Trail Tales 62

Today’s stories include acts of love, stiff pants, angry neighbors camp ghosts, Gila monsters and cougars in Maine. Outsiders Only bonus stories available for Patreon and Apple Subscribers! For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @nationalparkafterdarkTwitter/X: @npadpodcastTikTok: @nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to the week’s partners! Acorns: Use our link download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today! Zocdoc: Use our link to download the Zocdoc app for free. Graza: Use code NPAD to get 10% off your Graza Starter Kit. Crime Weekly Podcast: Listen to Crime Weekly every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on the things you love, like those ice lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So, switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  This season, we're turning Designer Shoe Warehouse into Designer Shoe Wonderland, the most wonderful place to step up your gifting. Wrap up the perfect shoes for them and for you because when you give shoes, you're really giving joy. And who doesn't have more joy on their wish list? Good things come in shoeboxes, so find the perfect pairs from gift-worthy brands for you and yours, in stores and online. DSW, let us surprise you.

• 1:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to another Trail Tales episode. And today we have a lot for you, but before we get started, I actually have a Trail Tale of my own that I want to share.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  Okay, well, we're just jumping right in. I would love to hear it. Is it from your recent endeavor?

• 1:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  In the desert?

• 1:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  It certainly is. And I, it's so funny because, so I recently traveled to Death Valley National Park and it was my first time there. And while this particular incident was happening, I was like, oh no, I have a Trail Tales now. So I thought I would tell it today.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Okay, please do.

• 1:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  So, we went, I didn't write this down either, so I'm just like riffing off of my own experience. So I apologize if I stumble around a little bit. So, my friend and I, basically, we planned a trip to Death Valley and we Were there in the region for about six days and we planned four days in Death Valley and then two days in Vegas and we decided to rent a camper van. We just did it off of Chura. We did one of those Mercedes Sprinters and when they're huge. I didn't realize how big Sprinter van, I mean, I've seen them in real life, but I've never driven them before and they are massive. So we pick up this rental. We're super excited. We pack all our stuff in. It has a bed. It has

• 2:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  a kitchen. We're so stoked and my friend starts driving first and she's a little nervous because it's so big. So we go to a parking lot to practice and then we have to go to a drive through because I was hungry and we thought that it was, uh, we thought that we could walk up and she wouldn't have to go through the drive through with this massive thing. And anyway, we go through the drive through and the first thing that she does is she doesn't take the turn wide enough and she hits the wall of the building.

• 3:06Danielle LaRock?

  Oh my, I'm just a girl.

• 3:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm just a girl. That was our whole theme for the whole trip, but I just wanted to preface of how our driving is going from the get go. But anyway, we head into Death Valley and we decide that we want to camp on BLM land outside of the park because it's free. It's beautiful and we find this spot pretty close to Death Valley. It's called Big Dunes Recreation Area and it's beautiful. It has these huge sand dunes. There's mountains in the background. It just looks amazing and we drive out. It's about a 15, 20 minute drive to get there and it's on these dirt roads that are washboards. You're just going da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, the entire way out. And I see on the map that it keeps us going straight, but I wanted to get closer to the dunes. So my friend

• 3:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  who was driving, I was like, oh, turn down this road. That goes towards the dunes over there and we'll just park off the side and get a campsite. She's like, yeah, yeah, that sounds great. And we're driving and we're driving and I'm like, let's get close because I had seen pictures online of people camping pretty close to it. And unbeknownst to me and her, I guess, is that it was mostly for off-road vehicles and our Sprinter van was decked out. We had like really big wheels and everything, but We're like chugging along, everything's going great. And suddenly the sand starts getting really soft and loose and we're not on this dirt road anymore. And seconds later, we find ourselves totally stuck. We have nothing with us to get us out, except for some firewood that we bought.

• 4:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  So we're like digging under the sand, putting this wood underneath the, the tires to try and get out and nothing's working. We're just revving. We're digging ourselves actually deeper on one side. And then we just sat there like, okay, we are, we are stuck in the middle of the desert. Thankfully, we had reception and, but there was no one around, not a single person anywhere. You couldn't, I mean, we could walk, but it was several miles before we would get to a person or like a house or whatever to ask for help. So we call AAA, who says that they will not come get us because we're too far off the road. And then we call a tow truck company and

• 5:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  they say that they will not come out at night. And it was almost sunset. They're like, no, we're not going to come all that way out there. So you can either call for a four wheel drive pickup truck from Vegas to come get you, which they quoted us $1,200 for. Like, no, you know, we'll just stay the night. We were planning to camp here anyway. We have food. We have a whole camper vehicle. Everything will be fine. So we just drank wine and ate chocolate and snacks for the night and we just camped out and it was great. It was fine. And then in the morning, we called the tow truck driver again. And he's like, yep, I'll come out and see if I can come get you. And he comes out, he sees us from very far off the road and he has to walk out to get us. And

• 5:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  he's like, I don't think my tow truck is gonna get out here. You are so far in the sand. And we felt deflated at that point. We're like, how are we gonna get out of here? We just started the trip. We didn't even enter Death Valley yet. And then he's like, you know what? I'll just try. Worst comes to worst, the tow truck's gonna have to come out here anyway and come tow me out. So let's try it. So he takes this huge tow truck, like exactly what you picture with multiple wheels, the huge back end on it. And he backs it down this dirt, sand road. It's like, I don't know, like if this is gonna make it, but we're gonna try. And he gets there and he gets to us, he hooks us up, and then he tries to pull us out and gets stuck. Oh, my God.

• 6:40Danielle LaRock?

  Of course.

• 6:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  And we're like, oh no. And we see him maneuvering and doing all this stuff. And he, I don't know what he did, but he did something to actually pull himself out of the sand. But when he did that, he created these huge bumps and like divots and holes in the sand itself. And he was pulling us. So he was like, all right, well, just hold on because we gotta go over these bumps. And just so you know, this sand is something I can't really slow down in. So once I get going, we're just going. And we're like, okay, sounds good. Not too worried about it. And he just like floors it. He's going, I don't know, probably like 35, 40 through the sand and he's pulling us backwards.

• 7:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  And we go over these bumps and holes and we launch into the air.

• 7:29Danielle LaRock?

  What a ride. What a ride.

• 7:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, it was, it was really funny. And he finally pulls us out and we pay him not $1,200. Cause it wasn't the four wheel drive vehicle, thankfully. And then we got to go into Death Valley, but that was our first experience. And then we kept seeing in Death Valley, there's all these roads that are like, make sure you have high clearance. Make sure you have four wheel drive and all this stuff. And we were so nervous after that. We're like, we're not getting stuck in the middle of Death Valley. So we were a lot more careful during our trip, which maybe it was just meant to be that way. So we didn't get ourselves in deeper trouble out in the middle of Death Valley where there was no reception. So that's my trail tale, just a little fun tidbit of my Death Valley adventure.

• 8:11Danielle LaRock?

  Well, it sounds pretty similar to, well, without the tow truck and all that. But my first night with Ian on our cross country endeavor, we got stuck in the sand. Well, he, okay.

• 8:24Danielle LaRock?

  He got us stuck. And he would agree with me. I'm not just blaming him because he's not here. But he got us stuck in the sand, the camper, my camper, stuck in the sand in Grand Junction, Colorado. Out similarly like BLM land, like just way out there or whatever.

• 8:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Danielle LaRock?

  And someone happened upon us because we didn't have reception and someone happened upon us with some like four wheel drive vehicles and helped us out and stuff like that. But I had the same. Thought of, I'm so glad this happened right now and in this way before this two week trip of all of our campsites were down logging roads and off, you know, off the grid.

• 9:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Where no one's gonna find you.

• 9:05Danielle LaRock?

  Where no one would find us if, and I'm like, this is a lesson learned that we need to be more careful and aware of where we are in like, what, because my camper is built to be four wheel drive and, or four wheel drive, just like all, all terrain has giant massive wheels. It's not like a, I don't know if I've ever posted pictures of it, but um, it just doesn't have the little tiny like scamper wheels or anything like that.

• 9:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, can off-road a bit.

• 9:32Danielle LaRock?

  There, it's, it's a, yeah, it can get beat up and it can go wherever my Jeep could go at the time, it, it would follow with no issue. So that was, it was tempting, you know? It's like, I want to get to places that are off the beaten path and that was just kind of a warning to be like, hey, heads up, maybe don't do that.

• 9:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Maybe don't do that. This could have gone a lot worse than it did and thankfully did not. But yeah, I feel like things happen for a reason and it definitely made us more aware throughout the whole trip to be a little bit more careful, especially when we, we didn't have reception in the park for the most part.

• 10:07Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. And you got to see the pupfish.

• 10:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  And I got, oh yes, how could I forget? I got to meet the famous pupfish, the rarest animal in the world.

• 10:16Danielle LaRock?

  Is it? Truly?

• 10:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 10:17Danielle LaRock?

  Wow.

• 10:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 10:18Danielle LaRock?

  Did you tell me that before?

• 10:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's a celebrity.

• 10:21Danielle LaRock?

  It is a celebrity. I mean, there's only a handful of them, right?

• 10:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, there's only a handful of them and they only live for like up to 14 months. So their populations have a rough time.

• 10:31Danielle LaRock?

  And you adopted one?

• 10:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  And I adopted one, yeah. They're sending me something in the mail. I haven't gotten it yet.

• 10:36Danielle LaRock?

  Okay. Well, I'm excited to see what it is. Where the, I mean, we don't have shared custody of that pupfish, but we do have. No, I'm saying me and you.

• 10:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, right, right.

• 10:50Danielle LaRock?

  But we do have shared custody of an orangutan. I forgot her name. Nami.

• 10:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  Nami, yeah. I have Nami on my, I have a stuffed animal of Nami on my bookshelf over there.

• 11:02Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, that Tooth and Claw got for us.

• 11:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, it was so nice.

• 11:09Speaker 04

  The mighty dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now, no more. But $1 a day lets you add Progressive Renters Insurance to your auto insurance. Definitely something your younger self would roll their eyes at, but your current adulting self appreciates. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Average premium cost based on Progressive Home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state.

• 11:39Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, we have stories of other peoples to share.

• 11:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, how about you go first since I just told one?

• 11:45Danielle LaRock?

  Sure, okay. So, my first story is titled "A Ghostly Apparition and the Best Job in the World." Recently, while recovering from a... Sorry, there's just no intro. I'm like, oh, we're cold starting. Like, there's no...

• 11:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  Don't you have anything nice to say to us first?

• 12:00Danielle LaRock?

  Where are my flowers? First of all, just kidding. Recently, while recovering from a migraine, I discovered this podcast and immediately knew I had to submit a story from this summer. I worked as a counselor at an incredible summer camp in the mountains of North Carolina near Pisgah National Forest. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and being able to share it with kiddos from all over the country was such a treat. Every new session of campers meant new challenges and triumphs. But it was my second cabin that gave me the best stories. The camp is nestled in the Appalachian rainforest, which many staff members took very seriously in terms of cryptid-like stories. There were tales of strange creatures roaming the camp at night, messages in dreams, etc. At the time, I didn't believe in any of it.

• 12:45Danielle LaRock?

  However, a week into the session, the other counselors from the girl's side of the camp were complaining about a strange figure that was trying to get into their cabins at night. They felt so spooked, they didn't want to walk alone at night and were trying to find ways to keep the thing off of the steps of the cabins. For the sake of my sanity, I decided to write it off as a classic campfire story with no merit. That is, until one particular morning, when one of my campers came up to me and said, "Olivia, something was in the cabin last night." I was instantly confused and asked for more details. She said, "A tall, dark figure ducked its head in and came through the door, then stood in the corner for about five minutes before leaving. The corner she pointed to was right at the foot of my bed. I didn't know what to say.

• 13:30Danielle LaRock?

  Minutes later, another girl came up to me and said she didn't sleep well. I asked why, and she responded, "There was something shadowy and tall in here last night. It had no face, but it seemed to just be looking at me. I felt scared, but it seemed like it was just watching." I was stunned. I had gone to bed after and woken up before the campers and had not seen them talk to each other before coming up to me. I told my co-counselor about it, and she called in another staff member to smudge the front steps just in case. We never heard about the figure from those campers again, but later in the summer, other kids expressed feeling watched by shadows while walking back from the lodge at night. To this day, I have no explanation for it, but this story remains one of my favorites,

• 14:13Danielle LaRock?

  even if it kept me up at night staring at the cabin door for a week afterwards. This summer was magical in so many ways, and I'm so grateful to have worked near a national forest for a couple of months, even if it was a bit haunted. And I love that story because I love camp stories, and it reminded me a lot of kind of an experience of my own, but not really. Um, okay. So have you been to sleepaway camp? Like when you were a kid?

• 14:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  No.

• 14:40Danielle LaRock?

  Okay. My horse girl is gonna come out really quick. I used to go to a horse camp uh every summer. And when I was young, like young, young, I would go with my cousin and it would just be like a day thing. Like my parent, like we would take a bus to the barn and it would just be like a day thing and come back. But there was a year that I wanted to go uh to a different camp that was two-week sleepover camp, uh summer camp for uh horsemanship. So I did that and I stayed in like the, there was like the girls' cabins with bunk beds, like rustic, it was just, it was great. But anyways, so the camp counselors, my mom's gonna have to like fact-check me on this.

• 15:25Danielle LaRock?

  I don't remember how old I was. I want- To say I was maybe around 12 or 13, maybe. So anyway, the camp counselors who are probably just like teenagers, you know, like

• 15:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 15:37Danielle LaRock?

  They but they seemed like so much older. One night, I remember they were telling us like a spooky story about the camp or something like and now, looking back on it, it was all it was all made up. But they made up this huge elaborate story about this girl who like died at the camp and haunts the camp. And all this stuff and they're like, and it said that she carved her initials with like the symbol into the wall of her bunk bed, like when she stayed here. And like they told her name and the initials and the symbol and whatever. And they went as far as carving that into the wall next to a bunk. And guess whose fricking bunk it was?

• 16:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yours.

• 16:21Danielle LaRock?

  Mine.

• 16:23Danielle LaRock?

  Out of all the people and I was so scared and they're like, oh, looks like you have her bunk. And I'm like, shit, now I have to. And it was early on in the session. So I had to spend two weeks stressed out in this murder victim's bed that I thought. I'm like, I am 12 years old. Give me a break. Okay?

• 16:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's a little, that's a little rough. I mean, that's pretty.

• 16:50Danielle LaRock?

  It was the early 2000s. They didn't care.

• 16:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's true. There were no rules back then.

• 16:54Danielle LaRock?

  They're like, what are you gonna do? Call your parents? You don't have a phone. There's no phones. There was no such thing itself. Like, I literally wrote letters. We're just gonna bully you. Truly. Yeah. And that's how you build character. And that's why I'm so resilient.

• 17:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  Story came full circle. And that's why I'm so funny and resilient from my trauma.

• 17:17Danielle LaRock?

  It was a character building.

• 17:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  Experience.

• 17:19Danielle LaRock?

  Experience. Yeah.

• 17:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  Is it my turn to tell a story?

• 17:22Danielle LaRock?

  Yep.

• 17:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  They're looking at me like, hello? Okay, my story is titled An Act Of Love. I have been a longtime listener and love all of your episodes. My absolute favorites are always hearing everyone's trail tales. I just listened to your latest one this morning and had to stop to Share an act of love story that isn't mine or even real. Bear with me. It's a story my mother used to tell me before bed when I was a child that quickly became my most favorite story that I would ask for every night and is one of my most early childhood memories. I don't remember the story's name, the main character's name, or even the town it was set in. I don't even remember the full story, but I do remember the main parts and it does take place in a forest. So I'm hoping that there can be a crossover that lines up enough for you to want to share this with your listeners.

• 18:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Trigger warning, this story has a bittersweet ending and may not be for all listeners. My mother is a Ukrainian immigrant who moved to the United States in the seventies. Maybe it was because I was a child and children seemed to gravitate towards dark and heavy things, or maybe it's because of my Slavic badass bloodlines that I just tend to gravitate towards dark and heavy things. But all of the Mother Goose stories that were told to me as a child, no story ever impacted me like the one I'm about to share with you. I partially am hoping maybe another listener may be able to help us learn the real names of the story because it's so very powerful and has absolutely influenced how I live my life and how I choose to view the world around me. I can never find it when I try to search online and no one else in my life other than my mother has ever heard of it.

• 18:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  I hope you find it as impactful and interesting as I do. Without further ado, once upon a time, there was a town of people surrounded by a very dark forest. The town was not doing well. The crops were not growing. The animals and people were becoming sick and dying. The people of the town knew that they would have to find another place to live, but the forest that surrounded them was so overgrown and dark that they feared needing to travel through it. Eventually, after much famine and continued despair, they were left with no choice. The townspeople gathered up the remaining animals and food and ventured into the forest. Days turned to weeks and they became lost in the darkness. As they continued to look for their new home and find a way out of the forest, the suffering did not stop. The food ran out and the animals started dying.

• 19:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  The children and elderly were becoming very sick. They needed to get out of the forest very soon or the whole village would perish in the deep dark woods. A man from town who had loved his people very deeply. Over the course of the past month, it had pained him greatly seeing his family, friends and neighbors suffer. He knew they were good people and their continued misfortune weighed very heavy on his heart. One day, they had reached a point where they could go no further. The forest was much too dark to see and the whole village was too tired to keep going with no direction. The man's heart started to ache and throb. He felt such a stabbing pain deep in his chest for all the love he had for his family and his people that he couldn't bear to take it any longer. To stop the pain of his heartache, he reached inside his chest, grabbed his heart and pulled it out.

• 20:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  As he did, it shined with a love so bright that it completely lit the entire forest with the power of his love. He raised it up and held his heart over his head. His people were able to finally see and they found the path which led them out of the forest to their new fertile land and the whole town was saved. The man then lowered his arms, sat down on a rock and died. My mother always used to tell me, growing up, that love is what you do for each other and that real love is a sacrifice. My mother is one of the kindest, most giving people you will ever meet. She will always go out of her way for anyone in her life who needs her or her help. She has absolutely impacted me in how I choose to be and interact with this world. I've heard people call her names for going to the extent that she does for others.

• 21:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm certain she has been taken advantage of, but I'm also a believer in karma and what goes around, comes around. I watched my mother choose to operate from a place of love and kindness growing up and her example, combined with the stories like this, have absolutely impacted how I choose to live my own life. I hope you guys enjoyed it and I appreciate the opportunity to share it with you. If you choose to share it, I would love for you to please ask if anyone may recognize the story as I would love to be able to look it up and read it. I only recall the major points from the bedtime tales I was told, but would love to be able to read it fully. Wishing you and everyone a beautiful rest of your holiday season and thank you again for creating such a wonderful place for all of us outdoorsy folk to interact with and enjoy. Brianna. I loved that.

• 21:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  I think that's the first fake story that we've done and I thought it was a really beautiful tale.

• 21:55Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, that like, I, did she say it was like more like a fairy tale or?

• 21:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like a bedtime story fairy tale.

• 22:02Danielle LaRock?

  I loved the sentiment of that and love being at the core of everything and it really is the most important thing.

• 22:12Speaker 05

  This is Tamsin Fidel from the Tamsin Show. Okay, can somebody please tell me what age we started getting excited about socks for the holidays? Because I'm 55 and apparently that is the age. I don't care who you are. If you're impossible to shop for, nobody has ever been disappointed by socks. You know, I've been taking care of my feet in every way lately. I first heard about Bombas when they were on Shark Tank way back in the day. And it took me years to actually try them, but I'm so glad I did. Because they're seriously the most comfortable socks. Now, whenever I pass their store in the West Village, I have got to pop in and look at all the colors. Or I just order online because honestly, that is so easy. And they ship the socks right to you.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  And for every Bombas item you buy, one gets donated with over 200 million donations so far and counting. Head over to Bombas.com/audio and use code AUDIO for 20% off your first order. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash AUDIO. Code AUDIO at checkout.

• 23:17Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, my next story is titled, "You've Heard of the Gila Monster, But What Monsters Are Really in the Gila?" Hi ladies, my name is Riley. I have been listening to your show since August of 2024 when my friend Laura recommended you while on a backpacking trip around Mount Hood in Oregon, which is the area I grew up in. Growing up in the PNW, I always knew about Bigfoot, whom I am a big believer in and believe her to be my mountain mama. But besides that, I have never really been interested in other cryptids, nor have I ever really heard about them. That is, until I moved to northern Arizona, embracing all there is in the southwest, including the folklore of the area, much of which are stories from the Native American populations and culture in this area.

• 23:57Danielle LaRock?

  In April of 2024, some peers and I went on a 17-day trek through the Gila National Wilderness in New Mexico. This national wilderness covers nearly 600,000 acres of New Mexico and was the world's first designated national wilderness area in 1924, making it quite rugged and remote. The Gila ranges from rich riparian terrain down into the canyons along the Gila River. To desert mountain terrain on the mesas up to ponderosa pine forests. On our trip, we hiked all over these terrains with a route we chose that was well off the beaten path. We enjoyed hot springs, saw old Native American dwellings and markings, river crossings, and plenty of flora and fauna. Overall, it was one of my favorite backcountry trips to

• 24:40Danielle LaRock?

  date, except for day 12. On day 12, we had planned to camp at an area that is not named or marked, but based on the topo map, looked like it would be flat enough for a group of seven to camp at. Upon nearing our camp for night 12, we noticed the area had been severely burned by wildfire at some point in the previous years. I don't know if you or any of your listeners have ever camped in burned areas, but it has quite an eerie feel to it, just with the dead vegetation and lack of life about, as well as the abundance of widowmakers, which if you don't know, are dead but standing trees that could fall at any moment. Thankfully, I had a wildland firefighter in my group who understands the nature of burnt trees, and he declared an area that should be safe enough for us to set up camp, which we did,

• 25:23Danielle LaRock?

  and then designated a kitchen 200 feet from camp, since the Gila Wilderness is bear country. We made dinner, made our bear hangs and hung up our food, and played a few hours of farkel. The evening was normal enough, except for a horribly spooky feeling in my gut, but I chalked it up to being in the dead area that we were camping in. Eventually, we went our separate ways to bed and settled in for the night, but I could not sleep to save my life. And let me say here, I have no problem sleeping in the backcountry after a day of hiking. Maybe an hour or two after getting into bed and laying there, I heard the wildest noise. It was like a scream, howl, banging noise, and it sounded close. Again, we were remote. We hadn't seen another person on the trail in eight days up to this point.

• 26:08Danielle LaRock?

  At this point, my heart was racing, but I tell myself, well, there's nothing I can do, and if I'm in danger, I'm not escaping this thing in the dead of night 100-plus miles away from any civilization. If I am supposed to only live to 23, at least they were pretty good damn years. And then I fell asleep. That reminds me so much of you, Cassie.

• 26:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  I can, I can relate for sure.

• 26:34Danielle LaRock?

  What's going on outside of my tent?

• 26:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's none of my business.

• 26:37Danielle LaRock?

  There you go. That night, I had a dream that raider squirrels came through our camp and kitchen and took all of our stuff. When I awoke in the morning, I stuck my head out of the tent and said, did you guys hear the raider squirrels? I got really weird looks from my friends and told them about my dream. My dream that turned into a premonition. When the first person walked over to our kitchen, she yelled, guys, something got into our camp. We all ran down to check out the scene and our belongings in the kitchen were everywhere and nowhere. In our kitchen, we had left out our stoves, hiking poles, some shoes, camp chairs, pads, etc. The hiking poles were thrown across the area. Shoes were moved up to 50 feet away. Stoves were missing. We had some cleaned and dried eating vessels that were round in shape.

• 27:23Danielle LaRock?

  Think double bowls that twist on top of each other, not easily grabbable for smaller critters, that were missing. We searched the whole area for the missing stuff, mainly because of Leave No Trace, and we didn't want our stuff to be left out there. Some was found, but some were completely gone. Like my round eating vessel, hashtag sad. I ate out of a peanut butter jar as a bowl for the rest of this trip. We made a quick breakfast, eager to get out of the area and started on the trail. After leaving, my friend Maggie asked, so did you guys have an awful feeling yesterday evening in camp too? And every single person said they had a pit in their stomach, felt unsafe, or on edge the entire time we were in that camp. We were discussing what it could have been. Initially, we thought a bear, since no critter could move some of those larger items.

• 28:07Danielle LaRock?

  But because the trees were dead and awful, our bear hangs were not great. And if a bear was there for food, it realistically could have got to our food bags. Yet all of the food was untouched, and there were no claw marks on the trees. Sure, it could have been a critter, but why go after things like hiking poles or our fuel tanks? Also, we looked closely for tracks, and there wasn't anything to be noticed on the ground. We decided that we had a southwest cryptid that we hear about down here, but don't talk about, visiting us during the night, while thinking back about it to this day, and while writing this story, the hair still stand up on the back of my neck. But also, it definitely could have been aliens, and I know my extraterrestrial brothers and sisters were just trying to say hi. Anyway, that's my tale.

• 28:48Danielle LaRock?

  Thank you for reading, and remember, enjoy the view, but watch your back, and watch out for raider squirrels. Warmly, Riley.

• 28:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  I like the alien, the alien theory.

• 28:58Danielle LaRock?

  Really? I think, I don't know, I, my gut just says raccoons because raccoons are-

• 29:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, realistically, I think it was probably raccoons or some type of critter, but I just like the direction of aliens.

• 29:11Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, they're just like investigating, like, what is all this stuff? What is a hiking pole? We don't need it and they just throw it fifty feet.

• 29:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  It definitely sounds like raccoons, they're so destructive.

• 29:21Danielle LaRock?

  I know, and they're so, did you see the, um, oh my god, I don't know if it's recent, because sometimes my algorithm shows me things from like a month prior, but there's this woman who has been feeding raccoons for years at her home, at her residence.

• 29:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  And there's like hundreds of them, right?

• 29:38Danielle LaRock?

  And she had to call nine one one because there was over a hundred of them that swarmed her.

• 29:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's crazy.

• 29:48Danielle LaRock?

  Right? Did you see that?

• 29:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  I don't know if I saw, I might have, I feel like I saw it a while ago and it, I can picture it because I do remember seeing something about a woman feeding raccoons and she had like hundreds on her doorstep in her yard.

• 30:03Danielle LaRock?

  Yes, okay, it's from October, I just looked, October of twenty twenty four. It's the New York, this made the New York Times. Okay, and it says, woman calls nine one one when a hundred aggressive raccoons show up in her yard, and there's just a picture of like, these, just this whole yard scape full of angry raccoons. And it says, okay, and this is the problem, okay? I won't read the whole article, of course, but just the first sentence, for more than thirty five years, a woman in Washington State would leave some food in her yard for about a dozen resident raccoons.

• 30:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  Thirty years, that is dedication.

• 30:42Danielle LaRock?

  Years, that's older than me.

• 30:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 30:44Danielle LaRock?

  And then she just had to-

• 30:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  And then they turned on her.

• 30:46Danielle LaRock?

  They sure did.

• 30:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  Thirty five years of dedication and they turned on her.

• 30:50Danielle LaRock?

  Yep.

• 30:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Raccoons are really cute, but I would be nervous about feeding raccoons in particular just because they do get rabies, and I would be very nervous to have, one, I don't think you should feed wildlife like that in general, but also because they are prone to rabies, I would be concerned.

• 31:07Danielle LaRock?

  The sheriff's department said that trappers had been asking five hundred dollars per raccoon to take them away. Oh my god.

• 31:16Danielle LaRock?

  They're not messing around. They're like, hey, we shouldn't even have to be doing this. So pay up.

• 31:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, they weren't getting. So I thought, oh, for some reason I thought she was getting $500 per raccoon.

• 31:29Danielle LaRock?

  No, to get them.

• 31:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  To get them off her property.

• 31:32Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. I mean, that you gotta pay like that. There has to be some sort of repercussion. Fifty thou- that's 50,000. No.

• 31:42Danielle LaRock?

  Wait. What's happening? A hundred raccoons.

• 31:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 31:46Danielle LaRock?

  Times $500. Yeah. $50,000.

• 31:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's crazy. Just stop feeding them. They'll disappear.

• 31:53Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know. It seems like she was being held hostage is the problem. Okay. Anyway, wow. We're really off track.

• 32:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, my next story is titled, I went to the Tetons, saw a bear and peed myself. Hello lovely ladies. My name is Bridgette and you can use my name. I'm a longtime friend of the pod and enjoy listening while hiking, running, or just unwinding for the day. I've been recently enjoying listening on my now favorite long drive to Wyoming from Colorado. I'm from Georgia and my boyfriend and I like to do great seasonal work migration out west in the summer and back south in the winter to take classes in kayak. This summer I'm working with the Forest Service in Colorado on a trail crew while my boyfriend is on a wildland fire crew in Wyoming. We get to wear matching green pants. Luckily, we're only seven hours apart from each other and he is only about an hour and a half from Grand Teton National Park.

• 32:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  After my first month of trail maintenance, I got four whole days off to go visit him. We decided to visit the Tetons together. He had visited multiple times before skiing in Jackson Hole and doing the Teton Crest Trail. But this was my first time exploring the parks out west. I had more experience with the national forests and section hikes of the Appalachian Trail. So I was not prepared for how busy the park was going to be. I was also not prepared for how cold it was going to be. When I drove into Wyoming on my first day, it was snowing in the middle of June. Being from Georgia, that was not okay. That being said, I still. Walked onto Jenny Lake Trail with him in my running sandals, tank top and shorts with the be bold, start cold saying as my personal motto for the day.

• 33:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  About two miles into the trail, we saw what looked like the entire town of Jackson Hole walking towards us. We stepped to the side as about five minutes worth of visitors paraded down the trail. Multiple people asked if we saw the two giant moose that apparently came sprinting towards us. We did not see the moose because moose aren't real.

• 33:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  One lady clearly shaken up told us they saw a giant grizzly bear in the middle of the trail that sent these two moose along with all the hikers back in the opposite direction. I asked her if I should put my bear spray on then or wait to see a bear before applying. She did not laugh. My fault for not reading the room. The trail my boyfriend and I were on our way to hike was another mile or two into the Jenny Lake Trail and we were determined to do it. So we waited by the side of the trail for a little while after the mob passed. We eventually decided it was safe enough to continue and talked very loudly to scare the bears away. After about five minutes of walking, I really had to pee. There was no way I was going 40 feet into the woods where a giant grizzly bear

• 34:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  was waiting for me. So I decided to walk five feet off the trail, half hiding behind a rock. Working in a national forest about two hours from the nearest Walmart, I was used to seeing maybe three people on a Saturday. Seeing anyone on a weekday was almost unheard of. I honestly expected the trail to be empty because of the bear. So I tasked my boyfriend with watching the trail while I peed, a task he did not take seriously. My precious tree boy of a boyfriend immediately focused all of his attention on a nearby aspen, deciding that its leaves quaking in the wind was far more interesting than both watching the trail and his now shortless girlfriend standing five feet from him. I guess I cannot compete with the beauty of mother nature. The second I dropped my shorts and started doing my thing, I saw heads coming around the corner

• 35:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  of the trail. I immediately threw my shorts up seconds away from flashing a family of four facing charges of indecent exposure and permanently petrifying two young children. However, my brain forgot to send the message down to stop peeing. I stood there awkwardly smiling with my face bright red as the family passed and pee came. Running down my legs. I guess I was in such a state of shock that all signals just failed to be transported throughout my body. Thankfully, the family did not seem to notice that I was standing there, quite literally peeing myself right in front of them. My poor boyfriend looked right at me with tears in my eyes, not knowing what to do. I went through all five stages of grief, having an internal crisis of being a 21-year-old who just peed themselves in a family environment. I ultimately started laughing, giving my confused boyfriend permission to finally

• 36:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  laugh at me, too. I had enough water on me to sacrifice some for the purpose of cleanliness, and dumped a liter down my shorts, telling myself that it definitely washed all the pee away. And I was now wet and cold, but at least I was clean. I was indeed not clean, and those shorts were stiff the next day when I picked them up.

• 36:19Danielle LaRock?

  Ew. Yeah, that's sickening.

• 36:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm just kidding.

• 36:24Danielle LaRock?

  No, just kidding. We listen and we don't judge.

• 36:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 36:28Danielle LaRock?

  Exactly.

• 36:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  We continued on our hike with him, instantly making fun of me, telling me I had to sleep outside that night so I didn't pee on his blankets. As soon as we rounded the corner where the family had somehow silently emerged from, not even two minutes after the incident, we saw a small black bear cross the trail in front of us, giving absolutely zero cares of our presence. Are you kidding me? Was this the giant grizzly? If the bear couldn't smell my pee, hopefully nobody we passed would either. This was the closest I had ever seen a bear, and I instantly grabbed my boyfriend out of fear. He was a precious tree boy, but at least he was my badass firefighting, pack testing, passing, 5'10", 160 pounds of pure muscle tree boy, who is going to save me from this black bear, who is clearly just chilling on an afternoon walk. I accidentally pushed him

• 37:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  away towards the bear while I moved to hide behind him. Sorry, man, but I already peed myself. His turn to have some trauma. The bear didn't even look at us, and literally just walked away. After looking at me in disappointment for sacrificing him, we continued to hike the trail. We made it to the second trail branching off Jenny Lake, where we went through the snow. Again, I was in running sandals to a frozen lake. On my way back, I slipped and slid about 30 feet down the slope into rocks on my butt. I was fine, just very cold, and I'm sure my shorts needed the extra rinsing. And my boyfriend tripped down the trail. On three different trees. Once making it safely back to Jenny Lake Trail to head home, I guess we looked mangled up enough and like experienced hikers. That three different family asked us if they were on the Jenny Lake Trail.

• 37:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  About two miles into the only trail that was right next to the only Jenny Lake. Yes, they were on the right trail. When we got back to the bunkhouse, his coworkers slash roommates asked how the day went. He said that we saw a bear and I peed myself, but the two events were unrelated. They did not question that statement. I also want to note that my boyfriend and I got matching tattoos of bears with cowboy hats on after exactly two weeks of dating. Sorry, Mom. And I had been sending him all the bear postcards I found prior to my first Wyoming visit. I told him if anything were to happen to him while fighting fires, I want him to come back and visit me as a bear. I would really know it was him if he snuck up on me peeing. I hope this story made y'all laugh and anyone listening learned to always pee off the trail. And maybe not to wear sandals on a snowy hike.

• 38:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  If you see a very dirty Forest Service employee with a Pulaski in hand in the White River National Forest. Please stop to say hi. Keep up the awesome work and thanks for entertaining me on the long drives. Bridgette.

• 38:52Danielle LaRock?

  Have you ever peed yourself before?

• 38:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  For sure. I can't think of, I can't think of an exact scenario.

• 39:00Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, so it's not like.

• 39:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  I don't have like a incident where, I can't think of an incident where I did it in front of people.

• 39:08Danielle LaRock?

  That's good. That's.

• 39:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  I feel like I peed myself and I feel like I peed my pants as a little kid though at school. And I feel like people made fun of me and I've trauma blocked it. Because I found a, I found a, and I'm saying this because I found a journal entry. That was really sad in one of my diaries from when I was a little kid. And I don't remember the circumstance at all, but I remember I wrote, it was so sad. I wrote Heather called me SeaWorld and it made me sad.

• 39:35Danielle LaRock?

  What does that even mean?

• 39:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  I think it means that I peed myself because I just think SeaWorld and wet. But I don't remember the incident. I just saw the diary entry, so it must have happened. I I get, yeah.

• 39:50Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, or the first thing I thought of was like, like, is she calling you fat? Like whales, seaworld.

• 39:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  No, I wasn't fat as a kid. I was tiny.

• 39:59Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, but girls are mean.

• 40:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, I'm not saying you were fat. I was the smallest kid in my class.

• 40:05Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  There was no way.

• 40:06Danielle LaRock?

  This is before, like, body positivity and all that, like, when people were just mean.

• 40:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  Journal entry I'll preface was from like first grade, too.

• 40:13Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 40:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's messed up, Heather. Yeah, yeah, Heather. I won't say your last name, but I remember it.

• 40:19Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, you do?

• 40:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  I do.

• 40:21Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, people don't forget. That's my favorite. Do you know what that's from?

• 40:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  No.

• 40:27Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, my God. My favorite thing to say, just under my breath, is people don't forget. It's from Superbad, and it's, oh, my God, it's so relevant because he's talking about when he pissed his pants.

• 40:39Danielle LaRock?

  And it's Dave Franco's, like, only brief appearance in that movie. And Jonah Hill and Michael Sarah are talking on the soccer field. And Dave Franco is like, come on, like, why don't just keep going or whatever? And they're like, why don't you go piss your pants again? And he was like, dude, that was like eight years ago. And then Jonah Hill just goes, people don't forget.

• 41:05Danielle LaRock?

  Superbad is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I know it probably has not aged well. But I can't help but just have a soft spot for it in my heart.

• 41:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  I haven't seen that movie in so long, but I would re-watch it. I just always remember the scene where they're trying to get alcohol and he has this fake ID. It's his McLovin on it, and it's Hawaii, and they're just like, what is this?

• 41:27Danielle LaRock?

  And it goes, oh, my God, that is just, that was a time of movie making, like, that era when all of those actors just always cameoed and worked and collaborated together in a bunch of different movies. And I know, again, a lot of them probably did not age well, but they, it was a time for the film industry.

• 41:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  It was a time to be alive.

• 41:47Danielle LaRock?

  It's just my kind of humor, and I just really, like, This Is the End, Why Him, Superbad. Like, just all those types of movies are just so funny. And I know, like, I feel like the Franco- Uh, Dave Franco is my everything. First of all, love him.

• 42:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  There's one of the Francos that has been like exiled from Hollywood.

• 42:07Danielle LaRock?

  Yes, and his brother.

• 42:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Is it James Franco? I get that they look so similar. I get them confused.

• 42:13Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, yeah. He did something. He like was talking to people he shouldn't talk to or something. Um, children mainly, I think. Okay, enough about the Francos. Even though I love one of them. Okay.

• 42:26Danielle LaRock?

  All right, my last story. God, I feel like we've been talking for a really long time.

• 42:35Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, my last story is titled, Did We Just Find A Cougar In Maine?

• 42:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  Ooh, I hope so. That would be cool.

• 42:42Danielle LaRock?

  Hi ladies, my name is Molly and I'm also from New Hampshire and I love your podcast. My boyfriend Mike and I love to listen to your podcast, especially on the five hour journey to his family's house in northern Maine that we try to take at least once a month. Well, we just went on one of these journeys over Thanksgiving break to see his family for the holidays. The day after Thanksgiving, we woke up to about seven inches of snow on the ground and Mike realized he forgot to take his shooting target inside before the snow fell. So we went on a journey to go find it. Ideally, the plan was to take his truck and drive down the logging road and then it's only about a 500 meter walk through the snow to get to the target. As we approached the logging road, the snow was so wet and heavy. All of the trees fell down over the trail. Mike claimed that the logging road was only about a mile and asked if I wanted to walk it.

• 43:26Danielle LaRock?

  I figured, well, it's just a short walk and won't be too bad and maybe we can find some cool animal tracks on the way. Well, we definitely ended up finding some tracks and the trail was definitely not a mile. We started off through the snow and it's a beautiful day with the sun shining through the trees and all we can hear is the sound of our footsteps and snow falling off of the branches. We end up clearing a lot of the trees off the road, having snowball fights and finding animal tracks of cute little fuzzy animals like squirrels and bunnies. Well, that was short-lived as the animal tracks started to become a bit larger and a little less cute. We saw some fisher cat tracks, which was a little nerve wracking as they can be pretty aggressive, but I wasn't too worried. We continue along and then we see much larger tracks in the distance.

• 44:08Danielle LaRock?

  I took an ecology class at UNH where I had to find animal tracks in college woods during the winter. So I'd like to say I have a fairly good grasp on identifying animal prints. And this print was approximately three to four inches in diameter, had no visible claw marks, and had three lobes on the pad of its foot. Oh my God, that is a huge cat track. As anyone listening from northern New England probably knows, the state claims we don't have cougars, but we definitely do. I've seen one myself at my parents' house in central New Hampshire, and I know plenty of people who have seen them as well. Holy crap, this was a cougar track and we were alone in the middle of nowhere with no service and no way to defend ourselves. The happy playful vibe just turned pretty dark and anxiety inducing. To top it off,

• 44:52Danielle LaRock?

  in the distance, the sky turned completely black and looked like a snowstorm was coming our way. And not to mention, we were running out of daylight. Also, it's been less than eight hours since that track had been there because the snow only stopped falling that morning. We also realized that the trail was a lot longer than we initially thought. I asked Mike what we should do, and he said we were much closer to the target than the truck. And if we go and get it, at least we would have some sort of weapon because the target is a giant steel plate held up by three, four foot long steel pipes. So at least we'd have something to defend ourselves with. I agreed and we trudged on. As we continued, I constantly felt like something was watching me. We had just gone to Squam Lake Science Center a few weeks prior and watched a cougar

• 45:34Danielle LaRock?

  there sneak up on a squirrel that was eating a nut on the other side of the fence. We were amazed at how silent that cougar was despite stepping on the crunchy leaves, and I could not get that memory out of my head. There could be a cougar that is watching us in a tree right now, and we would have no idea. Thankfully, we were getting closer to the target and the hill it was sitting on came into view. Only 500 more meters to go. I started to feel really weak as we continued on, probably for a variety of reasons. We didn't bring any water, and I was extremely thirsty. Trudging through the snow was exhausting, and on top of that, I was sick with a head cold. I stayed at the bottom of the hill because I wasn't feeling well, and Mike ran up to get to the target. Finally, we had a weapon in case we got attacked. We finally turned back and I continued to feel more and more weak.

• 46:18Danielle LaRock?

  We've listened to so many of your podcast episodes. We've hiked in the White Mountains and Mount Katon in numerous times and I grew up binging I Shouldn't Be Alive. Yet, here I was, sick as a dog with no water, no food, soaking wet boots, and just a steel bar to defend myself with. What in the world were we thinking? After a long, exhausting walk back with the sun just above the horizon, we finally saw the truck in the distance. Did we get eaten by a cougar? Not today. We made it back to Mike's parents' house after the quick one-mile walk ended up being over three miles and showed them the pictures of the tracks that we saw. Mike's dad, a very experienced hunter and outdoorsman, sees the picture of the cougar tracks and said, "Oh, that's just the lynx." Upon closer inspection, we didn't take into account the stride of the

• 47:03Danielle LaRock?

  tracks and realized they were much shorter than a cougar stride would be. All of that panicking for nothing. But then Mike's dad asked where we had been hiking. We told him and he said, "Oh, I just saw some wolves there the other day." Well, I guess the panicking wasn't for nothing. After all, take it from us, always be prepared, even for quick little walks, and always watch your back, Molly.

• 47:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, that was a twist at the end. No cougars, but there's wolves up there.

• 47:29Danielle LaRock?

  And I just love, because we were just talking before this recording about the snow in New England and how Cassie has a lot up at her house and by my house. It snowed once and it melted within a couple of days. And now it's bare ground again and it's just kind of sad. But anyways, I have some trail systems behind my house and I take Chaska out there and I love going in the winter because I, and I've never taken a professional, any sort of professional class, or I don't have any formal education on tracking, but I know the basics enough and the wildlife around here enough to be able to see what's going on. And I just love, it's just a little record of the last few hours and everyone that's been

• 48:12Danielle LaRock?

  coming and going. And you can tell when like they started running or playing or rolled around or where they're crossing. And it's just, I love, love looking at tracks in the winter. And even if sometimes it is a little nerve wracking. I mean, we are like, there's a ton Coyotes back here and I hear them all the time. And just to being able to see where they come up. Oh, my God. The other day when it did snow.

• 48:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  I saw these little tracks.

• 48:38Danielle LaRock?

  And there's a big set of stairs that come up to my office here.

• 48:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 48:43Danielle LaRock?

  And I could see where the this animal came from the woods, came up, went up two stairs and then turned around. It's like, oh, never mind.

• 48:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Never mind. Not for me. That's cute.

• 48:56Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 48:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I love after a snowstorm, just walking up on the trails behind my house and seeing what's been up there. I've seen moose tracks. I've seen fox tracks. I've seen deer, lots of deer. We have a lot of like grouse that are around. So I see their little tracks around and yeah.

• 49:15Danielle LaRock?

  I haven't seen coyote. I haven't even heard coyotes around here. So I don't know.

• 49:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's very surprising to me.

• 49:22Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, me too. I've ne- I like, I've never heard them. I've never, same thing with fisher cats. I haven't heard fisher cats around. I haven't heard any here, but I used to hear them at my house in New Hampshire, my childhood home in New Hampshire.

• 49:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Me too.

• 49:35Danielle LaRock?

  I'm gonna send, or maybe I won't send it to you. I don't even know where it is. It's somewhere on my phone. But I, when I was in Washington, oh, it's right here. I have a video of it and I have a picture of it. I'm actually gonna send it to you right now and maybe I'll post it on this like Instagram post. I was hiking in Washington with Ian. And we came across, uh, I or I looked down and I saw this print and I really think it's a cougar print. I don't know if that, if that video showed scale.

• 50:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, no. Yeah, you have your hand next to it.

• 50:11Danielle LaRock?

  Do I? Okay, yeah. And but there's no visible, again, like no visible claw marks.

• 50:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 50:17Danielle LaRock?

  And there was, uh, clearly you can see what's either a dog or a coyote or, you know.

• 50:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 50:24Danielle LaRock?

  And it just to me looks like a cougar print, but I don't know. Maybe we can get somebody's expert opinion.

• 50:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 50:32Danielle LaRock?

  On Instagram. Right? I don't know. What do you think?

• 50:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  I definitely see what you're saying, but there's no claw prints.

• 50:42Danielle LaRock?

  And it's very, it's deep. Like there's some weight to this animal. Yeah. Okay, anyways, you have one more story, right?

• 50:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  I do. My last story is titled, "That One Time A Huge Spider Almost Got Me Arrested." Hi, Cassie and Danielle. I want to start by saying how much I love your podcast. I have been a longtime listener and I'm so glad I stumbled upon your podcast one day when I was making a trip from Massachusetts to Connecticut to visit a friend. I'll be listening to you both for as long as you continue telling stories. Okay, so my story is technically not a trail tale and it doesn't take place in a national park or even a state park, but it does take place outside and it involves a huge spider. I also hope this gives you a trickle or two. My story takes place outside of my house in a suburb of Boston during the height of COVID-19 pandemic, when people really weren't doing much or going anywhere. One day, my mom and I visited my brother at his apartment,

• 51:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  who also hadn't seen anybody at the time, and we got home kind of late, close to 11:00 PM. As I mentioned, I live in a suburb of Boston, but my neighborhood is pretty woodsy. While we have neighbors close by, we have woods on three sides of us. Coyotes, fox, and deer live in the neighborhood. We also don't have streetlights, so people don't usually take walks in my neighborhood past sunset because it's too dark and the wildlife is active. Anyway, if any New England listeners remember, the COVID summer, summer 2020, was so hot and humid. With this humid weather, a huge spider was visiting us nightly on our front porch. I have major arachnophobia and my mom's fear of spiders is only slightly better than mine. Every night was first like a scavenger hunt to find the spider

• 52:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  and then a struggle to scoot around it to get inside. After some research, I realized our nightly visitor was a wolf spider. So on this night, my mom and I get out of the car and start making our way towards the front door when I noticed a shadow go by at the end of our driveway. I'm watching this figure now because like I mentioned, nobody walks in our neighborhood after sunset. I have my flashlight on my iPhone on as I'm searching for our arachnid friend that showed up every night while still Watching this figure at the end of our driveway. I noticed they stopped and I could feel them looking at us in the dark. I motioned to my mom that someone was at the end of our driveway looking at us. She kind of ignored it and asked if I saw the spider. Sure enough, our huge spider friend was sitting pretty on our front steps.

• 52:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  My mom and I froze because neither of us wanted to walk by it. We were in the process of making game plan to get into the house when a voice called out to us in the darkness. When the shadow figure realized we had stopped and weren't going into the house, a woman's voice called out, hi, what's going on? She seemed friendly at first. Thinking from her perspective now, I can see how fictitious my story seems, but still, maybe people should mind their own business at 11 o'clock at night. I said, there's a huge spider on our steps. We can't get into the house. She replied, friendly tone, completely gone with, well, you can tell that to the cops when they get here. I was so confused. The cops, I asked, why are you calling the cops? Because you're breaking into that house, she said.

• 53:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  I think I laughed out loud at this, but I was becoming angry. Breaking in? This is our house, I said. The lady stood her ground and just kept saying we could explain our story when the cops got there. My mom had a few choice words with the woman as well. When the woman questioned why we were out so late, my mom asked why she was out walking around a neighborhood in total darkness. She said, because it's a heat wave. Summer 2020 was definitely hot and humid, but on this night, it was a very comfortable low seventies. My dad was home sleeping and the window to the bedroom was open. My mom started calling my dad to come downstairs to get rid of the spider. My dad is not the happiest person and is definitely not the happiest person when he is woken up in the middle of the night. He opened the front door, used his hands to brush the spider off the front steps,

• 54:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  and totally ignored the woman threatening to call the cops on my mom and I for walking into our own home. When the woman saw my dad open the door for us, she said, have a nice night, and began to walk away. I called after her and told her that I hope she felt like a real hero. My mom and I still to this day have no idea who this woman was, and we never saw her again. We know most of our neighbors and can't pinpoint who she was. However, we appropriately refer to her as Neighborhood Patrol.

• 54:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  Came back a few times that summer, but since the summer of 2020, we haven't seen any massive wolf spiders on our front steps since. Knocking on wood as I type this. Moral of the story, enjoy the view, but watch out for huge wolf spiders on your front steps and crazy neighbors who think that you're breaking into your own house. Hope this story gave you a laugh. I'm attaching a photo of the spider so you can see how big it is for yourself. And yes, I love national parks, hiking and the outdoors, but I draw the line at spiders, especially spiders of this size. Also Cassie, you asked for rescue stories a few trail tales back and wanted to hear if anyone has gotten rescued from an elevator. Well, hey, girl. Hey, that would be me. This would be a story for another time. Keep up the great work, ladies. Thanks for keeping me company in the crazy Boston traffic. Your fellow New England friend, Michaela.

• 55:39Danielle LaRock?

  I can commiserate with the Boston traffic. I just experienced it yesterday for the first time in a really long time. And it took me over three hours to get somewhere that should have taken maybe an hour and a half max.

• 55:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, Boston's rough.

• 55:55Danielle LaRock?

  Dying inside. It was awful. But I don't know, like it's kind of annoying in, in the heat of that story, but at least you know your neighbors care about what's going on in your neighborhood and are looking out for your house.

• 56:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  I guess, but they don't even know who lives there.

• 56:12Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, I guess.

• 56:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  So it just kind of feels like they're being nosy.

• 56:15Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, they just want the drama.

• 56:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. I mean, even to not ask any follow-up questions like, oh, is this your house or something, you know?

• 56:23Danielle LaRock?

  Like, you can tell that to the cops.

• 56:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. Yeah. She just feels like, I don't know. I feel like she should have minded her own business. I would be pissed if I was walking into my own house and someone was like, I'm calling the cops, you're breaking in. That would piss me off.

• 56:36Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

• 56:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like we have our neighborhoods, we all like watch out for each other. And if I see something weird going on, like a few days or a few months ago, I guess now. But there was someone parked at the bottom of my neighbor's driveway for a really long time, really late at night. So I texted them and I was like, hey, is everything okay? I see someone's at the end of your driveway and they had no idea what I was talking about and it freaked them out. And then we discovered that it was someone's kid home from college, smoking weed with his friends at the bottom of their driveway and everything was fine.

• 57:07Danielle LaRock?

  Amazing.

• 57:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  But it was like, you don't just call the cops without like asking your neighbors. That's not a neighborly thing to do.

• 57:14Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, like follow-up questions would be appreciated.

• 57:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 57:17Danielle LaRock?

  It's like, do you want to come look at the spider? This is why we can't enter the house.

• 57:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. Like ma'am, are you afraid of spiders?

• 57:24Danielle LaRock?

  Would you take care of this for us?

• 57:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 57:26Danielle LaRock?

  Cool. Well, thank you, everyone, for sending in your stories and keep them coming. Again, we asked a few that elevator thing sparked my memory of things we've asked for in the past, which I don't remember at all now, other than survival stories and elevator stories.

• 57:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  And we asked for embarrassing stories.

• 57:44Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, right. And the embarrassing, you guys really took it, but I think that we need to like cast a wider net other than just poop stories and like shitting your pants.

• 57:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  We got a pee story today.

• 57:54Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, but like when the call for embarrassing stories, when people are like, I have one and this is it. It always had to do with poop, which is, I will say, it is embarrassing. Like that

• 58:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 58:05Danielle LaRock?

  truly is embarrassing, but um

• 58:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  Arguably the most embarrassing.

• 58:09Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, maybe think embarrassing stories that you, this is so specific, but embarrassing stories that you remember after reading an entry in your diary from childhood.

• 58:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  I already gave mine and Heather called me SeaWorld, so now the whole world knows.

• 58:27Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. And imagine if Heather listens, she's like, I remember doing that.

• 58:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I hope she's like, shit, I was a bitch.

• 58:37Danielle LaRock?

  In first grade, I was really mean.

• 58:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 58:39Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, great. Well, outsiders, you have two more stories coming your way. Mine is titled Trail Tale: A Sign From The Almost Beyond.

• 58:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  And mine is titled Valentine's Day, West Of Denver.

• 58:49Danielle LaRock?

  Lovely. All right. Thank you, everyone, for listening. We will see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view, but watch your back. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale of your own you'd like to share, you can write to us at [email protected] or visit our website at NPADpodcast.com. Bonus trail tales and content are available to Patreon members and Apple subscribers. Follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and X at National Park After Dark. And if you prefer to watch our episodes, you can find us on YouTube at National Park After Dark. And as always, if you enjoy the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 59:43Speaker 04

  The mighty dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now, no more. But $1 a day lets you add Progressive Renters Insurance to your auto insurance. Definitely something your younger self would roll their eyes at, but your current adulting self appreciates. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Average premium cost based on Progressive home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state.