Summer Camp [Patreon Preview]

Welcome to the Otherworld Patreon. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. In this episode, we have two summertime stories that both involve camping. The first one takes place at a Boy Scout camp, and the second one is about a farm worker camping on the farm property where he works in Washington State. If you want to hear the full episode with both of these stories, it is out now at patreon.com slash otherworld. Speaking of camp, I actually just restocked the Otherworld Spiritualist Camp sweatshirt and shirt in the merch store. These were sold out for so long, I finally reprinted them. I also restocked our camo hats and added a couple different options with those. I also restocked the Otherworld moon hat, which is actually my favorite. You can get all of those at otherworldpod.com if you want some of our merch, which, by the way, I think is really good merch. Those hats always sell out very fast, so I wanted to give everybody a heads up. Once again, otherworldpod.com is where you can find all of our merch. Also, next week, we'll be putting out a very long, intense episode that involves elements of true crime, history, and the supernatural. It's two parts. I may end up putting them out in the same week and skip the following week because I have a baby coming any day now. I still have to decide exactly what to do with that, but I figured I'd mention the reason why we might be doing this in case we end up having an unconventional schedule this month. Anyway, in this bonus episode, like I said, there are two stories. And the first one comes from a guy named Ryan who grew up in Vallejo, California, and was an avid Boy Scout at the time. Every year, his troop would go to a summer camp called Camp Wolfboro. And at this camp, there was a very well-known ghost story told to the scouts about a haunted bridge. I'm sure you can imagine where this is going. This story was interesting to me because I, too, was a Boy Scout. I went to summer camp, and there were tons of ghost stories told. There were also a lot of. elaborate pranks and just straight-up lies that the camp staff would tell you, along with other scouts, as, like, a form of hazing. At first, I thought this might be what was going on, and I know for a fact that the storyteller, Ryan, thought that as well. But after what ended up happening to him, now he's not so sure. Let's get this episode started. If you want to hear both of these stories in the full episode, it's out now at Patreon.com. Patreon.com slash Otherworld. And once again, go get some of our merch if you want it. This episode is called Summer Camp, and you're listening to the Otherworld Patreon. My name is Ryan. I'm from Vallejo, California. I was a Boy Scout. Never made Eagle Scout. But I was pretty close. I was, like, a Life Scout when I ended it. Aged out. Kind of regret not ever finishing it all the way, but it is what it is. I grew up Mormon, so, like, a lot of the Mormon churches, like, have a Boy Scout troop that's, like, dedicated to that church. So my dad was the Scoutmaster, and I would go with him when I was 11, before I was even, like, that age to go. I was still probably, like, Cub Scout age, I guess, but I never did that. It was, like, a lot of camping. We went to a bunch of different places around Northern California. It was pretty much, like, any merit badge that you kind of wanted to get, you just made a request. A basic, like, first aid, survival, wilderness survival was, like, a fun one. You got to make a shelter out in the woods, and then you would have to sleep in it for, like, one night to, like, finish off the final part of that badge. Every summer, we would go up. We'd go up for, like, one week to Camp Wolf Borough. It's near Angels Camp, California. It's, like, pretty secluded. It's maybe, like, a three-hour drive from where we are to get there, and you kind of would miss it if you didn't really know where you're looking for. Like, I remember it just being, like, a forest, like, service road that you kind of just pulled off on, and there's, like, a parking lot, just, like, a dirt parking lot at the end of the road, and you would park your car there. Pack up, like, everything that you're taking for the week, all the ice chests and tents, sleeping bags, all your gear, and you would have to hike down probably, like, three miles down, like, kind of, like, a switchback trail, and you would eventually get down into the valley, and that's where the camp was, and it's probably, like, a dozen different campsites you could choose from. There's, like, a big kind of general store. You could buy candy or little things, like wood-carving projects, and then there was, like, a mess hall. They had, like, an amphitheater kind of thing where they would do, like, different skits or, like, performances and things like that. They would host different troops for, like, two or three months during the summer. There was a rock. It was called Polaris Rock, and all the camp counselors would tell you that this rock has, you know, supernatural, weird energy, and if you went up there, your compass wouldn't work, and if you had, like, just sharpened your knife to where, you know, you could cut the hairs off your forearm, you would go up there, and it would be dull. So we, like, went up there and tested all that stuff. I definitely remember, like, the compass kind of just being a little wonky and, like, not really working. It could be explained, but the knife thing, I remember being true as well, and that one's, like, a little harder to explain, but, yeah, we were kids. We were kind of hoping, like, you know, we would get scared. And then every week when we would go up there, there's, like, one night that's dedicated to that rock, Polaris Rock, and if you wanted to join in, you could take your sleeping bag up there and spend the night on the rock, and the counselors would tell ghost stories. A lot of them were about the camp. Some of them were just, you know, probably just old ghost stories that just get, you know, repurposed and get told. You know, there would be, like, different counselors that would come every summer. There would probably be, like, a couple that, you know, they did it every year, you know, for, like, a few years. So you'd see them again. So, you know, we kind of had, like, a rapport with some of them. So I remember talking to one of them that did, like, the ghost stories the night before, and we're asking him about, you know, all the different stories, and we're like, all right, well, we know this one's fake, right? Because I've heard this before somewhere else. And they're like, yeah. We're like, all right, so which one's true? Like, is the Calaveras County monster story true? Is, like, the yellow-eyed thing true? And they're like, nah, who knows, maybe. Like, they just wouldn't really give us a straight answer. And one of them mentions this other story that we had never heard before. And we had gone five years at that point, but no one had ever mentioned this story before. So, you know, we're listening. And he tells us that way back before the Camp Wolfboro was how it is today, there were two different camps on either side of the river. So there's, like, a big river that divides the camp in half. So, like, half the campsites are on one side with, like, the mess hall, the lodge, and everything. And then the other side is, like, mostly campsites. And then there's, like, a little nature lodge where they would. catch rattlesnakes and, like, different bugs and things like that. And they would just, like, have them there to, like, observe for, like, different merit badges. So back when this story took place, there were two different camps on either side of the river. And, I don't know, we're probably talking, like, 50 years ago, I don't know. Way before, you know, cell phones, for sure. So the two camps would have, you know, communications with each other. You know, you're out in the middle of nowhere. You know, you kind of have each other's back. If there were ever, like, an emergency, they would always make sure to, you know, assist. The story that they were telling us was that one night, one of the kids at the camp got, like, seriously injured and needed to be, like, evacuated. So they sent a messenger in the middle of the night to go run across to the other camp and let them know that, you know, they needed help. And as this guy was running across the bridge, he slipped and fell and just, like, cracked his head open in the river and died. And then he tells us that you can still see this guy, like, running across that bridge forever trying to get that message that he'll never, you know, finish. And we're like, Okay, tell us more of the news. a specific time i don't remember exactly what the time was but it was like 9 15 or something or 11 15 something like that he's like if you go onto the bridge and you wait until this time on this certain night you could see him and we're like there's no way you know ghosts aren't real so we're like super excited you know we're like we're gonna totally go check it out but like none of us really believed we were gonna see anything i'm sorry to cut this off but that brings us to the end of this preview if you want to hear both stories they are out now at patreon.com otherworld once again our merch is restocked go check it out those hats especially the camo ones typically sell out very fast so get them while they're hot otherworldpod.com patreon.com otherworld