Dark Hiker Stories: Encounters in the Wilderness

In this episode of Real Unexplained Stories, we head deep into the wilderness, where quiet trails, remote forests, and empty mountain paths become the setting for encounters people still struggle to explain.

These are dark hiker stories from people who went into the wild expecting peace, solitude, or adventure but came back with memories of strange figures, impossible sounds, and something watching from beyond the trees.

From eerie footsteps on empty trails to unsettling encounters far from help, each story explores what can happen when the wilderness no longer feels empty.

Real eyewitness encounters. Strange mysteries. Unexplained stories from the edge of the map.

Transcript

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When you're out hiking, the wilderness feels endless, the air's clean, the world's quiet, until it isn't. Because the deeper you go, the more that quiet starts to change. The wind moves differently. The forest feels aware. And sometimes it feels like something's hiking right behind you. For most it's just a feeling. For others it's the start of something they'll never forget. Story one The Thing by Devil's Hollow by Ryan Utah 2017. I've been hiking for years, mostly solo trips through Utah's canyons and desert trails. It's the kind of landscape that can make you feel like you've stepped off the map. Just endless rocks, sand and wind. And always like that, the isolation. The sense that you were walking through something older than the world itself. That summer I decided to hike a trail near a place locals called Devil's Hollow. A dry river bed that cuts deep through red sandstone for miles. The name didn't mean much to me at the time. Utah has dozens of places with devil in the name, but I'd later learn that hikers avoid that one. They say that the wind there made strange sounds like a low voice carried through the gorge. I sat off early carrying my pack, water and a small camping setup. The trail was quiet. After three hours the canyon walls started to narrow and the sunlight turned to a dim orange glow. I stopped there to rest and eat. That's when I noticed the first thing out of place. A handprint pressed into the rock beside where I sat. It wasn't human. It had five long fingers, but the shape was wrong. Each print ended in a sharp point and the palm was far too narrow. What unsaddled me more was how fresh it looked. Still moist like something oily had been on the stone. I told myself it was just an old mark. Maybe someone spilled something, but when I moved on, I kept catching a faint sound behind me. It wasn't footsteps, more like a dragging, scraping rhythm that stopped whenever I turned around. By late afternoon, the canyon opened up into a flat basin, filled with twisted trees. I decided to camp there for the night. The wind was starting to rise, carrying that strange whistling tone through the rocks. Almost like words you couldn't quite make out. As the sun dropped, the temperature crashed. I built a small fire and sent myself into my tent. My phone had no signal, just the static of the GPS lap. For a while everything was still. Then I heard it again. That dragging sound, closer this time. Something heavy moving slow just beyond the firelight. I unzipped the tent halfway and shunned my torch out. The beam caught the edge of a tree trunk, and then something ducked back behind it. I only saw it for a split second, but it was tall, too tall, maybe seven feet or more, skin the colour of ash, and eyes that reflected a dull yellow when the light hit them. My first thought was a person, maybe a hike, but no human moves like that. It was too smooth, like watching something glide rather than walk. The sound come again. Drag pause drag. Closer each time. I shouted out and told whoever it was to leave me alone. The canyon threw my voice back at me, hollow and thin. Then silence. Nothing. Not even the wind. And then the smell hit me. Like rotten meat left out in the sun. The dragging started again. Faster now. Circling. My fire popped and threw shadows across the rocks. I caught a glimpse between the light, something hunched and pale, moving just beyond the glow. It didn't step into the firelight. It stayed exactly where it couldn't be seen clearly. That's when I realized what the dragging was. It wasn't walking, it was pulling something, a long limp shape that scraped the ground as it moved. I backed into my tent and grabbed a small knife from my pack and listened. My heart was racing, so loud I thought it would give me away. The noise stopped right outside the tent. Maybe two feet from where I sat. Then came a sound I'll never forget. A low throaty hiss that turned into something like a whisper. It said my name Ryan. I didn't remember packing up. I don't remember dowsing the fire. I just ran straight down the canyon all night until the first light hit the horizon. When I finally made it back to my truck, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely get the keys in the door. I drove straight into town and didn't stop until I hit the service station. My GPS showed I'd only been a mile and a half from Devil's Hollow, but the trail didn't exist on the map anymore. It just ended. A week later I went to clean my gear. My boots were caked in dust, except from one streak of dark oily residue across the heel. It looked like the same stuff from that handprint on the rock and it smelled the same. I threw them out that night, and I haven't hiked alone there since The Lights of Alubin by Marek Novak Poland twenty nineteen. I grew up in a small town in southwestern Poland called Lubin. It's a quiet place, long stretches of forest, open fields and skies that always seem too wide at night. People here talk about strange lights every few years, but it's the kind of thing you brush off planes, drones, weather balloons, whatever makes you sleep better at night. In the summer of 2019, I decided to camp out in the forest east of town. My brother had given me a new camera for my birthday, and I wanted to try some night photography. There's almost no light pollution out there, just dark pine woods that stretches for miles. I parked my car at the edge of the dirt track and hiked about two kilometers in and set up a small camp near a clearing. It was early evening, around nine. The sun was just dipping behind the tree line, as the air had that heavy electric stillness that comes before a storm. I built a small fire and took a few pictures of the sunset and waited for the stars. The forest was quiet. Too quiet, actually. Normally you'd hear owls or the hum of insects, but that night there was nothing, just wind moving through the trees. By midnight the sky had gone completely black, and that's when I noticed the first light. It wasn't a star, it was low, moving slowly above the trees, almost hovering at first. I thought it was a helicopter, but it didn't make a sound, it just glided silently, like it was watching. I took out my camera and zoomed in. The lens picked up three smaller lights beneath the main one, forming a perfect triangle. They weren't flickering, they pulsed like something alive. Then the trees around me started to glow, faint at first, then bright enough to throw shadows across the ground. My camera screen went white for a moment, and then black, and then died. I tried my phone, nothing, completely unresponsive, dead. The air felt thick, charged like the air before a lightning strike. That's when I heard it, a low vibrating hum that you could feel more than hear. It made the inside of my chest buzz. The light sank lower until I could see the outline of something behind it, a dark shape like a disc turning slowly above the treetops. I should have run, but I didn't. I just stood there and froze, watching. The light shifted colour, from white to deep bluish green, and then a column of the same light dropped straight down into the clearing. It was perfectly still, like a beam cut from glass. Inside it the air looked wrapped like heat waves on asphalt. The hum got louder, my ears started ringing. Every hair on my arm stood up, and then from the corner of my eye I saw movement. Figures just at the edge of the beam, not people, and not solid either, more like silhouettes made of fog and light, flickering in and out of shape. They didn't walk, they drifted, turning towards me in slow perfect unison. I stumbled back and tripped over my pack and fell hard onto the dirt. For a second I thought they were coming closer, but instead the beam snapped upwards and the light vanished, and then silence. Pure, absolute silence. Then a second later, the trees let out this long, heavy creak, like the whole forest just exhaled. The only sound after that was the crackle of my dying campfire. I packed up everything I could and left. I didn't look back. I reached my car around four in the morning and sat there for almost an hour before driving home. When I got back, I checked my phone, still dead. The camera turned on, but every photo was gone except one. It was completely black, except from three small dots of light perfectly triangular. Two days later I went back with my brother in the daylight. The clearing looked normal except the grass in the wide circle had turned grey, as if burned, but not by heat. The soil underneath was dry and powdery like ash. I didn't tell anyone for a while, but a few weeks later a friend who lives near the edge of the forest messaged me late one night. He said there was lights over the trees again. Same colour, the same shape, but this time there was two sets moving in perfect formation. He sent me a picture before they disappeared behind the clouds. Three green lights forming a triangle, and one bright white orb floating above them. He asked me what I thought they were. I told him honestly I don't know, but I can still feel that vibration sometimes deep in my chest. When the night's too still, like the forest is waiting for something to come back. The thing on Simon's side by Ben Northumberland 2022. I've lived in Northumberland all my life. I was born in Almwick, now living near Rothbury. Anyone from around here knows about the Simonside Hills, long open moor land that looks peaceful from a distance, but can turn strange fast when the weather changes. People around here talk about the lights on those hills, small lanterns that appear in the fog and lead walkers off the path. My dad used to say, if you ever see a light up there moving on its own, don't follow it, son. In early 2022, I went hiking there on my own. I started from the car park near Simon side and followed the trail along the hilltop and planned to head back before it got dark. The sky was clear when I set off, but later that evening a thick mist began to move across the hills. About halfway along the trail, I saw someone up ahead, a tall figure standing still on the path, wearing what looked like a dark coat. I waved, but they didn't move. And when I got closer, maybe fifty yards away, they stepped off the trail and disappeared into the fog. No sound of footsteps, just gone. I stood there for a moment trying to see where they went, but the mist was thick, and that's when I heard it, a slow, steady tapping sound on the rocks. Tap tap tap. It stopped when I called out. Then it started again, closer this time. I switched on my headlamp and carried on walking, telling myself it must be water dripping or stones moving in the cold. But a few minutes later I saw something move across the path, quick, smooth, and taller than any person I've ever seen. The tap and started again, but behind me this time I turned round, shining the light towards the sound. And there it was, something standing between two rocks, maybe twenty feet away, pale and grey skin, thin arms, long fingers that hung almost to its knees. Its face was wrong, stretched and smooth, with dark eyes sunk deep into its skull. It didn't move at first, it just tilted its head slightly watching me. Then it stepped back into the fog and vanished. I ran straight down the trail, all the way to the car park, and when I reached my car I was panicking with fear. I sat inside for a minute trying to calm down, before I looked in the mirror, and across the back window were three long smear marks in condensation, like someone had dragged their fingers through it. I wiped them away and started the engine and drove home. A few days later I told my dad what happened. He didn't laugh. He just said they used to talk about things up there, small creatures that would lead travellers off the hills. Maybe they're not small anymore. I haven't been back since, but on cold nights when the fog comes down over the valley, I swear I still hear it. That slow tapping sound. Somewhere far off in the mist. The Bridge in the Woods by Sam, Derbyshire 2018. Back in 2018, I went walking with a couple of mates in the Peak District. We planned a simple weekend hike, just a trail that followed an old river path through the woods near Iam. It was late afternoon when we came across a narrow moss-covered bridge. It looked old, maybe Victorian, with a stream running quietly underneath. The trail carried on across it, but the trees on the far side were darker, like the light couldn't get through. One of my friends joked that it looked like something out of a ghost film. We laughed and crossed over, and we kept walking. About half a mile in, we found an old stone marker half buried in dirt. The letters were faded. But you could still read two words. Don't cross. We turned around after that, but as we walked back towards the bridge, the air felt heavier. Still, the kind of stillness that makes you feel watched. When we reached the bridge again, the stream had gone quiet, no sound of running water, no wind, just silence. My mate Paul crossed first. Halfway over he stopped and said, Can you hear that? At first I thought he was joking. But then I heard it too. A voice, faint but clear, come from underneath the bridge. It sounded like someone whispering for help. We froze still. Then it came again, louder this time. Please help. I leaned over the side with my torch. The light hit the water, but there was no one there. Just black still surface. Then something broke through. A hand, pearl dripping with mud, grabbed the edge of the bridge. We ran straight down the trail, no talking, no stopping. I didn't even remember the run. Just the sound of boots and branches snapping behind us. But when we reached the car park, we finally stopped and looked back. The path was empty. The next morning we went back with the park ranger. The bridge was the same as before, but the stream underneath was only a few inches deep. Nowhere for anyone to hide. The ranger looked at us and said quietly, You're not the first to hear voices down there. I didn't ask anything else, I just nodded. And from that day on, if I ever see a bridge in the woods, I take the long way around. Out there the wild can feel endless. Open skies, quiet trails, and the comfort of being miles from anyone else. But the truth is the wilderness holds things we still don't understand. Strange lights in the trees, footsteps that follow when no one's there. Stories whispered by people who went hiking and came back different. Whether it's the deserts of Utah, the forests of Poland, or the hills of the Northeast, the wild still keeps its secrets, and maybe that's why we keep going back, because some parts of us want to know what's waiting just beyond the path. Thanks for listening. And remember, stay curious and keep your light close.