A rustle of branches. A snapped twig. An ominous howl, too close for comfort. In the inky darkness of the backcountry, even the smallest noise can get your mind racing. It’s nothing, you tell yourself at first, nothing to be afraid of. Nevertheless, you start to sweat a little. Your heartbeat quickens. Your fingers inch toward your headlamp. You try not to utter a single sound as you lie awake in your sleeping bag, waiting for the unseen horror to reveal itself. If you’re like us, these phantoms have cost you hours of sleep over the years.
Ghost stories are a vital part of hiking culture. Around the glow of the campfire, we dole out morsels of terror in order to thrill our companions and scare our kids. All in good fun, sure. But spooky stories also force us to confront some of our most primal fears. Death. Loss. Evil. Isolation. The supernatural. The unexplainable. The wilderness has a way of letting our imaginations run wild; from vicious murderers to grotesque creatures to malevolent spirits, there’s no limit to the amount of terrifying ghouls and worst-case scenarios our brains can conjure. These stories invoke our dread of the unknown, then dare us to overcome it.
Our pseudonymous storyteller “Neville Franks” plays on these nightmarish anxieties masterfully in “The Lost Boy of the Ozarks,” an unnerving ghost story set in the sinister Missouri woods. Meanwhile, reporter Steve Friedman will make your blood run cold with his account of unsolved murder in “Terror in the Trees.” And if those two yarns don’t frighten you off, you can read our list of “America’s Scariest Trails,” a rundown of the country’s eeriest settings and unexplained phenomena. From gusts of wind that push unsuspecting visitors over the falls at Yosemite, to the unquiet graves of the Grand Canyon, to the cannibalistic Wendigo of northern Minnesota, we wouldn’t blame you if you swore off solo hiking for a while. Of course, brave souls can always use BACKPACKER’s trail beta to go and judge these spooky spots for themselves. But don’t say we didn’t warn you
