I pitched my tent that night, filtered water, and started setting up my cook gear in the dark. I was tired and it seemed without having someone to push me along my hiking was considerably slower. I made it about 5 miles during the day, but it took me the entire afternoon until dark. Well after daybreak I got out of my tent and drug my feet to pack my belongings, it was much later then I had aimed for the night before. I tossed and turned, listening to the silent night until late morning when I finally rested my eyes. I was unusually exhausted which now seems as a surprise for the little of sleep I got that night. The first night I managed to set up camp, make dinner, and immediately retire to my tent. I was almost anxious to begin with but told myself I had to just get used to this new aspect of backpacking that I wasn’t accustomed to. I could hear my own breathing and every now and then I would look over my shoulder quickly in response to random noises. I couldn’t shake how incredibly silent it was. But when I dropped my car at the trailhead in Catawba (about 15 miles from New Castle) and started hiking I noticed the different atmosphere backpacking alone provides. It had been years since I last backpacked by alone and for some reason I had convinced myself I once enjoyed it.
On the account that I was so ready for a vacation, and no one else’s schedule matched up for an adventure week, I decided to go at it solo and backpack alone for a week. I was getting a little restless and knew that I had to blow off some stress for a bit and explore the great outdoors. I had a random week off of work, and keeping a busy schedule I felt it was a rarity. It’s taken some time for me to even process the events in my own head, but just of lately I’ve been able to think about this weird thing that happened to me on trail sometime late August or Early September. But remember as you re-tell it with your own twists, the devil is in the details: So take some time, think of your own Appalachian horror story, and in the mean time you can borrow mine a true account of my encounter with an Appalachian Trail Ghost. To not have a good ghost story ready at hand in these situations is like forgetting to bring the graham crackers. With everyone crammed close to the burning logs, hot drinks and wide-eyed, it’s the time of year for ghost stories. It’s that time of year, where the night presides earlier and earlier and the bonfires become essential. Photo courtesy of Molly at Wilderness Adventure
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