Pod Insights National Park After Dark 291: Trail Tales 67 About this episode Today’s stories include disrupting the natural order, shaming tourons, static ghosts, poop strap injuries, hauntings in Japan, Alaskan thank yous, pennies form heaven and cacti-microneedling Brazilian waxes. Outsiders Only bonus stories available for Patreon and Apple Subscribers! Listen to Watch Her Cook on Apple and Spotify! 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!3 Day Blinds: For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/NPAD. Factor: Use our link and code npad50off to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. Redacted: Declassified Mysteries: Follow 'Redacted: Declassified Mysteries' withLuke Lamana on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Transcript 10,134 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:19 Cassandra Yahnian? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. We're so excited to have you here today because we have a lot of fun stories for you, but we also have a really fun announcement that we've been announcing for days that we're gonna tell you again because we're so excited about it. But yesterday, our new podcast launched.
1:38 Danielle LaRock? It did. Yeah. So in case you have been away on vacation, you just didn't hear about it, you've been taking a social media break.
1:46 Cassandra Yahnian? Didn't see it on socials.
1:47 Danielle LaRock? You know, which is totally understandable. Yeah, if this is the first time you're hearing it, Cassie and I have launched a second podcast, a sister podcast to National Park After Dark, and it is called Watch Her Cook.
1:59 Cassandra Yahnian? Yes, and it's all about the incredible stories of women throughout history who have really broken the glass ceilings on the expectations of what women should be. And it's really Fun because we dive into a lot of different topics from activists to inventors to criminal masterminds to whatever you can think of women are behind the scenes and have been on the scenes doing it for generations. And we are highlighting those stories. So you can check it out wherever you listen to podcasts. We're also on Instagram at Watch Her Cook Podcast and you can check out us there as well. Yeah. All right. Let's get into our stories. Would you like to go first or would you like to go second? I want to, I'm feeling second today. Okay. I want to be a follower today.
2:43 Cassandra Yahnian? That's cool because the first title of mine is maybe nice or sad. Either way, I'm telling it first. So. Okay. Mine is titled Fly High Raccoon. Sounds sad. Hi friends. My name is Sol. They, she, he pronouns. And I started listening to your podcast while living on a campground near Nederland, Colorado, in the Roosevelt National Forest a few years back. Living so far away from the world with just my partner at the time, who I had only known for three months, brought a lot of anxieties, challenges, and insanely beautiful experiences. Your podcast helped me stay grounded through learning and I have so much gratitude for the empowerment and awareness you offer through storytelling. I now live in Denver, but my story takes place in Ellicottville, New York. Oh, wow.
3:28 Cassandra Yahnian? That is, um, I have family and my kidney donor is up there. Oh, in that exact area? Yeah, same town. It's a skeetone, which they go into. Ellicottville is a beautiful, tiny little skeevillage in our south of Buffalo. This town is very well known in Western New York and some of the Buffalo Bills even own vacation homes there, but the year round community is very small and very tight knit. Everything is located in a strip that's no more than a block in length. While living there, I worked full time at the only official quote unquote nightclub and the only coffee shop in town. I was very blessed to live in a beautiful 70s apartment right above the coffee shop in exchange for a small portion of my paycheck. Living here was a dream, but it was also a lot
4:11 Cassandra Yahnian? of work. One night after working a very hard week, full of doubles, I got home late when I realized my trash was very smelly from the lack of AC. C and intense humidity. I couldn't stand it, so I decided to throw my trash onto the balcony to deal with it in the morning. Now, something that's important to note here is that the town is surrounded by so much wilderness that you have to lock up your trash to prevent bears or raccoons from getting into it. I knew this and was so tired, I decided to face the consequences of something getting into it to avoid having to walk the trash all the way out. That on my part, I know, but hindsight is 2020. Sure enough, I woke up to a raccoon going through it and we immediately started beefing. I yelled at it to leave. It's yelling at me to
4:55 Cassandra Yahnian? fuck off while destroying the trash, but after like 30 minutes of this, he backs down and leaves. In the morning, I went out to pick up the litter left on the balcony and I died laughing at what I found. I had a third job in Alacottville I haven't mentioned yet. I was um, plant medicine salesperson. This brought me a lot of goodies and I had completely forgotten that I had thrown away 1,000 milligram chocolate edibles a while back because it was left out too long and I didn't trust it.
5:27 Danielle LaRock? How, who needs a 1,000 milligrams?
5:31 Cassandra Yahnian? That is so much. I, I'm a 2.5 milligram girl.
5:36 Danielle LaRock? I, if you eat half of a 2.5 and I'm
5:41 Danielle LaRock? world.
5:42 Cassandra Yahnian? Like 1,000 milligrams, I would leave this planet.
5:46 Danielle LaRock? I know people say you can't die of having too much THC, but I feel like I would die from that. I would be
5:54 Cassandra Yahnian? Or at least think that you were dying for a very long time.
6:01 Cassandra Yahnian? While they go into, for comparison, the average edible gummy in the States where weed is legal is 10 to 25 milligrams, not 1,000.
6:10 Danielle LaRock? I know, like you break it up into the squares and stuff, right?
6:13 Cassandra Yahnian? But still, like, what is there, like 16 squares in a chocolate bar?
6:18 Danielle LaRock? Is there?
6:18 Cassandra Yahnian? And then you divide 1,000, right? Like, it's like, that's a really big chocolate bar, actually, because I'm thinking like rows of four. It's like rows of two, right? So there's like eight squares in a chocolate bar.
6:29 Danielle LaRock? I don't know, I feel like you're More well versed in
6:31 Cassandra Yahnian? Chocolate.
6:31 Danielle LaRock? And chocolate bars than me, but even so.
6:35 Cassandra Yahnian? A chocolate bar.
6:36 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, but like, hmm, let's see.
6:39 Cassandra Yahnian? Let's just say there's 10 because that's easy math. That would mean there was 100 milligrams in each square.
6:44 Danielle LaRock? And being generous, even if they're 16, that's still 60, over 62 milligrams per square.
6:53 Cassandra Yahnian? I, that, yeah, I would die with 62. Never mind.
6:57 Danielle LaRock? Whatever, whatever the math comes out to, it's too much.
7:01 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah. No one should be eating a thousand milligram chocolate edible.
7:05 Danielle LaRock? That's crazy.
7:09 Cassandra Yahnian? For, so for comparison, the average edible gummy in the states where weed is legal is 10 to 25 milligrams, which makes way more sense. When I threw it out, there must have been like 800 milligrams left of the edible. The fact that there was 200 milligrams missing is also impressive. And there on the ground was the wrapper carefully unwrapped with no chocolate left in it.
7:31 Danielle LaRock? No, little raccoon hands have been involved.
7:36 Cassandra Yahnian? This raccoon's on a ride. I ran downstairs to the coffee shop to tell my boss and coworkers this funny situation, saying, quote, "There's probably a really confused raccoon out there high out of his mind, not really fully believing it." My boss looked at me with a serious face and said, "Wait, was that the same raccoon that fell off the roof of the restaurant behind us?" My boss was known for messing with people, so I immediately dismissed it, saying, "Yeah, right." He responded by saying, "No, I'm serious. They called the cops on it three times this morning because it didn't seem rabid, but they don't know what to do with it. And the cops have been joking that it's high and told people to just leave it alone."
8:17 Cassandra Yahnian? Now I'm realizing they might be right. He was taking a nap in the backyard last time I checked on him.
8:23 Danielle LaRock? This is breaking my heart. Like at first it was funny and now I feel so bad because that little raccoon just doesn't know what
8:31 Cassandra Yahnian? Is going on.
8:31 Danielle LaRock? Is happening to him.
8:32 Cassandra Yahnian? And falling off a roof is really sad.
8:34 Danielle LaRock? Three times?
8:35 Cassandra Yahnian? Three times. Yeah. Why do you go back?
8:38 Danielle LaRock? I don't know. He's high.
8:40 Cassandra Yahnian? Cause I got high.
8:43 Cassandra Yahnian? I couldn't believe it, but of course, there he was. I'm instantly flooded with guilt. This poor little guy has no idea what's going on and he's surrounded by humans checking on him while he's on this crazy ride. I've disrupted the natural order. We left him some food and water and they agreed to watch over him while I went to work. Maybe no one else will notice, I think to myself as I get ready to head into the bar. Wrong. I walk into work and the raccoon is the talk of the town, to the point where the high school kids are telling me it was the school topic of the day. My coworkers and regulars are theorizing about it. And meanwhile, I'm hiding my secret behind nods and smiles. Everyone has a suspicion that the raccoon is on some sort of substance, but no one knows how or why.
9:26 Cassandra Yahnian? I work my whole shift hearing about it and afterwards head to the local dive bar to get a drink and decompress. But I can't escape. Now the entire bar is talking about it too. I'm sitting in a group with my boys when the story reached our table via my dear friend Ham. When Ham finishes, I decide I can't take it anymore. Guys, I have to tell you something, I say. They all giggle, already starting to connect the dots. I tell them exactly what I told you prior to this moment. And the entire bar, which consists of pretty much the entire town, breaks out into laughter and cheering for the confirmation that he was indeed stoned out of his mind.
10:05 Cassandra Yahnian? They knew he was in the backyard, which was only a couple of steps away from the bar, so we all took a temporary trip to go visit him. And there he still was, shaking. My heart shattered and the people around me reassured me that he should be coming down soon. Still though, it was a super uncomfortable yet silly situation. I'll attach videos of the apartment and the raccoon so you can get a visual for the experience. From that day on, business was booming and the raccoon stayed on my porch regularly, never looking for more trash, but always keeping me company. A few months of this went by, but suddenly I noticed the raccoon had been missing for a few days. Right when I'm feeling hopeful that he went back to his home in the forest, one of my regulars at the coffee shop walks in and tells me she recently shot a raccoon. Not my little guy, it can't be.
10:50 Cassandra Yahnian? I barely finished the thought before she started. Started explaining to me how she'd seen this raccoon hanging around town, specifically my porch and was worried he was rabid. So she shot him and was going to turn him into a hat. I understand why she did it, but I felt so much genuine grief for the little dude. I also feel a lot of guilt to this day because if I had just waited until the morning to take my trash out, he probably would have continued to live a happy life in the forest. Who knows what he experienced that day? I definitely altered his brain chemistry. As much as it makes for a great story, I do want to offer a reminder that this was an accident caused by pure laziness and exhaustion. I do not by any means condone feeding wildlife, any substances, or really any food in general.
11:33 Cassandra Yahnian? Locking up your trash if you live in an area like this or are camping is crucial to your safety and the safety of the other animals. That being said, thank you for reading. I hope it keeps his memory alive. Smoke one up for the little guy, if that's your thing, while you enjoy the view, but just don't get the wildlife high. So.
11:50 Danielle LaRock? That was a lot in one.
11:52 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, I can't help but feel really bad for the raccoon, of course, because they lost their life at the end of the story. But I also do think that is a really good reminder for people about what the effects can have on feeding wildlife. And I mean, I would venture to say that this wasn't that raccoon's first trash.
12:13 Danielle LaRock? Incident.
12:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Trash incident. Uh, and probably had been hanging around the neighborhood for much longer than this particular incident. But it is a good reminder that wildlife encroaching on people can sometimes result in someone shooting it because they're uncomfortable with how close it is. So just to keep that in mind, not to feed the wildlife.
12:33 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, I don't know. I'm, I don't know what's happening with me. I'm emotional, but that really got me.
12:38 Cassandra Yahnian? No.
12:38 Danielle LaRock? No. I.
12:40 Cassandra Yahnian? Like, we really, I mean, it is sad and we like raccoons.
12:44 Danielle LaRock? Oh, their hands are so cute.
12:47 Cassandra Yahnian? You have a thing for animal hands.
12:49 Danielle LaRock? I do. I really do, especially if they're small.
12:53 Cassandra Yahnian? Okay, let's turn this around. Maybe. I don't know where this is going.
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13:34 Danielle LaRock? Okay, so my first story is titled, "A Haunted House, A Static Ghost, And A Cryptid Walk Into A Bar." Hello, Cassie and Danielle. I have been listening to your podcast for about three years now, and I am always so invested and excited in your content. I am still a pretty broke grad student, but I hope to be able to join one of your famous trips in the future. Love you guys and the energy and community you bring forth. Anyway, I love ghosts and hauntings and all things spooky. Thank you, Danielle, for sharing this love. It makes me feel less alone. However, I had yet to encounter the paranormal until a year ago. In between semesters at school, I would live with my grandfather in rural southern Michigan. His house is quite old and has always had an eerie demeanor to it.
14:15 Danielle LaRock? I personally took no issues with this as a spooky goth girl, but the energy was undeniably off. It's also worth noting that this house backs up into a pretty large forest that very commonly has families of deer leaping around. Important information for later. All right, anyways, my grandpa would often leave to go abroad as he was quite social, so I was in the home alone most of the time, which is when things would occur. The first time something strange happened, I was laying in bed doom scrolling on my phone when I had finally decided it was time to go to sleep. I went to turn off the lamp that emitted the only light source in the room and clicked it off. Maybe one or two seconds after the light turned off, I heard an incredibly loud bang and crash that shook the headboard slightly.
14:59 Danielle LaRock? I clicked the lamp back on to check for what made the noise, since it had clearly occurred in my room, and noticed the painting that was on the wall by the foot of the bed was gone. This painting had prob- Probably been on that specific wall since I was a toddler as my grandpa doesn't rearrange much. The pipes of the house were old and thus banging of the walls was common, but it had never been strong enough to knock the painting down, much less a huge one like that. I went to the foot of the bed and looked down at the painting, lying perfectly face up and aligned completely parallel to the wall. I thought it was odd, but explained it away, thinking that it was just a super strong pipe. However, a couple of days later, I ran into another odd occurrence. There were very clear footsteps coming from the floor above me.
15:44 Danielle LaRock? My grandpa was still out of town, so it wasn't him. They also sounded very clearly human, but nonetheless, I walked out into the hallway to make sure my grandpa's cocker spaniel wasn't the culprit. The dog was sleeping peacefully in his crate. Like the first victim in a horror movie, I decided to investigate and went upstairs to the second floor bathroom, which was directly above my bedroom. Whether it be me or my grandpa or something else entirely, it was not uncommon for a drawer in the bathroom to be left open. But when I walked into that bathroom, there were four drawers open all the way out. I closed them gently and went back to bed. And side note here to interject, one of the scariest scenes of any movie to me
16:26 Danielle LaRock? was in The Sixth Sense when they like pan out of the kitchen really quick and there's a big lump bang and they pan right back into the kitchen and every single drawer and cabinet is open. And it's like that for some reason, I don't know if it was when, when I watch it, like my age or what, but that has since that day, that is one of the scariest things I think could happen to me if I saw, let alone an apparition or something physically touching me. Just that particular type of thing is really frightening to me.
16:58 Cassandra Yahnian? It feels a little more menacing, I think. It doesn't feel like a nice haunting.
17:03 Danielle LaRock? It feels like a, I'm here, I'm doing this with the only purpose is to freak you out and to upset you and scare you versus I feel like an apparition or something breezing by you is just kind of a, it's like a byproduct. It's maybe not intentional. It's just, it happened. Oh, bumped into you.
17:22 Cassandra Yahnian? Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with you.
17:24 Danielle LaRock? Right.
17:25 Cassandra Yahnian? Versus this is very intentionally done to freak you out.
17:30 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, exactly. Another year passed and when I moved back in with my grandpa, I moved upstairs, AKA where the drawers were all out. There was a room up there, a study slash hallway, and of course, the bathroom. I'm an avid gamer, so I put my gaming setup in the bedroom. I would often spend late nights up gaming with my friends and talking on Discord, and I would often get a soft residual static noise in my headset. Sometimes it would get more intense and drown out the noise of whatever I was listening to, and I would try to troubleshoot the problem, but it never did go away. But it wasn't just my hearing that it was affected. People I was talking to on Discord could hear the static too, and remarked that it would sometimes overpower my voice. My friend came over to try and fix it, since he built
18:11 Danielle LaRock? my PC and knew a lot about that, and said, nothing appeared to be wrong, but the static was always there. I've lumped all these paranormal experiences together and called my little friend "the static ghost", and she had never done anything to harm me, so I thought maybe she was just lonely and wanted a friend. There were always little things off in the house, like drawers or doors being opened, but nothing huge has happened with her since. However, this is not just a haunted house story. Remember how I said the house backs up to a forest with lots of deer? One night, I had let the dogs out back to use the bathroom before I went to bed for the night, and saw the dog disappear a bit into the backyard. It was a cool summer night, so I went out and stood in the garden, both to enjoy the
18:53 Danielle LaRock? night breeze, but also to keep an eye on him. There was a whole herd of deer walking across the line between the forest and the grass. This was also common, and I didn't pay much attention to them, but suddenly, I heard a very faint but clear whisper of a woman saying "Maxine", which is not my name, but I still looked around to see where I had heard it. I thought I must be just sleepy, but it was odd how close and how clear it was. I looked for the dog and met the gaze of a handful of deer staring right at me. Deer staring at you is not uncommon, but I had never had all of them staring at me all at once, and that coupled with Maxine was a bit creepy. I called the dog and began walking back in, but he wasn't coming. I went upstairs to see if he went in through a different door and sure enough,
19:37 Danielle LaRock? he was sitting on the front porch in front of the glass door, peering in. I let him in, but he was acting so odd and whining, not barking at all like he usually does. He also never went to sleep with me, but he was now hanging around me like he was attached to me at the hip. I thought maybe something had spooked him, but he was creeping me out, so I didn't let him into the bed. But he sat outside of my door all night.
20:00 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh.
20:01 Danielle LaRock? Nothing else like that happened to me again, but it was definitely far more spooky to me than my static ghost. I love all the paranormal discussions on your podcast and I find a connection to the dead to be a beautiful thing. Every time I hear a story about loved ones sending messages from beyond the grave, especially on Trail Tales, it makes me tear up. I love the idea that those we have loved remain intertwined with us forever. Love is so real and it is the driving force behind everything. Thank you so much for your wonderful show and I can't wait to tune in for another year. Sincerely, Andy. Something's going on over there in that grandma's house.
20:35 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, there's definitely something.
20:37 Danielle LaRock? The painting thing is weird and the static, I don't know, that's hard because it's like, could be anything. Technology is so complicated. Don't even get me started with tech. I've been going through it today. But yeah, so I don't know. That's like, take it or leave it. The drawers is weird. And I don't know, just all these little tiny things combined makes you think twice.
20:57 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah. I don't know. The drawers felt pretty big to me. That was kind of the moment where it's like, oh, something's definitely up here.
21:06 Danielle LaRock? That ain't the pipes, Andy.
21:08 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah. It's like you got some ghosts there.
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22:47 Cassandra Yahnian? All right, my next story is titled, "That Time My Dad Stood Up For The Largest Tree On Earth." Hello Danielle and Cassie, my name is Mary. Like almost everyone else, I want to start by thanking you for creating such a wonderful space to hear stories about our beloved national parks in a way that feels like you're just kicking it with your gals. Y'all truly bring the nature and good vibes to my concrete jungle commute, and it's much appreciated. I have thought about writing in many times because I had amazing, nature-filled childhood with many potential Trail Tales, thanks to my outdoorsy parents, but I've always been stopped by my inability to pick a story. However, I was recently inspired by the final story in Trail Tale 65 about a hero dad,
23:29 Cassandra Yahnian? because I also have a hero dad story of my own of a completely different nature. My family visited Sequoia National Park back when I was old enough to remember a lot of what we did, but young enough that I have no idea how old I was in order to tell y'all. I'm guessing around seven. We were hiking a trail that goes to some of the more famous sequoias on A beautiful summer day, so the trails were busy with other tourists. Some of the older trees have short wooden barriers around them with signage asking you not to cross the barrier because stepping on the ancient tree shallow root system can damage them. The particular tree that we were admiring when this story takes place happened to be the largest
24:08 Cassandra Yahnian? known living tree on the planet, General Sherman, who is predicted to be at least 2,200 years old. This is cool. Danielle and I have both stood right there as well. While I was craning my neck to see General Sherman's top, I heard my dad suddenly go, "Hey," in a raised voice that I had rarely heard from him. My "hey," I don't think. Yeah, you gotta be like, "Hey, hurt." There you go. Hurt.
24:35 Cassandra Yahnian? Put your chest in it. Be like, "Hey, um." "Hey, um, excuse me."
24:43 Cassandra Yahnian? I whipped my head down to see what had to cause this uncharacteristic outburst from my typically peace-loving father and saw a family of four unceremoniously crossing the squat wooden barrier around General Sherman and walking right up to the base of it to take a family photo. There were obvious signs all around the trails explaining the importance of the barriers, so these people clearly just didn't respect the rules and my dad was not having it. He immediately started calling the parents of this family out for not respecting the trees. The dad of the family of the Torons talked back initially, saying something about how one picture wouldn't hurt, but my dad held firm that if everyone bent the rules, this beautiful tree would surely suffer.
25:26 Cassandra Yahnian? It took a few other park visitors joining in on shaming the Toron family for them to finally relinquish and cross back onto the approved trail. They did not get their precious family picture and were hopefully too ashamed by the public confrontation to try to pull that stunt again. I remember being so proud that my dad was the one to stand up to these jokers and put them in their place, but he is such a gentle soul, he actually apologized to us in our camper that night for raising his voice like that. Of course, my older brother and I both thought he was a total badass for protecting General Sherman and still talk fondly about how proud we were that day. If this makes it on the pod, I hope everyone listening remembers to enjoy the view and watch out for people we're shaming if they're not being good stewards of our national parks.
26:11 Cassandra Yahnian? Love, Mary.
26:13 Danielle LaRock? It's cool to see your loved ones like stand up for things, especially if it's added character to be like, oh, didn't know you had it in you, but that's cool.
26:22 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah, it is really cool. And, and also just such a good example to set for your kids too. Like, I'm not afraid to stand up for something that's clearly not right. And I brought my family here so they could experience this treasure. And I want other future families to be able to too. So we're not gonna, we're not gonna let that slide.
26:41 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, not on his watch, not on his watch. Okay, my second story is titled Never Hug A Cactus.
26:48 Cassandra Yahnian? Good advice.
26:49 Danielle LaRock? But right off the bat, noted.
26:51 Cassandra Yahnian? Great.
26:52 Danielle LaRock? This is a trail tale that took me years to finally find humor in. After it happened, I didn't tell a soul. I don't know if it was the sheer absurdity of the incident, or if I was too shy to admit that something horrible happened to my lady bits while in the middle of one of the largest and most remote national parks. I've been hiking in Big Bend National Park since I was a toddler. It's been one of my family's favorite parks growing up, and one I take my own family to every chance I get. I have so many spooky stories about this park due to the fact that it is so remote, and I love going into the backcountry, especially to get to even more remote areas. This story happened in one of those locations. There's an old quicksilver mine that is really fun to explore, but it
27:34 Danielle LaRock? is way off the beaten path. It's down a few of those unimproved roads that require a high clearance four-wheel drive vehicle and strong, and a strong sports bra to locate. I was out at the mine with my dad a few years back on one of those trips where it was just the two of us out exploring. To access the mine itself, there's a fairly long walk up the side of a small mountain. I was running all over the place, taking photographs to use as source material for future oil paintings. My dad was obsessed with the mine itself, so he hiked up there to explore while I stayed down by the old miners stacked stone houses to take photos. The stone houses were in ruins, but one in particular had the frame of one of its windows still intact. I was centering my shot in the camera so that the
28:16 Danielle LaRock? ridge line of the mountains could be seen through that window. So there I was, camera viewfinder up to my eye, trying Trying to line up that ridge line with this window and I just wasn't getting it right. I backed up a few steps and squatted down a bit to get the shot I wanted. Did you know that the Chihuahuan Desert has a quarter of the world's cacti species? Well, I had just become intimately acquainted with one of those species, the paddle cactus, which can grow quite large in this desert. Yep, I sat directly on a cactus trying to frame that shot. I really don't know how I was able to back up and squat directly over a cactus, but that's apparently what I did. So my lady bits came in direct contact with the top of this giant cacti.
28:59 Danielle LaRock? And let me tell you, jeans do nothing in the way of preventing cactus injuries. Those long, sharp spines shot straight through my jeans. And what was infinitely worse, those tiny hair-like needles called glocids? Glocids were embedded not only in my jeans, but my undies and my hoo-ha. I can't describe to you the pain I was in. And I didn't know what the hell to do about it. I hobbled over to the corner of the stone house and was able to locate a few of the larger spines and get them out easily, albeit painfully. But the smaller spines were embedded in my skin and caught on the fibers of my jeans. I had to take off my jeans in the corner of this half toppled over stone shack and try to get them out.
29:44 Danielle LaRock? I knew I didn't have long before my dad came down from the mine. So I got as many out as I could. The removal of my undies felt like a cross between Velcro and a human pincushion, but I was able to get them physically off. I spent probably 20 minutes down there giving myself the most thorough pelvic exam that I had had to date. But there were just too many spines to remove. And here's where the real horror story began. I couldn't see the glocids. They were there, but I couldn't physically see them because they were so small and so sharp and embedded in my skin.
30:19 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh my gosh, this is a horror story.
30:22 Danielle LaRock? I did have tweezers on me because this is my park and I come prepared for cacti, but the tweezers couldn't even find these tiny guys. There was absolutely nothing I could do about them. I was Still trying to dig them out of my jeans when I heard my dad coming back. I was now out of time. I put my jeans back on and started the long walk back to the car to meet my dad. The walk was excruciating. Sitting in the car was excruciating. I didn't say anything because what would I say? My dad isn't one of those guys you can talk freely to, so I knew I was going to be suffering in silence. Also, did I mention this was deep inside the interior of the park? On washboard roads with large rocks and washed out sections? Normally, I love a good bumpy
31:07 Danielle LaRock? road, but not in the condition I was in. It was the most painful three hours of my life.
31:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Three hours.
31:15 Danielle LaRock? Oh, she repeats it. Three, period, hours, period.
31:21 Danielle LaRock? Every bump felt like someone hit me with a spike-covered hammer. It was like getting a dozen shots every few seconds for three hours. I faked a stomach ache when asked what was up, and I just suffered through it. When we got back to our lodging, I walked to the gas station and purchased some duct tape. This was the only thing I knew that would remove those baby-fine cactus needles. The duct tape removal scene is something I will never describe in detail.
31:47 Danielle LaRock? After this incident, I make sure to have a bit of duct tape in my pack whenever I'm hiking, and I recommend that you do the same. End of story.
31:57 Cassandra Yahnian? That was the scariest story that's ever been told on Trail Tales.
32:02 Danielle LaRock? I just, it's kind of like a cactus Brazilian wax.
32:06 Cassandra Yahnian? Oh my god.
32:08 Danielle LaRock? Which, I don't know, I feel like-
32:12 Cassandra Yahnian? I feel like it's microneedling versus a wax.
32:16 Danielle LaRock? The duct tape, though, like trying to like-
32:18 Cassandra Yahnian? Right.
32:19 Danielle LaRock? Rip the, well, I guess it is, it's a cross between, it's a microneedling, how do we say this? It's a microneedling, uh, Brazilian wax, but we have to work cactus in there somehow.
32:32 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
32:33 Danielle LaRock? You know how you can get like vampire facials? It's like a cactus, microneedling.
32:37 Cassandra Yahnian? A cacti, microneedling, Brazilian wax.
32:41 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
32:41 Cassandra Yahnian? Yes. People pay big money for that, so you got it for free.
32:46 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, just think about that. Let's spin it a little bit. Yeah, but there is something like the big ones I'm sure did were painful, but like they said, like you can just rip them out.
32:59 Cassandra Yahnian? It's like a splinter. Like I just imagine like hundreds of splinters, but in one of your most sensitive areas.
33:07 Danielle LaRock? You must have really sat on it. You didn't gingerly. You just like really like, yeah.
33:13 Cassandra Yahnian? Plop down there.
33:14 Danielle LaRock? Yeah.
33:18 Danielle LaRock? Okay.
33:18 Cassandra Yahnian? Man, I feel for you. My vagina hurts for you.
33:22 Danielle LaRock? Yeah. Add it to the 10 essentials.
33:26 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
33:26 Danielle LaRock? It's the 11th.
33:27 Cassandra Yahnian? I'll never look at duct tape the same again.
33:30 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, thank you.
33:30 Cassandra Yahnian? I'll be like, I know what you're capable of.
33:32 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, you could be my savior.
33:34 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah.
33:44 Cassandra Yahnian? All right. My next story is titled The Poop Strap. Hi, my name is Micah. I'm from Akron, Ohio, and I'm 25 years old. I absolutely love your podcast and really hope this story gets shared because I think it's pretty hilarious. My family and I are huge hikers, campers and backpackers, you name it. Every year, all seven of us, the uncles and cousins, head out for a backpacking trip in both the spring and fall. It's a tradition we love, giving us a chance to step away from all the craziness of life, ditch our phones and reconnect with nature and each other. Somehow, after many trips, we've managed to stay safe. No major injuries, no disasters. That is, until our spring trip in 2024.
34:26 Cassandra Yahnian? Because of everyone's schedules, we had to go in mid-March and we decided on Spruce Knob in West Virginia. The plan was to hike from the peak down to the river and back. Simple enough, right? Well, not always the case, unfortunately. Some background, I'm a pretty creative person, sometimes a little too creative for my own good. So in the weeks leading up to the trip, I started brainstorming something I could make or bring to improve my experience. Almost immediately, my mind went to one One of the least enjoyable parts of backpacking, using the bathroom in the woods. Personally, squatting to take a deuce is not my favorite activity. There had to be a better way. After some research, I discovered that hunters will sometimes strap themselves to a tree,
35:09 Cassandra Yahnian? using gravity to create a seated position, basically mimicking the comfort of a toilet in the middle of the woods. I was sold on that idea. Now, I just had to figure out how to make it work. Not long after, I grabbed a carabiner and my hammock strap, then enlisted my wife to help test it out. She acted as the quote-unquote "tree", while I wrapped the strap around her, clipped myself in, and proudly demonstrated my genius. I expected her to be impressed. She was not. She immediately told me it was unnecessary and a terrible idea, but she also knows me well enough to understand that, no matter what she said, I was absolutely going to test it out on a real tree, once the trip rolled around. There birthed the new invention I call "the poop strap".
35:53 Cassandra Yahnian? A couple of days later, the trip finally arrived. We pulled into the top parking lot of Spruce Knob, greeted by 30 mile-per-hour wind gusts, 25-degree temperatures, and a thick layer of mist and fog. Not exactly an ideal start, but we were here, so we were committed. About three miles in, we took a break at an opening in the trees. Since we had arrived late, we decided to just set up camp and call it a day. Everyone got to work pitching tents, unpacking gear, and starting the fire, but all I could think about was my ingenious poop strap invention that I needed to test out. So while everyone else was being responsible, I grabbed my setup and wandered off to find the perfect tree. I strapped myself in, sat back, and... SUCCESS! It worked!
36:38 Cassandra Yahnian? I called out to my cousin, bragging about how my wife had told me this was a dumb idea, but here I was, proving her so wrong. I couldn't wait to rub it in when I got home. That night, the temperature dropped to 12 degrees. We woke up to our sleeping bags covered in frost, completely miserable. The ground was frozen solid, hard as a rock, and incredibly slippery. Then, nature called. While my family huddled around the fire, I trudged deep into the pines- In search of the perfect tree, after some scouting, I found it, strapped myself in and started to pull my pants down. Slip, my feet lost traction and I fell hard onto my back. Disappointed, but still laughing to myself because I knew this invention could work.
37:21 Cassandra Yahnian? I went to push myself up, only to freeze when I saw my hand. My pinky was not where it was supposed to be. A deep one inch gash cut across my hand. For a second, I thought, there's no way this is real. I only fell two feet. But the pain hit fast and I realized this was very, very real. Panicked, I yanked my pants back up and sprinted back towards camp, frantically yelling, my hand, my hand. I burst into camp panting and frantic. My family, seeing my panic, immediately assumed I had somehow managed to get poop on my hand. They laughed hard, but their faces quickly changed when they saw what had actually happened.
38:02 Cassandra Yahnian? The laughter turned into grimaces as they scrambled to pull out cotton balls and tape, patching me up as fast as they could. Meanwhile, I felt fuzzy, still trying to process what had just happened. How did I manage to injure myself this badly just trying to take crap? Once they got me somewhat patched up, we knew we had to get to a hospital ASAP for stitches. What followed was probably the fastest paced hike we had ever done, especially with my adrenaline pumping. Of course, my cousins and brothers took this as the perfect opportunity to roast me the entire way back. In an effort to lighten the mood, they started calling me a four finger freak and complaining about how inconvenient it was that I had cut the trip short.
38:43 Cassandra Yahnian? And trust me, I have never heard the end of it. Every single family gathering, the story gets brought up. Finally, we made it back to the car and happened to run into a doctor and six EMTs who had just finished their hike. They reassured me that I would be okay, re-bandaged my hand and gave me some tips to hold me over until I got to the hospital. As we started driving down the road, we were desperate to find cell service. My brother finally got a single bar of service and decided to call our mom. She picked up and he quickly reassured her, Mom, Micah fell and hurt his hand. We're headed to the ER, but he should be all right. Don't freak out. Then lost service. I later found out that my mom, instead of processing the he should be all right part, immediately called my wife and skipped straight to the worst version of events.
39:28 Cassandra Yahnian? Micah fell, it's bad, he's going to the ER.
39:32 Danielle LaRock? Classic form of telephone.
39:35 Cassandra Yahnian? Yep. My wife instantly went into full panic mode, assuming I had fallen off a cliff or suffered some horrific injury. Meanwhile, we finally arrived at the ER where the wonderful staff at Davis Medical Center in Elkins, West Virginia, got me in and out quickly. They gave me eight stitches and sent me on my way. Once I had a moment, I called my wife to let her know I wasn't dying, just that I had severely injured myself while trying to poop in the woods. Once the initial panic wore off, we both had a good laugh and we were relieved. But the story doesn't quite end there. Turns out, I had actually severed a nerve in my hand and had to get surgery to fix it. That was a doozy. Now, I'm fully healed, all five fingers intact, and with a fantastic story to tell. These days, when
40:20 Cassandra Yahnian? I go backpacking, I stick to squatting and making sure to pack a much more robust first aid kit. Oh, and as for what actually sliced my hand, no idea, but whatever it was, it was sharp. Thank you for your wonderful stories. Keep up the good work on your podcast.
40:36 Danielle LaRock? This is just an example of making things more complicated than they need to be.
40:42 Danielle LaRock? Do we need, unless you have some sort of physical limitation, I don't think you need
40:48 Cassandra Yahnian? A poop strap.
40:49 Danielle LaRock? Something to like have you hover in the air, like you have, clearly Micah has legs that would hold him up to poop, you know?
40:58 Cassandra Yahnian? I don't know. I kind of like the idea. I was picturing you're on like a steep hill that's going down and you want to like, you don't want to hold on to a tree.
41:08 Danielle LaRock? Okay.
41:08 Cassandra Yahnian? Strap yourself in.
41:10 Danielle LaRock? Why would you be putting yourself, like find another place that's less precarious?
41:14 Cassandra Yahnian? Because then you, then it just rolls down the hill.
41:17 Danielle LaRock? But then you're not burying, you should be burying it.
41:19 Cassandra Yahnian? That's true. You should be burying it.
41:21 Danielle LaRock? Like, I don't know, I just feel like, this gives me similar thoughts as to, if we're in the poop world here, as whenever you see, you know, like magazines and like reading materials in bathrooms and stuff, I'm like, who is in there that long? You get in, you get out. Why are we on the toilet for that long? And I know people that spend so much time on the toilet and I'm just like, what? What's going on in there?
41:46 Cassandra Yahnian? Every man I've ever met is on the toilet for, those magazines are for men. Because they have thirty minute poop routines.
41:54 Danielle LaRock? Which is far too long.
41:57 Cassandra Yahnian? Far too long.
41:57 Danielle LaRock? It's medically concerning.
41:58 Cassandra Yahnian? It's universal too. It's like, it doesn't matter. I don't know why. I don't know what's happening, but it doesn't matter. All men, maybe not all men, but most men.
42:07 Danielle LaRock? In our experience.
42:09 Cassandra Yahnian? In our experience, take thirty minute shits.
42:12 Danielle LaRock? Yeah, I'm sure there's other goings on in there, but.
42:16 Cassandra Yahnian? I hope so, because otherwise I'm concerned about all of your bowel movements and your intestines.
42:22 Danielle LaRock? For sure. Genuinely.
42:24 Cassandra Yahnian? Genuinely, like you should see a doctor if it actually takes thirty minutes.
42:28 Danielle LaRock? Daily.
42:39 Danielle LaRock? Okay, my last story has nothing to do with poop and it is titled, Less of a Trail Tale, More of a Thank You. I'm writing to you amidst the turmoil of the last few weeks that have felt like years, brought upon us by the new administration as a civil servant working in public lands. This isn't a trail tale, more of my story just to let you know the impact you have had on your fans and listeners. I hope you read it someday because you guys truly did save my life. And it sounds dramatic, it is dramatic, but who doesn't love a little drama when it's positive? Today you posted about the National Park Service being gutted and I have friends who have been fired from there. I am waiting for our turn to be slashed and every day for the last month, I have been dreading going to work
43:21 Danielle LaRock? and seeing if I or my coworkers have been fired. Anyway, on to my story. I finished college with a degree that I wanted, despite COVID entering the scene and kicking me out of my junior year spring break in Canada, focused in a field I believe to be important. I had a stable job that was in the field I had dreamed of working in, remediating the human mistakes of the past when we didn't know better, or when we did know better, but profits and margins drove us to take shortcuts and harm our environment. I had friends and family who loved me and whom I loved, but I had been suffering from severe anxiety and. Depression for years and it was all coming to a head during this period in late two thousand and twenty one and early two thousand twenty two.
44:01 Danielle LaRock? I was feeling like there was no escape, no way out, that this isn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Why would I want to stay here if this is all there is for me? Seeing the carelessness that we have brought upon ourselves and our environment in this job made me feel worse and feel like it was impossible to fix. My small contribution would not be enough to fix the problems that we as Americans face in the current find out phase after our mid eighteen hundreds to late nineteen nineties fuck around industrialization phase. I found your podcast while working as an environmental engineering consultant. I was working on a demolition and stabilization in my home state. It was a terrible site, full of contamination from over seventy years of dumping.
44:45 Danielle LaRock? And I was there six days a week doing air quality monitoring for the demolition as the site sat right in the middle of a residential neighborhood. This project went on for several months and on my hourly walkarounds to monitor conditions on and off site, I would listen to your show, dreaming of the faraway places that you were discussing, even if they were within tragic stories. I grew up hiking, swimming in lakes. Few people had pools because why would you have a pool when there are ten lakes in your own hometown? Maintaining our family flower garden and fishing. So my love of the outdoors was always there, but in college and following as my depression worsened, I didn't want to do any of those things anymore. But listening to your podcast while at this job really introduced me to what public lands are
45:29 Danielle LaRock? and what we have available to us in this country. And for the very first time in at least three years, it gave me hope that I could change my circumstances and find happiness somewhere, somehow. I spent another few months at this job before randomly seeing a posting for a federal job on the other side of the country, probably as far away from home as I could get without crossing an ocean. I wasn't looking for a new job. It just showed up on an alert that I had set up when I was applying to jobs during my senior year of college. It was to a state I had never visited, never even been close to, and it sounded incredible. I applied on a whim. Didn't tell anyone and waited. If you have ever applied for a federal job, especially as a civilian
46:10 Danielle LaRock? or non-civil servant, the process takes forever. For a few months, the only update I got was "application reviewed." Then suddenly, everything happened all at once and very quickly. I scored an interview and had to tell my mom about the job. I was living at home at the time because I needed her to stay out of my room while I was in the interview. She was like, "What are you talking about? A new job in Alaska?" I said it was just an interview. I may not get the job and don't worry. Well, the interview went great and about a week later, they offered me the position and I took it, no question. I told the rest of my family and they were upset. No one was happy for me, which hurt, but I understood it was a shock for them and they would
46:51 Danielle LaRock? miss me. Eventually, some of them came around. They still thought I was crazy and they had their doubts, telling me that it wouldn't work out and that it was a big mistake, but I was gonna go. My mom quickly supported me after I told them I was going because she realized that no matter what they said, I was leaving. I was taking that job. My dad didn't come around until I was literally at the airport about to leave. And even then, he was just trying to not ruin our our relationship. I don't think he really came around until I was there for five months and they first came to visit. Now I have been in this position for coming on two years. It has been the most rewarding and important work I have ever done. I have visited some of the coolest
47:32 Danielle LaRock? places I could have ever imagined. I am so happy with my position and the environmental cleanup projects I get to organize and complete. Removing garbage and hazardous waste from remote areas of Alaska is a different type of fun than most people would think of, but I love it and I am very passionate about it. And I am also so scared. These last few weeks have been demoralizing beyond belief. I have watched friends lose their jobs that are so important to the people they impact. We are always understaffed and underfunded. Congress doesn't pass a budget until the end of the second quarter of the fiscal year or halfway through the third quarter. In Alaska, the field season is a short three months for those of us that need to be able to see the ground in order to do our jobs. It's so frustrating.
48:14 Danielle LaRock? Straining to see people complaining about over staffing, bloated budgets, and teleworking of all things when they have absolutely no idea what we do on a daily basis. Every coworker I have is a scientist. Every single one of us could make significantly more money in the private sector than we do as civil servants. We absolutely do not work for the pay and anyone that suggests that we do should be laughed out of the room. We do the work we do because we love it. We love public lands. We love our multiple use mission and most importantly, Americans deserve lands to recreate on, to mine for gold on, to hunt on, to camp on, lands that aren't owned by some mega corporation. The work we do is objective. My personal feelings on land use does not matter.
48:58 Danielle LaRock? My job is to analyze the land use and make a decision based on laws and regulations. And that is what we do every day. The people that others are complaining about, who telework every day while offices sit empty, that are lazy, that are paid by outside groups, all unfounded claims are not the people being fired. The people being fired are my friends and coworkers who have dedicated their lives to serving the American public. The people being fired have uprooted their entire lives from their homes to move to areas needing staff and help and will now be stuck somewhere without income. The people being fired are not greedy. In fact, they are the opposite. They have given up higher paying jobs to serve the public. They have given up the luxuries associated with living in any populated areas.
49:41 Danielle LaRock? They are some of the most selfless and kind people you will ever hope to encounter. And from hearing your personal stories over the years, you have met these people and you understand what I am saying and it is heartbreaking. We are headed down a dark and scary path. I'm not sure I see a way out that doesn't involve destruction of lives and the environment, but the small things I look forward to are your podcast, cross-country skiing, and my little chinchilla who's keeping me here on this earth right now. He eats his hay like corn on the cob and I get teary eyed every time because it is just so damn cute. Thank you both for changing my life for the better. You have no idea what you have done for me in sharing your lives and stories with your listeners. I hope you are both doing well and staying sane. Please keep going and.
50:24 Danielle LaRock? Doing what you need to do for yourselves. And if you ever find yourselves in Fairbanks, Alaska, please reach out. Thank you again so much for everything you have given us anonymous.
50:34 Cassandra Yahnian? Wow. I, I mean, I love the sentiment of that entire story. And I think that they're totally warranted right that it is a scary time and it's really nice to hear from someone who sees it firsthand. Um, I think it's hard just seeing news stories and it feels so removed when you're just reading this stuff online, but to hear it from someone who is affected and knows deeply what is actually going on is so important. So I really appreciate you writing in and, and all the love that you've given for our podcast because it means, it means a lot to us.
51:10 Danielle LaRock? Yeah. And I very much enjoyed the inclusion of highlighting that it's not always like a dream through and through for people who are working there from, you know, making difficult decisions for, to uproot their own lives, to disrupt their family relationships and dynamics, um, to take significant pay cuts, to work in really difficult places, doing work that's not only physically taxing, but also emotionally taxing. There are so many factors that go into, it's not always like, I get to work outside, outside and it's perfect. Like there's a lot of things that go into this and all of these different positions. And, um, so taking that into account as well, it gives it a rounder scope, I think. And it's important to keep in
51:55 Danielle LaRock? mind. So thank you for writing in and thank you for the love.
51:58 Cassandra Yahnian? Yeah. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in, uh, to this Trail Tales episode. If you would like to write in to us, you can find a submission link on our website, npadpodcast.com. Uh, we're not done with the episode because we each have an extra story that is for our subscribers, which you can subscribe on, on Apple or Patreon. And yeah, so, uh, my story is titled, I think I got haunted in Japan.
52:24 Danielle LaRock? And mine is titled, the sign I needed today.
52:26 Cassandra Yahnian? Amazing. So thank you everyone for tuning in. If you're interested in these other stories, you can find it on Apple or Patreon. But in the meantime, we'll see you next time. Enjoy the view,
52:35 Danielle LaRock? but watch your back.
52:36 Cassandra Yahnian? Bye, everyone.
52:37 Danielle LaRock? See ya. 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.
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Previous Introducing: WATCH HER COOK Next The Conservation President and the Adventure That Almost Killed Him (Part 2) Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated