Shelters or specific areas on the trail that give you the creeps...

[flyfisher]

I stayed solo at the Vandeventer Shelter last Fall. It was a beautiful night and sunrise. Middle of the night, I got up and felt like I needed to play something on my Native American Flute. I had never heard the story of the murder.

This is a quotation from the book I will soon publish. In "A Wildly Successful 200-Mile Hike" I was writing about an experience at Vandeventer shelter:

A Song for the Moon: One AM and all is well… My hammock hangs next to the drop-off at the Vandeventer shelter, and the October night sky is beautifully lighted by the nearly full hunter’s moon.

I’ve gotten up for my middle-of-the-night pee, and I am entranced by the stillness. The night is so clear that I could reach out and touch the hills on the far side of the valley. It will be a long night, with many more hours of darkness than I need to sleep, so I walk around the silent walls to the front of the shelter.

Turning the corner, mice scurry about in their nocturnal searching for food, but this night there are no other hikers from which to gain sustenance with a trifle stolen from their pack. My own food is outside the shelter, back near my hammock, and they will not find it before the sun and daylight makes them less frisky.

I sit on the edge of the shelter floor and listen into the darkness. The woods are much quieter than in mid summer, but I can still hear the occasional night creature as it creates a rustling scurry in the dry leaves.

A great horned owl calls from across a ravine. Hearing no answer, I do my best to imitate his call. It must not be good enough, because he does not come closer. Instead he calls out again and again, probably laughing under his breath at the sound of the city-slicker, pseudo owl that has wandered into his forest.

Back near my hammock, I pull the Native American flute from the side pouch of my pack. Settling my back against a chilly rock, a low and mournful song emerges from my mind and is transmitted through my fingers and the flute into the night vapors. My breath propels the rising melody arrhythmically through the naked branches and toward the moon.

I feel one with the woods, my spirit feasting in this October forest, bathed by the hunter’s light. For an hour I sit suspended between earth and sky, looking over the valley of mortals entombed in their square plastic boxes, fitfully sleeping their way through the night.

Finally, refreshed by my spiritual night walk, I lean back in my hammock, pull the quilt over my chilled shoulders, and in my rocking bed, I fall asleep.

Much of my experience in the woods is mental and spiritual. The more time and experience I have in the forest, the less it feels like wilderness and the more it feels like home.

[flyfisher]

Yeah Doc.Years ago some guy slammed a hatchet into a woman's skull killing her then threw her body over the cliff behind the shelter.

LW,

Any details (time of year, weather, what year, etc. not anatomy)

[Alligator]

I had not heard of the murders at Vandeventner nor at Wapati before I passed them, and there were no howls from the Lone Wolf the night I passed through Damascus. While there may be rumors of debauchery at the house of Baltimore Jack, spare me the tales before I pass.

I did stay at the Vanderventer shelter, with one other solo hiker. I was a little creeped out because I had to walk so far to get water and had forgotten my headlamp. The trail to water is so steep, that I felt should I fall in the dark, no one will be able to come help me too soon, as the other hiker had forgone getting water. But I made it back ok.

At Wapati, I arrived there in the mid-afternoon on a crisp November day. I remember coming into the shelter area and taking a break alone. There was an incredible stillness in the area. I wouldn't say it was creepy, but I do remember this shelter much better than others I have stopped in for a break. After close to an hour, my hiking partner showed up. He was having a rough time, as he hadn't backpacked in many years, was overburdened, and was about 20 years older than me. (In fact, I think I almost killed him the previous day by taking him up Angel's Rest(?), sobo out of Pearsisburg LOL). He wanted to stay there, but I convinced him to do a few more miles that day, as I didn't want to leave a long day for the car pickup. Maybe it was for the better?

[Skyline]

The spirits of Vanderventer died in May 1997. It was a night I was tenting nearby and "Amtrak" was staying in the shelter. He snored him/her/it to death. No one's been bothered since.

[BooBoo]

Antietam Creek Shelter was really spooky. The Shelter is just down stream from Antietam Battlefield. It was really spooky to think about that creek running red with blood. I sat there staring at the stream thinking about the thousonds of men that were killed just a short distance away.

[Lion King]

Quarry Gap because of someone hidding in the woods and throwing stuff at the shelter all night while I was there alone...I got up, picked up a chunk of my stove and went all Crazy on them and was like "All right Mother F)#@ ! You want someting...I'll crack your friggin skull you SOB!"" I actually moved quickly toward the privy up to the right and into the woods in the dark, ready to seriously go with whomever was doing this. You know the loud crazy talk people do when they are a little nerve wracked by crazy people behind the shelter. I heard running once I did that, and the next day Innkeeper told me that ...well...a certian trail persona was in the area and had been acting odd to people in that shelter earlier in the day. I didnt know or care, but I was ready to kick some ass.

Then the section right after Pine Grove furnance...got the deepest bonechilling fright in 1998...didnt know the full story of that area, but I felt a dark and scary presence for sure...my adrenaline kicked into over drive, and it was the middle of the day, and a pretty day at that...just scary...hair on the neck kind of stuff.

The the shelter right before Killington where the old dirt road is...all three of these areas I was alone at, which I generally dont mind, but there was something in the air, and I night hiked out of there toward The Shelter at the base of Killington.

[Sleepy the Arab]

Unaka Mountain. There is just something about it that chills me. Naturally, I try and turn it back to something natural by dropping trou whenever I pass through.

[Moose2001]

Sleepy - you mean that really dense pine grove on Unaka? I thought it was only me that got the creeps in that spot.

[CHAD BEAVER]

BLOOD MOUNTAIN i had the pleasure of a solo night w/lightning storm in april 04no indians present but the thought of a battle amongst all those huge rocks creeped me out

[The Weasel]

Sitting on the 'shelf' on the outside of Overmountain, all alone, watching the rain, and seeing the clouds curling, surf-like as they silently blew over the mountain, I could feel spirits of the "Overmountain Men" marching down the Overmountain Trail to meet the British. I'm not being poetic here, folks. They were there.

The Weasel

[celt]

Mizpah Hut, NH (built in 1964) is haunted by a little girl named Betsy who got lost and was found frozen not far away. Her body was put in a body bag ...

The Mizpah library has the issue of Appalachia from 1971 with this story in it. The croo at Pah sometimes brings this story to life during evening programs complete with a croo member lurking in the dark corners of the basement wearing Betsy's old dress!?

Elsewhere on the AT... I'm glad I didn't know the history of the old Thema Marks Shelter in Pennsylvania the night I spents alone there. Another murder shelter.

[Nightwalker]

BLOOD MOUNTAIN i had the pleasure of a solo night w/lightning storm in april 04no indians present but the thought of a battle amongst all those huge rocks creeped me out

Yeah, Blood Mountain shelter in the moonlight is kinda freaky looking, isn't it?

[Tractor]

I got a creepy feeling at the spring at Wise Shelter, daylight, not late at all. Then i wandered into the old grave site about dusk. Very unexpected. I couldn't help but feel like I was not alone. Not in danger, just not alone....... Did finally get to sleep though. Had same feeling as I left the next morning.

[Skyline]

I thought Cooper Lodge in Vermont would make a good set for a Night of the Living Dead sequel.

And to call this a Lodge? Makes as much sense as calling Tom Floyd (just north of SNP) a "Wayside." Both bring visions of hot food and cold beer and even colder ice cream, but neither deliver.

[Mountain Dew]

I last stayed on the top of Unaka Mountain in october. I wanted to stay there after missing the chance on my 2003 thru. Something felt odd up there that night. Sure it was very cloudy and overcast, but twice in the middle of the night I felt like I was being watched. Once while I was drifting off I swore that I felt something brush against my tent.

[weary]

I found this a fascinating thread. But I'm going to try desperately to forget the names of all the shelters mentioned before I try another long distance hike on the AT.

Weary

[flyfisher]

Yeah Doc.Years ago some guy slammed a hatchet into a woman's skull killing her then threw her body over the cliff behind the shelter.

Found it:

April 1975—Thru-hiker Janice Balza, 22, of Madison, Wisconsin, was killed by a hatchet wielded by hiker/tree surgeon Paul Bigley, 51, after breakfast at a shelter in northeast Tennessee. He died in state prison in Nashville. He killed her for her pack, a brand he coveted, testimony revealed.

From the ATC web pages

[Mountain Dew]

A "tree surgeon" ?

[SavageLlama]

Ice Gulch in CT.

It's actually not scary but the description of it in my guidebook was hilarious.. something like, "The sheer drop into the sublime and eerie gulch will strike terror in the hearts of hikers." It went on and on..

Wish I still had that guidebook. Best piece of creative writing I've ever read.

[flyfisher]

A "tree surgeon" ?

tree surgeon

n : a specialist in treating damaged trees [syn: arborist]




As I retired "flight surgeon" I am used to all the looks and questions... "So, when do you need to do surgery in an airplane?" etc.