May 5

We Heard It Running And Crashing Through The Forest

A listener writes “This is harder then I thought to write this! I don’t know where to start. The year I guess… 1996 I just turned 19 and was through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with my brother and his girlfriend.

I actually know the exact day because of my journal I kept. Day 84, July 24. But could be one or so days off. I only wrote day 1,2 etc, because I never knew the exact date, before cell phones! haha. Anyway, so it was day 84 of walking. We were on the trail roughly 50 miles north of a town called Downieville Ca. It was getting late and we were all low on water so were were looking at the map to see if we could make it to any so as to have some for the morning. My brother found a lake that actually said it was seasonal but we figured it was our best shot. Worst case senerio if there wasn’t any we’d have to find some in the morning. Like I said we were low but not completely out. So this lake was roughly a 1/4 mile off the trail to the east. We cut into the woods and I remember the ground being abnormally spongey, like we were walking on 5 feet of twigs the whole way there, maybe hadn’t burned in a long while or something. We finally reach the lake and thankfully it was full so we were happy about that. It was getting really close to dark at this time so we set up our tents. I was in a little one man with the opening facing the woods, my feet facing the water. My brother and his girlfriend set up theirs about ten or so feet to my left, and right near us about 10-15ft from both our tents was a tall tree with a perfect 90 degree branch about 12 or so feet up and we hung our food on it. So with the tree included, we were all situated like a triangle more or less. Like I said it was getting dark pretty quick so we skipped dinner and all ate power bars instead and crawled into our tents. Every night before falling asleep I would write something in my journal even if it was just a few words then I would read for a bit and turn off the headlamp. On this night I don’t think I did either for very long and when I turned out my light I laid there for awhile letting my eyes adjust and realizing that it was pitch black. Like cave dark which was unusual because most often there was always a little light from at least the stars. I believe it was a new moon too so it added to the darkness. It was so dark that I called out to my brother to see if he was still awake and I said ” Matt, it’s so dark, I can’t even see my hand! ” and he answered ” I know it’s crazy! ” I couldn’t see trails from my hand or anything. So I laid there waving my hand back and forth and then eventually fell asleep.

I woke up to crunching by my tent. I have no idea what time it was but based on the length of time I was awake after this moment I’m guessing it was around midnight maybe who knows. This was before cell phones and I didn’t wear a watch. So I hear crunching and my first instinct at that time was to unzip the tent, shine my light on whatever animal it was and then said animal would most likely run away. Well I unzipped the tent and I’m on my belly with my headlamp in my left hand and before I can make any other movement there was a guttural growl/hiss sound that was so loud and so unlike anything I’d ever heard in my life and it was right in front of me. I completely froze. It finished with the first growl/hiss then it breathed in and when it breathed in I could hear a massive amount of air being sucked through what sounded like lungs. Then it let out another growl /hiss and within these few seconds (which felt like minutes) I heard a woman’s voice. I’m positive it was my grandmothers voice telling me as if she was in the tent with me, “Faye do not turn your light on” I think I even said ok. Keep in mind I’m staring at a wall of black. I didn’t see eyes, an outline, nothing. Absolutely nothing. So I zip up my tent and I’m laying there shaking, thinking I’m about to die and I hear my brother yelling “Faye what the F is that?! ” All I can manage to get out is “I don’t know, I don’t know”. I’m not religious but went to catholic school, and I start saying the Hail Mary prayer over and over again. Then it leaves me and walks straight over to the food bag. Doesn’t climb a tree, doesn’t jump, just starts immediately messing with the food bags. These food bags were at least 12 feet up. Then it finishes checking the bags out and runs away. Two feet. It was running on two feet. It sounded like it weighed 1000 lbs. Almost like the forest floor was shaking. We had heard almost every known animal run away from us at some point along the trail, in the day, in the night, but this was different. It was two feet. We heard it running and crashing through the forest for what sounded like miles until it faded to zero. As soon as the running sound dissipated it sounded like two boulders or something the size of a car was thrown into the lake. The splash was so large I could hear water raining down after the initial impact. One after the other. Then after that it was complete dead silence. We didn’t talk, I don’t think I moved. I was almost afraid to breathe. I laid awake all night waiting for whatever it was to come back, but it never did.

At first light we got up, I looked at my brother and I can still see the look on his face. His girlfriend was asking why we were up so early and packing everything up so fast and we looked at her in confusion, ” you didn’t hear anything last night?? ” and she said ” No”. That was very odd to us but we didn’t sit around and talk about it. We loosely looked for tracks and couldn’t see anything. It was extremely twiggy. I’m sure someone with better tracking skills could of seen something, but we wanted to get out of there. The food bags were still hanging and nothing was missing from them.

Still in a daze and shock from the night before we just kept hiking north and about mid day found a group of through hikers that we knew slept in the area the night before and we asked them if anyone heard anything in the night and described a bit of what happened but they all kind of laughed it off and reassured us that it was a buck snorting. But deep down we knew it wasn’t that but also it did no good to dwell on it when you were miles away from civilization. So we kept walking. I was a very slow hiker and so every day I was basically hiking by myself. My brother and his girlfriend had a fast pace so they would just wait for me at sketchy spots or weird junctions. Sometimes they’d wait for a very long time. On this day it was no different and it started to get late in the day and I lost the trail. I started getting really scared thinking I’d have to sleep on my own that night.There were a lot of clear cuts and somehow I got turned around so I started to panic and run until I finally got back on the trail and saw my brothers tracks. I reached his tent just before dark across a road. I set up my tent almost on top of theirs. They were already laying down, we had walked I think about 20 miles and were exhausted from the night before and were already dosing off so I think that’s why my brother didn’t hear this. I wrote in my journal how scared I was from the night before and jokingly wrote Bigfoot is chasing us because at that point I assumed Bigfoot was a big joke. It couldn’t be real right? But I knew I was scared and that’s all I needed to know. Anyway, I turned out my light and as I was dozing off I heard the same running as the night before on the ridge to the south of us and a piercing shrieking scream that lasted really long and drawn out along with it. I started shaking and told myself if this happened again I was getting off the trail and going home.

Well it didn’t happen again and I made it through Oregon and Washington finishing the through hike seeing plenty of other animals, but hearing nothing even close to what I heard those two nights.

So that’s it. I feel like I have so much to say. I’ve spent the last 24 years thinking about this. It’s completely changed my experience in the woods. I still go backpacking but never again alone.”

7 Responses to “We Heard It Running And Crashing Through The Forest”

  1. theresa m

    So glad you came here to tell your story. Wes is someone who will give you space and time to share with a following of support and very interested people. I hope you will come on and share more. Be well.

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