True Horror Stories From the Trail

True Horror Stories From the Trail

It’s spooky season, so we’re gathering around the campfire to share frightful tales from the great outdoors. We’re talking epic gear fails, wacky weather days, and all the creepy crawly creatures of the night! If you’ve been on trail long enough, you’re bound to experience your own tale of two of plans, routes, and packing gone awry.

To celebrate the hauntings of this time of year, we asked our team of brand ambassadors to recount some of their “horror” stories from hiking and backpacking. Below, you’ll find four scary tales from the trail in our brand ambassadors’ own words. We hope they don’t keep you up at night, but if they do, at least be prepared and cozy in your ultralight tent shelter and hydrophobic down quilt.

NOTE: Given the nature of these horror stories, none were caught on film to share here. Instead, we’ve relied on Gemini artificial intelligence to recreate the spooky scenes. These photos are very much not real.

1. “Mouse Lake” by Riley Ormiston

On the Pacific Crest Trail in 2023, we got hit with a season-ending atmospheric river after leaving Leavenworth. Townsfolk told us to give up on the trail for the year, come back another time, but we pushed on, into the bitter cold snap and constant drizzle and/or snow that would continue uninterrupted for weeks. I deal exceptionally poorly with being wet and cold, so this was wise.

On four- or five-day stretches between towns, my gear would get wetter and wetter as I desperately tried to keep my sleeping bag dry. My rain jacket would wet out in the first couple hours of each day. “How did my ramen get wet inside the sealed bag?” I’d wonder. I walked with plastic bags over my gloves to stop my fingers from going numb; in my tent each night, I would take off my hiking clothes and shiver myself dry before getting in my sleeping bag. I would obsess over my tent pitch to eliminate splash.

One morning, after a couple days battling slippery blowdowns and mud in Glacier Peak, I woke up to find that my sleeping pad was floating in a very small lake, formed by the high walls of my bathtub floor, and a newly-nibbled mouse hole on the uphill side of my tent, right at ground level. I took inventory (cried), collected myself (cried more), and eventually tossed all my stuff under a tree while I turned my tent inside-out to drain the water. I wish that I had improperly stored food, but as far as I could tell, the mouse just wanted to say hi. Anyway, after this, I had a very cold, wet two days into town, where all the hotels were booked, and the rain continued. But that’s a different story!

P.S. Thru-hiking rocks, and days like this are part of it. How else can you fully appreciate the really good ones? Plus, now I’ve trauma-bonded with these friends foreverrrrrr.

2. “Hundreds of Eyes” by Kathy Kimberlite

While on a thru-hike of the Grand Enchantment Trail in 2017 from Albuquerque to Phoenix, my hiking partner and I often hiked into the night. On this particular muggy night in mid-summer, we had reached an old, rotting, cottonwood grove. A trickle of water ran down the adjacent creek, so we stopped to filter some into our water bottles. The roots of the huge trees were mostly exposed, and my headlamp caught hundreds of tiny eyes. Everywhere I glanced, I saw more and more pairs of these eyes, and then tiny, hairy legs tangled together. We had come upon a whole environment filled with harvestmen. These harmless, spider-like insects were gathered together in this gloomy night scene, like a true horror story. They were piled on each other, tangled together and evoking a very scary scene in the night hours.

3. “The Soggy Day Hike” by Rochelle Altman

So, there I was, slogging through the Hoh Rainforest on what was supposed to be a casual day hike, where the rain isn't just an inconvenience, it's the main event. My “waterproof” jacket, which I'd put all my faith in, called it quits. Every step felt like wading through a creek, and I could feel my electronic car key drowning in my pocket, knowing full well it wouldn't work by the time I got back. Meanwhile, my phone was floating beside it, equally useless. So, of course, there's no photographic evidence of this disaster. That's when it hit me. The real scare wasn't the rain. It was realizing I had nothing left but bad options.

4. “The Deflated Yet Too Inflated Sleeping Pad” by Jeff Podmayer

During the summer of 2023, I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail through Washington State. I planned the trip with the intention of going fast and light, choosing the lightest gear I could find. Little did I know those choices would lead to some serious consequences on my 14-day journey. The horror started early—on Day 2, to be exact.

For my sleeping pad, I had chosen the Thermarest UberLite half-length inflatable pad. I figured I could prop up my legs with my rain gear stuffed into my pack, while the pad supported the upper half of my body. I’d done similar setups before, but I hadn’t used this particular pad. Like much ultralight gear, it was fragile. At the end of Day 2, after a long day of hiking, I was excited for a good night’s sleep. I set up my sleeping area, inflated the pad, and laid down. That’s when I heard it: POP! One of the baffles—the ridged, air-filled chambers that give the pad structure—had blown out, right where my head would rest.

My first thought was, “Great, now I have a built-in pillow!” I tried to stay optimistic, but as I rolled over, I heard another POP! Another baffle had burst, creating an uncomfortable bulge where my shoulder was supposed to be.

By the next night, two more baffles had blown out. Now the pad was almost impossible to lie on, with one enormous air chamber forming an awkward lump. I tried deflating it slightly to relieve the pressure, but that just made things worse. It felt like I was lying on a noisy, crinkly waterbed—and major parts of my body were literally touching the ground.

For the next three nights, I barely got four hours of sleep after hiking 30-plus miles each day. Exhaustion was setting in, and I knew that if I didn’t find a solution soon, I wouldn’t make it to the end of my hike. Thankfully, my partner had agreed to support me during the trip, and she mailed me her sleeping pad—a full-length, sturdy, and blissfully comfortable one—to use for the rest of the journey.

The moral of this horror story? Sometimes, it’s worth carrying a little extra weight to make sure you can actually sleep. Energy and recovery are just as important as going ultralight when you're on a long hike.

Share Your Horror Stories From the Trail During Spooky Season

Sometimes our “horror” stories from the trail end up being the best part of our trip when looking back in hindsight. They help us learn to be resilient, bond with our trail companions, and leave with epic tales to tell. We hope you’ve enjoyed this collection of scary stories from our brand ambassadors ahead of Halloween this year! 

Have a good horror story of your own from the trail? We’d love to hear it! Share your spooky hiking adventures with us by tagging Gossamer Gear on social media (@gossamergear) and using the hashtag #takelessdomore.

Hungry for more outdoor adventure inspiration? Check out some of our other articles on the Light Feet blog to start planning your next trip:

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