I Love to Hike
If you have been following along on this blog and my photography blog,
Exploring Photography with Joe Valencia, you will know that I enjoy hiking. I try to get out at lunchtime every day and this year I have set a goal for 365 miles. I have been tracking my hikes since October 2011 and the most miles I have had in a year is 144 in 2014. Last year I hiked at least once every month for a total of 115 miles - I don't get a lot of miles in during the summer because it just gets too hot and humid. I set my goal at an average of 1 mile/day; the plan is to do a lot more than that but it seemed like a reasonable goal.
As-of today I have nearly 70 miles and averaging more than 1.2 miles/day. This is mainly because I am averaging more than 1.8 miles per hike, many hikes are between 2 and 2 1/2 miles during my lunch hour. Usually the hikes are uneventful, I almost always have a camera and sometimes I get some "keepers" but the hikes are usually about the hike and getting outdoors. I say the hikes are
usually uneventful because there have been a few times when things got a bit interesting. The worse that ever happened was a few years ago when I passed out after a hike and spent the night in the hospital - dehydration/heat exhaustion - but that is for another time. This year has been rather strange with this week taking the cake.
Strange Encounters
Earlier this year I stopped at Durand Park, a local park I occasionally go to, at lunch to take a hike. It is a small park with a cinder walkway leading to a gazebo and then a large field planted with wildflowers to attract butterflies. As I approached the gazebo I noticed something scratched into the walkway so I walked up on the grass. In capital letters I found "RUN HELP US HE'S HERE" and accompanying the words was a pictogram that included a pentagram. Inside the gazebo were other pictures and writing - most of which I couldn't make out except for "HAIL SATAN". Needless to say, I took some pictures and then reported it to the local police. I stayed away from the park for a couple weeks; I never saw anything written about it and never heard from the police so I don't know if it was something real or just some kids being jerks. What really made it odd was that I was there at 7:00 AM for a quick walk before work and when I went back at noon all of this was there. This was also a school day....
The very next afternoon I headed out for a walk at Monmouth Battlefield about 5 miles west of Durand Park. I was hiking about the Farms Trail which lies between the field and the woods. I saw that a large branch had blown down and was blocking the trail and I noticed something white in the middle of it. As I got closer, I noticed it was a skull that someone had wedged in between branches - attached to the skull was about 18 inches of the spine! I looked at the edge of the trail and found the remainder of the deer. I don't know how long it had been there but long enough so that it was almost completely clean. I have found skeletal remains a couple other times but never had I come across anything like this. Who would do such a thing and why? I conjunction with the previous day's findings I turned around and headed back to the office - I didn't want to stick around.... I walked by that spot yesterday and the skull was gone, the branches removed but the rest of the skeleton is still there.
Then There is Today
I decided to go back to Monmouth Battlefield today and was having a pretty good outing until I was on my way back to the office. I had hiked up to the house and was headed back towards the woods which will bring me back to the road and my office. I looked up and saw a rather large person walking along the trail headed towards me. I will sometimes come across people walking their dogs but this guy was alone and coming from the woods - something felt hinky. I decided to walk about 30 or 40 yards to my right to get away from him before heading to the woods; the whole time keeping an eye out for him to re-appear. There was a time when a building blocked my view but if he was still walking he would have reappeared - he never did. This had me concerned because now it seemed like it wasn't going to be a pleasant encounter. I looked towards the woods and saw someone - a different person! - dressed in black pants and black hoodie with the hood up. He was standing next to a tree, not moving. As soon as he saw me, he slowly took a step to his left and disappeared behind the tree. Alarms went off and I got the hell out of there. I didn't run but walked a bit faster than I would normally. I noticed a few State Park Police vehicles in the parking lot and headed for them, if someone was there I was going to let them know what I saw, if not I was going to walk to Rt 9 and the long way back to the office.
As luck would have it, as I got to the parking lot there was a State Park Police Officer with a bloodhound! The alarms got louder!! I waved at him and got his attention, walked over to him and explained what had just happened. He laughed and told me that the two (2) guys in the woods were fellow officers and they were conducting training for the dog. To say that I was relieved would be a gross understatement, so would saying that I felt a bit foolish, too! I thanked the officer and headed towards the woods where I encountered the first officer I had seen. I stopped to talk to him - I guess the other guy had radioed because he was laughing as I approached. I talked to him for a minute or so - waved to the "hoodie guy" and headed back to the office. I'm sure they are going to have a good laugh about it for quite some time to come.
I guess if you are going to come across some "shady" characters while out hiking alone, it's good to find out they are "the good guys" and not looking to make you their next statistic.
😂
I hope you enjoyed this post and would love to hear about any strange encounters you may have had while hiking or just out on the town. Has anything bizarre ever happened to you? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for stopping by....
