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    Mike M
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    Hey Wes,

    I sent an earlier inquiry and realize my level of encounter may not be what you’re looking for but I’m hoping you’ll take the time to read it. After all these years I’m ready to get it out in the open. The following is 100% true. Certain details were intentionally left vague to disguise identity and location. If you have the time, I’d like to know your thoughts.

    Thanks, Mike

    This encounter took place on October 6, 2005 in the desolate desert of southern Utah. My late wife and I were to meet some friends for a multi-day hiking trip through some slot canyons. For those who are not familiar with what a slot canyon is, it’s a narrow sandstone canyon formed by water runoff with vertical sides, and by narrow I mean some areas are several feet wide and while others are barely large enough to fit yourself through. It’s common to crawl, climb and rappel your way through and sometimes swim scattered pools of standing, cold water left over from storms. This particular hike we were doing is well known for having these cold pools of water. And well, my wife wasn’t keen on that part so she and I opted to hike in a different way and join the rest of the group around halfway and hike out together.

    The very nature of how these canyons are formed is why you do not want to be in them when it’s raining. Storm water moves swiftly through these canyons and immediately becomes a deadly flash flood. Often, the walls are sheer and vertical so there is no climbing out for escape. In fact, every year or so people die when entering these places without concern for the weather. For this outing, the weather had been clear for days leading up to our planned departure and was predicted to be storm-free throughout. Also, there is no cell service in much of this area so you’re on your own; self-sufficiency is expected.

    Our original route traveled through one slot canyon and met up with another slot canyon and carried on further as a tributary to a large reservoir downstream. If you can imagine looking at a map, it’d look like a capital “Y” where these two canyons come together and join. The west entrance is more technical and takes more time to traverse while the east entrance is largely a sandy wash bottom and can be traveled much easier, basically it’s like walking on a beach. Just upstream of where both canyons meet is a clearing wide enough to camp away from the wash. That was the place where we planned to meet the others.

    So the main group set off on October 5 with plans to meet with us either late on the 6th or early on the 7th. For my wife and I, we planned leave our home and get to our meeting point all in the same day, so we set off on the 6th. Getting to the trailhead for us required a six hour drive then about eight miles of hiking. As usual we were running late so by the time we were on foot with our gear and in motion it was about three o’clock in the afternoon. The hike was incredible. The 200 foot wide wash slowly narrowed as the miles went by and around halfway we were walking through areas where you could almost touch both sides at the same time. The colors would glow especially strong as the sun lowered making some of the hallways glow in ways not thought possible, Golden Hour. We were progressing well, spirits were up, the map had us just about to the confluence and all of a sudden we met up with the awful stench of death. At this point, the canyon walls were over 400 feet tall and the canyon was around 10-15 feet wide; that stench was so concentrated you could almost feel it yet there was no sign of where it was coming from. Nothing. Nothing in sight on the ground, up or down canyon, and with near vertical walls, we were really confused. We kept on, using our shirts and whatever else to filter the air as the canyon continued to twist and turn. Then there it was, a full size, adult, mountain sheep (or Ram) just a few days dead. I say a few days because that was the time since the last storm flooding this canyon and the carcass wasn’t covered with runoff debris; it was obvious it showed up afterward. Our suspicion was it slipped and fell down into the canyon from above. The gender was impossible to determine because the entire abdomen area, ribs to pelvis and all the way to the spine was missing. Not to say the entrails were strewn about in the process of being devoured or decomposition, it was outright missing, all of it. The head was turned away and down into the crevice between the ground and the wall. Once we identified the source of the stench, we quickly ran past it to get to fresher air. Just as we were clear of the odor we walked right into the confluence. It was awesome – the joining of three, 400+ foot tall, large sandstone hallways. I stood in the center and looked straight up to see the sky in the shape of a “Y” and could tell we needed to find a spot to camp soon. Luckily the clearing where we were camping was just a few hundred feet away up the west canyon. To our surprise, the west canyon was wet, meaning it had a small amount of water flowing. So much so, that we were jumping from sand mound to sand mound trying to keep our feet dry. We weren’t concerned for flooding because we were confident with our weather forecasts and it’s also common to have water springs or seeps in the desert. As we went through a particularly narrow section along the way, the walls gradually widening to around 200 feet with large sandy banks on both sides gaining elevation safely away from the wash bottom. We chose to stay left as we hiked upstream and found a clearing large enough to camp for the night. It was about 20 or so feet up from the wash bottom and about 30 feet away with small trees and bushes between for privacy from anyone who may be passing along. The wash bottom in this area wasn’t as sandy as everywhere else, it was more hard clay and rock covered in less than an inch of water as the stream spread thin going from one side of the wash to the other. After setting up camp we had just enough light left to look around a little. I personally wanted to see if anyone else was around that we should be aware of and just as I hoped, we were alone. It soon got dark so we started back to our tent. It was then we took notice that as we walked along the wash our footsteps sounded like “splat splat” as we stepped. I remember jokingly telling my wife that it would likely wake us up should our friends arrive before we got up the next morning.

    Before long we were zipped in our tent and down for the night when just minutes later, out of the pitch black night we were met with an absolutely insane roar/scream coming down the canyon. It was of such volume and force that we were instantly beside ourselves with a fear bordering on outright panic. Everything about it seemed impossible. The sheer capacity to create such a sustained volume was outside my understanding of reality. Out there, at worst, maybe you see a mountain lion or black bear on a very rare occasion, but nothing that would compare to the combined guttural roar of an African Lion with that of a Silverback Gorilla. What still has my head spinning is the duration; it spanned almost 10 full seconds with no change in intensity throughout. Instantly we knew, first, we were not alone as previously thought, and second, we were definitely not on the top of the food chain. It was then when I took notice of my wife, who at that time was having a meltdown. She was yelling and squirming around in her sleeping bag as if possessed. It was everything I could do to get her to try to be silent as I held her down with both arms and a leg so we could hear. Easier said than done but done nonetheless and there we sat holding each other in our tent whispering and wondering what the F just happened. My wife, having grown up on a farm, told me she had never heard or known any animal that could make that kind of sound except on TV. I’m a city boy having spent my youth mountaineering and have met up with mountain lions, black and brown bear, moose, wolves and whatnot and I’m stumped. Neither of us had a clue what could have made that sound. So we laid there in dead, pitch black, silence for around 10 minutes when I eventually mustered the nerve to sit up very slowly. My mind kept racing around for anything that we may have had with us that could be converted to a weapon of defense. The two metal bars in my internal frame backpack? A 3 inch pocket knife? Tent poles? An f-ing rock? Nothing! Then suddenly, whatever it was, showed up. Remember how I described the canyon opening being around 200 feet side to side with tall walls? Well, the length of the wash bending through it was only around 130 feet long between the bends as it entered and exited the clearing. As I sat in the dark, something very large and very fast ran down the wash coming toward us from the upstream at my left, passing in front of us and to my right, out and down toward the confluence AND IT DID IT IN SEVEN, UNMISTAKABLE, BI-PEDAL STEPS! It was pitch black and I stereo-phonically heard the “splats” of the steps that had to have been more than 15 feet apart as it ran past me no more than 30 feet in front of where I was seated. The creature made breathy grunting sounds almost matching the pace of its steps and had passed through the 130 foot clearing in under 3 seconds. If we were scared before, it was nothing compared to how we felt when that happened! All we could do was sit and wait and wait we did for hours. I don’t remember when we finally fell asleep but I was sure wide awake when my wife started packing to leave at first light. I spent a few minutes looking around in the daylight trying to find anything that would give an indication of what it could have been but I didn’t find any footprints and my wife was making it clear she was leaving with or without me. I think it either climbed out of the canyon or it was stepping in water the entire time, I don’t know. What I am confident with, however, while not having “seen” anything, I know what I heard and that’s enough for me.

    Oh, about our friends. They were delayed with minor injuries. There was absolutely no keeping my wife there a single minute longer than necessary and I wasn’t about to let her walk out alone. I left markings in the sandy wash bottom and put a note for our friends in the hike register before informing the ranger at his station that our friends were still out there. He said another ranger was making the trek that day and he’d let him know to keep an eye out. It turned out our friends were around 6 hours behind us when they called. They claim they neither heard nor saw anything out of the ordinary during their entire trip and that a few nasty blisters were the reason they decided to leave early. Stranger still, they all say they didn’t see any dead animals along the way either. While I clearly remember taking notice that the sheep hadn’t changed in any way when we ran past it again on our way out. We still haven’t told those guys anything about our experience that night.

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