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From: Richard Alvarez (alvarez@shell9.ba.best.com)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: vanishing trail (long)
Date: 28 Jan 1998 00:17:49 GMT
There have been some stories here recently about roads that appeared or disppeared or led to strange places or turned into something that was unexpected.
This story is about how we almost lost some people on a trail that ended in a meadow that could not possibly have been there. I was not there when this supposedly happened, so I can not guarantee its truth. Later investigation showed absolutely nothing. That happened long ago, and I do not necessarily remember all of the details now, but at least I think that I have the story pretty much right.
In a remote mountain camp that I used to frequent, a trail led down the river a short distance, I think about a mile or so, to a Rotary Gospel camp. Both our camp and the Rotary Gospel camp, and the river between them, were in a narrow canyon with high ridges on both sides and no side-canyons. Several of us had been down that canyon, also up and over the ridges on both sides, and we knew that there was no way to leave that canyon without knowing it. Although the terrain was steep, hiking was easy along the trail, and that route was considered quite safe for youth day-hikes.
Generally, it is hard to become lost when following a river down-stream. But when following a river up-stream, in some cases there is a possibility of becoming lost by accidentally following a tributary rather than the main stream. In this case, though, in that deep narrow canyon, all that they had to do was hike back up the canyon to our camp. And in an emergency, they could gave gone into the Rotary Gospel camp and used their telephone. So we considered it a safe hike.
One afternoon, two adults from our camp, with several youth members ranging in age from maybe 11 years to about 15 years, hiked down the trail toward the Rotary Gospel camp, intending to turn back at the edge of that camp, and return to our camp well before dinner. The adults and some of the youth members knew the trail well. In that narrow canyon, over the short distance to the Rotary Gospel camp, and with several people who knew the trail, a map and compass seemed unnecessary. Several people had wrist-watches (the mechanical wind-up kind -- modern quartz crystal watches were nonexistent in those days). One person had a pen-light, and one youth member had a camera.
This is their story as I remember it:
Some distance down the trail, when they expected soon to reach the Rotary Gospel camp, the canyon widened into a huge meadow that nobody recognized. Nearby, at one edge of the meadow, beside the trees, there was a log cabin, but no people were visible. The meadow seemed much too wide to fit in that narrow canyon. There was no possibility that the group had passed the Rotary Gospel camp, as it was in the bottom of the canyon just like our own camp.
Although they knew that something was wrong, they followed the river into the meadow, alert for any tributary streams that might confuse them when they retraced their route. After a while, they noticed that the river had decreased greatly in size and flow. That alarmed them, and they turned around and headed back up the river. Even as they followed the river up-stream in the meadow, the river rapidly disappeared. There were no dams on that river, and no recent weather patterns, to account for such a sudden decrease in the flow. They followed the sandy river channel back up-stream through the meadow, but soon even the channel disappeared, leaving the group in that big flat meadow with only the mountain ridges for land-marks, and even those ridges seemed to be much too far apart. From the group's position within the meadow, they could not even see the canyon where the river had entered the meadow.
Since they did not have a compass, one of the adults used the sun as an indicator of azimuth to keep them headed back toward our camp. But as they took frequent note of the sun's position, they noticed that it was setting much too fast, even though their watches indicated that the time still was early afternoon. At that time of the year, the middle of June, at that location, the sun sets very late.
Fortunately, they had not gone far into the meadow before they turned back. They reached the edge of the meadow just about when the sun set, and there they suddenly came upon the canyon that they had hiked down. It had been hidden from their view (or maybe it was not even there?) while they were in the meadow. The river was flowing normally in the canyon, and it sank into the ground where it entered the meadow. When the group started up the river, they immediately recognized familiar land-marks, to their enormous relief.
In that deep and heavily forested canyon, soon it was so dark that they barely could see where they were going, even though it still was early afternoon according to their watches. With their one little pen-light, they stumbled over the rocks, expecting to find the smooth trail that ran beside the river. But apparently they missed the trail in the darkness. Rather than spend the night there, they decided to continue the short distance up the river to our camp. As they explained later, after having the canyon and the river disappear right out from under them, and becoming lost in the meadow, and having night come in the early afternoon, they were so shaken that they wanted to return to civilization right then. They no longer even were sure that our camp still was there, or even that morning would come, and they did not want to spend eternity in a canyon that maybe went from a non-existent meadow to nowhere. So they continued stumbling over the rocks even after the little pen-light's batteries were exhausted.
Hiking on a smooth trail is easy in the day-time. Even hiking over rocks in the river, is not too bad when you can see where you are going. But it took them hours to go probably less than a mile up the river to our camp. Some of them were badly bruised from falling over the rocks, but fortunately nobody was injured seriously. They were enormously relieved to reach our camp buildings and our camp's own little meadow. They headed straight for our group's camp-site.
I had been out of the camp that afternoon; otherwise probably I would have gone with them on that hike. When I returned to the camp that evening, the decision already had been made not to start searching for them until morning. The camp director already had teleponed to the Rotary Gospel camp, and had determined that our group had not been seen there. When they returned, I was almost as relieved as they were.
We all stayed up late into the night with the camp director, going over their story. None of us found any significant discrepancies between their accounts. Their watches all indicated late afternoon. At first, they were not hungry; to them, it was not yet dinner-time. Apparently, at least in that meadow, time had affected their environment at one rate, and had affected both them and their watches much more slowly. Or maybe they still were too shaken to be hungry. Part-way through the discussion, the camp director served them dinner, and we finished the discussion as they ate.
The next day, we had everybody who had been on the hike, write their accounts on paper, with no further prompting and with no discussion between them as they wrote. After they finished writing, we asked them to add their recollections of various details, again with no discussion as they wrote. I remember asking them to record details of the transition between the canyon and the meadow, and of the river-bed in the meadow, also about where the sun set over the ridges above the meadow. I do not remember now what details the other adults requested. That process went right through lunch, and they ate with one hand while writing with the other hand. No, we were not slave-drivers; those people seemed as anxious to record that incident, as we were to have it recorded.
Then we turned the youth members loose, along with the two adults who had been on the hike, and the camp director and I stayed late into the evening comparing the written accounts. There too, we found no significant discrepancies.
To the great regret of all of us, the people had been so shaken that the person with the camera had not thought to take pictures of the meadow. Probably he still is kicking himself for that. Or maybe it is just as well that he did not take pictures; just possibly, recording that scene might somehow have trapped them there permanently. Of course that is pure speculation, wild speculation at that.
The following morning, the camp director, the two adults who had been on the hike, and I, started down the river for another look. This time, we took maps and compasses, watches, cameras, flash-lights with spare batteries and bulbs, and note paper. I took a roll of surveyor's flagging (brightly colored plastic tape) for temporarily marking our route, both so that we could find our way back in case of difficulty, and, to be truthful, so that just in case we did not return, other people could follow our route. (That last thought scared all of us a little bit.) On general principles, we took lunches. Portable two-way radios were not common in those days; otherwise we would have wanted them.
I took a small portable instrument for measuring the sun's elevation angle. For any location and time of day, it is easy to compute the sun's azimuth and elevation angle. Also, if you measure the sun's elevation angle at two known and widely separated times during a day, then, in principle, you can compute your location (latitude and longitude); that is a standard procedure in celestial navigation. If we came to the meadow again, then I would compare the sun's azimuth with a magnetic compass, and measure the sun's elevation angle, at frequent intervals according to our watches. Then, back home (assuming that we survived the trip), I would try to make sense out of any strange behavior such as the group had observed two days previously.
I also took a telephone lineman's test set; that is a little self-contained telephone like you see on linemen's tool-belts, except that test sets had miniature rotary dials in those days, rather than modern push-buttons. Our camp's telephone line ran beside the river to the Rotary Gospel camp, where the telephone cable ended. Along the river between the two camps, our telephone line was attached to trees at about head-height, so we would be able to use it in case of emergency. I admit to some concern that if we did find the meadow, then the telephone line might neither cross the meadow nor go around it, and thus we might be isolated. In our camp, I had asked the hikers whether they had noticed whether the telephone line crossed the meadow, but none of them had noticed the line even in the canyon. As I look back on it now, we were asking for trouble. Maybe we should have had more back-up before we started investigating.
Before we left our camp, I found an excuse to telephone to one of my friends at the Rotary Gospel camp, and I arranged to meet him there. From our camp director's call two days previously, my friend already knew that something was wrong. I begged off explaining until we met personally.
Now, after all that build-up, here comes the embarrassing part of my story: We walked down the trail to the Rotary Gospel camp, and saw absolutely nothing unusual. On the way, I tied strips of surveyor's flagging to tree branches at frequent intervals. I also kept a close watch on our telephone line beside the river; it was there, right where it was supposed to be. There was no meadow. The river still was very much there, in the bottom of the narrow canyon. The sun was rising slowly in the sky, just like it should be doing at that time of day. We went into the Rotary Gospel camp, and met with our friends there. As my excuse for being there, I looked at some equipment that I had helped them to build. But probably they still are wondering why we went there that day. Our camp director used their telephone to call back to our camp, to let our people know that we had made it safely that far. Then we took our leave, and walked back up the trail to our camp, removing the strips of surveyor's flagging as we went. We ate our lunches in the camp dining room, with the rest of the camp members. We felt relieved, and also a little bit foolish. But we would rather feel foolish than be lost.
Those mountains have changed drastically during geologic time. The river systems have re-formed so extensively that it is hard to imagine how much different they used to be. But all of that happened long before there were people on Earth. Thus even if our group somehow was transformed back in time to another geologic era (which I still find impossible to believe), that does not explain the log cabin in the meadow.
What was that meadow all about? And the disappearing river, and the rapidly setting sun? Darned if I know. If that group made up their story, then they did a very good job of it, telling it and writing it with no significant discrepancies. If they used the hike as an excuse for some mysterious detour, then they had one heck of a climb out of the canyon to get there. I think that all of us were basically honest, except of course for the standard campers' practice of telling outrageous lies around camp-fires. My guess is that the hikers were just as puzzled as I was, and also were thankful to be alive after it was all over.
That was a long time ago, and I have lost contact with all of those people now. If I ever talk to any of them again, it will be interesting to bring up that strange hike, and see what response I get.
Dick Alvarez
alvarez@best.com