An Appalachian Tall Tale

Camping in The Blue Ridge Mountains can be weird. "Every time the fire died, the woods came to life. Whether it was paranoia, or paranormal, something was stirring. "

The story I’m sitting down to tell, is a true one. One experienced by a faithful friend of mine, Sam, and I. I’m often reluctant to tell this story at length to most people, as the subject matter is unexplainable and rather strange. I don’t want to be viewed as the superstitious nut. But having guided all across the country, and having extensive experience in many environments around the united states, I feel I have the authority to tell this story. Essentially what I’m saying is I’ve been around, in the deep dark hollows all across North America, and never experienced something so strange as I did that night.

I don’t fancify my experiences in the woods, nor do I hopefully imagine there’s something more to a twig breaking. As anyone who has spent a good deal of time in the woods knows, there’s no reason to. Eventually you’ll experience something daring or fantastic. I am a hunter first and foremost, and to a hunter there’s always an explanation, a reason to the wilderness and her inhabitants. Its how we identify patterns and exploit an animals rhythm to make a successful hunt. As a hunter you’re a sort of woodsman detective, piecing together clues to set yourself up for success. Lets just say this tale is a cold-case.

Let’s get into it. It was early summer and I was itching to go camping. I had recently received a new tent and was eager to use it. I called up my good buddy, Sam, and we planned out our camping adventure. We considered going up to the Grayson highlands, or even south into North Carolina. After debating it, we decided it would be more fun to camp somewhere we wouldn’t run into any other people. Deep in the woods, far from anyone else, where we could bushcraft, hoot and holler, and bring a gun without fear of scaring the yuppies camping next to us.

While we both lived in the woods, I definitely had access to the most remote stretch of woods between us. So we loaded up our stuff and began hiking, deep into the valley below my childhood home. The hike was almost completely straight down a steep hillside, deep into a a hollow that held a small patch of flat land, a flood plane area and creek. The small creek that ran gave the area a beautiful ambiance. Early signs of summer were visible all around and the weather was great. We hiked until we felt the need to start gathering firewood before nightfall.

Behind us a was a steep hillside that rose into the west for miles. In front of us was the creek, and to the left the start of another ridge and hillside that rose high into the east and north. To our right, the valley we were in, continued to go down cutting a deep valley. and on the other side of the creek another ridge, separated by a small stream from the ridge to the left, rose into the west and to the south. These two ridges in front of us ran for miles and the little valley formed by the small creek split these ridges for a long ways up until it hit the spring head. This is important for later in the story. Off to the right, further down the valley, more splits in the ridges are made by little tributaries.

We started building camp by clearing the brush and leaves away and constructing a small firepit. I placed a tarp on the ground to separate my tent from the damp earth. Remember this, the tarp extended out roughly a foot on each side of my tent.

Sam had a hammock that he planned to sleep in, I’ve only ever camped in a hammock once, and it didn’t go great. But I didn’t say anything to him, thinking that maybe he would enjoy it. We gathered a hefty load of firewood, consisting of some reasonably dry stuff. It was shaping up to be a really nice camping trip. I’ve spoken about the joy of being “out there” on this blog before, so I won’t beat a dead horse, but it was really nice to be away from people. Sam and I sat around the fire and shot the shit until the sun went down.

Now one of the things Sam and I have always bonded on, has been Bigfoot shows. We’re both skeptics, and I would say we hold a similar or the same opinion on the subject. Our interest is less about believing in bigfoot, but rather we just find the subject matter to be nostalgic, silly, and a fun thing to joke about.

So, I brought up the idea to Sam, that we begin to “Hunt” Bigfoot. He laughed and thought it was a great idea. So we began doing the antics they do in the “Finding Bigfoot” TV show. We started with the classic, Tree knocks.

Appalachian Sasquatch

A “Tree Knock” for those unaware, is when you use a stick to beat on a tree, making a loud knocking sound that echoes through the forest. Supposedly sasquatch communicate this way. We didn’t think anything of it at all, as I said before, we didn’t really believe, we were just joking around. So we began by knocking on the trees and then stopping and listening for a response. After a few times of doing this we paused, and hearing nothing I began to think of a joke to crack and something else to do. Before I could open my mouth, we heard clear as day, a tree nock far off somewhere on the ridge to the left.

I looked at Sam and said, “Dude.”

Sam just looked back at me in surprise. I then did some more knocks, and we listened again. Then off in the distance, we heard more knocks in response. Then the other ridge to the right we began hearing knocks. Sam at this point was beginning to get freaked out a little and was perplexed as to what it could be.

I at the time, was such a hard skeptic I carried on and insisted that it was a person or a woodpecker.

“but who in the world would be out there? deeper in the woods than we are, on private land? What woodpecker makes three loud booming knocks on the tree, that sound exactly like the knocks we make?” Sam voiced his rebuttal.

I ignored these arguments and held strong to the fact that there is no Bigfoot. I then insisted that we push the envelope by doing woops and howls, just like they do on TV. Sam was not very enthused by this idea, being the humbler and smarter one of us that night, knowing sometimes there’s certain things you don’t mess with. But at that time I was full of piss and vinegar, and stubborn as a mule about the fact that Bigfoot, is not real. I also had brought a gun with me, and was certain I could fight off anything we would need to fight off.

So we started howling into the woods. It was dark that night, being a new moon, and beyond the firelight you couldn’t see a damn thing. We would howl and wait listening for a reply. After a few howls, the excitement of “What was that?” started to fade and my logical, rational, science based, theory of the woodpecker began to appear true.

Then, out of the dark distance came one of the strangest sounds I’ve ever heard. A howl.

Not a canine howl, not an owls hoot, but a fucking ape howl.

Sam’s eyes were as big as back hoe tires, and even I was finding it hard to reason that one. Despite this, I continued my ignorant stubbornness, and threw out another howl. Off to the left ridge it replied to us again, the clearest ape whoop I’ve ever heard. As if it were recorded by researchers in the Congo.

I looked at Sam, myself feeling more curious and excited than anything else, I reiterated, “Duuuude.”

Then something truly unexplainable and spooky happened, more whoops and howls began on the ridge to the right and further down the valley. And they weren’t random, they had etiquette, as if they were chatting back and forth with each other. The one to the left would howl, the one to the right would whoop and howl, the first would respond, and then the one way down the valley would chime in.

Sam was really freaked out now, and began considering if we should leave. I, being a stubborn idiot, claimed it was owls.

“Owls?? We were both raised in these hollers, I’ve heard owls, you’re gonna tell me that was an owl? Have you ever in your life heard an owl that sounded like a fucking ape?” Sam argued against my claim.

“Well, no, but there’s no way bigfoot is real. It has to be a bunch of owls speaking to each other. There’s nothing else it could be.” I replied, half laughing in astonishment and disbelief of what was unfolding that night.

Sam and I kind of bickered for a minute over it, and then decided the wisest decision was to stop antagonizing whatever it was in the woods miles around us whooping and knocking.

It wasn’t too long after that, we decided to go to bed. I crawled into my tent, and Sam into his hammock. We left the fire going, and every time the fire died down, the woods came to life.

Whether it was paranoia, or paranormal, something was stirring. All around camp we could hear what sounded like things being thrown and footsteps. From time to time we would hear another knock or another howl coming from a new position. Sam would leap out of his hammock and chuck loads of wood onto the fire and make it as big as possible. He would then lay back down to sleep. This repeated about three more times.

Each time the fire died, things got spookier and spookier. A few times Sam would say, “Did you hear that?” and every time I would just blame it on possums nearing camp, hoping to find food scraps.

Well, about the third time, Sam ran out of firewood. Meaning that this time when the fire died, it died for good, leaving us to the dark void of the Appalachian holler. I vividly remember I had fallen asleep before the fire died, and after it died, there was so much stirring around camp, I began to wake up.

I was slowly waking up, thinking I was having some sort of nightmare, when I finally fully sobered, and realized that my dream was pleasant. It was reality that was full of frightening sounds and things that go bump in the night.

The woods around us had become loud with unexplainable movement, the movement of multiple large things. The whooping and knocking had stopped, which did not comfort me, with all the new sounds right outside my door. There was maybe a 30 yard perimeter around camp that the sounds did not cross.

Then suddenly, an extremely loud crashing began through the twigs, leaves, and branches. It was something large, running full sprint through the woods. Starting maybe 50 yards away, and running straight towards our camp. It grew louder and louder, until the sound of crushing leaves, turned to crinkling tarp.

The creature, was standing on the tarp my tent was situated on.

I was frozen. Like a child, Frozen in fear, eyes wide open. My heart was pounding out of my chest so hard I thought it would explode. I Then heard high above my tent, not near the ground, not four feet up, but high above my tent, the most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard. it was the sound of a huff and blow, exactly the way you hear a gorilla do it on TV. Or how the apes in planet of the apes do it. Three forceful huff and blows, then the creature turned around and ran back the way it came, back into the darkness of the night.

Sam practically leaped out of his hammock and said, “You had to have heard that!”

I replied with, “Yeah lets get the fuck out of here.”

I slid a round into the chamber of my 30-30 and crawled out of the tent. We both got busy grabbing only our essentials, and started out of the woods. Using shitty dim flashlights, we made our way up the hill. Frantically looking behind us into the terrible night, and trying to move fast without running. We hiked a long ways and by the time we made it back to the house it was far past midnight.

We never did see what it was that charged us, and we never did hear anything else after that. But whatever it was, scared us enough to make us hike out in the dead of night and leave all of our gear there.

We returned the next morning in full daylight to gather our things. Looking back, I wish we had surveyed the area for tracks or some clue as to what it was, but at the time we did not want to be down there for any longer than we had to. Having been some years since this happened, I would go down there in a heart beat and not think a thing of it. When I come home, I usually feel a sense of ease in the woods. It feels like a weight is lifted off of your shoulders knowing there are no cougars or grizzly bears to worry about. For my western outdoorsy folk, familiar with cougar country, reading this and thinking, “I don’t feel a weight in the woods.”

my reply, would be the question, have you noticed you’ve been stalked before? Cougars are some of the sneakiest creatures in the animal kingdom, and just because you’ve never noticed it, doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I myself have been stalked, I’ve written about it here previously. It’s a feeling that will stick with you, and definitely put you on edge in cougar country for a long time after. I have a colleague who guides western big game in New Mexico, who told me a story once that during a hunt he had a fellow guide spotting for him, and that guide watched a cougar stalk my friend through a grove of trees before giving up. My friend never had the slightest idea he was being stalked. I believe for an avid outdoorsman in cougar country, it is inevitable.

And as far as grizzly country, it’s a similar feeling but a little different. Most ill bear encounters happen because you surprise the bear in thick woods. I have many friends from my time in Alaska who would share stories of being charged by monster grizzlies from out of no-where. They’re just hiking along, and then BOOM! 800 pounds of death is blasting straight towards them. And the consensus is the same amongst them, if you spend enough time out there, it will happen eventually.

I luckily was never charged during my time in Alaska, I avoided known bear hang-outs. But the few times I spent time in bear country, I always had this jack in the box anxiety, just waiting for it to happen.

What is funny though, is despite that weight being lifted initially, an old feeling always returns. I know it’s not some sort of psychological thing having to do with that patch of woods specifically, because I feel it in most places in Appalachia. It’s a feeling of being watched, a feeling that something is there, and a feeling of dread. And it amplifies every time you hear some strange crashing in the woods or a sound you cannot explain. Most of the times I’ve experienced this, I’ve had a gun. And I think to myself,

“Come on man! You’re the most badass thing out here.”

Yet I can never shake that anxiety.

My brother, without having ever heard this story, reluctantly asked me over the phone one day,

“don’t think I’m crazy but, have you ever felt creeped out in the woods below the house? I don’t know what it is, but every time I go down there I feel like I’m being watched, and I get filled with dread.”

Hearing him say that sent shivers down my back. Simply because I always dismissed this feeling, I’ve swept this story under the rug for years, telling myself it was just a bear etc. To hear my brother, who is a marine, tell me that, certified to me that I was not simply being a pussy. I’ve only ever felt this in two regions of the country. Appalachia, and the Redwood Forests of Northern California.

Now some of you may be reading this thinking that I am a nut-job Bigfoot believer. I’ve been reluctant to share this story for that reason. But I want to end this, saying, I have no idea what it was that made those calls that night. I also have no idea what it was that busted into our camp. We never did lay our eyes on anything.

But I want to re-iterate that the story, is true. Verbatim to how it happened as I can recall it, without any embellishment. I have no idea what it was, and you can make your own decision as to what you think it was. But being an experienced woodsman, never have I ever experienced something like that since, and I have no worldly explanation for it. Those were the events that transpired that night, and I’ll let you make of that what you will.

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