around you, I

1:07

gotta ask. Please pay it

1:09

forward. I think we're close and I'm going

1:11

to believe. I'm going to believe that we

1:13

can do this and that is scary, frankly.

1:15

It's scary to ask but I'm gonna do

1:17

it because I want you to have a

1:19

choice. And so far

1:22

you've encouraged that belief and we are so thankful

1:25

for it. In fact, it's like we were going

1:27

through the numbers the other day and 47 states.

1:29

If you live in

1:31

Delaware, Mississippi or South Dakota, help us get

1:33

to 50. I believe we can do this.

1:35

I believe I can get a new light

1:37

bulb in here. That I've

1:39

got covered, I promise. But I'm

1:42

in the dark here. Put me in

1:44

the light, help me out, join Diaries

1:46

Plus. The link is in the show

1:49

notes. There's more stories, there's ad-free, but

1:51

more importantly, you become

1:53

part of the Diaries future.

1:56

Thank you for stepping up. So,

1:59

funny story. Six weeks ago, we

2:02

were organizing our annual Tales of Terror

2:04

show. And we're talking, you

2:06

know, figuring out what we're gonna do, et cetera,

2:08

et cetera. Becca asked like, what are

2:10

you gonna write for the intro? And

2:13

I'm like, I just can't think

2:15

of it. I'm like, whatever. We'll figure it

2:17

out, Becca. And it

2:19

was our anniversary. Our anniversary was an

2:21

awesome day. Typically we go out and

2:24

do something fun in the mountains that afternoon and

2:26

kind of stay out till dark instead

2:29

of going out to a nice dinner. That's how we roll. It

2:32

was the first nice, crisp fall

2:35

day. And so we

2:37

headed out to go do this sizable mountain bike

2:39

ride. It's just this perfect day

2:41

to be in the woods. It's

2:43

sunny. We're chatting on the ride up,

2:46

laughing, having a good time. We're

2:49

like rolling through, you know, nice forests

2:51

and into these like clear cuts and

2:53

then fire weeds going off. And

2:55

then all of a sudden we like kind of like roll

2:57

into this fog bank, temperature

3:00

drops and we leave

3:02

the clear cuts with all the wonderful

3:04

wildflowers and we roll into this deeper,

3:08

darker forest. And

3:12

there's this spot on

3:15

the trail. There's a natural stopping point,

3:17

like an obvious place before you do

3:19

a big downhill to

3:22

pull over, grab some water, eat

3:24

some food and regroup. The

3:28

trail we're about to go is called

3:30

no service. Sort of this

3:32

playful reminder that there's no cell

3:35

coverage out there and that you're 10

3:38

miles away from the trailhead at that

3:40

stage. So you're

3:42

on your own. There's no

3:44

help. Can't do anything

3:46

out there. So we sit down and,

3:49

you know, like we're having a good time talking and like going

3:52

through and I look

3:54

past Becca and. I've

4:00

clearly seen something super

4:03

disturbing. And in my head, I'm like,

4:06

this cannot be happening. Like

4:09

you've just gotta be kidding me. This is not

4:11

what I had in mind when

4:14

we said we figure out the intro to the

4:16

tales of terror. The goal is not to be

4:18

in the tales of terror. And I'm like, oh

4:20

my God, I keep talking to Beckhead. I'm like,

4:23

I'm gonna look again. See

4:25

if that really is what I thought it was. No,

4:30

no, no, no. I

4:34

am freaking out. And

4:38

Beckhead, I think she can tell at this stage

4:41

something's changed. Like maybe my face has gone white.

4:44

Clearly like, you know, the hair

4:46

on the back of my neck is standing up.

4:48

And I say to Beckhead, Beckhead,

4:51

turn around. Do you

4:53

see what I see? And

4:55

she looks and I can tell, by

4:57

the way her head snaps back. And

5:01

she sees it too. In the dark understory

5:05

of the woods, a hundred feet

5:08

away from us is a man, a

5:11

figure. Arms outstretched,

5:15

face shrouded by a hood. I

5:21

look again. There

5:23

was a little brief moment where I thought, should

5:26

I turn on the recorder on the phone? You know,

5:28

the voice memos like right now and sort of narrate

5:31

this through. And I'm like, nope. That

5:33

would be clearly a bad idea. That would be

5:35

breaking some sort of law of

5:37

the universe or at least law of

5:39

tales of terror universe. I

5:43

looked again, no movement. Just

5:46

a steadiness, menace,

5:48

staring straight towards us.

5:55

He's not moving, Beckhead. We

5:57

summon the courage to look a little longer, studying

5:59

the old. The

6:02

hooded rain jacket had been draped over

6:04

a small tree. Branches

6:07

inserted into the arms provided

6:09

structure. We laughed

6:11

nervously. We

6:14

were ten miles from the trailhead and

6:17

the scarecrow had done its

6:19

job. That's the dupeka. Should we

6:21

go? Definitely. Definitely. And

6:25

just like that, we were gone. Moving

6:27

as quickly away before

6:30

we could think of the next question. Who

6:34

had made it? Why would anyone

6:36

want to put in the effort to

6:38

scare people that

6:40

just want to have a good time, that want to

6:42

enjoy the woods? What kind

6:45

of evil mind would

6:48

do this? Today

6:51

we bring you three stories of

6:53

looming darkness. You

6:55

have been warned. Welcome to

6:57

the annual edition of Tales of

6:59

Terror. I'm Fitzcahall. You're

7:02

listening to The Dirtbag Dairies. When

7:20

I was in high school, my mom and I flew

7:22

out from California to New England for a week of

7:24

exploring back roads and quaint college towns. We

7:26

embarked on the road trip not just to seek out

7:29

a place for me to spend the next four years,

7:31

but also to spend some uninterrupted quality time together before

7:33

I made my way off into adulthood. With

7:36

a tight itinerary, we spent several late

7:38

nights driving through unlit back roads, under

7:40

swinging stoplights, and passing quiet towns with

7:42

darkened windows until we reached a place

7:45

to stay. Usually, that

7:47

meant a place too close to the Bates Motel

7:49

for comfort. Having grown

7:51

up in San Diego, I was not accustomed

7:53

to thick woods or creaking old houses. I

7:56

marveled at the forest and surrounding landscape. of

8:00

it was haunted. From a young age

8:02

I've had interactions with what I can only describe

8:04

as things beyond our world. From

8:06

my late grandfather's locked cabinets swinging open next to

8:08

me, to my skirt being tugged by what felt

8:10

like the hand of a child on a tour

8:12

of a haunted house. I never

8:15

felt front under scared. The things

8:17

I interacted with always felt peaceful and

8:19

trustworthy. We

8:39

didn't plan to stay long in Ithaca, New York,

8:41

but after seven schools and three days, I begged

8:44

my mom to make a pit stop at one

8:46

of Ithaca's famous waterfalls. After picking

8:48

a random trailhead on the car's GPS, my mom ushered me

8:50

out of the car and encouraged me to go on my

8:52

own. Be quick! I

8:55

hopped out and started along the three mile trail. A

8:58

damp, low-hanging fog clung to the trees in

9:01

the soil. The temperature dropped, getting

9:03

nippier as I neared the river. The

9:05

ground was covered in rotted leaves, long falling from

9:07

the bare branches above. I

9:10

often hike alone, but something about these woods made

9:12

me uneasy. I

9:15

shoved my worries down and kept ascending the

9:17

overgrown path. The growing roar of water cascading

9:19

over rocks indicated that I was headed in

9:21

the right direction. But as

9:24

I reached the falls, I realized we clearly weren't

9:26

sent to the main trailhead. The

9:29

main trail, it seemed, was unreachable across

9:31

the massive gorge before me. This

9:34

trail ended at a crumbling stone wall

9:36

that overlooked the waterfall and the rocky,

9:38

icy cliff below. I peeked

9:41

over the ledge, took some pictures and

9:43

some videos. The

9:45

moment I turned around to leave, I

9:47

froze. Someone was watching me.

9:55

I tried to coast myself forward, but I was

9:57

held captive by a growing sense of dread. The

10:00

feeling of terror, death, and darkness swept

10:02

over me. My eyes

10:05

darted around, trying to spot something out of place,

10:07

something moving, but the air was dead. No

10:09

breeze, no flutter of bird wings,

10:12

no scurry of a squirrel. It

10:15

felt like a lifetime before a new sensation demanded

10:17

my attention. A figure, tall

10:19

and looming, creeping up behind me.

10:21

But how? My back

10:23

was to the torrent water in the jagged gorge, and

10:26

no sound of footsteps broke the silence.

10:28

Still, I felt it come closer. The

10:31

hair stood up on the back of my neck as I

10:33

felt it lower next to my ear. I

10:36

thought to turn and look, but I still

10:38

couldn't move and didn't necessarily want to. I

10:41

knew that whatever it was, it was not

10:43

human. Completely

10:47

enshrouded by this mass, I was held

10:49

in place by anticipation, and then it

10:51

happened. In my right ear, clear

10:54

as day. At

11:05

the moment those words were spoken, I

11:07

was released, and I fled. I

11:10

tore up the hill, slipping and clawing over leaves

11:12

and brush. I didn't look back,

11:14

didn't think. I just ran, ran, ran to the

11:16

car. Imaginary walls, some terrible

11:18

foe were closing in on me, and I

11:20

pushed myself a little harder. Run,

11:23

run, run. The

11:26

car was in sight. I jumped in,

11:28

slammed the door, and screamed, drive! My

11:31

mom scrambled for her keys and

11:33

hit the

11:35

gas. As

11:39

we fled down the road, flanked on either

11:41

side by woods that ooze dread, she stoically looked

11:43

at me and said, you look

11:45

like you've seen a ghost. Bewildered,

11:47

she asked me what happened, but I couldn't talk.

11:50

You see, the tone of its

11:52

androgynous, static, disembodied voice, the snarky

11:54

way it uttered those words, and

11:56

the oppressive presence it carried screamed

11:58

one thing. It wanted to

12:00

scare me. I

12:03

feared that if I told her, it could follow us and

12:05

do something worse. I knew in my

12:07

heart that it was evil. In only two

12:09

syllables, whatever that thing was, sent a message that

12:11

I'd never forget. That

12:32

was Emma Palmer. And yes,

12:34

that is terrifying. Next

12:37

up, we head to Alaska, where our

12:40

producer and long-time collaborator, Evan Phillips,

12:43

goes to climb a mountain. That

12:46

ice axe is gonna come in handy. I

13:01

believe it was August or September

13:03

of 1993. I

13:06

was 18 years old, and I was... This

13:09

is when I was first been exposed to the outdoors. I

13:12

had met this group of young guys we had

13:14

all been in trouble in high school. So

13:17

I had met a couple of these guys

13:19

in like a behavioral drug and alcohol treatment

13:21

facility. We'd basically

13:23

gone through like what they used to call like a

13:25

Hoods in the Woods program. And it changed our lives.

13:29

I hadn't really done any like serious mountain climbing up

13:31

to this point, but I wanted to. So

13:35

we headed up about two

13:37

and a half hours northwest of

13:39

Anchorage into the Talkeetna Mountains. We

13:42

wanted to go climb a mountain called Mount Monarch. It's

13:45

about a 7,000 foot mountain, non-technical, but

13:47

a beautiful mountain in a wilderness setting.

13:51

All we knew is that it would be an adventure. So

13:54

we left in the evening because when we

13:56

got there, we got there in the dark.

14:00

The plan was to hike in as far

14:02

as we could camp, climb

14:04

the mountain the next day and hike out. We

14:07

got there and we just, we started hiking

14:09

in the dark. Everything

14:12

was going good, we're laughing, we're having fun, you

14:14

know, we're young kids, like we're just having a

14:16

good time just being young dudes hanging out. And

14:18

we get to this, what seemed

14:21

like an alder patch, it was really dark

14:23

and we're on like a muddy ATV trail.

14:26

And I remember we stopped and like one of my buddies

14:28

was like, dude, there's eyes. You

14:32

could see eyes glowing off our headlamps.

14:35

You know, we didn't know what it was and then we saw

14:37

another set of eyes on the

14:39

other side of the trail. They

14:42

weren't really moving, they weren't making a lot

14:44

of noise. So we all held hands and

14:47

we just walked right through the middle of them together.

14:51

At that moment where you see

14:53

those eyes, like do you remember the hair standing up

14:55

on your neck or anything like that? I

14:58

know what you're trying to do here. I

15:02

mean, honestly, like, yeah, it was

15:04

spooky. Seeing those eyes pop through

15:06

the alders. This was kind

15:08

of a spooky place in general, but we're like,

15:10

we're trying to get to where we're going. And

15:13

the way we're gonna do this, four

15:15

young guys wanting to be tough, decided

15:17

to hold hands and walk

15:19

through them together. What

15:22

happened next? We made it through the creepy eyes

15:25

and we're walking by headlamp

15:28

and we're just kind of making our way up this trail. Don't

15:31

really know where we're going. None of us had been here, but

15:33

we're just kind of on a faint trail. Did

15:35

a little bushwhacking. And

15:38

I just think that we ended up making camp just

15:40

in a little bit of a clearing that night and

15:43

went to sleep and we're getting

15:45

ready for our next day to go try and tackle

15:47

this mountain. So we wake

15:50

up the next day. I remember it

15:52

being like a really beautiful, like a

15:54

fall morning, you know, like the colors

15:56

are changing. It's a

15:58

little crisp in the air. you know, it's

16:01

beautiful, it's inspiring. And we were

16:03

excited, you know, we're going on this adventure.

16:06

So we just we keep heading up this trail.

16:09

And this is like really beautiful

16:11

country. You kind of get

16:13

up over this ridge and you look down and

16:15

it's almost like there's a big beautiful pass that

16:17

runs down there. You could tell

16:19

that this was like, there was

16:21

glaciers that covered this way back in the

16:24

day because there's lots of kind

16:26

of rolling hills and open valleys and some

16:28

really rugged peaks in the distance, but no

16:31

like pinnacles or any like spires or anything. But

16:34

so we make our way up this valley and

16:37

you know, we kind of make our way up

16:39

under Mount Monarch Peak. There was like a lake,

16:41

I remember there was a little lake there under

16:43

it. We didn't know what way to go up.

16:45

It looked like there was a bunch of options.

16:48

It was really windy that day, like constant wind

16:50

with big gusts, maybe 20 to 30 mile

16:53

an hour wind. And we just kind of started making

16:55

our way up this peak. At

16:58

one point in time, one of the guys, Brant,

17:00

I think we were going kind of slow and

17:02

we were being like

17:05

kind of cautious and he's like, man, I'm going to go climb this

17:07

thing on my own. So he takes off close

17:11

to the top and we're like, well, I guess

17:13

we'll meet up with Brant later, you know, we end up for whatever reason or like,

17:16

yeah, this is as high as we're going to go. We kind of

17:18

get to the base and we're waiting for

17:20

Brant. He ends up kind of coming down and

17:23

meeting us. He's like, yeah, I went around the

17:26

backside and summited. So,

17:28

you know, we're like, well, good for you, man.

17:31

I guess you're the you're the climber out of

17:33

the four of us. We're heading

17:35

down and it was so

17:37

windy that like we were basically

17:40

having to yell to talk to each other. We

17:42

kind of get into this divot, this kind of

17:44

hole. It almost was

17:46

like it seemed like a kettle lake that was left

17:48

from a glacier had once been in this hole

17:52

because it was literally just a

17:54

divot and we were able to go down

17:56

in this and get out of the wind. And

18:00

we're just down there like taking a

18:02

break probably eating like power bars or

18:04

something And we're just

18:07

talking and then all of a sudden one of my

18:09

buddies goes guys

18:12

Look up And

18:15

we look up a probably about a hundred

18:17

and fifty feet above us is A

18:20

lone head of you know what appeared

18:22

to be a dog type animal You

18:25

couldn't tell you could just see the silhouette of it And

18:27

it's just kind of it's just its head poked up We're

18:31

so we're looking at this thing and then all of a

18:33

sudden like ten seconds later Maybe

18:36

about 50 feet off to the left another

18:38

head pops up and

18:41

and then we're just like oh dude, there's

18:43

another one and then all

18:45

of a sudden in between those two another

18:48

head pops up and then another and

18:50

another and another And

18:53

at this time like we're looking at each other

18:55

like dude, this is a pack of wolves We're

18:59

teenagers. We don't know anything about

19:03

Wolves, we don't know anything about the

19:05

outdoors. We're total rookies all we have

19:07

with us are ice axes Like

19:10

what are we gonna do like we're surrounded by wolves

19:13

and I just remember we just were all

19:15

gripping death grip around our ice Axes we

19:18

all just got quiet and

19:20

we just sat there and we just stared at

19:23

these wolves that were staring right back

19:25

at us It feels

19:27

like it lasted like a couple

19:29

minutes. This probably lasted 30 seconds

19:33

I've been in a couple of like near-death

19:36

experiences in my climbing

19:38

career one of

19:40

which was Crossing a river,

19:42

you know and I and I got swept away.

19:44

It was one of those times Where

19:47

you see your life flash in front of your eyes that

19:50

happened to me and I remember being like wow

19:52

That's that's what it must feel like

19:54

when you feel like maybe you're about to die You

19:57

know, the other experience I've had is, you

19:59

know getting caught in an avalanche. Same thing. I mean,

20:02

just your life flashes in front of your eyes like

20:04

this is it. And

20:07

I don't remember if that happened, but I

20:09

remember just feeling like this like fear of

20:11

like, this is out of my control.

20:13

I mean, if these wolves want to

20:15

come get us, we have no way to defend

20:17

ourselves other than these ice axes. I think

20:20

what happened is just kind of a collective

20:22

calm just came over us. I

20:24

think we were just in awe that we

20:27

were like having this moment with these wolves.

20:29

This probably lasted about a minute. And I think like

20:32

the first 15 or 20 seconds, we

20:35

were panicking because we knew like,

20:37

I mean, if they come down here and like come

20:39

after us, like they're

20:41

going to win. Yeah. How many were

20:43

there? I think there was like

20:46

six. Uh-huh. And then

20:48

after about, you

20:50

know, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, the

20:54

first one that had popped up, its

20:57

head just pops down and it disappears. And

20:59

then a few seconds later, another

21:01

one disappears and another one

21:04

disappears and another one disappears and

21:06

another one disappears and another one disappears.

21:09

And we just looked at each other and

21:11

just like burst out laughing. Just like for

21:14

screaming, like we were just surrounded

21:17

by a pack of wolves in

21:19

Alaska. Like, I mean, I don't

21:21

know how they make their decisions, but you know,

21:23

this was like, this was hunting season. So

21:25

there was like herds of caribou going through there.

21:28

There's moose. So these wolves were,

21:30

they were out hunting and

21:33

there was something about the

21:35

group of us that they were like, we're

21:38

not going to mess with them. Or there was

21:40

something about earlier. They were like, maybe we can

21:42

mess with them. Yeah. Like, I guess in hindsight,

21:44

like they could have been stocking us all day.

21:47

They probably were. Like when you think about it, like

21:49

the fact that you guys were just like out in

21:51

the open and then you ditch into this like, like

21:54

hunting terrain trap. It

21:56

totally makes me think that they probably were aware

21:58

of you way. longer before you

22:00

were aware of them. I've had

22:02

a lot of amazing

22:05

wildlife encounters in Alaska. All

22:10

of these experiences when I think back, those

22:13

are vivid memories, just these interactions

22:16

with the animals and stuff. That's

22:18

how I feel about the wolf encounter. It was like those

22:22

experiences, as scary as they

22:24

are, they were part of

22:26

just this rich tapestry of

22:28

life that I lived

22:30

for many years of my life. And it's pretty cool

22:32

to look back and be like, man, I

22:35

was surrounded by a pack of wolves in Alaska.

22:59

After the break, we dig up

23:01

one of the most haunting tales of

23:03

terror of all time. Jeremy

23:05

Allen takes us into the dark

23:08

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25:12

It was kind of another experience in

25:14

a string of previous

25:16

experiences and stuff that happened in the

25:18

future that surround

25:21

this one area in the

25:23

Upper Baker Lake drainage. It

25:29

scared the shit out of me. So

25:37

around the year 2000, I was

25:39

living in the small town of Marble

25:42

Mount, Washington in the

25:44

North Cascades National Park, and my

25:46

girlfriend at the time, Jeannie, was

25:49

a geologist

25:51

working for the park, and

25:53

I just started guiding out

25:56

of the guide service in Bellingham, Washington.

26:00

It's a great place to be

26:03

in the spring months, in the

26:05

summer months, but in the winter you're

26:08

definitely marooned. And so I

26:10

was poking around trying to find places to ski tour in

26:12

the area. And

26:15

I'd been going out kind

26:17

of in this pretty remote

26:20

area between Mount Baker

26:22

and Mount Shuckson quite a lot. And

26:25

there's a kind of a burly little switchbacky

26:28

Forest Service Road, and I rallied up

26:30

that for a bit, but then quickly

26:32

got bogged down and parked the truck

26:35

and started skiing. And

26:37

clearly no one had been up there for

26:39

a number of weeks. There

26:42

was no tracks, ski, or foot

26:45

traffic. Not

26:48

really a place that anyone

26:50

but climbers or skiers tends

26:53

to go. Skied

26:55

up a road for maybe an

26:57

hour or so. And

27:00

then I started to go cross country into this small

27:03

mountain range. Kind of working my

27:05

way up through this mature

27:07

forest. And

27:10

I had my head down and I was, you

27:12

know, I had pretty ambitious plans that day. I

27:14

think I don't really remember exactly how

27:16

far I intended to go, but I wanted to try

27:18

to poke out into the

27:21

kind of the Western flanks

27:24

of Mount Blum. And

27:26

I was kind of on a very, very, very close to

27:28

a significant distance to travel. And

27:32

I was touring kind of through this

27:34

forested area. So I was

27:36

kind of concentrating on just what was

27:38

in front of my skis. And then

27:41

at one point I remember kind of just

27:43

feeling a little bit tense

27:47

and uneasy. And

27:49

I looked up and I had this kind of like

27:53

an auditory hallucination almost.

27:55

Where, you know, if you're in a movie,

27:59

the soundtrack would just go. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

28:01

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And

28:03

all around me were all these

28:05

things hanging from the trees, like

28:10

tinsel and silverware

28:14

and sticks, like big

28:16

sticks, small sticks, moss

28:21

hung up with twine. There

28:24

were some dolls, like raggedy end dolls,

28:27

really ragged looking. Big

28:29

bones, not chicken bones or

28:32

anything like that. One

28:35

bone that it could have been an animal bone.

28:37

I don't really know what a femur in

28:39

a human looks like, but big bones. I

28:43

looked up and I spun around. I stopped and

28:45

I did a 360 and there was

28:47

this, wah, wah, wah, wah. And then the light

28:49

was shining through the trees and it was picking

28:51

up all these reflections. And

28:54

I just instantly freaked out. I

28:57

started to rip my skins off and

29:00

then I stopped and I remember thinking, what

29:02

the hell is this? And

29:17

I took a closer look and the area was

29:19

extensive. It was, I mean, I'm

29:21

not talking about a couple trees and

29:24

hundreds of things. I mean, it would have taken

29:26

a group of people

29:28

a really long time to set this scene

29:30

up. And I

29:34

just decided that I didn't want to keep going. So

29:36

I just ripped my skins off and I hightailed out

29:38

of there and the whole time I just felt like

29:40

I was being watched. So

29:47

I don't know

29:50

what it was. I think probably it was some

29:52

sort of pagan ritual site. It

29:56

looked like it had been there for a

29:58

while, which kind of freaked me out. because

30:02

how that could be, you know, something that

30:04

extensive, how it could be that in that

30:07

place for so long, I think is really

30:10

odd. Yeah, I'm not sure. So

30:31

this is probably two years after, two or

30:34

three years after this. The

30:38

Baker Lake headwaters

30:41

are more remote parts of

30:44

the western North Cascades. And

30:47

my partner and another staff

30:49

member from the park had

30:52

been working in the

30:54

upper Baker Lake area, and

30:56

they were on, I think it

30:58

was a three to four day trip, where

31:01

they went up to the head of the lake

31:03

in a canoe when they had

31:05

waders and they were doing a

31:07

lot of landform mapping in the

31:10

aquatic zone, and then deep up into the

31:12

head of the river. And

31:15

so they spent a lot of time

31:18

bushwhacking and traveling through

31:21

water. They went

31:23

up about a day, probably

31:25

like 15 miles or so, and

31:27

then made a camp. And the

31:29

next day they kept going. And

31:33

at some point during the

31:35

morning, apparently they encountered this

31:38

sandbank and

31:40

kind of a gravel bar area, and

31:44

they found two graves

31:47

dug into the sand, gravestone

31:50

made out of sticks,

31:52

I believe, and rocks

31:55

kind of mounted over, you know,

31:57

big human sized graves. And

32:02

they told me that I heard this story,

32:05

when they got back, that

32:07

they felt like they had been watched this

32:10

whole trip. And keep in

32:12

mind that these are full on,

32:15

science minded people, very practical,

32:17

not prone to superstition. And

32:20

for them to come back, Jeannie was completely

32:22

beside herself. Like she just couldn't wait to tell

32:24

me and she was kind of still kind

32:26

of buzzing. Because

32:29

what happened later on, when

32:32

they traveled back through that area, is

32:35

that they went back and

32:37

there were two more graves,

32:40

at this point without headstones on them.

32:43

And there were just holes in the ground and

32:45

they were dug right next to the

32:47

previous two. And so I think that's what I'm going to

32:49

say. I

32:51

think that's what I'm going to say. You

32:54

know, don't you think that certain areas lend

32:58

themselves to scary stories

33:01

and superstition and weirdness and a lot

33:03

of my time in the mountains

33:06

have lived out here for 25 years. And

33:09

I've poked around a lot of deep

33:11

and dark nooks and

33:13

crannies of the range and

33:15

really consider myself to be a Cascadian. And, you

33:17

know, one of the things that I've done is

33:20

I've been a little bit more interested in a

33:22

Cascadian and, you know, one of the things

33:24

that kind of tends to keep

33:27

me on my toes and freak

33:29

me out more than, you know, exposure

33:31

or technical difficulty or weather or anything

33:33

like that are these kind

33:35

of low elevation, deep, dark,

33:39

secluded areas where, you know,

33:42

all sorts of stuff goes on. You

33:48

know, I've been back and poked around in

33:50

that area since and I'm

33:52

always on edge and I'm always kind of wondering

33:55

what weird thing I'm going to see

33:57

next. But I honestly feel like

33:59

I'm going to be back. like I've avoided it. Thank

34:04

you Emma, Evan, and Jeremy for

34:06

terrorizing us. Seriously,

34:16

it's going to be a lot harder to go out

34:18

into the woods this weekend and not be looking over

34:20

my shoulder. Special

34:23

shout out to all the listeners who have become members

34:25

of Diaries Plus. Thank you. We

34:27

are feeling the love. And you're making it

34:29

possible for us to keep putting out new episodes. If

34:32

you're interested in becoming a member, there's a link in the

34:34

show notes. Cause you know, we

34:37

really want to do a Tales of Terror next year.

34:40

Uh, I think? Hopefully I'm

34:42

not too scared. Music today

34:44

from Kayangle, Fields, Squarewave, Trove, BAM

34:46

Tone, Aiden Baker, and David Beer.

34:49

The tracks are courtesy of the artists, Free Music

34:51

Archive, or Track Club. Jacob Bain

34:53

and Nis Koto compose our theme song. You

34:55

can find links to the artists at our website,

34:58

dirtbagdiaries.com. Our stories

35:00

come from friends, from friends of friends, and from

35:02

you. If you have a compelling idea

35:04

for a guest or story lead, please give us a shout.

35:07

You can use the submission form on our

35:09

website. This episode was produced by Skyler Perwins

35:11

with additional production help from me. Illustration

35:14

by Walker Cahall. Fitz Cahall

35:16

is our creative director. I'm Becca

35:18

Cahall, filling in for Fitz, and you've been

35:20

listening to the Dirtbag Diaries. Thanks

35:22

for tuning in.

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