Boulders in the Superstitions

[Al D]

Happy New Year Jim
they call them Skin Walkers out west, great story.

 

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[sdcfia]

An interesting thread. I’m not one to believe in the existence of “Cryptids”, but something happened to me in November of 1994 that’s pretty similar to some of the stories here and similar to a story I was told about the Four Peaks and Superstitions area.

I was deer hunting during the regular rifle season in the James River Face Wilderness (Virginia). There were 3 of us, and we decided to climb up Big Hellgate Creek early one morning so we could hunt the ridge line later in the afternoon.

We ran into a hunter just before entering the gorge, who told us he was going up later to hunt bear. He said there was a “bear up there” that had been “throwing boulders” down towards people in the gorge, and asked us if we’d seen a bear up there. We had been hunting the area the last few days but had stayed in the low areas, and this was our first trip to the top of the mountain. So we told him we’d keep an eye out, then headed up the gorge.

It was slow going as it was extremely cold, there were pools of water in the canyon which had to be negotiated, and the gorge was full of boulders the size of houses. It was such rough going that one of our party decided to get out of the gorge and just scale the cliff all the way to the top, then walk a ridge line up to the top of the mountain. Myself and one other hunter stayed in the gorge, and we eventually ran into a section with such deep water that we couldn’t get by without my buddy slipping and falling in. He was completely soaked, with air temps in the teens, I knew we had to turn around and go back. We built a fire and “roasted” his clothes so he could make it back without hyping out. This took about an hour or so, and we headed back down the gorge as fast as we could, hoping to get out in time to hunt the lower areas at the mouth of the gorge before sunset.

It was then that the first boulder came down the cliff near us. We couldn’t see up to the top of the canyon so we didn’t know how/why they were coming down. I would say they were about the size of basketballs. This kept up for about an hour as we scrambled down the gorge, one boulder every five or ten minutes. Whatever it was, kept up with our downward progress, as no matter how much ground we covered the boulders were always coming down on top of us.

We were almost out of the gorge when we ran into the hunter we saw earlier that told us a bear was up there rolling boulders onto people in the gorge. We reported that we hadn’t seen the bear, but we had definitely seen the falling rocks and to be careful. I was still skeptical that it was an animal doing it.

The boulders stopped when we ran into the other hunter. He continued up the gorge, we went down. When we got out, my buddy was suffering but somewhat dry, so he went about a half mile away to hunt the east side, I went and hunted the west side. We had about an hour before sunset.

Neither one of us saw any deer worth shooting and as was our practice, we both waited until about a half-hour after sundown to start coming down out of the mountains. We did this as to not spook the deer by allowing them to see us and recognize us as humans. That way anyone hunting the area in the morning would have a better chance.

Since we were always quiet moving through the woods, I was surprised to hear what I knew to be my buddy crashing around on the other hill. It was dark, so I heard rather than saw him come off the mountain and down into the creek bed. He was extremely noisy and moving quickly so I stopped and waited before I went down into the creek bed for safety reasons. So I waited for about 20 minutes after I last heard any activity from him.

What was strange, he didn’t head back to the truck, but seemed to be making a beeline straight through the woods, off-trail, back our camp site about 1.5 miles away. I figured he must’ve gotten cold and needed a fire ASAP, so after I couldn’t hear him anymore, I waited awhile to let the woods settle, then I headed down to get the truck and drive back to camp.

I got down into the creek bed, which was hard going because of all the stones, and eventually made it up to the trail that paralleled the creek bed back to where I’d parked the truck. As I started down the trail, I heard what I thought was another hunter walking in the creek bed behind me and to my left. I could hear the big stones clonking together as someone stepped on them.

I figured it was our fellow hunter or the guy that had gone up earlier looking for the bear. I couldn’t be sure, and as I’d heard a lot of gunshots at night in those woods, I knew poachers were night hunting in the area. So I started whistling loudly as I walked, as deer don’t whistle and even a poacher could figure that out.

The guy was about 100 feet behind me, and as I started whistling, he left the creek bed, angling up towards me on the trail. So I stopped and waited, curious as to who it was. I could hear his progress through the dry leaves on the ground but it was pitch black so I couldn’t see him. When he got close, I took my flashlight out and lit it in his direction.

Here’s where it gets weird. I saw nothing, nada, not so much as a squirrel. Just bare trees and leaves on the ground, rocks. Whatever it was, took off at an angle and instead of walking normally as I had been hearing, it ran away and I could hear it had about a 25 foot stride while running and covered ground much, much faster than humanly possible, or any other animal in those woods for that matter. But I could tell it was on two legs, not four. I tried to follow the sound with my light, as it was only about 20 feet from me. I could hear it, but couldn’t see it.

It got ahead of me and back down in the creek. I started walking back down the trail, listening as it paralleled me down in the creek bed. I could hear the sounds of rocks clonking on each other as it stepped on them. Definitely something on two legs. After a few minutes, it came out again and started angling back towards me from behind. This time I let it get about 10 feet away, close enough for me to lunge and grab whatever it was, before I switched on my flashlight again.

I was ready to grab it, butt-stroke it in the jaw with my rifle, whatever seemed appropriate once I saw and identified what it was. I still wasn’t convinced it wasn’t a human being as I had no idea what it could be.

Same thing as before, when I turned on the light, I saw nothing at all as it tore away from me, across the woods back to the creek, with that huge stride and unfathomable speed. At this point I knew I was dealing with something I had no explanation for. It had been close enough to engage hand-to-hand when I turned on my Maglite, and I could hear it, but I couldn’t see it.

This story gets worse later, but in the interest of not writing a book here, I’ll stop as there’s no further identifying info as to what it might have been. The other two hunters that were with me had the same experience, which explained why I heard my buddy crashing through the woods back to camp. He wasn’t cold, he was freaking out.

I’ve heard that Native Americans speak of such a “ghost animal” and heard other hunters tell of the creature in the 4-Peaks/Supes/Salt River Canyon areas. Whatever it is, I have no explanation for it.

Heard it but couldn't see it, eh? Reminds me of an interesting phone conversation I had in the early 1980s with a Denver USGS employee whom I called to order aerial photos from. He was an efficient, well-informed techie and the transaction went well and quickly. When I gave him my mailing address, he asked about the Gila Headwaters region and we began chatting. It was an interesting talk on several subjects, but all I remember is his story below.

"My son and I were hunting elk on the western slope [he told me but I don't recall the exact destination of the hunt - it may have been in the Gunnison area]. It was late afternoon, and we were done hunting for the day (saw no game). We ran across a well-used trail that seemed to be heading toward where we'd parked, so we decided to follow it. We were surprised by about a dozen or more elk trotting towards us from behind, single file, on the trail. It was bizarre and we were kind of frozen with surprise. As the animals got close, they slowed to a walk and we stepped off the trail to let them through, only a couple feet from them as they passed. I was looking ahead and behind at them, watchin. I realized that in my peripheral vision, I could clearly see a rider on each animal. But when I looked straight at an individual elk, I saw nothing on its back. Concentrating 'out of the corner of my eye', I clearly saw very small bareback riders wearing "Leprechaun" outfits, looking straight ahead, and not at us. My son experienced the same. A minute later, the herd was running again ahead of us and were quickly lost in the forest. My son asked what we had just seen and I had no answer for him."

 

[lunatic]

Great story Jim. Thanks so much for sharing