Never go hiking in Skinwalker Valley: I Was Hunted
I’ve had nightmares every day this week. Any sense of adventure I once had has been quelled, and I suspect I’ll never get it back.
There is more to Skinwalker Valley than what is told in campfire stories.
As with any man stuck in a corporate job and a demanding family, nature has always been my respite. I like to hike, conquering mountainsides and valleys, which allows me to rid myself of my usual stresses. If only I’d known how meager my work stress is compared to what’s now stalking me, watching my family.
It was a rare weekend when I didn’t need to be at the office, and my wife and children had plans to go out of town and visit my wife’s mother for a few days. It was a girls-only event. I have daughters, and it gives my wife and her mother time to bond with the girls. To me, it meant I had the weekend to myself. I’ve never been the sort of man to sit around at home or rot in front of the television, so I decided it was time to do something I’d always wanted to do.
I packed my backpack, limbered up, and headed for the Uinta Basin. I had always heard of how beautiful it was there. My plan was to hike about twelve miles out into the valley and set up camp just before sunset. This is nothing unusual in my life. Growing up, my father was a forest ranger in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, and so weekends like this, out in nature, have always been completely normal to me.
However, I am no longer that man, and this trip, it would change me forever.
I like to start my hikes off slow, to ease into the surroundings, smell the native flowers, and take in the views, knowing that they’re only going to get better as I venture deeper into the valley and away from civilization. I packed minimally. I learned the hard way when I was younger that lugging massive weight around on a long overnight hike was not a good idea. At the start of my hike, I texted my wife that I would be without a signal for the next day or so, and she reassured me that the children were having a great time at her mother’s and she loved me.
I was about two hours in when I noticed the first signs that something wasn’t quite right. I stopped to look around for a good place to take a few photographs, drink some water, and eat a quick protein bar. As I sat down, I heard a snap like a tree branch breaking to my left.
I turned, expecting to see an animal of some kind, maybe a deer, eager for a potential sighting. Now, the area I was in wasn’t particularly overgrown. I was sitting with my back to the sun, enjoying just how far I could see. So, there really wasn’t much space for anything to hide.
But I saw nothing, no animal, and kind of shrugged the sound off as something either falling from a tree or perhaps just my own movement. I continued with my snack, not thinking anything of it, and pretty much ignored the noise entirely.
That’s when I noticed I had dropped a piece of the protein bar I was eating. While I was looking down, I saw some ants. However, they seemed entirely uninterested in the food. They walked in a chaotic rhythm, all of them seemingly hurrying back to the nearby entrance to their nest. I thought it was unusual, but I’m not really an expert on the activities of ants, so I finished packing up and continued on my hike.
I was about another mile down the trail when I heard some rustling and the cracking sound again. This time, however, it was different. It sounded not like something being broken beneath a quiet footstep, but rather as if something had snapped much closer in the area right behind me.
I spun around to see what it was and, once again, found nothing. This happened three or four more times over the next few hours, each time from a slightly different angle and progressively getting closer. Now, this was starting to feel a little odd. I was breathing heavier than usual, and my fingers felt stiff and sweaty. I noticed that I was clenching my jaw as I began to feel increasingly nervous. When I heard the snap again, I decided to break into a slight sprint and slowed to a jog. I just wanted to put some distance between myself and whatever animal was apparently stalking me.
By then, I was about half a mile out from where I had intended to set up my camp for the evening, and the sun had begun its descent, drifting closer to the landscape ahead. Hunger had started creeping into my stomach, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten for hours. I had planned on boiling some water for the dehydrated lasagna with meat sauce dinner I brought. Then, cracking open a nice cool beer would be a bonus.
Just then, I heard the snap again. I thought my brief sprint and accompanying jog would have put enough distance between me and whatever was the source of these noises that have been following me. It started becoming more rapid, closer, almost directly behind me, as if whatever was creating these noises had become frustrated, but when I turned, there was nothing.
Eventually, the repetitive rustling of bushes and snapping sticks morphed into what I can only describe as the sound of a small child crying in the distance. It was soft, but the sound was there, and the further I walked, the more urgent it became. I use the word ‘urgent’ to describe it as it is the best fitting that I have been able to come up with. I pretended as if I didn’t hear it, attempting to just ignore it. Maybe it was a fox I thought. Fox calls can sometimes sound like crying children.
Eventually, I could no longer pretend as if I wasn’t hearing it, or that those sounds were coming from a fox, as the soft cries began to build into blood-curdling screams. I stopped, spun around, looking in every direction, ready to face whatever was stalking me, harassing me, and it stopped. The instant I turned around, the noise was gone, and one final snap was heard.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to collect myself. It was difficult to believe or understand what I was experiencing, and using logic to the best of my ability.
I now realize it was wishful thinking, but I somehow convinced myself that it was stress. I’d been working hard toward a promotion, taking on extra responsibilities at home, and perhaps I had been ignoring signs of stress, and now it had reached a breaking point; this was all in my head.
That, somehow, was enough to calm me down. I was more convinced by it because, after coming to that realization, the sounds, they all seemed to stop.
Finally, I arrived at the spot where I was going to set up camp for the night. By this point, I was extremely hungry and hurried to get my small gas burner set up, lit, and water boiling. I ate dinner and cracked that cold beer before starting to set up my small tent, just big enough for my sleeping bag and backpack.
I had every intention of setting up a campfire that night. However, I was by myself, and the area around me seemed unseasonably dry, and I wasn’t prepared to take the risk of accidentally starting a wildfire. I suppose that’s the legacy of my park ranger father’s lessons living inside my head.
So, instead, I finished my beer, sat down, and watched the sunset. It was a pleasant evening until a familiar sound again caught my attention.
It seemed further away, though this time, as if it was moving away from me. The snapping never really grew louder. It just lingered there while the sun set, and with each passing minute, I grew more and more tense, fearful, maybe this wasn’t just in my head after all.
I wasn’t nearly tired, but I decided to try and get some rest. I crawled into my tent and zipped it closed. But the unexplained noise was getting closer now, making me feel like a trapped animal. Once I was inside my tent, whatever it was became even more aggressive. The noise moved from my left side, around the back of my tent, and to the right side, as if it were circling me.
I was terrified. Drawing a small cooking knife for a sheath, it was all I had for protection. I hoped whatever it was would go away. My tent felt as if it was bursting with static electricity. The hairs on my arms and legs stood on end, and I had a constant shiver at the back of my neck.
Then I heard a grunt, like an animal.
While it probably should have scared me, I felt a sense of relief. I thought that perhaps there was some animalistic explanation to all of this. If there was a grunt, there had to be some normal source for it. With my flashlight in hand and all the bravery I could muster at that moment, I slowly unzipped my tent and stepped outside.
I was looking for eyes. If there were an animal, its eyes would surely reflect in my flashlight’s beam, and, judging by the height and color, I could make a solid guess as to what animal this might be.
But, there were no eyes to be found.
Just as I was about to abandon my efforts and crawl back into the pseudo-safety of my tent, something caught my eye. It was just at the edge of the beam of light that came from my flashlight. As I panned, that’s where it remained – just on the outskirts.
I held the beam of light in place and took two steps towards it. That’s when I was able to see it.
I say ‘it’ because I have no clear explanation of what it actually was. I could make out thin fingers and an arm up until the elbow. My breath caught in my throat, and I was frozen with fear.
Was this how I was going to go out? To this thing, in the middle of nowhere.
The arm seemed to be swaying slightly, as if it were waiting for me to see it. I did just that, and then it was gone.
At that moment, I decided I wasn’t going to stay there the night and started booking it back towards my car. I grabbed my backpack, abandoning my tent and sleeping bag, and headed back down the twelve-mile path I had taken to get there.
I know, as a seasoned camper and hiker, that this was not the best idea, but I felt that I had no choice. Every sense in my body was screaming at me to run. I tried to think of my wife and daughters as motivation to keep up my fast pace, with off-pace footsteps and the snapping sounds of brush continuously following behind me.
I would spin around to look, only ever catching a glimpse of a darting shadow. This carried on for about two and a half hours. I was moved as quickly as possible through the uneven terrain. The noise eventually gave way to a high-pitched, malevolent scream.
Finally, my car came into view, and with everything I had left, I broke into a full sprint. I knew it was right behind me like I could feel the current of its movements through the air against the back of my neck. By the time I made it to the driver’s side door.
I jumped in and pulled the door closed, hit the lock, tossing my flashlight onto the passenger seat, and before I could turn back and look out the window, something slammed into the car with great speed and force. The entire car shook, and I looked to my left.
There, I saw two red and glowing eyes looking directly at me from the other side of the glass. Then pressing the palm of one hand on the window, with its long outstretched fingers, and pointing down to the door lock with the other hand, it said in my wife’s voice, “Please let me in, I’m scared.”
I turned the key in the ignition and floored it, dirt and gravel thrown as the car slightly rocked back and forth before gaining traction and taking off.
I wish I could tell you that the story ended there. The following few days, I had night terrors, waking up screaming, seeing its face over and over. Finally, I had to explain to my wife what was going on and why there was a massive dent in the side of the car. My hands were shaking as I relived everything again, recounting the story to my wife, who barely believed a word of it.
Now, it isn’t even the encounter that scares me most. It is what has followed.
It has been three months since that night. Lately, I am beginning to feel like a target for what I can only imagine is a Skinwalker – the very horror that the valley is named after.
I still see the shadow, just outside of the reach of any light. Sometimes, at night, if I look outside my home, I see the growing red eyes of the skinwalker staring back at me before it slips away. I wake up at night in a cold sweat, my hands clenched into fists, and the distant sense of being watched from somewhere nearby.
It is tearing my life and marriage apart. My wife has started sleeping in another room. I can barely concentrate at work, staying away from any shadow and avoiding eye contact as much as possible.
The worst part is that I should have known. I should have listened. Locals had warned me about Skinwalkers and how not to make myself a target. I’d shrugged it off, thinking it was nothing more than spooky stories and superstition to stop children from doing dangerous things, or scaring them at campfires.
I’m proof that it is so much more than that. I don’t know what I’m going to do. My current hope is that the Skinwalker chooses a different target.
Please, if you’re listening, I urge you. Listen to the lore and take it as a warning. The risks are simply too great, and I know firsthand what can happen.
I know that I am not alone in this, that I am not the Skinwalker’s only victim. If you’re out there, and you’ve felt this, too, know that I am doing all I can to understand what is happening to us and to find a way out of this.
This has been Pale Lantern Media.
If you’ve seen the red eyes…If the voice of someone you love no longer feels quite right… If you have heard the sound of a child crying in the woods.
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