I’ve held off on sharing this story for a few years now because of how bad it frightened me. However, reading other peoples experiences on Reddit has given me the confidence to share my story, and not fear judgement.
A few years ago, My partner and I, decided to take a trip to California to see some of the state parks, ghost towns, and off the beaten path things that don’t get a lot of tourist traffic. For the first leg of the trip everything went great, we camped in our car, found some really great picturesque landscapes, creepy ghost towns, scenic views and forgotten highways. I absolutely loved it. After about a week and a half on the road, we decided it was time to start heading back to Oregon (our home base) but we decided to take the scenic route for some it, instead of just driving straight home on the 5.
Our meandering path home took us to the Death Valley area, where there was a short hike to a beautiful waterfall we had seen online and wanted to do before heading back. In lieu of my experiences, I’ve chosen not to share the name for everybody’s safety. We found the trail head without issue, and began the mile hike to the waterfall. Death Valley is pretty desolate, and I’m not going to lie, it’s a creepy place, that spooked me bad on more than one occasion but something about this trail was different, sinister even.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. I couldn’t hear anybody around us, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, there were no cars at the trail head when we got there so I figured we were alone but I didn’t feel that way.
The feeling persisted until we reached the end of the mile hike and saw the waterfall, we sat for a moment, took a few pictures, and started hiking back towards the car. I still felt like something was wrong. I felt eyes on me, and had a feeling of dread, for seemingly no reason at all. I tried to shake it off, but I just couldn’t. I started walking a little quicker to our car, we got there without incident, and starting throwing our hiking poles and water bottles into the backseat of the car.
I noticed there was a black SUV with limo tinted windowsParked next to us in the trail head parking lot, it wasn’t running, I didn’t see anyone around it and it didn’t seem like anybody was in it, but where was the driver? the only place the driver could have been was on the same trail as my partner and I, but I hadn’t seen or heard the driver on the trail. It was an out and back trail with steep rocky cliffs on either side of the trail, so the chances of me seeing the driver were pretty high, and the chances of him being off the trail were pretty slim as the undergrowth was extremely heavy until you got to the cliff side. I also am certain I would’ve heard somebody crashing through the undergrowth near the trail.
As I was thinking about this and getting more and more anxious, I see a huge man emerge silently from the bushes next to the trail to the waterfall. When I say silently I mean it, he made no noise at all. He was easily 6’4-6’6, strong looking, covered in what my partner believes are criminal tattoos, he had a baseball cap pulled down low over his sunglasses, a long full beard, some kind of a rifle slung across his back, and a large hunting knife on his belt.
Had he been out there at the falls with us that whole time?! If so, why hadn’t I heard or seen him. He was holding what appeared to be a cell phone in his hands, and waving down my partner. My partner is a 5’5 and skinny, in a silent panic I grabbed him by the arm to keep him from getting too close to the man. I realize now that this huge man had a gun and distance to him was irrelevant but as I said, I was in panic mode.
The man said that he had found this cell phone (the one in his hands) near the waterfall, and didn’t want us to leave without it. We both quickly checked our pockets, and realized that we both had our cell phones and we both assumed at the same time that this was some sort of set up for a robbery or something far more sinister. We jumped into the car, fired her up and drove up the dirt road as quick as we could. The man just stared at us through the rear window as we drove off.
It terrifies me to think that he was out there with us the whole time we were hiking and we didn’t hear him, see him, or even know he was there. How many other times has something like this happened to me? I never would’ve known the man was out there with us had he not chosen to make his presence known. I’m not going to lie it really made me think twice about hiking alone in the woods, or in isolated and desolate areas. I also find myself wondering what would’ve happened had we chosen to engage with him, were there others with him? What would’ve happened to us? I’m not going to lie, I’ve had nightmares about this man in several instances since this happened. I’m also a lot more careful about where I go, and who I go with. Anyways, listen to your gut.