I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I love backpacking in the Appalachians, but I never go alone anymore. There are a couple of reasons for this. From a practical standpoint, it’s always best to have a buddy with you in case you get hurt, turned around or encounter less-than-friendly wildlife. I’ve also heard of and seen things that I can’t explain and that really make me wary of venturing out into nature alone like I used to. There’s one path I made an exception for. It was an easy, shorter day hike, and the trail it split off from was well marked and got a decent amount of foot traffic. Plus, it only took about an hour to get to from the parking lot, so it was within fairly easy distance of help if I needed it, but one had to wander off the main trail to get to it. I will never do it again. There was a small series of events that led to this decision which started with a hiker that went missing a few years ago.
The main reason I enjoyed this path so much was that, while the main trail it split off from was frequented by a fair number of visitors, this smaller path was pretty well hidden, easy to miss and therefore quieter and more peaceful. The opening was blocked off by a fallen tree and some rather dense shrubs. I’d stumbled upon it randomly one day when I stepped off the trail to relieve myself and decided to follow it to see where it led.
The path snaked its way through a dense pine grove before it opened up, after about a half mile, to a small glade with a tiny, peaceful pond near the middle. Entering that glade, and being surrounded on all sides by tall pines, I was immediately struck by a sense of awe. It’s difficult to describe, but the way the trees pressed in and encircled the glade made it feel as though they crowded around in order to form a protective barrier between itself and its tiny pond and the rest of the world. A few of the pines were hollowed out near the bases of their trunks by age which gave them the appearance of older, wizened guardians.
I was immediately struck by this feeling that I wasn’t supposed to know about this place. At the same time, I felt privileged to be there and wanted to stay and enjoy this little world I’d discovered. For several years after that, it became my own personal retreat. I’d pack a lunch on the weekends, spend hours just enjoying the peace and solitude and then head back out before the sun started to set.
Sadly, as time went on, I began to notice the path was starting to get more foot traffic. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who had discovered this hidden gem. I started to notice other hikers taking a detour off the main trail every so often towards “my” spot. In reality, I know I didn’t own that glade and maybe I was being selfish about it. It was still bitter-sweet. Around that time, life got busier, and I started going there less and less until I eventually stopped going altogether for a long time.
That, however, wasn’t the last time I’d find myself hiking that path. You see, every so often I see alerts for missing hikers. They’re usually found by the park rangers safe and sound in short order, but every so often they have to bring out search and rescue teams and even, occasionally, ask for volunteers to help with the search. I’m friendly with a couple of the park rangers, so I’ve even been asked if I’d be willing to volunteer once or twice.
This particular time, the alert caught my attention enough that I actually reached out to the park ranger department in order to volunteer. A young man had taken a day hike and, when he didn’t return that evening, his family got worried and contacted the authorities. The part that really caught my attention was that he was last reported as seen by an older couple on the main trail I mentioned earlier. Since I know it well and it’s a short trail which should have made it an easy one to canvas, I offered to help search.
It was not easy. We searched high and low for the missing young man and eventually, with the family’s help, we were able to track his cell phone to the general area he went missing. Surprisingly, that led us to my old path to the glade. It was around 2pm when we arrived at the spot, but we couldn’t find a trace of the guy or his phone. We were still able to ping it and knew he had to be in that general area. Aside from finding a small day pack belonging to him, we were completely baffled that there was no other trace of him. The small pond I mentioned was so small that it took no time at all to search. It’s possible the phone fell in there, but no one was able to find it or anything else. Eventually, the search party moved on and spread out further, while I stayed behind to gather my thoughts and search for clues we might have missed.
By that time, it was starting to get dark. I’d never seen that glade after dark and was shocked at the transformation. The long shadows of the trees looked far more menacing in the dying light and the older, partially hollowed out portions of some of the trees seemed to gape open at me. I had a funny feeling like unseen eyes could have been watching me from them. I shook it off and dismissed it as an overactive imagination. As many of the other searchers were starting to call it a night in order to get an early start the next day, I boogied on out of there as well.
The search continued for another week but yielded no further clues as to the whereabouts of the young man. As a result, the search was eventually called off.
Years passed without thought or news for the surely dead hiker, and that would have been the end of the story had I not gone out for drinks recently with one of the park rangers I’m friends with. As we were finishing our last drink, our conversation started winding down. Suddenly, she seemed to remember something, leaned over and lowered her voice. She told me that there had been a violent storm system that had passed through the area recently leaving a lot of downed trees and debris in its wake. Cleanup crews had been steadily trying to clear some of the major trails and had eventually worked their way to my old path. In the process, they had even added a trail marker for it and had widened the path.
Apparently as they were clearing that path, one of the members of the crew ended up making their way to the small glade on his lunch break. He returned to his crew in a panic and was babbling about having found some human remains. To everyone’s surprise, it turned out to be the remains of the missing hiker from those years prior. For the age of the body, it was surprisingly well preserved. The truly shocking part was where the body had been found. He had been in the glade all along inside one of the, now fallen, hollowed out trees. His body looked like it had been stuffed about five or six feet up from the opening of a hole in the base of the trunk itself. The cleanup crew had cut away a section of the tree and saw, to their horror, that the body had been folded back on itself so that the head and the feet were closer to the base of the trunk. Almost as if something had reached out from the hollowed out opening, wrapped around his waist and pulled him up into the tree.
It made absolutely no sense. And, while they reported the body to authorities and the family was finally able to get some closure, those disturbing details were never released to the general public or to the family.
I was saddened and horrified to hear this. But, it got even stranger when my friend told me that, over the last few years, they’d regularly stumbled upon other random, hidden paths that branched off from other well-known trails and that led to similar looking glades. Every so often, they’d come upon a fallen tree in these glades that had the remains of dead animals that looked like they’d just been crumpled up and stuffed up into the trunks.
More disturbing still was that about a week ago a little girl had gone missing. She had been found the next day (safe and sound). Apparently, after she got separated from her family during a day-hike, she had stumbled upon one of these glades. She was clearly very shaken and, when the rescuers finally got her to speak, she timidly stammered that the entire night she was in that glade “the people in the trees” were making faces at her.
I can’t even begin to describe how unnerved I was as I took in all this information. My friend leaned back in her seat and seemed to feel relieved to have been able to share that with an outsider. She finished, saying that now whenever they discover one of these small paths leading to these glades, they do their best to keep them hidden and post signage warning people to keep to the main trails. I remembered every lunch and lazy afternoon in “my” glade with a chilled perspective. I know I’ll certainly never be venturing off the beaten path any time soon.