Who's out there?

[wiiawiwb]

Have any of you hiked in the Adirondacks, especially alone on less traveled routes, and had that uneasy feeling on the trail that you weren't alone even though you looked around and couldn't see anything?

Just a feeling, or sense, that something was shadowing you while you hiked. Maybe the snap of a twig, the rustling of leaves or something that sounded like a footstep. Perhaps, all of a sudden, it got very, very quiet.

That has happened to me before. A few times the hair would stand up on the back of my neck. I would stop, listen carefully and I could almost sense something out there.

Buck Mtn. has been one such location even though it is a very heavily traveled trail. The times when this has happened has been at day's end or on a week day when one other car might be in the Pilot Knob parking lot.

I was wondering if others have had that same sense.

[Tuchov]

Well, maybe not the least traveled route... just the opposite in fact.
One time, coming down from Marcy at 3am, I coulda sworn I was being chased by a giant chinese fortune cookie.

Coming back from Saddleback one time last spring/summer, the creek rose a foot during the day (damn snowmelt) and I had to make my own trail on my side of the creek. I actually heard ****, thought I was being followed by something.... turn out it was a deer. I got him on film, the flash scared it away.... that or the beep of the camera.

[redhawk]

I get that at times when I'm alone. It's the spirits of the ancestors, the one's who were here before us. It's one of the reasons I go to the woods.

Stop and Listen and we might hear what they are trying to tell us.

Hawk

[Seeker]

yes, i've felt it, good and bad (thought not in the adirondacks).

when it's a 'bad' feeling, i leave the area. other times, it's just a sense of presence. it's never happened to me on just a one-day trip. but i think that after a couple days out, your senses (all 5 and then some) return and you become more what you were designed to be, and pick up on things like that. pretty cool, actually.

redhawk-never thought of it your way, as i'm 'first generation'... but i'll listen next time, and see what happens. thanks.

[sky]

all the dang time, actually. it's always more noticeable when you're "alone" (as in physically) because you have less around you to.....distract you. it's always there whether you realize it or not.

i've wandered alone in the woods since i was a kid. but i've never really been "alone" even if i'm the only human on the trail. it's why the woods is a good place to go think, and yet another reason on the list of "why hiking is better than therapy".

my $0.02.

[redhawk]

i've wandered alone in the woods since i was a kid. but i've never really been "alone" even if i'm the only human on the trail. it's why the woods is a good place to go think, and yet another reason on the list of "why hiking is better than therapy".

Hiking is the oldest form of therapy. But if therapists let the secret out, then they wouldn't have jobs........

[sky]

Hiking is the oldest form of therapy. But if therapists let the secret out, then they wouldn't have jobs........

Therapists still have those who ignore the holistic therapy that nature gives us to prey on.

[Justin]

Have any of you hiked in the Adirondacks, especially alone on less traveled routes, and had that uneasy feeling on the trail that you weren't alone even though you looked around and couldn't see anything?

Just a feeling, or sense, that something was shadowing you while you hiked. Maybe the snap of a twig, the rustling of leaves or something that sounded like a footstep. Perhaps, all of a sudden, it got very, very quiet.

That has happened to me before. A few times the hair would stand up on the back of my neck. I would stop, listen carefully and I could almost sense something out there.

Buck Mtn. has been one such location even though it is a very heavily traveled trail. The times when this has happened has been at day's end or on a week day when one other car might be in the Pilot Knob parking lot.

I was wondering if others have had that same sense.

I've never been up Buck Mt, but I have explored the area.
I also think I know the feeling that you mean.
I don't know when it started, but I get it a lot. Not only in the Adirondacks, but when ever I'm alone. I always feel like there's someone watching.
When it happens in the Adirondacks, I always like to believe that it could be the great spirits of the wilderness, or even a form of the big guy up stairs.
I, like Hawk, and others I'm sure, always hope to achieve that feeling.
You know it, when you've got it.
I prefer to hike in places that I'm sure no one else is around, and a lot of times I even find myself praying. I don't think that it's that out of the ordinary.
I believe that I've been closer to finding faith while in the wilderness, than in church.
I have a good idea of what I would want heaven to be like.

[Treehugger420]

I think I know what your talking about. for me I think its my mind playing tricks on me

[Lute Hawkins]

Ditto what Justin said.

I've always said that if I wind up bound to the earth after death, I'd pick the 'Dacks to "haunt". (But don't worry, I won't go around scaring anybody, except people who destroy other people's campsite twig furniture.)

[Justin]

Ditto what Justin said.

I've always said that if I wind up bound to the earth after death, I'd pick the 'Dacks to "haunt". (But don't worry, I won't go around scaring anybody, except people who destroy other people's campsite twig furniture.)

French Louie told me a few things about certain people I don't care to repeat

---

I love it! ... more ghosts stories please!!!

[backwoodsman]

Have any of you hiked in the Adirondacks, especially alone on less traveled routes, and had that uneasy feeling on the trail that you weren't alone even though you looked around and couldn't see anything?

Just a feeling, or sense, that something was shadowing you while you hiked. Maybe the snap of a twig, the rustling of leaves or something that sounded like a footstep. Perhaps, all of a sudden, it got very, very quiet.

That has happened to me before. A few times the hair would stand up on the back of my neck. I would stop, listen carefully and I could almost sense something out there.

Buck Mtn. has been one such location even though it is a very heavily traveled trail. The times when this has happened has been at day's end or on a week day when one other car might be in the Pilot Knob parking lot.

I was wondering if others have had that same sense.

I really shouldn't have read this,I think I'll go sharpen my Bowie knife now.

[qam1]

Yes, Belfry mountain is most certainly haunted. I've climbed it dozens of times and whenever I am alone on the summit I always hear people talking in the woods. I always expect people to arrive at any moment but they never do.

Pretty freaky.

But the one time I was most freaked out was on the Dix trail Route 73. I was only going to Round Pond and after I left the register, I kept on hearing children laughing & playing in the woods. There are no houses anywhere near there and it was winter and like below 0° so no kids would be out anyhow and I was blazing the trail. When I went back in summer and right as the trail turns away from the road if you keep going straight and search around a bit, there is actually an old foundation of a small house there. So who knows, maybe I heard the past occupants.

[dmartenvt]

There's a place where I hike, and many times, on the exact same part of the trail, I swear there is someone right behind me. I even "hear" something behind me. I get a creepy feeling. I keep wondering if it's the acoustics of the place, but honestly there's no structure or weird dips around that should make the acoustics any different than anywhere else on the trail.

I also heard chanting and drums one night in my back woods, very distinctly. It was otherworldly. I investigated up and down the road and in the back, but did not venture too far into the dark woods. I couldn't find anything or anyone chanting, but we all heard it. The two (big, tough) guys I was with were too damn scared to go out with me, and one was a City cop. All they would say is, emm, I wouldn't recommend going out there....

[southernadkhiker]

it's why the woods is a good place to go think, and yet another reason on the list of "why hiking is better than therapy".

So true.

I went through some of the toughest time's of my life during the previous 3-4 years and I can honestly say the most theraputic, and healthiest way to help myself, was to walk with my dogs behind my house. Taking a walk on that snowmobile trail was so important to my daily 'dose' of living, and I miss it very much now that I've been away at college.

The one good thing about it is that I and both of them (dogs) appreciate the walks more when I come home on break.

Sorry to straw away from the thread at hand...