I love to go hiking. I go with my 3 year old German Shepherd Kairi, and let her go unleashed since we like to go to secluded places. Now I have been hiking all over the Utah mountains, and wanted a new hike that wasn’t too far from me. I have an app that tells me about hikes near me, if it is a hard hike, reviews and if it’s dog friendly. Now I was scrolling through AllTrail looking for possibly something new but I wasn’t too hopeful. But to my delight, there was something new. I don’t know why I don’t remember the name of it, but I do remember it was at the bottom of the list and it had one review saying ‘good’ I thought that was kind of strange, mostly because people love to review hikes and try to tell the city what they can do to improve the hike and make it more safe, but I figured it wasn’t a popular hike. So the next day Kairi and I packed up our stuff and went up towards the hike. I always carry first aid kit, extra food, a knife and just emergency stuff in case I get lost. It’s important to mention now that Kairi eats a raw diet. Meaning she eats raw meat not cooked, and since we were going so early in the morning I thought I could bring some with us. I put it in her blue backpack I make her wear and decided when it was getting warmer we would stop to eat. Where I live, there’s a long drive through the canyon and many roads going towards the hike you’d like to go on. This one was a little further than I’m use to but I didn’t care it was new and I was excited so was Kairi. She cries in the car until we get there.
Now I was following the directions on my phone and saw that it had lead me towards a thin road that was hidden. ‘No wonder I haven’t heard of this place’ it was hidden and far up the mountain. The road only fit one car so the whole time I was so anxious that another car would come down, and how I would handle that but there never was. I never saw another car. When I got to the “parking lot” (if I could call it that), I noticed there was only space for like three cars. All in a tight space. It was small, so I decided to park my car with the front facing towards the road. I thought maybe it was private property, checked the app but it didn’t say anything about private property. I shrugged it off, got Kairi out, prepared us and saw the trail.
Now even though I knew there wasn’t anyone parked there, I kept Kairi on a leash. I didn’t know if there were bikers along the trail, but after thirty minutes or so I didn’t see anyone I decided to let her off leash. It was a steep hike for the first half, but it was beautiful. We were deep in the woods, and I felt at peace. I use to wear headphones when I hiked but didn’t anymore so I was enjoying the natural sounds of the forest. It was still early in the morning so I wore a light jacket and decided when it got warmer I’d give Kairi her breakfast. Now before you start to hate, I know. I know bringing Kairis raw meat was absolutely stupid and ignorant of me. I had never seen a bear or wolf or anything so I got cocky and just thought it was okay. I learned my lesson the bad day, so no need to tell me I was dumb.
Now here is where we begin the bad part of this story. The trail finally stopped being steep and sort of an easy hike from here. When you got to the top, you could see through the trees a beautiful open meadow. On the other side of it, you can hear a river and a waterfall. The trail went around the meadow. The meadow was absolutely beautiful with the mountains in the background, the sound of the water. This hike was almost the most beautiful one I had ever been to.
When Kairi and I were sort of in the center of the meadow, she stopped right in front of me and looked towards the meadow. Kairi always walked ahead of me and when she stopped I stopped since I trusted her judgement. Before I could look, the smell hit me first. You know the typical rotting smell but 'oh my God!' Words cannot explain how bad it was. It burned my nose, and started to make me tear up. I put my shirt over my nose, feeling nauseous and looked over to where Kairi was looking. In the middle of the meadow was a deer. Now I’ve only seen does but never a male deer in person. But his antlers were huge.
The beauty of the deer was amazing but not enough to take away the disgusting smell that was making me sick. The deer was looking towards the mountains and away from me. I thought maybe Kairis food was going bad, I checked that and it seemed fine. When I looked up again, the deer was looking towards our direction. I noticed that Kairis hackles went up at that, she started to cry nervously.
Now I’ve heard of wendigos and skinwalkers, I am Native American it is common for these creatures to be in our childhood stories. That and also listening to scary stories on YouTube. Now when Kairi did that, I got a bad feeling in my stomach despite the sickness.
It was a Wendigo and I knew that, now I didn’t know what to do. These creatures were only apart of my stories to make me go to bed, not to instructions of what to do. Plus my grandmother was the one with the stories and passed away. She was the one with the experience not my mom or anyone else.
I glanced at Kairi again when she cried, and looked back towards the creature. It started to stand on its hind legs. Holy hell it was f**king tall, and it faced my direction. It started to walk towards me, I was going to run until I heard in my head.
“I am the one of this land”
Suddenly it started to run towards me, full speed. I screamed, called Kairi and started to run. Kairi was following behind me. I started to cry as I was running since I could hear it catch up to me. It was loud. It was destroying everything it came in contact with to get to me. The adrenaline running through me was making me just focus on running. I didn’t know where to go I just ran. The trail suddenly got smaller and bushes with thorns started to appear but I didn’t feel them as they cut my arms. As I heard it got closer, it suddenly went to the left as I ran straight. I somehow had the balls to look back to see it was gone, but also Kairi.
“Kairi?” I said but right as I called out for her, the trail ended with a foot drop onto a patch of rocks. I hit my head, bleeding a bit. But again I couldn’t feel it that much and just got up. I looked towards the forest when I suddenly heard a loud cry from my right. It was Kairi. “Kairi!” I cried out. I stood up, crying and lost at what to do. I looked back to see a river leading up to the waterfall I heard. Suddenly a heavy weight ran into me and we both fell back. I hit my head again on the back and looked up to see Kairi. Kairi had blood all over her. It was pouring from her neck.
“Kairi!?” I cried out. She was whimpering, and breathing heavy. She still had her backpack on with some cuts in it. Before I had a chance to help her, a scream came from the forest. I looked back at the waterfall, and somehow had the strength to pick up my 85 pound dog and carry her. I don’t know where I was planning to go I was just running to the waterfall as if it was a safe place. I was almost there when I heard the creature land on the rocks that I did early. I tripped at that and looked back to see it looking at me. It’s eyes were black or I think so, it could also be that there wasn’t anything in there. I don’t know.
I took off Kairis backpack and throw it towards the monster, hoping it would take the meat and just leave us alone. I was scooting back towards the waterfall, crying as I did so. Holding and dragging Kairi with my left arm. I found that being so close to the creature made me literally weak to my knees. It walked over to me, taking huge steps. It looked so different than before, before it looked like a deer and now as it crawled over to me it looked like... a monster. I don’t know how else to describe this awful demon, I don’t. I’m sorry.
But I felt water hit my head hard as I had reached the waterfall. I kept going until I was up against the wall. There barely enough space where water wasn’t hitting Kairi and is faces. Kairi felt limp at this point. I could somewhat see the creature through the water, but still saw it coming towards me. It stood on its hind legs when it was close enough to me, watching me. The smell was so disgusting, I couldn’t help but throw up in my mouth. It reached his arms out to grab me, I screamed so loud. I actually lost my voice.
After I let out that scream, another scream came from the deep forest. The creature snapped its head almost completely backward, looking towards the scream. The scream sounded like the one this one had let out earlier. I was still holding onto Kairi, crying and screaming since it’s arm was close. It looked back to me, pulling its arm away and again said in my mind?
“I am the one of this land”
With that, it took steps back watching me and went down the river bank. It crawled on all fours, stopping next to Kairis backpack. It ripped it apart and pulled out the meat eating it with the plastic bag that it was in. It suddenly screamed and ran towards that direction of the scream from earlier. When I thought it was gone, I stood up shakily and carried Kairi towards the trail again. When I was running, I came across my backpack that I had left earlier and stopped. It was ripped apart so I took off my jacket and wrapped it around Kairis neck where she was bleeding a lot. After that, I barely remember. All I remember is carrying Kairi and driving down, screaming the whole way towards the emergency vet.
They asked us what happened and I told them it was a bear. They called the ambulance since I had blood all over me and they couldn’t tell if it was mine or Kairis. Kairi made it through surgery and had to have some stitches on her, along with a pad. It didn’t really heal and a huge bump grew on there. It had been infected but eventually got better. She also had a bite mark on the top of her left eye, but that healed much better. They pulled out a four inch tooth, I don’t have it because I couldn’t even look at it but they declared it from a bear. Even though they said it looked weird.
While I was waiting for Kairi I went to look up the trail on the app, and it was gone. I don't know why or how but it is. I don’t remember where it is either. That’s all a blur.
I haven’t been hiking since, and I refuse to let Kairi go. That time my mom took her she did it while I was at work but regretted it because she said Kairi was crying and was so scared they had to just go home. My mom knows, I screamed at night from nightmares for a week or two. My mom put white candles in my room to get rid of the bad spirits attracted to my negativity.
So yeah that's my story. I’ve heard stories where people saw a wendigo and they didn’t get harmed, and God I wish I went through that. I hate hiking. My therapist thinks I may have some PTSD but only knows of it as a bear. I’m getting through it, Kairi is too. Hopefully one day I can go back but I don’t see that being for a while.
Please if you’re going to go up to the mountains, please please prepare. Mother Nature is not only unpredictable but has things in there that just don’t make sense in our heads. So please be safe. I say that with serious sincerity. Thanks for reading. LP
The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist)
Native American Myths & Legends
Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo in Myth and History
Cryptid Country (Cryptid Zoo)
Lon's Suggested Reading List - Books & Films / DVDs
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