ghost stories?

[sophie bean]

While feeling some sort of vague need to scare myself semi-witless before this season of hiking and camping, I stumbled across this post from a while ago by Snowbird22:

"I have head about ghost stories in Whites.... People being swear there being followed hearing footsteps but nobody there..... headlamps going on in the middle of night while people are asleep......I read some ghost stories about the observatory.... Ghost of hutkeeper at carter hut... different stuff like that. Anybody else know anything about this or have experiences??"

I had heard the stories of ghosts in Great Gulf, too, but nothing more specific than that. I've seen some oddly-defined, vaguely humanoid-shaped "mists" at times when hiking, but I wouldn't say I'd seen a ghost per se, at least nothing that I could call more than an overactive imagination. Anybody else?

 

[dentonfabrics]

There's been a couple of very entertaining threads about mountains ghosts. In fact, someone here sent me a short video of a very eerie experience on Jefferson that I still have stored someplace on one of my hard drives. I think my favorite story retold here was the one about someone who was hiking around the Wilderness Trail (I think) and saw an apparition of a couple of loggers who vanished into this air.

Good stories last time around...

 

[DrewKnight]

Got the Willeys?

For all-out ghostly potential, you have to go a ways to beat the Willey House site and story... most people are very familiar, but here's a quick summary:

Pioneering Willey family ekes out living halfway up Crawford Notch, farming and taking in travelers. Father Samuel Willey keeps a watchful eye on the crags above, and actually builds a shelter away from the house thinking it would be good to have a place to retreat to in case of a slide. The summer of 1826 is the driest anyone can remember -- dust everywhere, no rain for months. Finally, at the end of August, an honest-to-goodness cloudburst comes and drenches the soil. The family and a hired man or two are huddled in the house, but run out to seek shelter when they hear the rumble of a giant slide coming down the mountain above. At the last minute, the slide hits a boulder or tree and splits, sweeping away the family but sparing the house. Some versions have it that, when the rescuers came up the ruined notch days later, the family bible was still open to the 23rd Psalm on the table. Most of the bodies were found, crushed in the slide or in the Saco River, some said that the missing children were still out in the woods, feral.

Famous story, and one that really must have had a big impact on the psyche of the masses... it was the basis for Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The Ambitious Guest" among many other things. I have been fascinated with the story since reading an account of it when I was a kid, and I have to say, if you stop off at the site in the off-season, when it's quiet and there is no one around, it's certainly desolate edging toward eerie... though no, never seen a ghost or vapor there.

 

[4Khiker]

There's actually a new book coming out next month (June) titled "Haunted Hikes of New Hampshire." The author is Marianne O'Connor and the publisher is PublishingWorks, Inc. of Exeter. It includes stories on ghosts at the different AMC Huts, at the summit weather observatory atop Mount Washington, and at several other locales in the Whites. I recently received an advanced reading copy of the book but haven't had time to really read through it just yet.

 

[Grayjay]

I connected Marrianne Connor with a friend of mine, Peter Samuelson, who claims to have seen a sasquatch in the Ossipees. Samuelson's partner at the time, who was with him, vehemently denied the sighting, but Connor ran with it, saying it was a children's book. There may even be plans for a helicopter trip to the place where he claims to have seen it with Fritz Wetherbee. Man, people need such creatures.

 

[brianW]

Not really a ghost story but on the same lines:

When I was seven I went to an overnight soccer camp. The last night they had a camp fire and through out the camp fire they kept on telling us that a UFO crashed a few miles away and fire, police and the Army were tracking aliens. They even had a police cruiser go down a dirt road with its sirens on and they thought the aliens were coming our way.

At the end of the camp fire the aliens, or should I say some of the councelors dressed up as, came out of the woods. A lot of us did not sleep well that night.

 

[Amicus]

Tales Told in the Shadows of the White Mountains,by Charles Jordan, collects a variety of strange, eerie and supernatural tales, from Chocorua's curse ("Lightning blast your crops!") to the Bleeding Jesus of Berlin.

I saw a ghost myself last summer, slinking in the shadows behind the place settings of the dining room of that old hotel on the summit of Equinox in Vermont. It was a foggy early evening, if that's relevant.

 

[AMF]

Here's some real ghosts.... I live across from an old cemetery, the kind where the gravestones are about 4' tall and carved to vaguely resemble a human form (typically late 1700's). One foggy night (I probably had been hitting the gin bottle!) I remember going out on the porch & swearing I saw human figures floating about the cemetery. Wasn't until the next day when I went there in daylight that I was convinced that I had not seen an apparitition!

 

[bcskier]

Bennington Triangle

Does anyone know about the mysterious nature of Glastenbury Mt. near Bennington, VT?

Here is a link: Bennington Triangle

bcskier

 

[Head]

Great thread! I like this freaaaakkkkky stuff! Here's a short vid of an encounter on Isolation a couple years ago: Great Gulf Ghost

 

[Ed'n Lauky]

A few years ago a young man who works with the AMC came to our local Rotary and told some hair raising ghost stories from the Whites. The one that most impressed me was of the worker who left the Mt. Washington station to go down to open up the Lakes of the Clouds hut. When he didn't call in at the prescribed time there was some concern but not too much. The next day when there was still no word from him a couple of others went down to see what was going on. They found him cowering in a cupboard under the sink. He was incoherent. Sometime later he told someone that while working inside in the dinning room at some point he looked up and saw a face in every windowpane.

 

[Kevin Judy and Emma]

Mount Washington

Those who work on the summit of Mount Washington will tell you of "The Presence." I know very reliable people who are very matter of fact about it's existence.

One story told to me while I was there as a volunteer went something like this:

A man from New Zealand was hiking the AT. He stopped at the Observatory and got to talking to the staff who were trying to upload a huge amount of data to the computers which at this time in the computer world was a very slow, tedious task. He claimed to have a better way and would use his skills if they would put him up for a few nights and pay him a small stipend so he could finish his trip along the AT. He managed to convince the director that he could perform this task and was assigned to complete it. At night he was allowed to sleep in the bunk-room. After the first night he took to sleeping in the living room. This became a problem as the shift used this room to relax. After a night of this the director explained to him the problem and that he would have to sleep in the bunk-room. He refused to and when asked why his explanation was, "I cannot sleep in a room where someone has been murdered." The staff were perplexed. "No one has ever been murdered here," they assured him, yet he was adamant and refused to sleep in the bunk-room. He claimed he had heard the voices of two men arguing and that one had killed the other. Over the next week he slept where he could and soon finished his task and went on his way. Still scratching their heads the staff asked around to see if anyone knew of any incidents similar to what he had described. Delving into old records of deaths on the mountain this story came to the surface.

Before there was shelter there, two men had climbed to the summit. One had become extremely chilled to the point of the onset of hypothermia. They tried to light a fire but the wind would not allow them too. The one man's condition continued to worsen and the other man decided that they had to descend or they would surely die. He was unable to convince the other hypothermic man of this. In his state he became argumentative, then combative. They argued, then struggled. The first man eventually gave up and left the hypothermic man on the summit. The next day in the valley they formed a search party and as soon as they could they made the ascent to search for the poor fellow. They found him frozen in a fetal position where the first man had left him, approximately 35 feet northwest of the summit marker. Exactly where the bunk-room of the modern Sherman Adams Building is today.

KDT

 

[sophie bean]

Great stories, please add more! I need to watch the ghostly video, but I'll do it at work where I've got a faster connection.
It seems like the Whites would be a "good" place to find ghosts, if ghosts exist, if only because so many have perished in these mountains. I've always found Glen Ellis Falls to be especially creepy, although beautiful. There isn't any reaosn that I could articulate, it just feels creepy - melancholy, perhaps dangerous.

While we're on the subject, if you like the weird stuff, I highly recommend "Weird New England" by Joseph Citro. Encyclopedic! I'm especially fond of the story of Doc Benton, which appears to be an invention of Dartmouth students designed to scare the impressionable, but still darned creepy.

 

[Paradox]

This documents an apparition in the mountains: Google Video - Haunted Car Commercial

 

[erugs]

I have a ghost story from my old home in New Boston, but none from the mountains. Not yet, anyway. I subscribe (free) to a podcast called "Anything Ghost" which is about ghost sightings worldwide. Fun to listen to and very well done with fabulous ghostly music.

 

[WhiteMTHike]

I was haunted once in the Whites by the ghost of Sherpa John.

 

[MAri]

G-g-g-ghosts?

Hey, this is Mari- (OConnor) my often less used handle for ROT and VFTT. Haunted Hikes of NH will be out late June and includes the very terrifying account of the croo worker opening up the hut at Lakes in spring and encountering a most demonic presence and face in each window pane in the dining room. I have to say that I have been very lucky in getting first hand accounts of many of those who have had "experiences" whether they are believers or paranormal agnostics like myself. Some stories, I will save for another point. The most bizarre? The mass sighting of the "jolly Green giant" a weird 7 foot tall ghost of a possible dead Fish and Game warden on Boundary Pond in Pittsburgh. The men I talked to each swore they saw a shadow pacing the shore of this remote pond near the Canadian border. Well, at least most of the ghosts in NH are friendly. I just don't know if I would stay alone for a night at Lakes....

 

[Grayjay]

Hi Mari. Buildings in the mountains certainly have their share of stories. Carter Notch Hut has quite a few. Interesting how Peter added a stone structure to his Bald Mountain story. Congrats on the book.

 

[Mr. X]

Has anybody heard of the baptism ghost at pond near green leaf hut? I heard the same ghost was sighted at other ponds as well. Not really a ghost buff, but I do find the stories interesting.

 

[rup]

I believe that I posted this here some years ago. It is NOT my story - just posting it:


I ran across this 'wierd story' and wonder if anyone has ever heard of any such 'yarns' regarding the Gulf. I haven't, and it seems insensical, but these are the WMs of Hawthorn...

New England is full of legend and folklore, I believe due to the fact that it is part of the original settlements. The stories that were brought and developed here seemed to have stuck, and keep reappearing from time to time. This particular topic is that of the "Great Gulf", a large valley in the White Mountains of NH, located at the base of the presidentials. When you learn of this valley in NH while growing up, you are told from start that it is a mysterious stretch filled with old growth holds secrets that no one can explain. The is only a couple trails that lead through it, which isn't kept up(most of it is grown in), so most hiking is done by bush whacking. Another reason for it's mysterious presence would probably be due to the lack of hikers that actually venture into this void of the unknown.

I have a friend whose father is on the search and rescue hear, and she has told me some very unusuall stories. One was of a group of campers that entered the Gulf, and never came out. When the search and rescue team eventually found there campsite, there was no one to be found. Not even a track. The real erie part is, there was a smoldering campfire, as if someone had been there the whole time, and left just before the rescue team.

Now to my own story, or rather my father's. My father is a very straight foward man, without any thought to the unknown, or belief in any unknown species. Almost close minded I guess you can say. He had a strange encounter back in '97 that he told me of while hiking alone at the edge of the Gulf. It was summer, and about 80 degrees out (keep this in mind). He was sitting on a small boulder just below a trail that ran through the Great Gulf. It was very quiet and peaceful, and he found himself in a state of enjoyment and relaxation. (He dosen't get out much anymore). He heard the sounds of heavy footsteps coming from the trail above him, and as he turned a man(?) came up from the trail that let into the gulf. The man was over seven feet tall, and was wearing heavy winter gear complete with a mask, and two ski poles he was using as walking staffs. The man walked within 10 feet of my father and stopped, looking straight ahead. My father could not see anything, not even his face! My father started walking toward him, as he needed to go past him to finnish his hike, and as my father approached, the large giant turned sharply and faced the other way.

My father hesitated, then moved quickly by him not looking back. When he got home, he contacted me immediately to tell me what had happened. He said for once in his life, he had no idea what had happened, or what it was that he had encountered. He has not been back since. My familly has talked about this story for a while now, and one of the most interesting things I've heard is from one of my uncles. Out of the blue one day, he reminded me of the story, and said that he thought that it must have been a Bigfoot.

It almost made sense, in a weird way that is. Finding clothing in the gulf is not hard, as hikers and skiers die and disappear every year there. And if a BF was to collect these articles of clothing, and dress from head to toe, then he would be able to walk the trails with us, without us given it much thought, then him being a crazy loon dressed in winter gear in the middle of summer.