A Missing Hiker's Sleeping Bag Came Back to the Shelter 14 Years Later

A park ranger horror story from the Smoky Mountains: five hikers sleep in an Appalachian Trail shelter in January, and at 2:40 a.m. one of them counts six sleeping bags. An original fictional wilderness horror story, told from the perspective of its main character. The characters and events are invented. This is not a real incident report or a personal account by the channel's narrator. Spence Field shelter, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Backcountry ranger Mallory Shreve climbs through crusted snow after a hiker is reported missing in the night. His boots are still under the sleeping platform. One of his friends saw a sixth bag against the west wall, a faded blue mummy bag with an orange patch by the hood, though only five people came up the mountain. By morning it is gone, and the bare wood where it lay is still warm. Fourteen years earlier, another hiker vanished from the same shelter, and Mallory was the young seasonal who wrote down what an old man saw by that wall. Where does a sleeping bag go when nobody carried it out, and who was sleeping inside it? A long, slow-burn Appalachian horror story for late-night listening and sleep, about a missing hiker, his friends, a lost man's sister and a ranger who now counts everything twice. Chapters 00:00 Six Sleeping Bags 04:01 Four Friends in the Snow 10:32 The Warm Platform 14:16 Two Sets of Tracks 25:49 The Edge of the Bald 29:40 The Winter of 2009 36:19 Supper at the Shelter 40:57 The Night Watch 53:04 Down to Cades Cove 1:01:58 The Old Search Files 1:10:32 The Townsend Motel 1:21:12 Back Up the Ridge 1:39:29 Cold Air Under the Rock 1:56:39 Nine Days 2:05:51 The Last Conversation A new story from the Backcountry Witness anthology every week. Subscribe and the next one will be waiting for you. Learn more about the real places: https://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisi... https://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisi... #parkrangerstories #appalachiantrail #scarystories