The Hoh Rain Forest nosleep

It was the mid 90's and June had just end. It was also the summer between my Sophomore and Junior year of high school and I was feeling like I was really starting to become a young man, full of bravery and vigor not like the boy who still had the bad tasted of being told "he wasn't big enough to be on the basketball team" a few months earlier. I was looking to prove my new found masculinity and to do that I planned to explore and conquer the unknown that was my back yard. Now my back yard wasn't a normal back yard, I grew up in a small town on the Washington peninsula. The town and my house are nestled right against the old and wild Olympic National Forest and the Hoh rain forest, this was the area I planned on exploring. I had lots of experience with the local trails and wooded area near my home, but now as a young man with fantasies of being a fearless explorer like Lewis and Clark or Juan Ponce de Leon, I wanted to prove I wasn't as meek as people predicted. I planned on exploring deeper than I had ever gone and even planned to spend the night by myself out in the forest. The Olympic National Park and the Hoh rain forest fascinated me with its old and untamed wilderness that is cover with moss, ferns and dominated by giant Spruce, Hemlock and Douglas Fir Trees. As a child I pretended it was the Star Wars moon of Endor and that I had joined up with Luke Skywalker and Han Solo to fight the Empire. The rumor at school was that Star Wars IV was filmed in that forest, it wasn't, but looked near identical to us kids. The other popular rumor about the forest was that old Mountain Men still lived deep in the forest and lived off the land. This is were i got the idea to spend the summer in the forest, if old mountain men could do it, so could I. So the morning after the Fourth of July, I set off with my backpack, Rugar 10/22 and my black lab Bailey, for a one night stay in the Hoh. I planned to hike from early morning to about 3pm then find a place to camp for the night and then head back the next day. Day one was flawless, a sun drenched day that contained nothing but exploring and working my way up the foothills. I stopped at a known small lake, letting Bailey off her leash and i took a quick dip and threw a stick in the water for her to fetch. After the swim we hiked up the foothills of the Olympic Mountains and I began to enter territory I knew little or nothing about. This excited me but also made me nervous, people had gone into the forest and never returned, presumed lost and dead, mauled by a Cougar or fallen of a cliff. So to calm the nerves of myself and my mother, I also carried green logger ribbon with my initials on it to mark my way back, much like Hansel and Gretel did with their break crumbs. I started the ribbon trail at the lake Bailey and I had stopped and swam at, if I could get back there I knew the rest of the way home by heart. I tied my first ribbon in a tree that stood on a small bluff above the lake and set off again. Our wonderful morning spilled into a beautiful afternoon as we explored, hiked, played and travelled deeper into the forest as I looked for a good spot to spend the night. High in the foothills we found a spot that I deemed perfect, a mossy flat patch of the forest surrounded by ferns and cedar trees, but I could still look up and see blue sky in the opening of the forest canopy. We set up camp there and began to prepare for the night. Bailey sniffed around and explored as I set up the tent and dug a fire pit and collected firewood. As I was putting the finish touches on the fire pit I noticed that Bailey was silent, no sniffing noise, no rustling of fern that came when she walked threw one, no bark, just complete silence. I called for her and nothing, still silence. I did so again this time in a tone that showed her I wasn't kidding and that she needed to come back to me now, but still silence. Again I yelled in a level that meant business and with this yell I begin to hear rustling from back down the hill in which we had come from. She was on her way, so my voice returned to its normal tone, and I called for her one more time and went back to finishing the fire pit. She approached me from behind and as I swiveled to meet her. I instantly noticed her harness was gone. Where did her harness go, How did she get it off? I was stumped and chalked it up to it being hot and that it was uncomfortable on her and that she had decided to squeeze out of it, maybe she got caught on something and squeezed out of it when I had been yelling for her, she has backed out of her harness before. So when I finished the fire pit, we walked back down the hill to find the harness, hoping she would lead me to it. I felt bad for leaving it on for so long, she didn't need it up in the forest and it had probably been rubbing on her and making the heat worse. My sorrow quickly changed to angry though, where was the harness? She led me to a small clearing that was spotted with stinky skunk cabbage and I searched the area for a good thirty minutes but with no luck. I then back tracked what seemed like a good 300 yards thinking she had lost it earlier and I just hadn't noticed.I looked for an hour before I gave up finding her red harness, plus it was getting dark and I had no fire yet. The day had turned on me, the harness was gone, I had difficulties starting a fire, the hotdog buns were smashed and I noticed the rain fly of my tent was ripped. But Oh well, I wasn't going to need the rain fly tonight and eventually had a nice fire to make my dinner over and just in time too as the sun went behind the trees and the forest went pitch black except the light my small fire produced. As I cooked my hot dogs over then fire, I gave Bailey her two hotdogs and then filled a bowl with the dog food I brought in a zip lock bag. We both ate and enjoyed the quite beauty of the Hoh forest. As the night progressed I began to tell stories to Bailey, stories of great baseball players and American heroes, mainly to entertain myself and pass the time. Right as I'm telling the story of Stephan Decatur in the Barby Wars, my attention is captured by a noise down the hill, a noise Bailey also heard, the sound of ferns being rustled through as if something walked through them. Then silence in the forest again. What made the noise i wondered? A raccoon that smelled the dog food, raccoons love dog food and Bailey had crossed raccoons before and I'm sure she knew the little bandits scent. She then began to growl and walk in the direction of the rustling. I reached to grab her but no harness was there for me to grab, however She understood the gesture and what I was trying to do and sat down, but continued to growl down hill. She could handle a raccoon but what if it's a Black Bear or a cougar? i scanned down the hill with my flashlight expecting to get the glare of an animals eyes, but nothing appears. I'd preferred not to shoot my gun into the darkness so I picked up a baseball size rock that I had used to make a ring around the fire and hurled it at a tree down the hill. It connected with a Cedar trunk and when it did, it sent out an echoing thump that caused more rustling in the darkness and a bark out of Bailey. "Ya that's right girl", tell those damn Raccoons to get out of here. I stayed up a little longer and cooked my banana boat camp fire dessert and also to see if any raccoons came back looking for scraps, All while my rifle lays to my right and Bailey to my left. As the fire died down, I decided to call it a night, I poured a bottle of water on the last few embers then kicked the dug up dirt on the coals and headed for the tent. I crawled into my sleeping bag with Bailey and soon drifted off to sleep. The mossy forest floor provides a soft cushy bed and I slept well, the night was only disturbed once as Bailey made a short growl and kicked in her sleep that woke herself and I up, "dreaming of raccoons, you silly dog?" It felt good to know she was always ready to go and I drifted of back to sleep. I awoke that morning refreshed and ready to enjoy the warm morning sun that was shining on my tent. I unzipped the tent only a little to let Bailey out to pee and I stretched in the tent and searched my pack for a new pair of socks and shirt to wear for the day. When I finally came out of my tent I froze, my heart started to pound, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. The baseball size rock I had hurled at a tree the night before was laying just in front of my tent door. I immediately spin back into the tent and grab my rifle and pop the clip in. As I raise my rifle and aim it down the hill, I yell out in the deepest voice I can conjure "Who the fuck is out there!?" Nothing except the sound of Bailey scrambling to get to my side and the click of my rifle's safety being turned off. My heart is pounding, somebody is in the forest with me, there is no way a raccoon or bear could put the exact stone I threw the night before and place it in front of my tent. I yell out again, "If this is a joke I don't want to shoot you!" But I only get the noise of a few birds taking off from the branches above. I swirl around and check the rock, yup definitely the same one i tossed last night. I pick it up, it even smells of camp fire smoke and in my frustration I hurl it back down the hill. This time even further and not at anything particular then go back to looking down my rifle still aiming down the hill. I looked for signs of tracks but the spongy moss was mashed down from all the walking Bailey and I had done on it and the ferns around the tent were all broken up from Bailey passing between them. The good feeling I had received when finding this place was gone and replaced with fear. I wanted to leave. I ate my breakfast as fast as possible and then I began to pack my stuff up immediately, my tent and back pack were quickly and sloppily stuffed away. I kicked the remaining rocks into the fire pit, grabbed my rifle then Bailey and I are down the hill. But two step towards the slope of the hill I freeze, I'm going to have to pass the area I think what ever disturbed us was hanging out in. Bailey looks up at me and takes a couple steps forward as if to stay " let's go, I'm with you." This boost my confidence and we take off at a brisk pace down the hill away from the not so comfortable clearing in the forest we had spent the night in. We make great time down the hill even though we stop every few ribbon markers and scan the forest with the sights of my rifle, but nothing ever seemed out of place. I began to think maybe the forest was playing tricks on my mind and as I neared the lake a bounce in my step had returned. I had planned to do some fishing in the lake we swam in on the way home but the events from that morning still have me on edge so I am debating if I really wanted to do that. My choice was made for me as I approached the first ribbon I had tied the day before. For the second time that day I froze in my foot steps, on the branch, right next to my first ribbon, hung Bailey's red harness. Fear pulsed back through me as I whipped my rifle around and scanned the area, but again no signs of anything out of the ordinary. I ran up to grabbed the harness and just before it was in my grasp I kicked something hard. I knew what it was before I even looked down to see what it was, the baseball sized, smokey smelling rock that I had chucked down a hill twice in the last 24 hours. I grabbed it and went to throw it a third time and this time into the lake never to see it again. But I stopped, the rock had lost its smokiness and had been replace with a strong musky sent that I couldn't recognize. "Whatever" I thought, and sent it to the bottom of the lake. I then grabbed the harness only to find it had the same strong musky stench. I'll buy her a new one, I don't want to ever see this harness again, it flys through the air and land with a splash and heads to the bottom of the lake. I take off in a sprint, I want to be back in civilization as soon as possible. Bailey's nose is working over time surely picking up the scent that was on the harness and rock, but she also takes off in a sprint the second I do. We reach home by the local trails without stopping anywhere else and i slam and lock the door behind me. I then peer out the corner of the window on the back door hoping to catch a glimpse of what ever was out there, but nothing in the back yard stirred for the hour i watched. Something had stalked and spent the night with me up in that little clearing. something wanted me to know it spent the night with me up there. Something had followed me back off the mountain and back to the lake! Did it continue and follow me all the way back to my house? I spent the next few weeks at home and stayed off all the trails and I never camped alone in that forest again that summer, always with friends and always with Bailey.The next summer I don't camp at all. A couple tourist had been hiking in that area around the lake and had disappeared. A search was put together, and quickly a clue is found, but it turned out to be the only clue. Two hiking boots were found sitting next to the lake and identified as the tourist. But the two boots did not match, both right footed boots, one boot belonging to each tourist. It was presumed they had drown in the lake some thought they had gotten lost and died from the exposure and some believed that those boots didn't even belong to the tourist. Nothing else ever developed of the missing tourist and after a few weeks the search was called off. soon summer turned to fall and my senior year of high school flew by and it was summer again. Before heading off to college my friends wanted to camp as much as possible and I agreed as long as I could bring Bailey. I had avoided the area from two summer before, but my friends wanted to explore past the lake. The only person I told of my mysterious encounter was my mom and she thought it was someone playing a joke on me, but I felt like she just thought it was a cover story for the lost harness. I didn't want to tell my friends the story and come across as scared, so I followed their led and held my tongue as we passed the lake and up the foothills. We pass a tree with an old faded green logging ribbon tired to a branch. This was the tree were the harness hung on my trip home the last time I was behind the lake. The site of the tree and ribbon sent a shiver down my spine, I asked myself why I'm in this location again but fail to come up with a decent answer and continued to follow my friends. Thankfully we ended up heading in a slightly different direction than I had explore two summers ago, from then on when ever the person leading the group started to lead in the direction in which I thought the mossy clearly was at, I would make a suggestion to explore in a different direction. We hiked until mid afternoon until we found a tiny lake that we dubbed Elk Lake due to the fact signs of elk were all around the area, later we even heard an elk bugle somewhere in the woods behind us. The rest of the day was setting up camp and eventually dinner was started. We ate our campfire grilled cheese sandwiches and talked of our future at college and reminisced on our time in high school. All of us exhausted by the hike, turned in for the night and fell asleep to the occasional call of the elk in the area, it had been a great day. The night was a hard one, only because I was on the short end of the old camping prank of rocks hid under your tent. We awoke the next morning at sun rise, ate breakfast and grabbed our fishing poles and made the short walk to the lake. after awhile of casting and reeling, it appear Elk lake was empty or if there was any fish at all, our lures weren't fooling them. Even though the fishing was poor We decided Elk Lake was a pretty cool little place and that we should spent the night again there before heading home but we wanted to explore the surrounding area, mostly in hopes of finding another lake to fish. We travelled together, heading in a direction that looked like flat ground but found no new lake. We had hiked about a mile or so from our camp so we turned and headed back to camp to plan a new area to explore. To my frustration I had forgot to grab my logging tape and didn't mark our trail away from camp so we got a little turned around. We got our sense of direction back when one of us climbed a tree and was able to spot the lake and got us going the right way. The terrain between us and the lake was heavily wooded and contained elephant sized boulders covered by a thick carpet of moss. We challenged each other to climbing contest, who could climb to the top the fastest on these semi truck trailer sized rocks. We did this with great enjoyment and were only stopped when we discovered hidden in between two boulders, an abandoned mossy cabin. Calling it a Cabin was a generous way of describing this structure, it was crudely built with wood that looked near rotten and its roof was just as mossy as the boulders, it was no bigger than my future dorm room. We gathered and stood in front of it, one of my friends called out asking if anyone was inside, but only got silence in return. Again he called out and walked towards the only door and then proceeded to knock. After he knocked he quickly took four or five steps backwards towards us as if he was afraid something would come bursting out, But again nothing. we all then advanced to the building and began to peer through the cracks of the cabin. It appeared to be empty and looked as if nobody had used this place in years, it was ours to explore we decided. My friend who had knocked was the one who opened door and lead us inside, once all of us were inside our attention was drawn to the only thing in the building, an old rusty refrigerator that's style was that of the 1950s. How the hell did a heavy kitchen appliance get this deep into the forest?! I opened the fridge casually expecting it to be empty, it wasn't even plugged in to anything. But the moment i cracked it open i was hit by a stench that I had only smelled once before in my life, the smell that was on the harness that I had tossed into the bottom of the swimming lake. I immediately slammed the door shut not wanting to see what was in the fridge. My friends had smelled it, Bailey definitely smelled it and gave me a look of fear. not having the experience I had two summers ago my friends told me to open it back up to see what produced the smell. I refused but was grudgingly convinced to do so. I plugged by nose then pulled the door open, spinning around after, fearing what was inside. The yell and disgust of my friends voice forced me to look back. The first thing I saw was an elk bugle resting on the bottom of the fridge but my attention quickly was brought to the shelf. Sitting on the lone shelf of the fridge were two human legs. Cut off at the hip and bending at the knee, they looked like they hadn't been removed all that long ago, flesh still fresh. But worst of all was the fact that each leg still had a hiking boot laced on the foot. I had seen these boots before, a picture in the news paper, both of them different, their matches were the ones the tourist had left by the lake. It seemed as if we all recognized them at once and we instantly knew we needed to move. I slammed the fridge door once more and We left the cabin in a hurry and sprinted back to the lake. We dumped all our fishing gear at the camp site and began back to town in a jog. We left everything, figuring we would just pack it up when we returned with the sherif. We ran the whole way, some talked of fame and speculated that our discovery would lead to the answers of the missing tourist, a reward maybe another though. I did no talking, only thinking of who or what had stored the legs in the cabin. We followed the green ribbons I had tied and eventually we got back to the swimming lake. The swimming lake let us know we were close and once we got into town we piled into my pick up truck and speed to the police station. We burst into police station and announced to the front desk that we had just come off the mountain and had found the remains of the tourist. As soon as my sentence was complete multiple officers were moving towards us, asking questions of all sorts. I was surprised they took us so seriously at first but in retrospect we were covered in sweat, dirty and smelled of camp fire and were speaking frantically, they knew it was no joke. Because of our haste off the mountain we had arrived back to town early in the afternoon and the sherifs decided if we took quads we could get to our camp site by night fall and investigate the cabin. I told the officers of my trail of green ribbon that would lead them there, but they asked a couple of us to go with them so we could lead them from Elk lake to the cabin. They asked me to go back to Elk lake but I decline not wanting to go anywhere near there again, but I did offer to show them where my markers started near the swimming lake. They quickly loaded up four quads and headed towards the lake in a hurry in effort to save day light. when the group of four wheelers reached the lake, I directed the officers towards the tree that held my first ribbon. I initially walked past the tree and pointed the officers in the direction of the next marker, it's only then when I notice there is no green ribbon on the tree I was pointing at and the one on the tree in the distance that held my third ribbon looked missing as well. Just then the sherif called to me asking if the red ribbon was my marker. red ribbon? What red ribbon? I turned and looked at the tree that held my first marker, there was no red ribbon hanging from its branch nor a green one, but instead a faded red dog harness.

Submitted December 01, 2015 at 10:27AM by TiKay421 http://ift.tt/1TpOQyY nosleep