HAUNTED TRAILS | True Camping & Hiking Horror Stories | Appalachia, Aliens, Bigfoot and more (x286)

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Interesting. These hairs are short. Short-haired Bigfoot. I firmly believe he encountered a mimic. Your backpack is immortal. Ready campers? We have themed this encounters episode. Camping, hiking, woods. Yeah. Very spooky. Hi. Hello. This is Two Girls, One Ghost. Two Girls, One Ghost. And we're ghostesses. That is Karen. Hi. And I am Sabrina. And we are going to venture into the wilderness. Oh, I dressed appropriately. This is giving like really fun camp counselor vibes, but

White lotus tee & listener gifts

where the heck did you get that shirt? Okay. Yes. This is a story to tell

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because I've never seen anything like it. You have? On White Lotus. So, in season 3, they go to a full moon party and Oh, wait. I haven't seen season 3. Oh, it's okay. You can Well, I'm not giving no concept. Mine spoilers. No, this is not a spoiler at all. I promise for anyone who's listening. They go to a um full moon party in Thailand and they're wearing these alien shirts and they're oversized and I was like, I need that and I need to know where it's from. And so I took to the interwebs and did my sleuththing and I found it's this artist named Scooter Leforge and so he has some shirts. They're all like custom made. So I'm wearing I'm wearing art. Okay, so we can't even get that exact same. They did have I think a couple of this one, but they're all like handmade. But they're all a little different. Yeah, I can see it and it like I know that it's the same, but it's also different. Yeah. Oh, this is so cool. Yeah. So, I couldn't get the exact one, but this alien option was available. So,

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I got this. And then I also got a Joker one. Ooh, we have one that is Crisco. That can of Crisco. These are the Joker one is creepy, Sabrina. So, we'll link it in um the show notes for anyone if you want. But yeah, I was like, "Wow, what do I wear today?" And I found this alien shirt. So, we are going to venture into the woods. Yes, we are into the depths. And how appropriate that one of our listeners sent us some things collected from the woods. And also, we have an artist right here. This is Josh. Josh made this for us. Thank you, Josh. Instagram x Josh GX. Incredible. It is incredible. And it's good because it it's like you're next to me, I'm next to you, you know? Yeah. Not to confuse anyone. And then one of our listeners, sorry. Unfortunately, we often lose the notes that come with the gifts cuz we're so excited. We read the note, open the present, scream, and throw everything

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everywhere. Yeah. And that happened here. So, we have wheat from a crop circle, Lincoln, Nebraska. And Bigfoot fur sample from Oregon in 1971. So cool. What does it smell like? I don't know. Let me examine. You are a scenoriented person. Interesting. These hairs are short. Short-haired Bigfoot. He had alipcia and it's a little blonde. But it's appropriate because we have themed this encounters episode. camping, hiking, woods, terrifying things that happen to people when they go out into the woods. And we have determined we could do an entire episode. No, we could do a whole podcast. We could do a We are about to do a whole episode. We are doing a whole We could do an entire podcast based on purely the stories you all have sent us on camping and hiking. And so it was really, really hard to narrow it down and pick. We picked six stories, but it was really hard which were, I mean, we're going to do this topic a million more times. If you've listened to the podcast in the past, you know that this is like the 18th time we've done this

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topic anyway. And you had picked your stories first before I did. And in doing so, you couldn't release one of the stories, so you gave it to me to read. You're like, I put one in there. Should I start with that one? Cuz I didn't read it so that it would be a surprise. Oh,

Paranormal Encounter or Creepy Human?

do it. It's called Camping Horror Story. Okay, let's see. Let's see what Sabrina picked for me. There were so many. Like I had to stop myself because it was one of those things where every story I clicked on I wanted to read, right? So I was trying to find ways to categorize to like put them into other future episodes. Yeah. How do I still read this? How do we rearrange all of our future encounters episodes so we can just make all of them? It's kind of like how we all of a sudden became all Appalachia stories. We're obsessed. Appalachas like potato chips. Can't have just one. Apparently you're all obsessed, too. So, okay. Ready campers? Ready campers. Everyone, get your flashlights and your compass and let's hike out into the woods. Hey girls and ghost. I'm a brand new listener and I've

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been binging all of your episodes when I get ready for school in the morning. It's the best way to start off my day. To start this, I would like to stay anonymous. I have bad social anxiety and I don't like being the center of attention, but I have been wanting to share this story. So, thank you. Okay, what should we call this person? Um, Bigfoot. B. Okay. Or B. B. Okay. Sorry. BFF. BF. BF. I'm a senior in high school and I live in Utah Valley. Living in Utah is an interesting experience to say the least, but I love the nature aspect of it. One of my favorite hobbies is to go backpacking with my dad and my dog. This happened not even a year ago. Me and my dad had packed up all of our gear to put in our car before church. After the service, we headed straight for the mountains. It took a while because my dad is very social and also he is the pastor. Fair. We got to the trail head and made sure that we had everything in our ginormous backpacks and also put the vests on my dogs. I'd like to add that my dog carries a gun. I'd like to add that my dad carries a

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gun with us when we go on these trips. I snotted like I literally, if you zoom in, I think you would have seen snot fly from my nostril and then I wiped it on my pants. So, sorry. He carries it mainly for bear and for moose. We've had a few scary experiences in the past, so you can never be too careful. The hike we were going on was a very thick and dense one. You could barely see anything due to these massive trees. Normally, this wouldn't scare me, but this time something felt off. It was oddly quiet, and my dog had definitely sensed that something was up. I brushed it off and we continued the hike normal. As we hiked, we only ran into one person, and he was unusual. On this trail, if you were planning on camping out, you had to be about 70 ft from the trail itself. So, we'd been wandering around trying to find a good spot to set up for the night. And that is when we ran into this man. He had his campsite set up and was sitting at an empty fire pit just staring at it. Also, the chances of just like randomly picking a place to go off

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trail to find a campsite and finding one person and it's the only person you've seen the entire time you're hiking. And I don't know the rest of the story, but I'll say in his defense, like this would also be really odd that like you pick the one place, you're like in your solitude, you're completely alone, and then two people walk up with dogs and a gun. I would also be all perspective. Yes. He had his campsite set up and he was just sitting in an empty fire pit just staring at it. I don't think he noticed us walk up until my dog, being very friendly and having no social cues, ran up to him. The man jolted up and looked directly at us. I didn't like his eyes. That was the first thing I noticed. They were not kind eyes. My dad said a friendly hello. The man nodded back and we continued walking past him. I mentioned to my dad that I thought he looked a little bit weird and we should hike a ways up so that we're not so close to him. My dad agreed. Once we were settled in and made a fire, we started to make dinner. And it was pretty bland, but my dad always made

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dinner a fun time. He would bring hot chocolate mix for dessert and as I was sipping my hot chocolate staring into the forest, I felt a sense of being watched and I did not like it. I got ready for bed and me and my dad decided that we would go to sleep early. So, we got in our tent. We call it a coffin tent seeing that me and my dad are both extremely tall and my dad being 67. Oh my gosh. So, we're really squeezed in there. Bigfoot. Your dad is Bigfoot. Holy [ __ ] Also, like imagine this guy alone in the woods in his campsite. Two people wander up and they are like seven feet tall. You're maybe the I like how you're really, you know, seeing it from his perspective, right? Cuz it's like I do know where the story is going. You're like alien people. Sorry, not to call you an alien cuz I'm just trying to get I'm just trying I called them Bigfoot. You called them alien. My gosh, we're so sorry. Be this is what you get for staying anonymous.

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I'm a light sleeper and I wake up to every noise and I always bring a pair of earplugs with me because of this. My dog huddled in the tent with us sitting at the bottom of our feet and my dad was out cold and I was just starting to drift off trying to ignore my dad's loud snoring when I woke up to a flashing light in my eyes. I froze. There were flashes coming from outside the tent. I looked at my watch. 300 a.m. Freaking witching hour. Just my look. I reached for my earplugs and as I'm taking them out, I hear twigs snapping and light footsteps around the campsite. At first, I thought this has to be a dream. But now that I was hearing it, I knew that this was real. I look over. My dog is on point, staring directly at the door. The lights and the sounds stopped suddenly. I tried to look over at my dad, but his sleeping bag was covering my view of his face, so I assumed he was still asleep, although his snoring stopped. I fell back asleep, clutching my pocketk knife. And the next morning, I woke up to an empty tent. I could hear my dad outside making us morning coffee. I hopped right

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out of the tent and said, "Dad, I had the worst dream last night, but also I don't really know if it was a dream." He stared at me and I recalled what had happened in the early morning. His face was blank. Normally, when I tell these stories, he looks very intrigued, but not this time. He softly said, "That wasn't a dream. I saw the same thing last night." He went on to tell me that he had seen and heard everything, too. He had his hand on the gun the entire time, fearing that there were people about to raid our camp. But there was nothing out there for them to raid, so why would they be here? We know it wasn't a park ranger because they have to announce themselves before entering. We hiked back to the car in silence. And while I was sitting in the car on the way back home, I realized that on our way down, we had passed the man's campsite, except it was entirely empty. No trace of him ever being there. Stay spooky. Be [ __ ] It's like real humans are creepier than anything. Truly. Yeah. This is so creepy. Okay, I'm sorry for

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trying to give that man the benefit of the doubt because it would be one thing for him to just like walk up and try to check you guys out again, but like to do it in the dead of night at 3:00 a.m. walking around your camp. He was either extremely sketchy or like makes me think he was on the run or he's an alien. Murder on the trail. I feel like that's the best place to hide is I'm glad it didn't escalate to anything else. I know. I mean, this is also like why camping is so scary. Not to bring up height again, but I feel like maybe that helped, right? Cuz it was two people who are quite tall. They have a dog with them, too, right? And I wonder if he did see the gun. I'm sure he did, but like he still went to the campsite at 3:00 a.m. I know. And was creeping around. Really, really scary. And it's not like Be or their dad said anything or made him aware that they were awake. Like he just creeped. So, I didn't know that you like I hadn't read this one and I have one that's also creepily similar. Well,

Camping in Appalachia

in honor of our series of Appalachia, I have one from Appalachia. Nice. And this

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is from our listener Marcus and it is called Appalachin Mountain Region. Hello, my name is Marcus and I found you recently when I looked up Appalachin ghost stories and I had commented on the latest research related one that evidently most of my camping experiences have taken place out in Appalachia and you said I should email you. Yes, I did. Glad you did. Thank you for the research and your different spins on the legends like the devil sitting in the tramping ground and manifesting and relaxing versus it being an evil location that nobody should visit. I absolutely love learning new things about the paranormal or practicing witchcraft through your podcast. And you've helped me be less afraid and embrace my awareness of spiritual energy and the world around me. So, now that my fangirling is done, here's a little backstory. My dad has been running an outdoor adventure youth leadership program out of the town in central Connecticut for the last 30 years or so. And the Appalachin region is evidently where most of the program's camping trips take place. The stories I'm sharing are backpacking ones, but I have all different kinds

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from various camp settings, and I'll share more in a future email. So, my name is Marcus, but I haven't always gone by that name. And some of these stories involve camping trips and tenting with girls. And in case you're wondering, what the [ __ ] Why is this dude's dad cool with him camping and sharing tents with girls? It's because I haven't always gone by the name Marcus. So, I heard the story on one of the most recent episodes released 312 about the mother and daughter camping in Pennsylvania and experiencing something terrifying. I experienced something eerily similar. If you haven't heard of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon West Rim Trail, I strongly recommend checking it out. The scenery is astonishing and breathtaking, especially for being in northern central Pennsylvania. It's rather remote. The treeine almost swallows you as soon as you get onto the trail, and you leave the world as you know it behind. Like any other backpacking trip, this trail comes with its own set of dangers. I've encountered rattlesnakes and black bears on this trail. And also, at times when rain is inconsistent throughout the summer, you can find that your water source is completely dried up and then you have to

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hike several miles down the trail just to get water. What I did not expect was to experience what occurred on the second night of a 5-night backpacking trip in 2011. There were probably 10 to 12 of us in the group, myself included. We'd gotten to camp in a timely manner with plenty of daylight remaining. Our spirits were high as we set up our sleeping arrangements, collected firewood, and got ready to take on the evening. I was tasked with water filtration, and so I asked another camper and a close friend, her name was Elise, to help me out because I didn't want to go wandering off from the group alone. I have never been interested in wandering off from a group while camping because I am not keen on turning into a missing person's case. Yeah. Okay, good. Alisa and I didn't go too far, but in order to collect enough water for the whole group, we had to go probably about 25 yards away from the edge of the small campsite. That's where the stream became deep enough where we could scoop water into our gravity filters and actually get both of them set up at once. We could still hear everyone else

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chattering amongst themselves back at camp. But then we heard something else, a loud crash on the hill in front of us. We stopped what we were doing. We looked at each other, looked towards the noise, and we saw nothing. H. But we also heard nothing. It sounded like a large rock had been thrown down the hill. It didn't tumble though, which is what I thought was odd. And after that, there was no noise. Nothing to indicate a large animal crashing through the brush or running off either. And admittedly, it felt like something was watching us. But by this time, we were likely 12 plus miles from the start of the 30.5 m trip. And getting help would not have been an easy task. So, we carried on. We didn't think much of it, or at least tried not to. and returned to the rest of the group. None of them had heard or seen anything, which I can't say surprised me because we were always allowed a rambunctious group. Pretty much what you would expect from a group of middle and high schoolers. Mhm. For a little while after that, I still felt very watched, but I said nothing. We carried on with our typical afternoon and evening routine, and I decided I'll shake it off, though I still felt watched, and I

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admittedly avoided doing any more water filtration for the rest of that day. Then the sun set, and the wilderness swallowed us up once again. Our sleeping arrangements at that time for backpacking trip had just shifted from dividing up and carrying a couple of five or six person tents to each of us carrying our own personal tent called bug bivies. If you've never heard of it, picture bug netting on a frame with no canvas walls and a tent-like floor. Okay. So, you're like you can see everyone and everything. Yeah, I like that cuz then you're protected from the bugs, but you still get to see the stars have a barrier. Me, too. But for anyone who is like, I want to sleep under the stars and doesn't want to be exposed. Yeah, the ones we were using in 2011 were physically the lightest we possibly could carry as they had built in or add in rain tarps so we could carry a couple of waterproof tarps along with us and find places to set it up for shelter. Three to four of us would be under a tarp, and that was the case here. During this backpacking trip, I was under a tarp with Elise and another student,

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Maggie. And even though I didn't really like being on the end, I tolerated it because most of the time the tarp came down low enough where I didn't feel super exposed to the forest. We done our group routine of having an evening meeting to debrief around the campfire and then we went to bed. Our next campsite was about 9ish miles away and we wanted to knock out the major hills before the sun was too high in the sky. I remember talking to Elise and Maggie and then falling asleep. But at some point, I remember waking up. I don't remember what woke me up, the silence or the rocks falling around the campsite. But suddenly, I was wide awake. The kind of awake where you don't want to move too much because you know something is off. Something was moving around our camp. Something big. There were some rocks in the campsite and I remember them moving around a lot. And these were not small little rocks wedged in the dirt. It would take major force to dislodge them. But something was succeeding in doing so. Next thing I knew, whatever it was that was doing this was standing right outside my tent. Oh my god. And it

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sounded like it was making an effort to get into my backpack. All I could do was move closer to Elise and Maggie as close as possible and curl into a ball at the bottom of my sleeping bag. I didn't dare look at whatever this thing was, and I had every reason to believe that I would be waking in the morning to all of my food having been eaten. And the thought of having to survive off of dinner alone for the next couple of days in that thought itself was daunting. I remember not wanting to look for fear of what I would actually see. And at some point, the noise stopped. But what stood out to me was that I never heard this thing leave. For all the noise it made, you would have think it would made that much noise to leave as it did arriving. Yeah. But I didn't hear a single sound. That's because Bigfoot is an interdimensional being and it can just cloak itself or pop through a portal at any time. It went through your backpack and left. Your backpack is a portal. That is That's a kids kids book. That is a kids book. It's like Magic Treehouse. I have no idea how I fell asleep, but somehow I drifted back to sleep. But here's the kicker. Upon waking up, there was zero evidence of anything in camp being

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touched. Not a single stone was dislodged. Nothing from my backpack had been touched, and it didn't even look like it had been moved. Everything was still in its place. But the only thing that confirmed it wasn't a dream was the fact that Elise and Maggie had also woken up and been completely terrified the entire duration of the event. None of us said anything to each other because we were all too scared, but they also heard the entire thing. The rest of the campers and the other staff members and my dad hadn't heard a single thing that night. So, when we asked them about it, they primarily suspected a bear. However, I've seen the kind of damage a bear can do, especially when they're really interested in getting into something. And so had it been a bear, my backpack should have been completely and totally destroyed. I had breakfast food items in my outer pockets which included chocolate and apple cinnamon flavored rice cakes with peanut butter and jelly. Bears would have devoured that. So to this day, I genuinely don't believe it was a bear. Maybe it was a Bigfoot encounter, but there were no other smells or other things that people attribute to Bigfoot. To this day, it remains a mystery, but also one of the

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most terrifying nights I've had in the woods. Weird. It also reminds me of like people's stories where there's like mimics in the woods or just like the wild men or whatever that just right are checking. But that story and Bee's story that you read before this, it's like something just being nosy. But it's like why right because you can be nosy during the day. You could. It's easier to be nosy during the day when you can see stuff if you're human. Yeah. Yeah. But if you have malicious intent or you want to steal something vision or if you have nocturnal vision and you're Bigfoot, you do it at night. Okay, story number two. This is another backpacking story, but this one takes place on the Cranberry Lake Loop in upstate New York. Unlike the West Rim Trail, Cranberry Lake is much wider and has a lot more foot traffic due to the close proximity of the trail to a river and the old logging town of Wanakin. Much of the trail was actually on old logging railroads, and when it wasn't the wider path from the former railroad, it was narrow and more rugged. This was a much smaller

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backpacking trip. It was 2014, and many of the students who had grown up in the program and participated when I was younger, had graduated high school and moved on to other things or life had gotten in their way of them participating in this adventure program. So, this was four students, including myself, one staff member, and my dad. So, six total. We had been experiencing an unusually rough time with my dad's health this trip. We hiked the same trail for the first time in 2010 and did not have nearly as rough of a time of it. My dad was struggling to keep food down and was pretty dehydrated for a lot of the trip. And because of this, we took to him hiking 20 to 30 minutes up the trail while we waited and just hung around and talked with the other staff member. And then we would set off and meet up with him at some point down the trail. This made it where he felt like he wasn't holding the group up by having to hike a much slower pace and we weren't struggling to maintain said slower pace. So I think this was another 3 to 5 day backpacking trip. Dad had set off hiking down the trail ahead of us while the other five of us stayed back chatting, having a good time. Eventually we decided, let's get hiking to catch up

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with my dad. But when we did, he looked genuinely confused to see Elise with us. When we asked him what was going on, the story he told us still sends chills down my spine to this day. My dad had been hiking and he came up over a small hill and he saw Elise. Elise was walking off the trail into the woods to the right of the trail. He said he called out to her, but she didn't respond, just kept walking. So, he hiked up to where he had seen her leave the trail and was a little perplexed to not see any personal belongings at the side of the trail. No backpack, no water, nothing. Oh, and the panic, too, cuz he's responsible for her and she's just about to disappear into the woods. He also didn't see her at this point. So, he thought maybe she went off the trail to go use the bathroom or something. It was while he was waiting for her to return that the group with Elise came over the hill and hiked towards him. He immediately noted that the color of the girl's tank top was different from what Elise was actually wearing. But he also said he'd been waiting for a solid 5 to 10 minutes

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before we showed up. When he saw just how concerned we all were by the story, he immediately brushed it off, saying, "It's probably just because I'm dehydrated. You know, I haven't been feeling very well this whole trip." He also theorized maybe it was a trail runner, which just happened to look like Elise, but why would she have gone off the trail, right? Why wouldn't he have seen her again? The other unsettling detail was the fact that this individual had simply just vanished by the time he got anywhere near where he'd first seen them. And this forest was definitely not the thinnest plot of land in the world. So somebody would have had to walk quite a ways off the trail to simply vanish from sight. And also just the noise that it makes to go through. Like wouldn't he hear someone moving through? After hearing this, I didn't particularly want to stay in the area, but the rest of the group wanted a water break, so we stayed for a few minutes before continuing on the journey. Fortunately, that was the only overly eventful occurrence of this trip, and the rest of the time was spent enjoying ourselves. At a later point in time, I told him I truly do not believe that he saw a human being that day. Mm-

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I agree. My dad dismissed my theory and absolutely insisted it must have been a human or it was because he was dehydrated. I firmly believe he encountered a mimic and I'm really horrified at the thought of what might have happened if he had followed this thing off the trail. See you on the other side, Marcus. Those are the stories that freak me out most. It's like something trying to lure someone elsewhere. So, the show from that I recommended to you a couple weeks ago is so much like this. Like everything now that we talked about on the podcast is reminding me about this show, it's also reminiscent of dark. It's reminiscent of loss. It's it like it has so many elements of what is time, what is what is reality. Yeah. And I will say for anyone who started watching the show because of my recommendation, I want to acknowledge the show is great. The acting is really throwing me off. No judgment. It just does take me out of the show a little bit. Okay, this is

Ghosts in Machu Picchu

ghosts in Machu Picchu. Oh, I think I

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know whose story this is. You do cuz they DM'd after seeing you post about Machu Picchu. And did you take this out of my personal folder? No, you didn't have it in yours. Oh, then maybe there's multiple people because I put a Peru one, a Machu Picchu one in my personal folder, too. Well, this one was just chilling in I was just trying to start a fight. Inbox. Hi, Ghouls. I DM'd you last week after seeing Sabrina's post in Machu Picchu, hoping that she had a similar spooky experience to mine on the trail. So, here we go. My memor is a little foggy when thinking back to my mid20s as a traveling single gal. But 13 years ago, my little cousin Hillary, who's like my sister, was wrapping up a year teaching abroad in Peru. She asked me to come down at the end of her stint and travel South America with her. And due to some bizarre events, I ended up with an obscene amount of Delta travel credits and could afford the trip to Peru. Nice. So, I let Hillary planned the whole trip. We met in Santiago and traveled by bus north, stopping along the way in the Ottakama Desert and other notable areas until we crossed into Peru

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and ended our trip in Cusco doing a 3-day Inca trail hike up to Machu Picchu. I do wish, and that's the one thing if I were to do with my trip differently, I would have hiked. Yeah, cuz we just took the we stayed in bust out there, took like the train and all of that stuff. Yeah, the train was cool, too, but hiking is would definitely be a cool experience. I didn't do the 3-day. I did the one day, and after doing the one day, I don't think I would do the 3-day. Oh, okay. I do like that there are options. So hard. We were all just dripping sweat constantly. It was an incredible once a lifetime trip full of crazy adventures and so much beauty. The pictures still take my breath away. Mhm. The bus rides between stops were long. In one particular trip, Hillary and I were just so shot physically and emotionally. Emotionally because Hillary's best friend, Jay, had come with us and was robbed at a bus stop after we left the Adakama desert. The thieves were sneaky effective and managed to take off with both of her passports, her US and British, so she couldn't continue with us into Peru and

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had to fly back to Santiago and stay with Hillary's friends. So, she wasn't totally alone. That is horrible. and see which embassy could help her the fastest. So, we were up all night in a police station and god knows where, Chile, trying to file a police report in Spanish when a saint of a police chief stepped in and decided to help the three utterly lost gringas. St. Patricio, sorry, Chief Patricio. He drove us to a small airport, helped Jay onto the plane, then escorted Hillary and I across the border, all while proposing marriage to me for my cousin's translations, which I politely declined. I was going to say that's so sweet, but now I understand why they escorted you across the border. It could never work between the two of us. I don't speak Spanish. That's only one one reason. Yeah, it's a good excuse. Yeah, it was harrowing to say the least. And Hillary and I were exhausted, and we were still hopeful that Jay could meet us in Cusco and be able to do the hike with us. But with our nerves already shot, we boarded

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the double-decker bus and drove along narrow, cliffhugging roads through stunning desert mountains that seem to stretch on forever. We were on the top of the deck and we were in the front seats, so it felt like we were on the most terrifying roller coaster ride of my life. And we might Theelma and Louise this [ __ ] at any moment. The whole ride I flipped between total terror, complete wonder at the landscape, and exhaustion. But the last thing I could do was fall asleep. At one point, while clinging on to one another, across our armrest, and almost getting used to this deathdeying ride, which did you experience going up Machu Picchu? Cuz I was freaking terrified. Switch back, especially when there's two buses passing each other cuz the roads are not that wide and they drive so fast. Yeah. The bus slowed through a sharp turn and it was like time slowed completely. And standing on the side of the road in the middle of [ __ ] nowhere, and I mean nowhere, no buildings, truck stops, nothing, was a man. He was dressed in rags with nearly shoulderlength blonde hair and white

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skin darkened to a leathery brown with piercing blue eyes that stared right into ours. The man looked like he was from another world, like he'd been living alone in the canyon for years. M I can't emphasize just how much time slowed and how deeply it felt. His eyes penetrating in mine through the window of the bus. After we passed the man, I quickly looked back to see if anyone else had seen this man who clearly needs help. But people looked out the window blankly as if they had seen nothing but rocks and canyons. I whipped my head back to Hillary who was wideeyed and at the same time we said, "Did you see that guy?" Now for the trail. Hillary and I were on the 3-day guided Inca trail hike. We had a wonderful guide in Sherpas and were with a group of absolutely amazing humans that I will remember for the rest of my life. Yes, Sherpa. I know I'm not the campy type, whereas my cousin is happy sleeping on a burlap sack in the middle of the woods. Don't judge me too harshly. The ocean is nature where I am hardcore. I've sailed

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long distances in boats with all men in one bathroom. Your girl's not a princess, but this hike is challenging. The altitude is intense. I chewed the cocoa, yes, the same as cocaine, leaves, and drank the tea to fight altitude sickness. And even as a marathon runner, it was very physically demanding. Yeah, the altitude is wild. Yeah. On the second night of camping, our location even had bathrooms, so I was really relieved, even just if they were holes in the ground in stalls. That night, we sat around the fire after dinner, and the guide told us ghost stories from the trail. That's fun. He said that back in the 70s when Americans and others had started to come hike the trail, it was far more self-guided. And in this very location, there was a group of hikers that were attacked and murdered on the trail. That's not something I want to hear. Is that a ghost story? Is that freaking horror story? Yeah. No one knows who did it or why. Most likely for money. And there was a legend that the campsite was now haunted.

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He went on to tell us how there was once a woman who claimed to be in the bathroom stall when someone began banging on the stall and then hands reached under and over to grab her while she was going to the bathroom. That night, as my cousin and I curled up in our tent after peeing one last time and brushing our teeth, I said as my stomach grumbled, "Oo, I think dinner isn't sitting right." "Oh no," she said. "Don't get diarrhea tonight. Here, you'll be attacked by the bathroom ghosts." Oh, no. I'm fine, I said, trying to convince myself as much as I was trying to convince her. But I am not fine. I woke up an hour later to urgently need to get to the bathroom. I ran out of our tent into the cinder block building right to a stall and the memory of that story not hitting me until I was hovering over the hole. And then I heard a moan. No. I saw feet in the stall next to me, but familiar shoes. And then I heard an all too humanly unflattering noise. and I realized, oh, this is my Australian friend from our hiking group. So, we

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both finished doing our very unpleasant business and walked back to our tents together. I guess friends who diarrhea together stay together. It's like when you're out there, it just is. Yeah. Then there's nothing you can do. The food is not settling in your stomach. An hour later, a punch to the gut again, waking me up, sending me right back to the bathrooms. But this time, I was alone. I got to business and then I heard the shuffling sound of feet in the bathroom. Then what sounded like distant voices outside the building and then a bang two stalls down. Oh no. Hello, I said. No answer. It was dark outside and the bathroom had a very dim light. So at this point all my senses were sharpened and I swore I could hear breathing. Ola, I said no answer. I'd like to say that I was scared shitless but not because my business was not done. So, I tried to pretend that I didn't hear anything, and I quickly finished up. And then I began to see a shadow through the cracks of the wooden stall doors. I started pulling myself together, and I looked

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onto the door, and I saw the dim outline of legs. "Someone's [ __ ] with me," I thought. I always had the brief thought that maybe this was a great opportunity for an actual attack. So, I grabbed my flashlight in my hand, ready to beat any attempted attackers. Whoever this person is just looming outside of the stall for no apparent reason, I plan to surprise. So, I reached forward with my feet firmly planted on the toilet. So, it looked like I was still maybe going to the bathroom. I flung the door open cop style, showed my flashlight in that direction of the silhouette and even shouted, "H, but no one was there." I hustled out of the bathroom and outside towards our campsite. And at that point, I paused. The sky was beautifully illuminated with stars like nothing I've ever seen except out in the open sea. But it was quiet. Too quiet. The woods we were surrounded by typically had all kinds of sounds. Trey frogs, insects, owls. Now dead quiet. Something felt so off. Yeah. I

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literally dove into our tent, squinted my eyes closed, and was fast asleep. The next morning, my Australian friend and I joked about our delicate stomachs and night trip, and I asked her, "Did you go back to the bathroom at any point?" And she said, "Yes." But that time, she dragged her boyfriend with her to stand outside of the door because she was alone. And she confirmed she definitely wasn't in there with me. The trip and getting to Machu Picchu was well worth all of the spooky shits. I'd go back there in a heartbeat if I could. See you on the other side, Kate. Your guide told that story for a reason. People say it's haunted when you're pooping. I know. Alone. I know. At least nothing more happened. Maybe they were just checking in on you, making sure you didn't fall in. Yeah. Oh god. So scary though. Yeah, definitely making me more apprehensive. Not that I had any like hiking plans, but you know.

Aliens & The Mothership

This is from Tesla, pronounced like the car. It is called My Camping Trip and

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the Mothership. Ooh. Hi Karen and Sabrina. I've been listening to your podcast. I'm on episode 136 to be exact, but I am loving every second. I had to share something weird that happened to me while camping at Domingo Springs in Northern California. It was only the second time we had camped there, and we went with our friends and their kids. At one point, my friend Mandy went to go grab drinking water from the nearby spring because it's not far from camp, just up the road. But she was gone for a while, long enough that her husband decided to go check on her. When they came back, Mandy was holding a book. She casually told us that there was a man camping across the field and he stopped her. He had been out there for weeks. He had told her he had been on the mother ship and written a book about his experience. H and that was the book she was now holding. We all laughed it off like, "Okay, sure, alien guy." And we went on with our night. Mandy is way nicer than me because I would not have stopped to talk to the guy at all. But later that night, I had to pee as usual when I'm camping and I took my dog Buck with me. Afterward, I got back into our

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tent trailer and I was lying there trying to fall back to sleep when it happened. A sudden flash of green blue light lit up the entire sky. It was bright, fast, and totally silent. The craziest part is we were deep in the woods, miles from the nearest town, and this light was not even in the direction the town was in. It lasted 2 seconds, but lit everything up. Well, it was picking him back up. No one else was awake, just me and Buck. And after the weird book guy, it all felt very connected. I know what I saw and it was wild. I still wonder about it and think, what the heck was it? Oh my god. Lots of love. Why did they drop this off? Why not just keep him on the mother ship if you're going to hang out with him for so long? And also Tesla, after this experience, did you not want to read the book? Your friend Mandy has the book. Yeah. Wait, what is the book? Can you find the book? We want the book. At first, I was like, cuz Tesla was like, "Oh, Mandy is way nicer." I'm like, or just Mandy lacks some self-preservation skills. But hey, there's an alien UFO

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situation happening out here and some guy is just like regularly getting abducted and is down for it and wrote a book about it. We need to know what he said and what he's experiencing. Like he for sure, it seems like it's daily, too. Yeah, he's been out there for weeks. And it's like he clearly has been dealing with aliens for much longer. This is not like, oh, this happened just this trip. He wrote a book about his experience that he had years ago and then everyone thinks he's crazy. And that's the thing with aliens and and these types of like other worldly interactions is the stereotype is experiencing mental illness. Yeah. Or like crazy conspiracy theorist. But maybe that's those are the people we should believe. They're real. Oh my gosh. Wait, where was this? California. Domingo Springs. Now I know. Now, we need to do a search on our inbox for Domingo Springs and see if there's a bunch of UFO or alien. I feel like the last story I was like, I'm never going to go camping or hiking. And then this story I'm like, all right, I'm going. I'm going. Okay. Well, now you're not

Summer Camp Nightmare

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going to go cuz I have summer camp stories for summer. Hello, lovely ghostesses. I hope you're both doing spooktastic. Always finals week for me. I'm a freshman and I really don't want to work on my nine-page literature review essay for my stats project. So, I'm deciding to listen to Two Girls on Ghost. I just finished listening to Encounters 120, which featured camping stories. It made me think about my own experiences as a camp counselor. And for background, I used to work at a very old all girls overnight camp in the woods of Pennsylvania. It's pretty isolated, but absolutely beautiful. I loved working there, but the camp is ancient. The surrounding area likely very haunted, or at least very creepy. I'm curious what part of Pennsylvania and if it crosses into Appalachia, maybe. And should we have our two girls one go summer camp there? There. As both a camper and a counselor, I always felt as though I was being watched. But strangely enough, it always felt reassuring. When I was a brand new counselor for five 7-year-old

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girls, I had a co-ounselor named Z. We were friends during pre-amp, but long story short, we did not get along after that. Z and I would take turns staying in the cabin each night. On my first night with the kids, I was so nervous. As much as I loved them, they were all so homesick since they were so young. And every single one of the five kids woke up at midnight just sobbing. After 30 I know we never want to send that child to summer camp. After 30 minutes of getting them back to bed, I returned to my bed and I cried because I was so stressed. Then I felt a reassuring hand on my head as if someone was wiping away my tears, but I didn't see anyone. Okay, this is a good story. My second story is a bit creepy. Thankfully, I was on my 24 hours off when my campers, who were 14 years old at this time, went on their overnight camping trip to an isolated swamp forest with no call service. Swamp forest. Yeah, creepy. That's where Bigfoots live. Yeah. This story deeply unsettled

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everyone who was involved. After the campers, about 14 kids and five counselors, settled in for the night in their tents, which again, thankful I was at home, not sleeping in nature's natural bed, they heard a strange sound. At first, they didn't think much of it, but around 1:15 a.m. the noise returned louder this time, and it sounded much closer. I should mention that there were five sixperson tents set up for the campers, and a few feet away were two tents for the counselors. The counselors didn't hear the noise for the first time. only the campers did. But when the sound came again, the counselors heard the creepy humming. There was very weak cell service. They were responsible for 14 to 16 campers near a creepy swamp. And to make matters worse, they discovered the source of the noise. It was a man with a long unckempt beard dressed in ragged clothing humming eerily. No, absolutely not. The counselors froze. He had this tiny metal

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boat aimed directly at the camper's tents. And to add to the creepiness, he was holding a gun. Not a handgun. Oh my god. A rifle like the one you use for hunting. It was around 1:30 or 2 in the morning when this man sensed he was being watched. So he turned towards the counselors and he asked, "Have you seen my dog?" He ran this way. Can I go find him? No, you cannot. The counselors were terrified and quickly called for our boss to come and pick everyone up. Thankfully, the campers and counselors spent the rest of their overnight trip in the boat house. The second creepiest part of the story unfolded the next day when the maintenance crew went to go collect the cooler and the trash from the campsite. What they found was just a dog collar. No boat, no man, no gun, just a simple red dog collar. No one knows where that man came from, where he went. And we still wonder whether the dog he was looking for was real or just

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a way to gain access to a campground where little girls were. For sure. Mhm. Either way, I was grateful I didn't have to go on that trip and extremely relieved that my campers and everyone else returned safely. Yeah. I have many more stories to share, including creepy experiences in my dorm while home alone, my friend's possibly possessed moment at our best friend's 10th birthday sleepover. What? But for now, I should probably get back to my schoolwork. Sigh. Stay spooky. Stay awesome. See you on the other side. Kira, I feel like this is a story out of scary stories told in the dark. Yeah. It's like the story you tell as a warning to campers to be safe, but like this happened and it's a real man. Yeah. Because humming the like, oh, oh god. Right. And he was humming so quietly that the counselors didn't hear. So it was almost like he was trying to coax a little girl out of the tent. And if you're looking for a dog, you're not going, "Yeah, you would be calling your dog's name and you'd have a

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flashlight. You're not sitting in a boat directly looking at little girls tents, camping, delicately humming at 2 a.m., too." No. And hunting can't be an excuse either, cuz you're that's illegal. I don't know if this next story is going to make us feel better, but it's from Australia, so it's further away from us. Oh my god, that was scary. Josh, why'd you do that? Okay, how did that happen? For the audio listeners, the painting that our listener Josh had made just slipped out of the stand we have on it and knocked over the Bigfoot fur and crop crop circle wheat. Wheat. Oh, the timing of that spooky heart attack. This is for this is this

Australian Camping Experience

is for us from our listener JM called

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Australian creepy camping experience. For this story, I will go by my initials JM and for my friend we'll call MJ. I've been following your podcast for a while now and I enjoy listening in the car on the way to work. I am from a small town in the south of Australia and this encounter is based in the wilderness or as Aussies call it the bush. The bush. The bush. For as long as I can remember, it had been a tradition to go camp by the Murray River over the Easterl long weekend. When I was younger, we would hang out around the campsite while my parents would have a leisurely time on a boat taking part in the big fishing competition. Just off the campsite, past the gate, is a long stretch of wooded area that has a walking track. One side there's trees and a stretch of green paddic and to the other side the river follows the tree line. The walking path is raised above the ground and the deeper you go you pass old obstacles speckled within the trees. Swings, monkey bars, tire paths, all old and rusted. Right in the middle of the path is a fence that you would need to jump

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to continue to walk to the very end of the trail. And I think it's important to mention that the whole campsite is fenced off and the gate that faces the walking path had horseshoes right above it. H I've always felt drawn to this area, which freaked my parents out because it was so close to the river. One day, a couple friends and I walked out there on sunset and didn't come back for a while. We tried to take the shortcut back to camp and got lost in the field, and an entire search party went looking for us that night. But that is besides the main story, but it's still important. For the past 3 years, I have taken my best friend MJ with me to this campsite every Easter. She is my soulmate and we had a very weird experience the first time I invited her. First day I was so keen to show her around and we felt like going for a walk on the track and I really wanted to find the monkey bars which is set located in the trees and at the very start of the path. So we set on our way looking in the trees for the monkey bars. But as we got a little further I got confused. I was sure I was at the start of the track but I decided let's keep going. Maybe I

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was wrong about where the monkey bars are. Both MJ and I are pretty in tune with our surroundings and with energy. And as we continue to walk deep in the track, climbing over the fence in the middle, we pass a tree stump. And this stump was weird. It was right against the walking track, tall and angled weirdly. It almost looked like an old woman hunched over, especially with the bark that hung over what would be the head of the stump. As soon as we passed it, I had a sinking feeling. All of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I had a feeling that we should turn back. At this point, I thought about it too much and decided that I was being ridiculous until MJ spoke up and she suggested we should go back to camp. Surprised, I turned and asked if she felt it, too. Yes. We turned and went back to camp as fast as we could. As we came to the beginning of the track, there were the monkey bars. They were there all along at the beginning. What? Afterwards, we decided to consult my tarot cards. There was a card that jumped out of the deck as I was shuffling. The seven of swords. This represents deception and trickery. MJ

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and I had been too scared to take the track after that experience. But last year, we attempted again and weird things happened again. What the hell? As soon as we got to the gate of the track, we heard birds singing. But these birds didn't sound right. They are nothing like I've heard. And I've been here every year. They sounded like a recording of birds. Anyway, as soon as we went through the squeaky gate, the birds stopped and so did the wind. The bush grew quiet. We didn't make it much further. We turned back and heard the birds once again the second we stepped through the gate. The next day, we tried again, but I think we were protected from venturing any further. One of the deadliest snakes in our area, the brown snake, happened to be laying all the way across the walking path at the very start. Paranoid, we did not attempt to go walking again. That snake was warning you. That snake saved you. Until this year. This year didn't feel as spooky. We'd make jokes about the wind finally stopping and something jumping out of the trees, but one of the only weird

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things we encountered through the track was a small doll laying in the bark next to the track. JM, just stop. Just like every time you go on this track, something bad happens or is warning you. Like how many warning signs do you need? Right. And it's also like we've never covered forest spirits cuz there's so many different kinds, but like this does feel like some sort of forest folk, forest spirit with all the trickery like, yeah, making you get lost. Maybe time slips. Okay. Disguising itself as a tree maybe. So MJ and I don't think much of this doll and we keep going. We make it over the middle fence, past the hunched over tree, and don't feel anything. We got to the very end of the track where there was a fork. This leads to a shortcut back to camp and a trail to another campsite. Before deciding to take the shortcut back to camp, we looked into the trees that surrounded the pathway to the other campsite. And behind one of the trees

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was a silhouette of a cow staring at us, standing completely still, but somehow beckoning us towards it. Needless to say, we did not. We turned around and took the shortcut. Thank you for having this platform. That's like the trick that they would do for me. It's like, he has a cow in the wood. But I really want to pet the cow. That's from JM. Oh my god. The last part did remind me of there was a video that was circulating around maybe a year or two ago of people filming like the tree line across the street from them. Yeah. And there were all of these eyes just appearing in the woods at night and they were freaking out. They're like, "Oh my god, what is that?" Like flashing light on them filming them. No, it was it was cows. It was like a group of cows got like loose from their pasture and were like roaming through the tree line and all just like looking up. The cows are big, they're tall, so it didn't fit, you know, like a normal deer height. So, it was really freaky. That would be menacing to see, but oh my god, how many

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times do you need to be told not to go back here? Yeah, that reminds me of when I had been in South Africa and it was a really cool experience. We were staying in Krueger National Park and we had booked like a bungalow in the middle of the Krueger National Park and so we had gone on safari and they drop you off and take you to this oh tree house and we slept under the stars. It gets so dark there's literally no one around you. There's a radio. The only thing that could connect you to if anything happened was a radio. And we shined the flashlight off the balcony and you just saw so many eyes lighting up because there's so many animals. But then you could hear like elephants knocking down trees eating. You could hear hyenas. I mean, it was crazy how it goes on at night cuz I think of like all the animals just going to sleep except for the predators, but like no, everything's active. Yeah. Holy [ __ ] That's really scary. But it was really cool. The woods

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are a very scary place. They are. It can be some of the most peaceful moments you might ever have in your life and also some of the scariest. And we want to hear more of your encounters. So if you like to go out in the woods, hopefully not to be a creepy person. Um, if you have stories, please email them to us at two girls podcast@gmail.com. And if you want episodes one week early and add free plus bonus content, you can join us on Patreon. I'm really excited about this month's Patreon bonus. We're reading personal encounters from people who have done the Gateway tapes. So, that will be fun. Check us out over there. Shout out to Jamie Ryan who edits and produces the podcast. And thank you to all of you. We love you and we will see you on the other side. Very spooky.