You CAN'T GO to the Grand Canyon Anymore. The Numbers Are Horrifying.

Today I'm gonna tell you four of the most disturbing stories in Grand Canyon history, you can't even go there anymore. And then I'm gonna do something a little bit different and tell you the top five most dangerous encounters that I've had in the wilderness. Nothing like a trip down memory lane, although these are memories I'd rather forget. If you're enjoying the show please leave us a 5 star review and you can also hit the follow button. I have a goal of reaching 1,000 5 star reviews and we have a long ways to go Franklin so you can help us out by hitting that follow button and that will also tell Spotify that people are enjoying the show and so do it right now and listen on if you can handle it. I need you to listen up to me right now. Do not ever go to the Grand Canyon alone. Over 1,000 people have been reported missing from there since just 2018 and the Grand Canyon is unmistakably the deadliest national park in the United States. But if you don't believe me, you better keep watching because I'm gonna prove it. In 1976, a man was digging through his late grandfather's garage at the edge of the Grand Canyon when he noticed a mysterious canoe. The canoe looked ordinary enough at first but when the man pulled it into the light, he noticed an old tightly wrapped canvas bag sitting at the bottom of the boat. And when he finally gathered the courage to reach in, pull out the bag and unwrap it, he could not believe his eyes. He had found a skeleton, not just a skull, but an entire human skeleton. Ellsworth and Emory Cole were two brothers who had built their own photo studio near the Grand Canyon back in the early 1900s. The Colbs used the studio as a home base for their outdoor photography. They snapped photos of daring river runs, mule trains, and of course tourists descending into the depths of the canyon and captured iconic images that shaped how we think of the Grand Canyon and the American West for that matter as a whole. When Emory Cole died in December of 1976, his family braced themselves for the tall task of clearing out his garage. It was an ancient cobweb-filled annex stacked with half a century's worth of river gear, cameras, and the stubborn secrets of a man who had spent his life exploring one of the biggest and wildest places on earth. As Colbs grandson, who was also named Emory, dug through the cluttered garage, he battled back against spiders and boxes upon boxes of old photographs. I'm sure it was at least a little interesting to be digging through a bunch of history, but if Emory Cole was anything like the grandpa's that I know, he probably collected plenty of useless random crap as well, and when the young Emory looked around the garage, he saw his grandfather's old canoe hanging from the ceiling. He instantly began to dread whatever treasures his grandpa might have hidden away inside of the canoe, and as it turns out, this dread was spot on, though certainly took a different form than he was first expecting. And of course, we all know what happened next, and the discovery of the skeleton obviously started a swirl of suspicion around the older Emory Cole. I mean, we're all familiar with the term skeletons in the closet, you know, in reference to someone hiding a secret, but I don't know many people who have found a literal human skeleton in their dead grandpa's garage, and so naturally, young Emory Cole and his whole family were pretty confused. Like how did the skeleton get there? How long had it been hidden inside that canoe? And most importantly, who did it belong to? One of the very first theories that investigators suggested was that this mysterious skeleton might hold the answers to one of the most infamous mysteries in Grand Canyon history, that is the disappearance of Glenn and Bessie Hyde. Now, I've done a video on them before, and so I'm just going to summarize their story pretty quickly here. Back in 1928, newlywed Glenn and Bessie Hyde attempted to set a speed record for traveling through the Grand Canyon on a boat, and Bessie was going to be the first woman to do so as well. In November of 1928, Glenn and Bessie, well, they were on this quest and they disappeared. Their boat would be found undamaged, but no trace of the couple themselves was ever found. And what makes their story extremely important to us today is that just before their disappearance, the Hyde's had met photographer and recalled. In fact, Colbe actually took a photograph of the couple, and this was one of the last photos that was ever taken in them, and he was one of the last people to have ever seen them before they vanished. And so now, nearly 50 years later, an unidentified skeleton is found in Colbe's garage. And you might think that things couldn't get much weirder than that, but you'd be dead wrong. When forensic experts began looking closer at what became known as the Colbe skeleton, they noticed a few key details. First, they could tell that the skeleton belonged to a man. And second, it was covered in pieces of tattered clothing. And third, when they examined the skull, they were shocked to find a bullet hole located in the right temple and a 22 caliber bullet was sitting inside of the skull itself. And so, could this skeleton have belonged to the long-lost Glen Hyde? And if it did, then Glen's death would suddenly have an unexplained gunshot and had just become way darker than it already was. When the University of Arizona had the chance to conduct a forensic investigation on the skeleton, they came to the conclusion that the skeleton had actually belonged to a man no older than 22 years old. And they also concluded that this man had died no earlier than 1972. And this, of course, should have ruled out the possibility of the remains belonging to Glen Hyde, but as you'll see, it may have just made things so much stranger. After discovering the skeleton, the young Emory was obviously confronted with a whirlwind of feelings. I don't know how it's to say that. Was his famous and accomplished well-respected grandfather who he was literally named after? Really the man that he thought he was? I mean, what would happen to his family's legacy if this skeleton turned out to reveal even deeper, darker secrets? Could the remains have been connected somehow to the cold brothers themselves? I don't know, maybe a total stranger had tried to attack them at their studio one day, and either Ellsworth or Emory used a gun in active self-defense. And now, of course, the evidence of this potential incident only revealed itself after the two brothers had passed away. And maybe that sounds a little far-fetched, it probably is, but there was no evidence to support a story that even hinted towards foul play. And again, the cold brothers were well-respected, and their reputations as explorers and photographers were widely celebrated. But still, when you find an unknown skeleton, your imagination is bound to run a little wild. It wasn't until 2008, over 30 years after the cold skeleton was discovered in that old canoe, that the son of a former Grand Canyon park ranger donated several hundred historical photographs to the Grand Canyon Museum collection. Now, most of these photos were routine images of canyon life, you know, mule trains, early tourists, long demolished buildings, but among them were a few photos that genuinely caught the eye of the people in charge of sorting them out, including a few grainy, black-and-white photographs of a skeleton on a ledge under the canyon's rim near Shoshone Point. These images showed a man lying where he had fallen or laid down on a narrow shelf of stone, a single bullet hole pierced the skull just above the right temple. There was a date on those photographs, and it said June 4, 1933. And there was also a note that confirmed the grim truth about what had happened. So investigators are looking over these old photos, they're trying to figure out what's going on with this freaking skeleton, and they soon find out that these images were of a young adult male that was discovered in June of 1933 in the Grand Canyon on a cliff near Shoshone Point. A 22 or 32 caliber pistol was found near the skeletons right hand, and was almost certainly used by the victim against himself. He took his own life. But the biggest revelation from all of their painstaking research was when they discovered the identity of the person who found that unfortunate soul who took their own life in the first place. And I'll give you one guess, because he's the one that also took the photograph. It was Emory Colb. Nobody knows why, but after discovering and reporting the skeleton, Colb took the bones back to his home and stashed them away, only for his grandson to stumble upon them over 50 years later. Investigators were eventually able to superimpose images of the Colb skeleton and compare it to the newly discovered images of this black and white skeleton, and they were able to confirm that they both belonged to the same unidentified 1933 John Doe. One possible explanation for why Emory had kept the Colb skeleton was the fact that during his life he had served as a jury representative for the Grand Canyon region for many years. Actually, it's believed now that he might have been asked to store the remains for safe keeping, which is a very odd request, but this is during the Depression era, not exactly known for being an easy time for record keeping. Emory was known for his reliability after all, maybe he meant to return the skeleton eventually, maybe he forgot, and then it just sat there in the old canoe for decades until death pride opened the garage door and revealed it to the world. I don't know. But the truth is that this is just what the Grand Canyon does. It chooses people up, and it spits out their bones, whenever it feels like it. Just over 88 years after the remains of the man were found, a lot of questions still linger. I'm sure a lot of you guys are thinking these things already. Most notably, who was he? Was he local to the area? Or had he chosen to travel to the Grand Canyon to end his life? Did anyone even know he was missing? Was anyone still looking for him and finally, if this wasn't Glen Hyde, then where was he and his wife, Bessie? And the canyon has not gotten any less dangerous since 1933, either. Decades later, a man would foolishly try to conquer the Grand Canyon with a rickety hand-carved raft. A man named Thomas Robison and his corgi were floating down the Colorado River on a wooden raft. Just a little while, Thomas enjoyed the calm flow of the river and the chance to spend a day in the great outdoors. But as he approached the heart of the canyon, the rapids grew faster and wilder, and he started to wonder if he was truly prepared to face the dangerous power of the Grand Canyon. And he'd soon find out the harsh truth very, very quickly. Thomas Robison came to the Grand Canyon from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 58 years old, but he was young at heart and always looking for his next adventure. Living in the American Southwest, he had a fascination with the wild beauty of the canyon, and he had a restless desire to test himself against the toughest treks that nature had to offer. So Thomas hopped into his champagne color 2001 Toyota Tacoma with his 11-year-old Welsh corgi looking for some adventure. When he arrived in the Greater Grand Canyon area, he parked his truck at a place called Lee's Ferry in the Glen Canyon National Recreationary just north of Grand Canyon National Park. This spot in particular is a super popular location used as a launch for whitewater rafting trips along the Colorado River. And so from Lee's Ferry, he and his dog set off on a journey down the river right through the heart of the Grand Canyon on a raft that he had built himself. And look, this kind of rafting trip is far from impossible, it's been done thousands of times before by paddlers of all ages and skill levels. But even with modern equipment, floating the Colorado River can be a dangerous thing to do. The rapids are violent, the water is surprisingly cold, and the canyon walls are thousands of feet tall in some spots, creating a maze with very few escape routes. I actually have a picture of Thomas's self-made raft right here. And as you can see, it was really just three planks of wood, each with mysterious and artistic etchings carved into them that were all tied together with multicolored rope. And like don't get me wrong, it looks pretty cool, but it definitely looks pretty sketchy as well. Thomas also had a single hand carved paddle and an orange life jacket, which he had also customized with some of his artwork. Thomas was clearly an eccentric and artistic guy, and even though his gears seemed to truly reflect his colorful personality, it didn't really look like it was capable of floating across a calm, peaceful lake, let alone through the middle of the mighty Grand Canyon. And it's safe to say that when Thomas set off, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. After a few days had passed, no one had heard from Thomas. He hadn't reached out to any of his family or anyone back home in Santa Fe, and at first no one really thought much of it. I mean, the Colorado River is long and remote, and depending on how far into the canyon he planned on going, it might take him a few days to get back to his car. It wasn't until April 21st, 2024, when a park ranger noticed that a mysterious Toyota Tacoma, the one that belonged to Thomas, had been sitting in the Lee's Ferry parking lot for multiple days, seemingly abandoned. When the ranger decided to investigate the vehicle, they discovered that it belonged to Thomas and, of course, they started to do a bit more digging. They canvassed the immediate area around the truck, but nobody in the Glen Canyon Recreational area had any helpful information. And naturally, the next thing they started to wonder about was the river itself. But at the same time, they hadn't gotten any reports of anyone matching Thomas' description, seen at any of the known take-out points downstream. Park officials started to come to the realization that they were not going to be able to solve this mystery with just a few quick questions. If there was a man and his corgi traveling around the canyon on a, you know, hand-carved raft that stuck out like a sore thumb, then realistically, somebody would have reported seeing them by now. But there had been zero sightings. And it was clear that his truck had been sitting there for a while now, and so they had to face the facts, which were that Thomas Robison was officially missing. The Grand Canyon National Park Office of Communication released an official missing person statement on April 24, 2024, three days after Thomas' truck was officially declared to be abandoned. Searchers were conducted by air and on foot. Helicopters flew over the twisting rivers scanning for any sign of life or debris. Searchers hiked through the canyon and down the nearby trails, calling out Thomas' name. Rescue teams also wondered if his dog would be the key to leading them to a breakthrough in their search. You know, they hoped to find tracks or maybe even some evidence that the dog had gone to the bathroom somewhere along the trails or the banks of the river. But the search quickly dragged on for over a week, and they still hadn't found anything. And so search and rescue crews started to wonder if the river had just swallowed them up. I don't know. Naturally, the people working on the rescue and the public all started to have their own theories and questions. They wondered what Thomas' plan was, you know, in the first place. I mean, rivers only flow in one direction, and so when he parked his truck in the Lee's ferry area, he would have known that he had to some way find his way back, right? Was he seriously planning on hitchhiking or even walking back with his raft and his dog? Not just him. In my experience, hitchhiking is hard enough to do when you're all by yourself. Let alone if you've got an animal and a bunch of wet gear and like a giant raft. Some people began to wonder if Thomas' raft had like wrecked early on in his journey, leaving him and the dog stranded in one of the canyon's more remote trails. Like maybe they had abandoned the river entirely and then tried to hike their way out. And imagine if rescuers might have been wasting precious time searching the actual river itself, while Thomas was in serious danger of dying from exposure or thirst somewhere else along the rocky cliffs of the canyon. Many people believed that Thomas had simply underestimated the river's power. In the spring, the melting ice and snow can swell the Colorado River to its most dangerous levels, making the rapids powerful enough to crush a small wooden raft like paper. If you was swept into one of those sections, it's possible that both Thomas and his dog were tragically pulled underneath the deadly churn. The longer the two were missing without a trace, the more intense the theories gut. But then, suddenly, against all odds, rescuers made a very improbable discovery at mile six of the Colorado River. On May 13th, search and rescue crews were floating down the river in the middle of their weeks-long search for Thomas Robison. As they drifted slowly downstream, they scanned their eyes from side to side, looking for anything that might seem out of place. Any sign that might lead them to a breakthrough or maybe even a rescue. Who knows. One of the park rangers peered along the banks of the river and saw a weird-shaped rock. Or at least that's what he thought it was at first. He kind of did a double take and took a second look at this rock. And he just knew that he had to get closer to like properly look at it. He had his crew flow over to that side of the river and as they drifted closer and closer, they realized that this wasn't just a weird rock at all. They started to notice arms and legs. This was a human body. And when they pulled up right next to it, they got a good look at the clothing on the body, including one piece of clothing that made the rangers stop in their tracks. It was an orange life vest with black, hand-drawn artwork. Folks, they found Thomas Robinson, but tragically it was much too late. After they made the heartbreaking discovery of Thomas's remains, the rescuers continued to look around the same area, which was six miles downstream from where he had launched at least very, and they were hoping to find pieces of Thomas's rafter or even hoping to find his poor little dog somewhere nearby, but to this day, they haven't been able to find evidence of either. And since this incident was so recently, you know, just a little over a year ago as of the time of this recording, no official cause of death has been released either, which only increases the level of mystery and of course tragedy around this case. It's the classic story of a man who is maybe a little bit too excited to venture out into the wild despite the danger, and his hubris tragically cost him his life and most likely the life of his dog, although I truly hope someone miraculously found the dog and rescued it unlikely, but you never know, and look, I talk a lot about. stories with dark endings and so sometimes I need to just fill in the blanks with a little bit of hope It's good for my mental health and though I was a little bit critical of Thomas's decision-making here My heart genuinely goes out to to his family and you know to his dog as well and this is a cautionary tale The Grand Canyon clearly wants you to take it seriously and if you try to treat it like a pond in your local park It's gonna make you pay and unfortunately Thomas's tragedy is Way too familiar almost like another mystery that took place in the Canyon back in January of 2015 When a strange Spiritual text message caused a family to fear the absolute worst Let me introduce you to Drake Kramer a geology obsessed college student living in San Antonio, Texas at 21 years old Drake was extremely kind and he was deeply connected to the power of nature He was in the process of turning that passion into a bright future by pursuing a degree in geology when all the sudden His family started to notice that he was beginning to talk about the outdoors in a more let's say Spiritual way here's what I mean Drake was normally a pretty grounded Intelligent and ambitious kid by all accounts that I could find he was a student and he even had a job at lows in San Antonio but in late January Something inside of Drake just kind of shifted on January 29th Drake and his father Robin Kramer went to the movie theater together and saw American sniper and This is a total aside, but does anyone remember the bizarre fake baby? They made Bradley Cooper hold in that movie like that doll still gives me chills to this day Honestly, sorry, I just had to get that off my chest so they go to this movie and Drake was apparently in good spirits Maybe he wasn't as bothered by the fake baby as I was, but just one day after that nice father son movie night He suddenly decided to leave his home in Texas and hit the road on like a spur of the moment adventure He texted his family from the road and he told them that he planned to go to one of the most scenic outdoor destinations in the world Grand Canyon National Park on January 21st Drake arrived in Arizona with his white 2007 Mazda 323 and checked into the bright angel lodge Which is a hotel at the south rim of the canyon He spent the night at the lodge enjoying the rustic beauty of the building and and seemingly looking forward to whatever adventure He had planned for the next day Drake kept texting his parents this entire time He was usually the type of kid that would stay in touch But then all the sudden his messages started to get a bit more poetic and folks that's where this last minute trip started to get really really weird While Drake was at the lodge he texted his parents that he loved everyone deeply and that he needed to quote Return to mother earth and quote set his soul free and Some of you might interpret those texts as a cry for help especially in hindsight But this was also just a part of Drake's introspective nature He was basically just saying that he looked forward to unplugging taking a break and reconnecting with nature Drake checked out of the bright angel Lodge the very next day February 1st and he left his car in the parking lot setting out into the park Maybe whatever he was looking for was like Way way out there But his parents had noted Drake's shift in tone over the text messages and as the day went on They still hadn't heard from him they texted him they called him they tried calling the lodge as well But they couldn't figure out where he was this wasn't like him at all and as much as it hurt them to admit His parents were starting to get extremely fearful. What did their son's text messages mean? How did he plan on returning to mother earth or or setting his soul free his parents were honestly too scared to answer those Questions for themselves and I haven't even told you guys yet about the most chilling texts that he sent to his stepmom I'll get into that in just a second But his parents decided they weren't gonna wait around any longer and so Robin and Brenda Kramer Reported their son missing the very next day February 2nd park rangers launched a massive search covering nearly 300 square miles of Steep ravines dense forests exposed ridge lines and of course the perilous drop-offs that are just all over Grand Canyon National Park Crews combed the rim on foot while helicopters scanned from up above dog teams were brought into search for a scent and Specialized teams performed several over the rim technical searches checking places that most visitors never even see They searched for six grueling days with pretty stable daytime temperatures around 60 degrees Fahrenheit at the top of the rim But there was rocky and unstable terrain deeper in the canyon and the winter snow down there Would stay shaded for most of the day as well the mix of terrain and Conditions made their search much much more difficult than a normal one the six day search Fortunately revealed zero new clues or information to explain Drake's disappearance and the efforts scaled way down after this The South Rim of the Grand Canyon is truly beautiful But it can be brutal as well and for all we know Drake Kramer could still be somewhere out there because he's still missing to this day The only thing we have left of him is his final text of Brenda This is the one I mentioned earlier and it said quote, "I truly love and cherish every soul I met and will meet in my lifetime Love Drake lions Kramer that last line is truly chilling almost like the Signature to a farewell letter except his family still doesn't think he was saying goodbye Necessarily, so I don't want to give you the wrong picture here But years later, they would still return to the Grand Canyon to renew the search efforts in 2016 his dad said quote I don't know if he's out there trekking around trying to find himself I don't know if something happened to him and he added quotes until there's proof otherwise I have to believe he's still alive if any of you out there have information About what happened to Drake Kramer or if you find something suspicious in the Grand Canyon The official Grand Canyon silent witness phone number is nine to eight six three eight seven eight four zero Drake seemed like such an amazing guy and I hope we can get at least one miracle out of some of the stories in this video and That he can be found soon Drake's story is very recent and it's heartbreaking and the Grand Canyon has been known to hunt people Following them around like ghosts and and pulling them in like its nature's version of the Grim Reaper and maybe no other Story stands out quite like another unidentified skeleton they found near the canyon back in October of 1958 and this one gave police answers about a person. They didn't even know they were looking for how the hell does that happen? Well, I'll explain you see back in August of 1957 Mary Margaret Begay and three of her friends walked to a bar called the Grand Canyon Inn to have a few drinks and enjoy a peaceful summer night of Laughter and fun she didn't know it yet, but this dream evening would quickly turn into an absolute nightmare Mary was a 20-year-old Navajo woman from the nearby community of Loop, Arizona just outside of Grand Canyon National Park This area was remote Rugged and was home to an almost entirely indigenous population Mary was described by those who knew her as kind, quiet Dependable she was working at the Grand Canyon South Rim at Bright Angel Lodge, which happens to be the same hotel that Drake Kramer was last seen at, but this was a pretty common place for local Navajo residents to work at the time She lived a simple life, but it was about to get crazier than she could have ever imagined as their fun night at the Grand Canyon Inn went on Mary and her friends ran into a bunch of different people some of them they knew and some of them were complete strangers Mary was very friendly to everyone she met and while kindness is usually a good trait to have Unfortunately, it can also make somebody a target as the night started to wind down Mary began talking with These two random men that she'd never met before the sound of music and Conversation inside the bar was getting a bit too loud and Mary didn't even catch the names of these two men But her friends and family were eventually able to figure out that they were both Hopi which was another indigenous tribe in the area to Mary these men seemed friendly enough, but then again everyone was nice to Mary But at one point during the night Mary looked around and all the sudden she couldn't find her friends The two men then asked her to step outside and she decided that she would follow them Maybe her friends were out there. She stood outside of the bar kind of looking around when suddenly the two men started walking over to their car And in this moment her two friends actually walked outside of the bar as well And they watched as Mary dressed in a white sweater and capri pants followed the men over to their car The men climbed inside and then Mary did something that absolutely shocked her friends She climbed inside the car too before her friends could even like call out her name Ask her what she was doing the car drove off on her way to who knows where with two complete strangers and her friends were Terrified, but they didn't know what else to do this was 1957 It's not like they could just text her or follow her location right they had to just hope that somehow some way Mary would be okay the next day She didn't show up for her shift at the bright angel lodge and you'd think that her boss would be like a little bit worried, it definitely was not like her to just skip work without any explanation, but at the time no one really seemed that concerned, at least not right away. In fact, when she didn't come to work, park authorities just decided to fire her, and they boxed up her belongings, and they moved on. It wasn't until a few days later when Mary's family came to visit her at the lodge that they realized no one had heard from her since that night at the bar. They asked her friends, and they started to search around the whole Grand Canyon Village, but they couldn't find her anywhere. And it's in this moment that they realized the dark, dark truth. Their young, sweet Mary had completely disappeared, and if they wanted any chance of finding her, they needed to act quickly. And so they reported her disappearance to the Navajo Nation authorities. Now, this is the point where in pretty much every other disappearance story I've told, I would say something like, you know, 100 searchers scoured the canyon, and dogs came in and helicopters, but the truth is that that didn't happen here. Unlike so many of the other mysteries I've covered on my channel, search crews didn't jump right into action. In fact, the county sheriff's office wouldn't even know that Mary was missing until over a year later in October of 1958. Sheriff Cecil Richardson received a report of an unidentified skeleton found near the Grand Canyon, and when he started to ask around with other local authorities, including the Navajo Nation, he kept hearing the same thing over and over again. Maybe it belonged to Mary Begey, which seemed like a promising lead, but there was just one problem. Cecil had never heard of Mary Begey, and he wasn't sure why. Maybe it fell through the cracks, or maybe someone in the sheriff's office had received a report, but had cruelly decided to put it on the shelf and ignore it, or maybe accidentally did that, maybe it was just incompetence. To this day, nobody knows for sure what happened. But as Cecil learned more about Mary's disappearance, he began to drop parallels to this new found set of remains. The skeleton they had discovered was near an old set of clothing, and even though they were aged in damage, the sheriff's office confirmed that they thought the clothes were consistent with the same white sweater and capri pants that Mary was last seen wearing. And so, have the sheriff's office managed to find the remains of a woman that they didn't even know was missing? For a brief moment, Cecil hoped that was true, but upon further research, the bones were determined to have belonged to a much younger female who was not of indigenous descent. The county sheriff's office named the skeleton Little Miss X, and they added her to their list of missing and unknown people that was only getting longer and longer. But, even though this skeleton wasn't Mary's, Cecil did not give up. By 1959, he was looking elsewhere for Mary, chasing around every theory he could even possibly think of. Some folks speculated that she had run away to start a new life somewhere else, and police interviewed a woman who Mary had been friends with while working at the Bray Angel Lodge, and that woman said she believed Mary had run away from her life in Arizona and she was now living in Los Angeles. She believed that Mary didn't want her family to know where she was for some reason. Cecil even talked to another friend of Mary's who said that she heard Mary was now married and had a child and was living up in Oregon. And it's like, do we really think that sweet little Mary actually decided to leave her family and her friends and just go start a whole new life? Sounds far-fetched, and that's exactly what the police believed. They noted that Mary had been in constant contact with her family up to that point, and that she wasn't like estranged from any of them. Other people began to wonder if Mary and these two unidentified men might have accidentally driven off the edge of a remote canyon rim road, something like that. Maybe it was so dark that night that they just drove off the side of a cliff, like I don't know, but of course if that was the case, then why couldn't authorities find any tire tracks or evidence at all of a crashed car somewhere in or around the park? The Grand Canyon is big, of course, but they didn't think it was possible to hide three bodies and a ruined car forever, right? And of course, you have to wonder about foul play. You've probably been screaming that at your screen this entire story. Mary was last seen getting into a car with two total strangers. Nobody has ever come forward with any information about those two men that Mary met that night, and of course you have to wonder if they kidnapped herts or did something even worse to young Mary. But if something violent did happen, no one has ever found any evidence of it, and more than 50 years later, Mary is still missing. Oh, and as far as the little Miss X skeleton that they recovered, well, no one ever learned her true identity either. My heart goes out to both these two victims, as well as all of the other victims I've talked about in this video. Please show them some love in the comments. I really appreciate it when you guys do that. Okay, now it's time to relive some of the worst memories that I have for my time in the wilderness. And I'm being a little dramatic here, but these stories were pretty scary, and so if you want to help me out, just remember to hit that fall button and leave us a five star review. Today I'm going to be telling you five stories of my most dangerous and well, I'm just going to say it my most up hikes. A long time viewers of my channel already know this, but in case you didn't know this, I'm not just a YouTuber and a storyteller. I am an experienced hiker myself. I've hiked well over 5,000 miles in the past 10 years, and I've completed the entirety of the Appalachian Trail. And soon, the entirety of the Pacific Crest Trail, I've done over 90% of it at this point. And I've done a lot of other stuff too, as we're going to find out in this video. And when you've hiked that many miles, you're unfortunately pretty much guaranteed to have some dangerous moments every now and again, even if they are few and far between. Some of these were caused by me and my poor decision making. And some of them, to be honest, were just completely random, wrong place at the wrong time. And I think those are probably the scariest. I enjoy telling stories about other people, but today I am excited to get back to my roots and tell my own stories and honestly, kind of make a bit of a fool out of myself in the process, because some of these stories will, let's just say I'm not particularly proud of them. And though these are my top five most dangerous hiking moments, these are definitely not the five most dangerous moments that have ever happened to anybody hiking. I just want to be clear about that. Some of these stories at the risk of this probably isn't good for the algorithm, but yeah, some of these stories might sound a little bit underwhelming compared to the other ones that I've covered on my channel. There's no search and rescue. There's no being missing for two weeks or whatever. I just don't want to BS you, but these still were my most dangerous moments hiking and they still were very scary. I mean, I won't lie, I was scared as s*** during all these stories. We're going to go in order of least dangerous to most dangerous and I'll tell you right now the final story I'm going to tell is by far the closest I've ever come to a near death experience while hiking. So you're going to want to stick around all the way until the end to hear that. And with that said, let's take a trip to the white mountains of New Hampshire where innocent little 18 year old Kyle found himself lying awake in his hammock frozen with fear. It was the summer of 2014 and I had just graduated from high school and so rather than spending the summer partying and getting ready for college, I spent most of it chipping away at a peak bagging list called the New Hampshire 48-4,000 footers. In July of that summer, I had a few days off of work and so I figured I could actually bang out a bunch of these peaks in one trip if I brought my overnight gear and spent the night along the trail. This would only be the second time in my life that I would be solo camping in the backcountry. Day one of this trip was pretty uneventful. I hiked Mount Pierce and then Mount Jackson before finally calling it at night at some random stealth camping spot off of the Appalachian Trail. I honestly have zero recollection of this first night and so I'm assuming everything went fine. Although little did I know the next night would have me this close to sh*tting myself in my hammock. The next morning I woke up and then charged up Mount Willie, then I hit Mount Field and then Mount Tom. At this point, I had five summits under my belt in less than 24 hours and I was really starting to feel pretty tired but I still had Mount Hale left which thankfully is one of the easiest of all the 4,000 footers. I hit the summit and then I finally found a spot for camp that evening. I'm not gonna lie. The spot that I chose was not ideal. It wasn't even a real campsite. I basically just walked off the trail and then chose two trees for my hammock. One redeeming quality of this campsite I guess is that I was right next to a small stream and so the soothing sounds of that combined with the fact that I was absolutely wiped from all the hiking meant that I fell asleep almost as soon as I closed my eyes, a rarity for myself when I'm solo camping. And I actually slept pretty damn good. That is until about 11 p.m. when I was jolted awake. A massive thunderstorm was rolling through the mountains and I could tell with each passing boom that it was heading right for me. I'm sure many of you have probably heard that rule that allows you to estimate how far you are from a thunderstorm. by like counting the number of seconds between the thunder and the flash. Each second is supposed to equal a mile away, and to be honest with you, I'm pretty sure this system isn't very accurate. It's probably very unscientific, but regardless, I was doing this while I was laying in my hammock, and each time I would see a flash, the boom was happening faster and faster right after it. And before I knew it, this sh*t was right on top of me. I'm talking the flash in the boom we're happening at exactly the same time. It was just one continuous thing. I was quite literally right in the center of the storm. It was downpouring like you couldn't believe, and I was just laying there in my hammock, just trembling. I felt like a total sitting duck. There was literally nothing that I could do besides just wait for it to pass. And let me tell you, it felt like it took forever for that to happen. In reality, these storms move very quickly, and so it was probably only on top of me for a few minutes. But I don't know, dude, those few minutes were by far the most terrifying thing I'd ever experienced while hiking up to that point in my life, and I'm not gonna lie, even though I ended up being fine, obviously. This incident scarred me for years to come. It took a long time before I fell even somewhat comfortable camping by myself again, and I'm not gonna lie, even to this day, I still get pretty uncomfortable if I hear thunder off in the distance. Thankfully, the area that I was camped in was below treeline. It was a very safe area, which I didn't really understand at the time. I just got lucky, but man, this story left a lasting impact on me, and it actually influenced my actions in this next dangerous story, and definitely not for the better. So the next summer, I found myself back in the White Mountains, and this time I brought along a girl that I was dating at the time. Now, this girl had hiked before a decent amount, but I don't think it's been a long time now, but I don't think that she had ever backpacked before. And having the experience I do now, and knowing what I know today, in this circumstance with someone who had no backcountry camping experience, I would have paid very close attention to the weather forecast, and I also would have chosen a route that was pretty easy. Instead of doing that, my naive 19 year old self decided that we were gonna hike a mountain called Owlshead, which is yet another peak on the New Hampshire 48-4,000 footers list. The reason I chose Owlshead is because I was trying to do this list, and I wanted to check it off the list, which was selfish, because as we eventually found out, this was not the right place for somebody's first overnight backcountry trip. We started off from the Lincoln Woods Trailhead, and we slogged a number of miles through rough, but relatively flat terrain, and we also crossed a number of rivers. At this point, we were deep inside the Pemagoset wilderness, and though the rivers were at a normal level, I mean, this is a wilderness area. There's really no bridges at all. So every time that we would come to a river, and again, there were a bunch of these. We had no choice but to just send it right through the river, get our feet wet, that whole thing. But regardless of that, eventually we did get to the base of Owlshead, and from here the trail follows what we call a slide, and it just kind of shoots straight up over loose rocks, kind of in an open, clear area, until you finally reach the summit. We scrambled up the slide, we tagged the summit of the peak, yay, I got to check another one off the list, and then we turned around. At this point, it was getting later in the afternoon, and our plan, or I guess I should say my plan, I was the one leading this trip, she was just along for the ride. My plan was for us to get back down the slide, and then hike back a couple miles in the direction of the car, before finally setting up camp. Then the next morning, we would just hike the remainder of the way, backtracking, back out to the trailhead. We were almost down the slide when things began to unravel. I could see off in the distance that an afternoon thunderstorm was fast approaching, and I'm not going to lie, the first thing that entered my mind was the traumatic experience in those same mountains that I had had the year before. But we were only looking at the storm off in the distance, it hadn't actually hit us yet, and so I still had time to decide what we should do. And of course, I'll tell you what we ended up doing, but first I'll tell you what we should have done. At the bottom of this slide were a bunch of flat and safe campsites. There was a river right there, so there was water, there was fire pits, there was everything we needed, we could have set up right there. And we also got down to these campsites with plenty of time to set our tent up before the storm hit. So we could have set up, we would have been comfortable, we could have gotten inside the tent, and we would have been fine. We would have been sheltered, we would have been dry, and the storm would have passed over us very quickly. In hindsight, this is obviously the thing that I should have had us do, but instead I got spooked, and I made a very rash decision that we were going to instead book it down the trail and try to outrun the thunderstorm. Come here and let me tell you something, you can't outrun a f***ing thunderstorm, you can't do it. And of course, we didn't make it very far before just like the previous year, the storm was right on top of us. I'm talking lightning, flashing through the woods, thunder crashing all around us at the same exact time, and it started to downpour hard. And instead of being safe and sound and dry inside of our tents, we were just ripping it down the trail, which is very unsafe for anybody to do, but especially an inexperienced backpacker who had never carried like a heavy backpack. My ex-girlfriend easily could have rolled an ankle or fallen and hurt herself in this situation, we're rushing down the trail over very difficult terrain, and that's nothing compared to the danger that I put her and myself in when we reached the rivers that we had to recross. Because of the torrential downpour, these rivers were now rising and raging fast. The current in these rivers was now way stronger than it was when we had came in before, and neither one of us, especially her, had the level of experience necessary to be hastily rushing through multiple dangerous river crossings like this. The fact that I led us through this and the fact that I had us do this was just reckless of me. I mean, there was a few times where I had to give her my trekking poles in order to help stabilize her so that she could get across these dangerous rivers. In case you didn't get the memo already, this wasn't just one or two, there was a bunch of these. And again, all the while that we're going through these rivers, thunder is crashing down all around us. Thank God we did make it out okay, and eventually we set up camp, and of course everything, including the inside of our tent, our sleeping bags, everything, was completely soaked. This was definitely probably one of the dumbest things I've ever done, and some of the worst decision making I've ever made. Well, I mean, I just cringe when I think back on this situation, and I also cringe at the thought of this next story, because let's just say that if it had been a few degrees colder, rescuers surely would have had to drag my frozen body off the mountain. Which is a bold statement, and so once again, young naive and eager Kyle made some bad decisions on the trail. This time I think I was only 17 years old, and it was November of 2012. Those of you that live in the Northeast know that in November, there might not be any snow on the ground in town, but at the higher elevations there can definitely be some accumulation. I should have known this obviously, but I was 17 and dumb, and I didn't think about it, and so a friend of I headed out on the long trail in northern Vermont and decided to spend the night in the woods. I was not expecting snow on this hike, and so as a result, I wore cotton pants like a total idiot. I mean, you should never wear cotton hiking any time of year, but especially in cold wet conditions, this is a recipe for disaster. Cotton does not dry out easily, and it loses its insulating properties when it gets wet. It can also freeze, obviously, if it gets wet. After a day of hiking through snow and slush, I was completely soaked, and I was wet, and I was cold. I had some basic cold weather clothing with me. I had a warm, warm-ish ski jacket. I did have a winter hat. I had some small gloves, and I had a 30-degree sleeping bag, which maybe that sounds like a lot to you, but it wasn't. Temperatures that night were easily in the teens. They were around -9 degrees Celsius for my understanding, and my sleeping bag was just a cheap '01. I got on Amazon. That was definitely not as warm as it was advertised to be, even though the advertised temperature was still not going to be sufficient for this trip. So all that, combined with some now useless, soaked cotton pants, well, folks, this was just a recipe for disaster. My friend Dan and I rolled into a shelter on the long trail called Tilletson Camp, shortly before sunset, completely exhausted. The hiking that day had been much harder than we thought it would be, largely due to the fact that we were slipping and sliding on the snow all day, and man, I'm telling you, we were getting cold. I figured that once I ate dinner and I got into my sleeping bag, I would warm up a little bit and eventually drift off to sleep. Let me tell you, folks, there is no worse feeling than getting into your sleeping bag. Your final layer of warmth and still being just totally freezing cold. I'm not talking a little uncomfortable, like maybe, you know, oh my god, it's a little cold. I'm talking straight up shivering. No chance at sleep cold. We did not sleep that night. At all, we shivered and shivered until finally hours later, the sun came up, and then as soon as it did, we got the hell out of there back to our car and just completely blasted the heat. This story is so dangerous because if it had been even 10 degrees colder that night, an extremely uncomfortable situation could have quickly turned into a deadly one. We had no idea it was going to be that cold, and if it had just so happened to be in the single digits that night's say, well then I had wet clothing, I had an inadequate sleeping bag, I would have been totally screwed. We also didn't bring tents on this hike since we were planning on sleeping in the shelter, and so if we hadn't made it to the shelter for whatever reason, I mean, we would have been screwed. Things could have ended tragically. for sure. Clearly, I made some bad choices on the trail in my younger days and thankfully I've learned from them and I haven't made any choices like that in a long, long time. However, while good decision-making can mitigate most risk in the outdoors, it can't mitigate every risk. And so these next two stories are much more recent and these are just wrong place, wrong time scenarios. When people think about dangers associated with the outdoors, dangerous animal encounters are usually one of the first things that comes to mind. Bears, mountain lion snakes, these are probably the animals that people usually think of first and while all those animals definitely can be dangerous, experienced through hikers know that there is yet another animal besides those that is far more likely to hurt them. The animal that I'm talking about here would be the dog. Now, mountain trails that are deep in the backcountry rarely have dog problems, but there are a lot of long distance trails out there that require frequent road walks or at least road crossings. And these trails are where hikers really need to be alert to the dangers that random dogs pose. Unfortunately, many people who live along these trails do not keep their dogs leashed or fenced in. A lot of these are just like very rural roads, very rural areas. People have large amounts of property, so they're not really thinking about these things. And as a result, angry protective dogs will often charge at hikers who are walking by their property along the road. I had heard many stories from friends about sketchy dog encounters, but it wasn't until I was through hiking the washita trail in 2022 that I finally had one of these sketchy encounters myself. I was actually on my second to last day of the two week 220 mile walk through Oklahoma and Arkansas, and at one point I crossed a road and just as I was following the trail back into the woods, I heard some barking. And when I heard it, I instantly felt chills run down my spine. And that's because I had actually been warned about a dangerous dog at this particular road crossing, but maybe there was some bad decision making, because up until this moment, I had actually completely forgotten about the warning. I was using an app called Far Out, which is basically like a GPS app for through hikers, and it has a feature where hikers can leave comments about various trail conditions or like trail information. And on that app, I had read a number of comments about this particular road crossing where multiple hikers had encountered an aggressive dog that had followed them down the trail. Angry as hell, that someone had dared walk next to their property. But I had just completely forgotten about these comments. Up until the moment I heard that barking. And as soon as the barking started, before I even saw the dog, I knew that I was going to be in for some trouble. And sure enough, just a few seconds later, an angry snarling dog came running through the brush right at me. The trail ran adjacent to the dog's property. So I could understand, you know, these dogs like they want to protect their property. And so I could understand if the dog just ran up to the property line and kind of stood there guarding it. But that's not what happened. This dog left its property and came right onto the trail. And it finally stopped about six feet in front of me. And I'm sure that pretty much all of you are probably wondering what kind of dog it was. And I wish I knew, but I can't remember for sure. I didn't get it on camera. It might have had some pit bull in it, but I really wasn't able to identify the breed. It kind of looked like a mix to me. And as far as the size goes, it was solidly a medium sized dog. It wasn't like a great dain or giant, but it definitely wasn't an ankle-biter either, although this dog definitely wanted to bite my ankles and more. I honestly didn't know what to do. I knew that I couldn't outrun the dog. And so I decided to kind of just treat it like a bear encounter. I started talking to it in like a firm, but not like aggressive voice. And I just kept slowly walking down the trail. I wasn't running, but I wasn't, you know, challenging the dog either. This dog would not let up. And I think the sketchiest part was that every time I would turn my back to try and continue down the trail, the dog would start lunging at me until I turned back around. Like I could not turn my back to this dog, because it would have come after me. This freaking dog, dude, I mean, it just knew that I was more vulnerable with my back turned. And because of that, I believe that this dog was fully intent on attacking me if it could find the right opportunity. I ended up extending my trekking pole and kind of placing it between me and the dog. And I just kept slowly walking kind of like this. And the dog kept following it kept barking and attempting to lunge at me for a good, I don't know, at least 10th of a mile. And at this point, by the way, I was well away from its property. You couldn't even see its property any more. I mean, I wasn't even close. Fortunately, the dog did stop at some point. It didn't run away. And it definitely didn't stop barking, but it did just stop in its tracks. And it just watched me as I hiked further off into the distance. And so I got away unscathed. I didn't get bit. But damn, if that didn't scare the shit out of me, like I'm telling you, I've seen numerous bear over the years. I've seen moose up close. I've seen tons of rattlesnakes. And this dog encounter was by far the sketchiest animal encounter I've ever had while hiking. My hiking partner, Luke, was about a mile behind me at the time. And so I actually gave him a call to warn him about the dog. And he didn't really seem very concerned. When we finally cut up to each other at camp later that evening, Luke actually told me that the dog had charged at him as well. But instead of like playing it cool and trying not to get too aggressive with it, like I did, Luke said that he just stood as ground and he actually screamed at the dog, which sent it running back in the direction that it came from. I also have another friend who was charged by an aggressive dog on the Florida Trail. And he also stood his ground and like yelled and kind of like was aggressive towards the dog. And that worked for him as well. And so I think that if I do ever encounter another aggressive dog like this, I'm going to be a little more aggressive back to it in response that seems, this is just anecdotal, but that seems to be what your best chances are. Okay, so let me tell you what happened a few miles ago. It was probably literally happened like less than an hour ago. A couple days ago or maybe yesterday or something, I read a comment on far out at one of the road crossings I passed that said they got chased by a dog. And then when I crossed that road, sure enough, barking off in the distance. I'm like, great, here we go. I instantly remembered the comment. And a dog comes running right up to me, probably honestly the sketchiest like animal encounter I've ever had. Even though I was only in danger for a few minutes, it felt like that dog was following me forever. But the danger in this next story came and went so quickly that I didn't even have time to process it until after it was all over. Some of you have heard this story before. You might even remember it from my Pacific Crest Trail vlogs back in 2022, but I've also had a lot of new viewers since then. And so this story is going to be new I think for most of you. In 2022, I was through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, but as I approached the Oregon Washington border, I decided to take an alternate called the Eagle Creek Trail. Most PCT hikers will take Eagle Creek, and it apparently had some pretty sweet waterfalls and stuff. And so my hiking partners and I decided, why not? What could possibly go wrong if we take this different trail? The Eagle Creek Trail was in a burn zone, which is an area of the forest that had previously been completely decimated by a forest fire. But this fire was years old. The trail had since been cleared, and it was 100% open when we went through. The first part of the Eagle Creek Trail was awesome. We stopped, and we went for a swim, and then we started hiking along the edge of a huge drop off. The trail had essentially been carved out of an incredibly steep slope. On our right was a wall of earth, and on our left was a roughly 200 foot drop. Super, super far down, and this drop ended at the waters of Eagle Creek itself. So we're going along, and at some point, Brandon, myself and Flossy, the other folks that I was hiking with, had kind of spaced out in that exact order. Brandon was some 30 yards in front of me, and then Flossy was roughly 50 yards behind me. I was actually hiking along with my headphones in, dude, I was rocking out, and I was pretty, I would say, somewhat oblivious to what was going on around me, and then all of the sudden, I started to feel the earth shake. So this entire story all happened in like a split second, so I didn't really have time in the moment to process what was going on, but my gut started to tell me that a tree was falling from the right side of the trail. I looked up, and I saw Brandon huddled up against the wall side of the trail. It looked like he was trying to kind of get up against the wall to protect himself from something coming down from above us, and I think the worst part about it was he looked extremely scared. Seeing that look on his face really freaked me out, because Brandon is a very lighthearted, fun guy, and so seeing this fear in his eyes, I don't know, this just instantly told me that something very bad was about to happen. All of this is just happening so fast, and so in this moment, I just started to run. I ran up the trail towards Brandon. I could just tell it something was coming down the slope on the right of me, and if it hit me, I would have either been flattened, or it would have knocked me the 200 feet off the drop off down into the river. That was a fall that I was not going to survive. Now, I didn't see what happened, because I was running away from it, but Brandon was looking back at me, and so he saw all of this unfold right in front of his eyes. According to him, a giant boulder, the size of a small car, that's what he said, came tumbling down the slope, crossed over the trail, and then off the cliff, eventually falling into the river below. When this boulder hit the water, it sounded like a bomb had gone off and again according to Brandon The boulder was about 15 yards behind me when it finally came over the trail Which is very close already, but just think about if I hadn't started running if I was still just going along then Who knows something fucking crazy just happened a freaking huge rock just fell off of this cliff Brandon was standing like right where I am right where these at rocks are Is where it came over and I'd just freaking booked it when I got right here. I was probably about right here maybe When it actually fell so pretty close Oh my god, I just had a picture in my mind of looking up sink hogs He was like just kind of, you know, wasn't sure what was going on something that I looked to you saw me Maybe just started taking off in the rock One of the sketchiest things about this incident is that the boulder came down between me and flossy again He was about 50 yards behind me, but it literally split the middle between us if we had all been hiking close to each other No, one two three then who knows what could have happened This is one of those free accidents or incidences that like there really isn't that much to learn from it's so random and rare I guess you could say that I shouldn't have been wearing headphones But I still think I would have reacted in the same way, so I don't know