The North Slope - Often you don’t know what you are walking into or dealing with or really how best you can help. Sometimes, things can escalate quickly, get out of hand, become violent. Sometimes, being a good samaritan can be dangerous, even deadly...Stalked in Salt Fork - They leave them there to be found, not to share a place with some unknown fellow wanderer, but as a warning. As a sign letting you know they are there, in the woods, somewhere. Following, likely unseen and unheard, and they are watching.
I’m your host Cull and this is Backwoods Creepy - Strange Encounters in the Forest.
The good samaritan is disappearing. Today you’d be as likely to see people filming a person in crises or an accident unfolding on their phones rather than giving aid. The urge to help a stranger in need, to give a helping hand, still exists but there are likes to be had on social media and there can be some very real consequences for the person helping. Often you don’t know what you are walking into or dealing with or really how best you can help. Sometimes, things can escalate quickly, get out of hand, become violent. Sometimes, being a good samaritan can be dangerous, even deadly.
Our first tale today is called The North Slope
Stacks of rocks. Elf houses. Initials in a heart carved on a tree. A geo-cache buried in a hillside just off the main trail. People leave all sorts of things in the woods, often with the intention and hope that one day someone will find it and have a moment of shared experience. A connection with a stranger, running through time in the same place. But, some people leave things in the woods for wholly unwholesome reasons. They leave them there to be found, not to share a place with some unknown fellow wanderer, but as a warning. As a sign letting you know they are there, in the woods, somewhere. Following, likely unseen and unheard, and they are watching.
Our second tale today is called Stalked in Salt Fork
Alright folks, thanks for listening to Backwoods Creepy - Strange Encounters in the Forest. The first story is from Clyde2003 and the second was courtesy of Queasy-Comfort-8559.
Send me your story to backwoodscreepypod@gmail.com. Ideally your story truly happened to you and is 1000 words at least. You can also dm or message me on Twitter/Instagram/TikTok @backwoodscreepy.
https://linktr.ee/backwoodscreepypod
As always, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and spread the word! To support the show and help keep the content rolling go to Patreon and search Backwoods Creepy. As a Patron you’ll get episodes early, special Patrons only content, and more. patreon.com/user?u=90835879
Music and SFX - A Hand In The Dark by Underbelly and Ty Mayer courtesy of YouTube Free Studio Library
Thanks for listening and remember to take only pictures, leave only footprints, and always trust your gut!
I’m your host Cull and this is Backwoods Creepy
Musical Interlude
Intro
The good samaritan is disappearing. Today you’d be as likely to see people filming a person in crises or an accident unfolding on their phones rather than giving aid. The urge to help a stranger in need, to give a helping hand, still exists but there are likes to be had on social media and there can be some very real consequences for the person helping. Often you don’t know what you are walking into or dealing with or really how best you can help. Sometimes, things can escalate quickly, get out of hand, become violent. Sometimes, being a good samaritan can be dangerous, even deadly.
Our first tale is called The North Slope.
I used to work on the North Slope of Alaska in the oil industry. The work we were doing required us to travel far out into the Alaska Petroleum Reserve which is basically just untamed tundra, wilderness for hundreds of miles. The oil companies would build these long ice roads in the winter that would lead to exploration drilling pads. Our job was to go out after they finished the initial drilling and test rock formations for their oil producing qualities.
It was mid January, the sun hadn't quite come up yet. And when I say the sun hadn't come up I mean in almost a month and a half, polar nights are intense. The particular wellsite we were traveling to was about 60 miles west of Alpine, Alaska. Deep in the wilderness.
Our job took a week but we finished and were headed back to camp to finish our hitch and go home. At the beginning and end of the ice roads are guard shacks that you have to check in and out of for safety (no cell reception and radios work only up to a distance). If you don't check in or out in a set time they come looking for you to ensure you're not a popsicle.
It was about four in the morning, not that it mattered in the land of endless night, and we were halfway across the ice road. Travel was slow as the speed limit on the roads is only 25 mph.
Something appeared on the road in our headlights.
It was a man. In jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie jacket. Walking down an ice road in the wilderness tundra at 4am and it was -20 degrees outside.
It's not unusual for the local Inuit people to be out this far hunting. Maybe his snowmobile broke down and he's trying to get back to the guard shack? Seemed plausible.
He didn't acknowledge us as our trucks rolled up next to him. He just kept shuffling forward. He didn't seem cold, his clothing, while totally not appropriate for this extreme weather, appeared warm and dry. We also noticed he wasn't Inuit, but Caucasian. I rolled down my window and asked if he needed any help and if he was ok. He still didn't acknowledge us, just kept shuffling forward. His face was completely blank, devoid of any thought or emotions. The other guys in my truck suggested that maybe he was in an accident and in shock.
I continued rolling my truck alongside him as he trudged down the road still trying to get his attention.
Even in this extreme cold I could occasionally get whiffs of a peculiar smell coming off him. He smelled... acidic? If that makes sense? There was just a lot about this guy that made the hair on my neck stand up. The guy behind me in the truck's crew cab had had enough of all this. He rolled down his window and reached out to grab the guy.
He later said he was just going to try and shake him out of his stupor.
Before my buddy's hand could reach him though this walking popsicle spun around and latched on to my buddy's outstretched arm. He glared at my buddy and then at me with this look of pure rage. If emotions had a physical temperature this guy could have melted the entire tundra that night.
My buddy groaned in pain as he tried to get his arm free from Mr. Popcicle. At that moment this guy starts screaming in our faces. There was so much hate and rage and anger in that scream. It was absolutely terrifying. I slammed on the gas and spun out on the ice for a second before the wheels caught and launched us forward.
Popcicle dude still had a hold of my buddy's arm and was trying to pull him out of the truck. He was running alongside the truck while the other guys in the cab held onto my buddy to keep him inside. After several moments (if could only have been a few seconds at most) my buddy tore free from this guy and we hauled ass to the guard shack another 30 miles down the road.
We checked in with the guards and reported what we had just seen. The guard was looking at us like we were pulling a prank, but policy said they had to check it out regardless.
My buddy's arm was sore and when he pulled back his sleeve there were noticeable bruises in the shape of a hand around his arm. We filed a report with the guard and we're told to head back to our camp. None of us really wanted to talk about what happened and it was a quiet drive the rest of the way. We flew home the next day.
The next time we saw the guard at this shack we asked him if they ever saw Mr. Popcicle on his patrols. He told us they searched up and down that ice road for a solid 12 hour shift and saw nothing. Not even tracks in the snow leading off the road. He told us it was a good prank and that he'd get us back for making him waste a shift driving around.
But it wasn't a prank. Who would make up a story like that? And who would willingly bruise their arm for a dumb prank? We never got a satisfying answer to what happened that evening. I still wonder about that dude... if he even was "a dude". The Alaskan tundra is a weird place and that was just one of my many weird stories from my time up there. I'll work to write down more of my experiences and share them to the appropriate subs.
Musical Interlude
Intro 2
Stacks of rocks. Elf houses. Initials in a heart carved on a tree. A geo-cache buried in a hillside just off the main trail. People leave all sorts of things in the woods, often with the intention and hope that one day someone will find it and have a moment of shared experience. A connection with a stranger, running through time in the same place. But, some people leave things in the woods for wholly unwholesome reasons. They leave them there to be found, not to share a place with some unknown fellow wanderer, but as a warning. As a sign letting you know they are there, in the woods, somewhere. Following, likely unseen and unheard, and they are watching.
Our second tale is called Stalked in Salt Fork.
I work as a child care professional and one of the kids that I look after recently got into hiking. I decided to take him to a really cool trail in Salt Fork State Park. We were all set to hike to Hosak’s Cave after parking right near the beginning of the trail head.
The entire trail is about a half of a mile, which is why I chose this trail for our hike that day. I also chose this trail because everytime that I’d been on it before, it was very busy and full of people and a very popular spot, which made me feel secure.
However, this past summer we had a cluster of severe summer storms which caused massive damage to the trail. So, to my surprise, it was much more difficult and completely empty.
I wasn’t bothered by the trail being obviously empty because there was a small construction crew working on a bridge that was just barely visible from the trail head.
He was still up for the hike, despite the entire width of the trail being washed out until it was no more than a foot wide with a 6 to 12 foot drop off into a creek bed that is solid rock and several trees down. He’s very athletic and I was confident in his abilities if he was and he was so excited to tackle our adventure.
We made it all the way to a platform that allows you to see the entire cave. There were many down trees surrounding the platform and it was actually closed at this point but we had made it this far so we decided to maneuver around the platform and proceeded a few hundred feet into the cave. We spent the most time in this area due to the difficulty, so I know exactly what it looked like. There were tree roots directly under the platform and you could climb down either side of them.
It’s also worth noting that Hosak’s Cave is much more like a cliff with an overhanging rock formation and a trickle of a waterfall directly in the middle, it’s not a creepy closed up cave. It is very open and beautiful.
We got to the cave and I noticed a candle that wasn’t burning, but had been at some point, sitting on a large rock that had a heart carved into it. I chalked it up to someone having a date or something and disregarded it. He wanted to climb to the top, where I noticed two more candles and three stacks of small rocks that had been placed up there by somebody.
I definitely felt weird at this point but it was about this time that he found a small puddle full of baby salamanders and wanted to catch them. It was the happiest that I had seen him in a very long time and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was time to go. We spent about an hour catching baby salamanders and I watched him have the time of his life.
We finally decided to leave and when we got to the platform, dead center in the middle of the tree roots was a wet washcloth hanging that was absolutely not there before.
He noticed it as well but did not pick up on the severity of the situation that we were in.
At that moment I factually knew two things. One: someone was watching us and we didn’t see them And two: they were now potentially hiding in the woods and had made it a point to not be seen but to leave an object to be noticed by us.
There was no running back with the narrow trail and I was not about to tell him that we were in potential danger. I told him to go in front of me and I just kept encouraging him that he was doing great over and over and that seemed to speed him up naturally.
I never saw anyone while we were on the trail. We got to the car and I locked the doors immediately. On our way out of the park a very dirty man probably in his 30’s came out of the woods and made it a point to stare at me with the most empty expression that I have ever seen. The man followed me with his eyes as I drove by him and continued to stare at me until I couldn’t see him anymore. I knew the third fact at that point: he had made it a point to make himself apparent to me and that facts one and two were true.
That stare stuck with me for days, and I considered counseling after this as it bothered me for several weeks causing me severe anxiety. I try to tell myself that maybe we just interrupted his bath time and he was camping and didn’t want to startle us. After all, the crazy looking man had ample time to do anything that he wanted while we were catching salamanders.
I just can not in any way rationalize why he stared into my eyes the way that he did if he wanted to go unnoticed. Deep down I know that it is much more likely that it was a deliberate action intended to scare me.
The kid I watch never had any idea how panicked I was and to this day, and it’s the most fun that I have ever seen him have. He brings it up regularly and it was a very positive experience for him.
But, it was one of my worst experiences ever, and it made me feel so sick and disturbed.
Alright folks, thanks for listening to Backwoods Creepy - Strange Encounters in the Forest. The first story is from clyde2003 and the second was courtesy of QueasyComfort8559. Send me your story to backwoodscreepypod@gmail.com. Ideally your story truly happened to you and is 1000 words at least. You can also dm or message me on Twitter and Instagram @backwoodscreepy.
As always, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and spread the word! To support the show and help keep the content rolling go to Patreon and search Backwoods Creepy. As a Patron you’ll get episodes early, special Patrons only content, and more.