The Spookiest Strolls in the Southeast

by Andrea Lankford

I don’t believe in ghosts. But I have seen and heard too much not to believe in hauntings. People disappear. People die. People kill. Bad stuff happens. Something lingers. Death leaves its mark on the landscape.

I am a former park ranger with a fetish for exploring Nature’s spookier side. I’ve hiked trails that have been haunted since before the Civil War. I’ve visited scenes of savage murders that remain unsolved. I’ve camped under skies buzzed by UFOs and trekked deep into alluring places that seem to hold grudges against those who trespass against them.

Yet, despite my forays into the hiking twilight zone, I’m convinced that the worst thing we can do to the dead is to forget them. And the worst they can do to us is to teach us a lesson. This is what I tell myself each night, just as the sky goes black and the owls begin to call.

So I have selected five haunted hikes that are sure to put the Halloween spirit into your next fall excursion. Distances are one-way. A Fright Factor rates each trail according to the following scale:

Three skulls: Gives you the chills just thinking about it.

Two skulls: Very disturbing, but clowns are scarier.

One skull: Makes seven-year-olds giggle.

GHOST HOUSE LOOP

1.2 miles • Big Ridge State Park, TN

Spooky Story: The old Hutchinson place has been “the Ghost House” for as long as anybody can remember. Reports of strange occurrences go back to the early 1900s, when an invisible ghoul hovered over the coffin of Nancy Hutchison and moaned, “I may not hurt you, but I’ll scare you to death.” Nancy’s parents, Maston and Martha, died within a month of each other in 1910. After that, the hauntings became so common, neighbors moved away. Once too often, they looked through a Ghost House window and saw a long dead Hutchinson woman sitting in her rocking chair. Once too often, they heard horses gallop down the road and stop at their door, but when they looked outside, no carriage was there.

By 1935, TVA and the waters behind Norris Dam had pushed the area’s inhabitants out. Today, a few crumbling stones are all that remains of the old Hutchison place. Yet, the spirits continue to make themselves at home.

One sultry August day, two rangers took a hike to the Ghost House. The temperature was in the 90s, but as soon as the men entered the clearing where the Hutchison house once stood, it was “like stepping into an icebox.” This inexplicable chill haunted the rangers until the moment they stepped off the home site. Another man heard a crying noise while hiking in the same area. The crying sound moved, becoming closer and louder until the hiker realized he was hearing the crying of a small child. This sad ghost rushed the man, put its mouth to his ear and gasped. The man said he felt the phantom’s hot breath on his face.

Rangers say that Maston’s grave continues to sink no matter how many times it is filled. Evidently, the grave collapses whenever the old man leaves it.

THE HIKE: At Big Ridge State Park, haints are hot. Every Friday and Saturday in October, guided hikes to the Ghost House are so popular, rangers schedule two a night. The loop includes a stop at Norton Cemetery, the site of Maston’s sunken grave. From the graveyard, the trail descends into a dark hollow and the ruins of the Hutchinson home. Extend the hike by taking the Lake Trail to the Snodderly Cemetery where 19th century headstones enjoy a lakeside view the folks lying beneath them never saw. At least not when they were among the living.

DIRECTIONS: From Knoxville, go north on I-75 to exit #122. Turn right (east) on Highway 61. The park entrance is 12 miles on the left. The trail begins near the group camp.

BOOGERMAN LOOP

6.5 miles • GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK, NC

Spooky Story: When a schoolteacher asked young Robert Palmer what he wanted to be when he grew up, the boy laughed nervously and said, “The Boogerman.” Robert Palmer lived up to his early ambition. He grew his hair wild and his beard long. He lived in a cabin way back in a hollow near a creek called Snake Branch and scared the Tootsie Rolls out of any kids brave enough to venture onto his property. Thankfully, the Cataloochee Boogerman was also a fright to greedy lumbermen. Today his land is protected by the national park, and the trail named after him travels through one the few remaining old growth forests.

THE HIKE: The crossing at Rough Fork Creek is the longest footbridge in the park and the first of 14 bridge crossings on this well-signed hike. Take time to explore the stone ruins that were part of the Palmer homestead. Look for a short but steep spur trail to the mysterious gravesites covered in moss.

DIRECTIONS: Take Exit 20 off Interstate 40. Go west on Cove Creek Road for seven miles. The trailhead is just beyond the Cataloochee Campground.

BARTRAM TRAIL-WARWOMAN DELL

TO RABUN BALD

14.2 miles • CHATTAHOOCHEE NATIONAL FOREST, GA

Spooky Story: Ecology meets ectoplasm on this scenic route named after botanist William Bartram. The mystical begins at Warwoman Dell where the spirit of a beloved Cherokee “Warwoman” is said to visit the dell each spring. The culmination of this hike is Rabun Bald (4,696 feet), Georgia’s second highest mountain. According to Cherokee legends, Rabun Bald is inhabited by a race of fire-breathing demon people. Modern day campers report hearing strange shrieking sounds while camping on this windy peak.

THE HIKE: From Warwoman Dell, hike north on the Bartram Trail. A lovely 3.7 miles brings you to Courthouse Gap. For a nice three-day backpack continue to Rabun Bald where a refurbished CCC observation tower offers a 360 view so sublime it could soften even a demon’s heart.

DIRECTIONS: The trailhead is at Warwoman Dell on Warwoman Road, 3.1 miles northeast of Clayton, Ga.

BROWN MOUNTAIN CREEK VIA

THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL

5.6 miles • BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY, VA

Spooky Story: Up until 1918, a community of black sharecroppers lived along Brown Mountain Creek. Elie Taft Hughes, one of the last surviving members of this community, told the following story to Dave Benavitch of the Natural Bridge Appalachian Trail Club.

Long ago, a white man named Jess Richardson owned many of the slaves who lived along the creek. Jess Richardson was a cruel man. One day, after nearly beating a slave to death, Richardson mounted his horse and headed home on what is now the Appalachian Trail. As Richardson rode past a large boulder, something jumped off the rock and grabbed Richardson around the waist. The horse galloped off in a panic with a terrified man and an invisible monster on its back. Richardson’s unseen tormenter vanished by the time Richardson arrived home to tell his story. The next morning, neighbors discovered that Jess Richardson and his horse had died from unknown causes. From then on, residents of Brown Mountain Creek called the boulder “Scare Rock.”

THE HIKE: From the wayside exhibit, head south on the A.T. A one-mile descent brings you to the ruins along Brown Mountain Creek. Scare Rock may be the massive boulder on the western side of the stream near the footbridge that is the turn-around point for this hike.

DIRECTIONS: This section of the Virginia A.T. begins at the Long Mountain Wayside on U.S. 60, east of MP 45.6 of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

GOLD MINE LOOP

3.2 miles • CANAL NATIONAL

HISTORIC PARK, MD

Spooky Story: In 1906, while taking a liquor-fueled break, a miner set his candle headlamp next to a stack of dynamite. The resulting explosion killed one man. After the accident, strange things began to occur in and near the Maryland Mine. A draft horse that had worked the mine many times before suddenly refused to enter the gates. Men began to hear spirits they called “Tommy Knockers" coming up behind them in the dark recesses of the mine. And a night watchman quit his job after he encountered a “ghostie-looking man with eyes of fire and a tail 10 feet long” crawling out of the shaft. The mine closed in 1908. The National Park Service now barricades the hazardous mineshaft with fencing designed to keep hikers out and Tommy Knockers in.

THE HIKE: From the visitor center, the blue-blazed path enters the woods and climbs steeply. Approximately one mile from the start, take the short yellow-blazed spur leading to the mouth of the Maryland Mine.

DIRECTIONS: The trail begins at the park’s Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center off MacArthur Boulevard near Potomac, Md.

Andrea Lankford is the author of Haunted Hikes: Spine-Tingling Tails and Trails from North America’s National Parks. For more spooky tales and freaky folklore, visit www.hauntedhiker.com.•