BWBS Ep:135 The Huntsman

Blackwood Gorge looks like paradise on a postcard—towering firs, crystal streams, and endless trails. But beneath the beauty lies something older than legend, something that’s been watching the woods for longer than humans have walked them. For years, hikers have vanished here, leaving behind only impossible clues: backpacks hanging twenty feet up in the trees, footprints far too large to belong to any man, and wood knocks that echo like warnings in the dark.

This is the story of The Huntsman—a serial killer who believed the wilderness would hide his crimes. But Blackwood Gorge was already claimed by another predator, one that knows the difference between the innocent and the guilty. As the body count grows and desperation sets in, the hunter becomes the hunted, and the forest delivers justice in the only way it knows how: primal, ancient, and merciless.


⚠️ Listener Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence, murder, psychological terror, and death. It deals with predatory behavior and with forms of justice that exist outside human law. There are scenes of intense fear, bodily harm, and primal horror that may be deeply disturbing to some listeners. This content is absolutely not suitable for younger listeners. If you have children nearby, please use headphones or save this for another time. If you’re sensitive to descriptions of violence or death—or if you’re listening alone in an isolated place—you may want to consider whether this is the right story for you tonight. Listener discretion is strongly advised.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace.
Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world
refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they
know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we
share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot,

(00:23):
dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make
it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because
once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the
woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and
remember some things in the woods don't want to be found.
Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads,

(00:46):
and let's head off into the woods if you dare.
October's finally hear, and you know what that means. The
veil between our world and others grows thin. The leaves

(01:11):
are turning blood red and burnished gold. There's a chill
in the air that wasn't there last week. And something
about the way darkness falls earlier each day makes us
remember that we're not always as safe as we'd like
to believe. I'm a collector of stories, you see, not
the nice ones. Not the ones with happy endings and
lessons learned. No, I collect the dark ones, the ones

(01:34):
people whisper about but never want to fully tell, the
ones that make you check your locks twice before bed
and avoid looking too long into the shadows between trees.
As we head into this spooky season, I've decided to
share some of these tales with you. Over the coming months,
I'll be releasing a series of stories that I've gathered
from various sources, Some from old newspaper archives, some from

(01:58):
retired rangers who only talk after the third whiskey, some
from sources that, well, let's just say they prefer to
remain anonymous. Tonight's story is special. It's the first in
our series, and I've chosen it carefully. You see, most
scary stories are safe because they happened long ago or
far away. This one is neither. This happened recently, in

(02:21):
a place you could drive to right now if you wanted,
though after hearing this I doubt you will. Before we begin,
let me ask you something. What do you think is
more terrifying the monster that hides in the dark or
the monster that hides in plain sight. What if I
told you that sometimes just sometimes one monster is the

(02:42):
only thing standing between us and another. Listen carefully to
what I'm about to tell you. This isn't one of
those stories that ends with everyone safe around a campfire,
laughing about how scared they were. This is about what
happened when two different kinds of predators met in a
place called Blackwood Gorge. One was human, all too human.

(03:03):
The other, well, that's where our story gets interesting. You
might want to turn on another light, maybe check that
your doors are locked. Not because anything in this story
can reach you here, probably, but because once you know
that things like this are possible, that knowledge changes you.
It makes you see the darkness differently, makes you understand

(03:25):
that sometimes the woods are quiet for a reason, makes
you realize that we're not alone, and we're definitely not
always in charge. So settle in, but maybe don't get
too comfortable. And now I'm going to tell you why.
Before we dive into Tonight's tale, I need to share
something important with you. The story you're about to hear

(03:46):
walks the line between fact and fiction, between documented events
and whispered legends, between what we know to be true
and what we fear might be true. Some of you
will listen and recognize real places, disapp appearances, real police
reports that can be found if you know where to look.
Others will hear only a campfire story expertly crafted to

(04:08):
send shivers down your spine on a dark October night.
The truth is, it doesn't really matter which camp you
fall into. Not all stories need to be entirely true
to teach us valuable lessons about the world we live
in and the darkness that sometimes walks beside us. What
matters is that you listen with an open mind, let
the story take you where it needs to go. Don't

(04:31):
worry about sorting fact from fiction, evidence from imagination. Sometimes
the most important truths come wrapped in uncertainty, and sometimes
the stories that might be true are the ones that
change how we see the world. Now, I must give
you a strong warning before we proceed. This story contains
graphic descriptions of violence, murder, psychological terror, and death. It

(04:54):
deals with the hunting and killing of innocent people, with
predatory behavior, and with forms of justice that exist outside
human law. There are scenes of intense fear, bodily harm,
and primal horror that may be deeply disturbing to some listeners.
This content is absolutely not suitable for younger listeners. If

(05:14):
you have children nearby, please use headphones or save this
for another time. If you're sensitive to descriptions of violence
or death, or if you're alone in an isolated place
and prone to anxiety, you might want to consider whether
this is the right story for you tonight. Listener discretion
is strongly advised. That said, if you choose to continue,

(05:36):
remember that whether this story is true or not, whether
the watchers of Blackwood Gorge are real or imagined, the
lesson remains the same. Evil exists in our world, walking
on two legs and wearing human faces, and sometimes the
only thing standing between that evil and the innocent is
something we don't fully understand and might not want to

(05:57):
believe in. So make your choice. Turn back now if
you need to, But if you're ready, if you're prepared
to question what's possible, if you can handle staring into
the darkness to see what stares back, then settle in.
Our journey into Blackwood Gorge is about to begin. Blackwood
Gorge sprawls across seventeen thousand acres of the Pacific Northwest,

(06:19):
where the Cascade Mountains break into a series of deep
valleys and roaring rivers. It's the kind of wilderness that
looks pristine on postcards but feels entirely different when you're
alone on its trails. The trees Douglas firs, western red cedars,
hemlocks grow so thick and tall that even at noon,
the forest floor exists in perpetual twilight. Moss covers everything

(06:44):
in a green so deep it looks black in the shadows,
and the mist that rises from the valleys has a
way of muffling sound that makes you feel like you're
walking through a dream or a nightmare. Sarah had been
missing for three days when ranger Patricia Morris found her
back Not Sarah, just her backpack. It hung from a

(07:04):
pine branch twenty feet above the trail at mile mark
or seven point two, swaying slightly in a breeze that
didn't reach the forest floor. The purple north Face pack
that Sarah had saved three months to buy was perfectly intact, zipped,
closed water bottles, full energy bars still sealed in their wrappers,
trail mix untouched. Patricia stood below it for a long time,

(07:29):
her neck craned upward, trying to make sense of what
she was seeing. In fifteen years as a ranger in
Blackwood Gorge, she'd seen a lot of strange things. Bodies
found in places they shouldn't be able to reach, camps
destroyed by something that wasn't wind or wildlife, experienced hikers
who simply vanished between one trail marker and the next.

(07:51):
But this, this deliberate placement, this impossible height, this was new.
She radioed for backup and a ladder. While she waited,
she did what she always did it scenes like this,
looked for the signs others missed. That's when she found them.
The tracks, pressed deep into the soft earth beside a

(08:11):
moss covered log, were prints that made her stomach tighten
with a familiar dread. Eighteen inches long, five toes, spread
wide like a human foot, but wrong in every proportion.
The arch too high, the heel too deep, as if
whatever made them weigh three times what a human should,
and the stride length nearly six feet between prints. Whatever

(08:34):
made these tracks had walked upright on two legs, moving
with purpose along the trail before veering off into the
underbrush exactly where Sarah's backpack hung above. Patricia had seen
these prints before, at every unexplained disappearance, always at the
periphery of the scene, always dismissed by her superiors when
she tried to include them in reports. Bear tracks, they said,

(08:58):
distorted by rain, bear human footprints enlarged by snow melt,
hoaxes planted by bigfoot enthusiasts. But Patricia knew better. Bears
didn't walk upright for fifty yards, humans didn't have feet
eighteen inches long, and hoaxeres didn't appear at scenes before
anyone knew there was a scene to appear at. As

(09:19):
she waited for backup, the forest around her was utterly
unnaturally quiet. No birds, no squirrels, not even the ever
present buzz of insects, the kind of silence that pressed
against her ear drums, like being underwater. Then from the
ridge above came a sound that made every hair on
her arms stand up. Wood knocks, hollow, deliberate percussions, three strikes,

(09:43):
a pause, then two more. The pattern repeated from another ridge,
this one to the west, then another from the north.
Communication Coordination Intelligence. Patricia had heard these sounds before, too,
always at disappearance sits, always dismissed as falling branches or woodpeckers,

(10:05):
but woodpeckers didn't work in synchronized patterns across miles of wilderness.
Falling branches didn't answer each other with matching rhythms. The
mist that gave the gorge its name began to roll in,
thick and white, turning the trees into gray shadows. And
in that mist, just for a moment, Patricia saw a
shape on the ridgeline, massive, upright, still as the trees

(10:29):
around it, but somehow more solid, more real. She blinked
and it was gone, But the feeling remained of being observed, evaluated,
measured by something that had been watching long before she
arrived and would be watching long after she left. When
backup finally arrived, two junior rangers with a latter and

(10:51):
skeptical expressions, Patricia showed them only what they expected to see,
the backpack, which they retrieved with difficulty, the obvious signs
of Sarah's passage, the place where her tracks simply stopped.
She didn't show them the other prints, didn't mention the
wood knox or the shape in the mist. Some knowledge

(11:11):
was too dangerous to share. Some truths had to be
discovered personally or not at all. Forty miles away in
the town of Cedar Falls. The man everyone knew as
Tom Bradley was restocking shelves at Hartman's Hardware. He was
the kind of employee every small business loved, reliable, friendly,
knowledgeable about everything from PVC pipe to power tools. Customers

(11:35):
liked him, his coworkers considered him a friend, though none
could claim to really know him. He lived alone in
a rental house on the edge of town, kept to himself,
and always volunteered for the Monday through Wednesday shifts that
everyone else tried to avoid. What they didn't know was
that Tom Bradley didn't exist. The social Security number was

(11:56):
stolen from a child who died in infancy thirty years ago.
References on his job application led to disconnected phone numbers
and businesses that had closed years before anyone thought to check.
Even the name was carefully chosen, common enough to be forgettable,
bland enough to avoid attention. In the privacy of his
rental house, behind a locked door, in a basement that

(12:18):
his landlord didn't know existed, Tom Bradley became who he
really was, the huntsman. The basement was his sanctuary. One
wall covered in topographical maps of blackwood gorge marked with
colored pins. Red for successful hunts, yellow for potential sits,
green for supply caches, black for what he called anomaly zones,

(12:41):
places where strange things happened, where the normal rules didn't
seem to apply. There had been more black pins lately.
Another wall held his trophies, driver's licenses, jewelry, phones, small
personal items that victims always carried, things that held their essence. Somehow,
he had forty three trophies, nine from Blackwood Gorge, the

(13:04):
rest from other hunting grounds across the country, each one
carefully labeled with a date, location, and a single word
that captured the essence of that particular hunt. Fighter, Runner,
Beggar Surprise. Sarah Jones's driver's license should have been number
forty four. The label was already prepared aware because she

(13:26):
had been aware, had sensed him following her for two
miles along the trail, had kept checking over her shoulder
with increasing frequency. He loved the aware ones. They made
it more interesting. But something had gone wrong. At mile
seven point two, the huntsman sat in his basement, staring
at the empty spot where Sarah's license should have been,

(13:46):
replaying those moments in his mind for the hundredth time,
he'd been perfect, patient, invisible. He'd watched her growing fear
with the satisfaction of a connoisseur, had savored the way
her hiking pace and crew east, the way her hand
kept moving to her dead phone. Then the forest had
gone silent, not the normal quiet that often preceded violence

(14:09):
in nature, but a complete absence of sound that felt
like the world had stopped breathing. He'd felt it in
his chest, a pressure, a weight, as if the air
itself had become dense. The growl that followed hadn't come
from any animal, he knew. It had seemed to rise
from the earth itself, a vibration that traveled through the ground,

(14:30):
up through his boots, into his bones. It was the
sound of something immense, expressing displeasure, something that shouldn't exist.
Sarah had frozen on the trail, her head whipping around,
searching for the source. The huntsman had pressed himself against
a tree, knife in hand, his predator's instincts screaming warnings

(14:51):
his rational mind couldn't process. Then the crashing had started,
not the chaotic noise of an animal fleeing or attacking,
but deliberate movement. Branches snapping in a rhythm that suggested
enormous weight being placed with careful precision. It was circling him,
not Sarah him. He could track its movement by sound alone,

(15:13):
thirty feet to his left, then twenty feet, then back
to thirty but on his right now it was studying him,
learning him. When it spoke, and it had spoken, he
was sure of that, No matter how impossible it seemed,
the meaning had been crystal clear, despite the absence of words.
The vocalizations were complex, layered, almost like a tonal language,

(15:37):
but the message was simple, This one is mine. The
huntsman had backed away slowly, every instinct screaming at him
to run, but his experience keeping him controlled. Running triggered
pursuit in predators. But as he retreated, he'd heard it following,
not pursuing, following, maintaining the same distance, the same pace,

(15:59):
hurting him away from Sarah like a sheep dog hurting
wolves from the flock. He'd never seen Sarah again. The
news report said she was missing, but the huntsmen knew better.
Whatever had been in those woods had taken her. But
why and why had it warned him off first? The
black pins on his map were starting to form a pattern.

(16:20):
Each marked a place where something unusual had happened during
his hunts, a place where tracks appeared that shouldn't exist,
where wood knocks echoed without explanation, where he'd felt watched
by something more than human eyes. The huntsman traced the
pattern with his finger. The black pins formed a rough
circle around the deepest, oldest part of Blackwood Gorge, the

(16:42):
part even the rangers rarely patrolled, the part of the
local tribes had considered sacred or cursed long before white
settlers arrived. Something lived there, something that had claimed Sarah Jones.
The rational part of his mind, the part that had
kept him free for three years and forty three kills,
told him to leave find new hunting grounds. There were

(17:06):
plenty of wilderness areas in the country where people disappeared
without raising questions, But the predator in him, the part
that made him what he was, couldn't let it go.
This was his territory. He'd claimed it with blood and fear.
He'd learned every trail, every hiding spot, every place where
screams wouldn't carry. Whatever was out there was challenging his claim,

(17:29):
competing with him in nature. When two apex predators occupied
the same territory, only one survived. The huntsman made his decision.
He would return to Blackwood Gorge. He would hunt again,
and if the thing in the woods tried to interfere,
he would be ready. He spent the next three days
preparing new equipment, new plans, new tactics. Based on the

(17:52):
assumption that he himself was being hunted. He studied every
reported bigfoot sighting in the area, going back fifty years,
look for patterns. Most were obvious hoaxes or misidentifications, but
some some had details that matched what he'd experienced. The
silence that preceded its appearance, the way it moved with

(18:13):
deliberate intelligence, the vocalizations that seemed to carry meaning. If
it was real, and the huntsmen was increasingly convinced it was,
then it was flesh and blood, and anything made of
flesh and blood could be killed. Brett and Sienna Morrison
had been married for seven years. The first five had
been good, the last two had been a slow slide

(18:35):
towards separate lives in the same house. This trip to
Blackwood Gorge was supposed to fix things. A week in
the wilderness, no phones, no work, no distractions, just them
and nature and the chance to remember why they'd fallen
in love. They'd made camp at Cedar Lake, a crystalline
bowl of water surrounded by granite peaks and dense forest.

(18:58):
The site was perfect, secluded but not too remote, beautiful
but accessible. They'd had to hike three miles from the
nearest trail junction to reach it, and they hadn't seen
another soul in two days. It's so peaceful, Sienna said
on their third night, sitting by their small campfire, her
head on Brett's shoulder. I'd forgotten what real quiet sounds like.

(19:21):
Brett murmured agreement, though something about the quiet had been
bothering him all day. It took him a while to
figure out what it was. Too quiet. Even in the wilderness,
there should be sounds, birds, insects, the rustle of small animals,
but Cedar Lake was silent, except for the occasional lap
of water against the shore. The huntsmen watched them from

(19:43):
his position in the rocks above their camp. He'd been
there for eighteen hours, still as the stones around him,
patient as death itself. He'd watched them wake that morning,
their tender kiss over instant coffee, their hike around the lake,
their gradual relaxation as they believed themselves alone and safe.
Stay tuned for more Backwoods bigfoot stories. We'll be back

(20:07):
after these messages. The woman was the aware one. She
kept looking over her shoulder, kept pausing to listen, kept
telling her husband something felt off. The husband dismissed her
concerns with the casual condescension of someone who'd never experienced
true danger. They're always afraid of the wrong things, the

(20:28):
huntsmen thought bears getting lost, running out of water, never
the real threat, never the human predator who'd been watching
them since they'd arrived. His plan was simple. Tonight, after
they'd gone to sleep, he would approach from the lakeside,
the direction they wouldn't expect. The woman first, she was
the dangerous one, the one whose instincts were firing warnings

(20:52):
quick and quiet before she could scream. Then the husband,
waking to find his wife gone, stumbling into the darkness
to look for her, finding instead the huntsman's knife. He
would take his time with the husband. The ones who
dismissed danger, who thought themselves safe. They needed to learn
how wrong they were. It was part of the education

(21:13):
part of the art. But as darkness fell and the
couple retreated to their tent, the huntsman became aware of
something else in the woods, A presence, massive patient watching,
not watching the couple, watching him. He could feel its
eyes like a physical weight could, since its bulk shifting

(21:33):
in the darkness beyond the reach of the dying firelight.
It had been there for hours, he realized, Waiting to
see what he would do. The huntsmen shifted position slightly,
testing A branch snapped in response, not under foot, but
gripped and deliberately broken, a warning, clear as spoken words,

(21:54):
I see you. Pride and pragmatism ward in the huntsman's mind.
He could retreat find easier prey, or he could proceed
with his plan and deal with whatever was out there.
He was armed, he was skilled. He was human with
human intelligence and tools. He waited until midnight, then began
his approach, moving through darkness like oil through water. No headlamp,

(22:19):
no flashlight, just starlight and muscle memory and years of practice.
He'd done this forty three times. He knew exactly how
to move, where to place his feet, how to control
his breathing. Three steps from the tent. He froze. It
was there, standing on the opposite side of the tent.
He could see it, silhouette against the stars, massive, upright, motionless.

(22:44):
The couple inside remained oblivious, their quiet breathing audible through
the thin nylon walls. But the huntsmen and the thing
regarded each other across that small dome of fabric and
human vulnerability. For a long moment. Neither moved. The huntsman
his hand, found his knife, drew it slowly. The blade
caught a sliver of moonlight. The thing shifted just slightly,

(23:08):
just enough to show it had seen the weapon and
was unimpressed. Then it did something that chilled the huntsman
to his core. It mimicked him. Every movement he'd made
approaching the tent. It now repeated exactly the same careful
foot placements, the same pauses, the same slight adjustment of
weight to avoid a creaking branch. It was showing him

(23:30):
that it had been watching all along, learning his patterns,
studying his technique. The message was clear, I know what
you are, I know what you're doing, and I can
do it better. The huntsman backed away, not in fear,
he told himself, but in tactical reassessment. The thing didn't follow,

(23:50):
not immediately. He made it twenty yards before he heard
it moving, maintaining the same distance, hurting him away from
the tent. He tried to circle back, approaching from the lakeside,
but it was already there, as if it had teleported,
always between him and his prey, always watching with those
eyes that reflected light like a wolf's but held intelligence

(24:12):
deeper than any animal. Frustration turned to rage. These were
his kills, his territory, his hunt. He charged toward the tent,
knife raised, no longer caring about stealth. The growl that
erupted from the thing's throat stopped him midstride. It was
impossibly deep, seeming to come from everywhere at once. The

(24:34):
tent fabric rippled from the vibration inside. Sienna sat up
with a gasp. Brett, did you hear that? What? What
is it? Something's outside? Something big? The huntsmen retreated into
the woods, but not far. He would wait. The thing
couldn't guard them forever, but it could, and it did

(24:57):
for the rest of the night. It walked to circles
around the couple's tent, the same path the huntsmen had
walked while scouting the same pace, even the same slight
limp he developed from an old injury so subtle most
people never noticed. But the thing had seen it, learned,
it reproduced it perfectly. It was mocking him, showing him

(25:17):
how thoroughly it had studied him, how completely it understood
his methods. At dawn, as the first light painted the
peaks pink and gold, the couple emerged from their tent.
Sienna was pale, clutching Brett's arm. We're leaving, she said. Now,
something was out here all night, walking around our tent.

(25:38):
It was probably just a bear, Brett said, but his
voice lacked conviction. Bears didn't walk on two legs for hours.
Bears didn't move with such deliberate intelligence as they packed
with frantic efficiency. Sienna looked toward the tree line and gasped, there,
do you see it? Brett turned, but saw only shadows

(25:58):
between the trees. It was huge, like a grizzly, but
standing up walking away on two legs, that's impossible. We
don't have grizzlies here. But Sienna knew what she'd seen,
and in a strange way, she knew it had saved them.
Whatever had been walking around their tent in the human

(26:19):
like pattern hadn't been the same thing she'd glimpsed in
the trees. That thing had been protecting them, guarding them
from what. She would never know, But she would never
camp in Blackwood Gorge again. After Cedar Lake, the huntsman
found his first cash disturbed, not ransacked, disturbed deliberately, precisely

(26:40):
with intelligence. The cash was one of five he maintained
throughout Blackwood Gorge, hidden in locations only he knew. This
one was buried beneath a fallen tree two miles off
any trail, marked by a rock formation that looked natural
but wasn't. Inside spare equipment, preserved food, water, pureification, tablets, weapons,

(27:02):
everything needed to survive in the wilderness indefinitely. But when
he arrived to resupply, the fallen tree had been moved,
not blown aside by wind, moved, lifted and set down
three feet to the left, exposing his cash. The waterproof
container was open, its contents laid out in a perfect
grid on the forest floor, nothing taken, nothing damaged, just displayed.

(27:28):
His sleeping bag unrolled and spread flat, his spare knives
arranged by size, his journal, the one where he recorded
his kills and coated language. Opened to the page describing
his first hunt in Blackwood Gorge, and around it all
a circle of stones, each stone larger than a man
could easily carry, each placed with deliberate precision. The message

(27:51):
was clear, I know where you hide, I know what
you are. I can reach you anywhere. The huntsman stood
in that circle for a long time, rage and fear
warring in his chest. He was being hunted, studied, toyed with.
The predator had become prey, but not victim, never victim.

(28:11):
He was too smart, too skilled, too experienced to be
taken down by some forest anomaly. If it was real,
and the evidence was becoming impossible to deny, then it
was an animal, a primate of some kind, larger than
any known species, more intelligent than any except humans, but
still an animal. Animals could be trapped, killed, defeated. He

(28:35):
began to adapt his tactics. If it was watching him,
he would watch it back. He set up trail cameras
at his other cash sites. He studied the tracks more carefully,
learning the unique characteristics. A scar across the left heel,
a slightly curved middle toe on the right foot. He
mapped the wood knock patterns, finding communication nodes where the

(28:57):
sounds most often originated, and he continue to hunt. David
Park was a day hiker out for what should have
been a simple eight mile loop on the Cascade Trail,
thirty two years old, recently divorced, trying to find himself
in nature. Like so many others who came to Blackwood Gorge,
he was alone, vulnerable, and so focused on taking selfies

(29:18):
at scenic viewpoints that he never noticed the huntsman following
fifty yards behind. The kill should have been simple, wait
until David reached the most isolated part of the trail,
a series of switchbacks through dense forest where the path
narrowed to barely two feet wide. Strike fast, drag the
body into the ravine below, let the wilderness hide the evidence.

(29:41):
But at the critical moment, just as the huntsman was
moving in, the wood knock started, not from one direction,
from all around, dozens of impacts, rhythmic, coordinated, deafening. David
stopped looking around in confusion. The huntsman pressed himself against
a tree, knife, ready scanning the forest. Then he saw them,

(30:04):
not one creature, three positioned triangularly around him, watching waiting.
The largest stood perhaps forty feet away, partially hidden behind
a massive cedar eight feet tall, at least covered in
dark hair that seemed to absorb light. Its eyes reflected
the filtered sunlight like mirrors. The second was smaller, more slender,

(30:28):
positioned on the slope above the trail. Female, the huntsman thought,
Though he couldn't say why, he knew that. The third
was young, no more than six feet tall, but built
like the others, broad, powerful, wrong in its proportions, It
stood in plain sight, studying him with open curiosity. A family,

(30:48):
a clan, a tribe. David Park, oblivious to both the
human and inhuman predators surrounding him, continued down the trail,
stopping to photograph a butterfly. The huntsmen didn't follow, couldn't follow.
The message was clear, not this one, not today, we're watching.

(31:09):
He retreated, slowly, maintaining eye contact with the largest creature.
It didn't follow, none of them did. They simply melted
back into the forest, vanishing as completely as if they'd
never existed. But they left signs deliberately, branches woven into
impossible knots, stones stacked in spirals that defied gravity. The huntsmen.

(31:31):
Didn't sleep for three days after the encounter on the
Cascade Trail. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw
those three figures positioned around him, watching, judging, waiting for
him to make a move they disapproved of. He'd returned
to Cedar Falls, to his job at the hardware store,
trying to pretend everything was normal, but his hand shook

(31:52):
as he mixed paint. His smile felt like a mask
that might crack at any moment. Customers noticed asked if
he was feeling well. He blamed it on a summer
cold and powered through his shifts. But at night, in
his basement sanctuary, he studied everything he'd gathered about the creatures,
the tracks, the photographs from his trail cameras, all mysteriously

(32:15):
blurred or showing nothing but forest, The patterns of their appearances,
the rules they seemed to follow, because there were rules.
He was sure of it now. They hadn't attacked him
at Cedar Lake, even though they could have. They'd let
him retreat from the Cascade trail unharmed. They disturbed his cash,
but taken nothing. They were trying to communicate, to establish boundaries,

(32:39):
to set terms, but the huntsmen didn't negotiate with competitors,
He eliminated them. He spent a week preparing new weapons,
a high powered rifle with thermal scope bear traps modified
for something larger, military grade motion sensors. He would turn
a section of Blackwood Gorge into a killing field, draw

(32:59):
them in in this territorial dispute once and for all.
The sight he chose was perfect, a narrow canyon with
only two entrances, steep walls that would funnel movement, clear
fields of fire from elevated positions. He spent three nights
setting it up, working in darkness, placing each piece of
equipment with tactical precision. On the fourth night, he set

(33:22):
the bait Monica Webb. She was a solo backpacker twenty
six years old, traveling the Pacific Crest Trail connection through
Blackwood Gorge. He'd been tracking her for two days, waiting
for the perfect moment. When she made camp near his
prepared canyon, he made his move, not to kill her,
not yet, but to hurt her, to drive her into

(33:45):
the canyon where the creatures would have to follow if
they wanted to protect her, and he was certain they
would come. They always seemed to know when he was hunting,
always appeared at the critical moment. He started with small things,
sounds in the dark around her tent, rocks thrown from
the tree line, her own name whispered from different directions,

(34:06):
classic psychological warfare, designed to create panic to make her
run in the direction he wanted. It worked. Monica burst
from her tent at three am, headlamp blazing, backpack, hastily
thrown on, running down the trail toward the canyon. The
huntsman followed, keeping pace, maintaining pressure, but as they neared

(34:27):
the canyon entrance, he heard it, breathing deep rhythmic patient, not
behind him, ahead between him and Monica. It stepped out
of the shadows, directly into Monica's path. She screamed, the
sound echoing off the canyon walls. The creature, the large

(34:48):
one from the cascade trail, stood there, arms spread wide,
blocking her path but not threatening her, Protecting her. It
made a sound, low and rumbling, and Monica's screamed cut off.
She stood frozen, headlamp beam playing across the impossible figure
before her. Then, amazingly, she began to calm. Later, she

(35:10):
would tell rangers that she felt safe, protected like the
thing was there to help her. The creature gently, so
gently for something so large, guided Monica to the side
of the trail. She sat down on a rock, dazed,
no longer afraid. Then the creature turned to face the huntsman.
In the light of Monica's headlamp, he saw it clearly

(35:31):
for the first time. The face was almost human, but not.
The brow too heavy, the jaw too pronounced, the eyes
too deep. But there was intelligence there, ancient intelligence and anger.
The huntsman raised his rifle. The thermal scope showed the
creature as a blazing white figure against the cool blue

(35:52):
of the forest center mass. An easy shot, he pulled
the trigger, the rifle fired. The sound cracked across the
canyon like thunder. The creature didn't fall, It had moved
impossibly fast for something so large. The bullet struck the
tree where it had been standing a fraction of a
second before wood exploded in splinters. Then it charged not

(36:16):
toward the huntsman, past him, so close he could smell
it wet, dog and earth and something wilder. The wind
of its passage spun him around. By the time he'd
recovered and chambered another round, it was gone. Vanished into
the forest, but the message had been delivered, the charge,
the near miss. It could have killed him easily, it

(36:39):
had chosen not to. Monica Webb stumbled out of the canyon,
found the trail, and hiked through the night to reach
the ranger station. She reported a stalker in the woods,
someone who tried to herd her into a trap, but
also something else, something that had saved her, something impossible.
The rangers found the huntsman's killing field the next day,

(37:01):
the traps, the censers, the sniper's nest. They also found
his tracks and the others, the big ones, following his
overlapping them, erasing them in places The investigation would go nowhere.
No fingerprints, no DNA, no evidence linking the equipment to anyone,

(37:22):
but Patricia Morse knew she'd seen this pattern before. Someone
had been hunting in her forest, and something else had
been hunting the hunter. The failed trap in the canyon
changed everything for the huntsman. He'd shown his hand, revealed
his capabilities, and learned a terrible truth. Conventional weapons were
useless against something that could move like that, something that fast,

(37:45):
that aware, that intelligent. He retreated to his basement, mind
racing through possibilities. If bullets wouldn't work, what would poison
fire explosives? Each option present problems. How do you poison
something that might not eat what humans eat? How do
you burn something in a forest without starting a wildfire

(38:08):
that would bring every ranger in the state. How do
you use explosives without leaving evidence that would lead straight
back to you. But more than the tactical problems, there
was a deeper issue. The creatures weren't just interfering with
his hunts now, they were actively protecting potential victims. They
knew what he was, what he intended, sometimes before he'd

(38:29):
even chosen his target. How the answer came to him, slowly, terribly.
They'd been watching him far longer than he'd realized, not
just since Sarah Jones, maybe since his first kill in
Blackwood Gorge, maybe before, learning his patterns, his preferences, his tails.
They could predict him because they understood him. The thought

(38:52):
sent ice through his veins. No one had ever understood him.
He'd been too careful, too smart, too adaptive. But these things,
these impossible things that shouldn't exist, they saw through his
camouflage to the predator beneath. He decided to test a theory.
He would go to Blackwood Gorge, but not hunt, just

(39:13):
hike camp, act like a normal outdoor enthusiast. See if
they still watched him when he wasn't actively stalking prey.
The first day was normal. He hiked ten miles, set
up camp by a stream, cooked freeze, dried meals, read
a paperback novel by the fire. Nothing unusual, no wood knocks,
no massive tracks, no sense of being watched. The second day,

(39:37):
same thing. He began to relax. Maybe they only responded
to active threats. Maybe if he laid low for a while,
they would lose interest, move on, forget about him. The
third night, he woke to find his entire camp rearranged.
His tent had been moved ten feet and rotated to
face the opposite direction. His backpack hung from a tree

(39:58):
branch fifteen feet up. Stay two un for more Backwoods
Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. His boots
were placed neatly side by side, pointing back toward the
trailhead and his book. The paperback novel was open to
a specific page, held down by a stone. He read
the highlighted passage by flashlight, hands trembling the mask of

(40:22):
sanity is paper thin. Beneath it, the monster always shows
through for those who know how to look. They hadn't
lost interest. They'd been there all along, watching him pretend
to be normal, seeing through his act just as clearly
as they'd seen through his hunting persona. The message was clear.
We know you're pretending, We know what you really are.

(40:44):
You can't hide from us. The huntsman packed up and
hiked out that morning, but he wasn't retreating. He was regrouping.
If they could see through his masks, he would stop
wearing them. If they wanted to face the real Hymn,
the true predator, then that that's what they would get.
No more hiding, no more pretending, no more rules. Three

(41:06):
hikers vanished in one week. James Morrison on Monday, taken
from the Ridgeview Trail in broad daylight. His girlfriend waiting
at the parking area said he'd gone back to retrieve
a dropped water bottle and never returned. Kelly Jones, no
relation to Sarah, on Wednesday, disappeared somewhere between mile three
and mile four of the River Loop, the easiest and

(41:28):
most popular trail in Blackwood Gorge. Dozens of other hikers
on the trail that day, but no one saw anything.
Marcus Webb on Friday, an experienced outdoorsman who'd been camping
solo at Cascade Lake. His tent was found shredded, his supplies,
scattered blood on the pine needles, but no body. The
huntsman worked with desperate efficiency, like a wolf gorging before winter.

(41:53):
He knew his time was running out, could feel it
in the weight of every shadow, the paws, in every breeze.
The creatures were done, warning him, done trying to establish boundaries.
The game had changed, but they didn't stop him, not immediately.
They let him work, let him reveal the full extent
of his monstrosity. He realized later, too late, that they

(42:16):
were letting him damn himself, letting him cross every line,
break every taboo, demonstrate beyond doubt that he was beyond redemption.
With Morrison, he'd been quick, professional, The man had died
without knowing what hit him, but the huntsmen had felt nothing,
no satisfaction, no thrill, just emptiness. With Kelly Jones, he'd

(42:38):
tried to recapture the feeling, taking more time, being more creative,
but it was mechanical, hollow. The creatures had robbed him
of his purpose, turned his art into mere butchery. By
the time he took Marcus Webb, he was unraveling, completely, sloppy, violent,
leaving evidence everywhere. Part of him wanted to be caught,

(43:00):
wanted it to end, but not by human hands. He
wanted them to come the creatures, wanted to face them
one last time. After Webb, he returned to his main
cash to find it destroyed, not just disturbed, obliterated. His
tent hadn't just been cut. It had been shredded into
ribbons no wider than a finger, each strip exactly the

(43:23):
same width. His supplies hadn't just been scattered, they'd been
ground into the earth with such force that recovery was impossible.
His journal, his detailed record of forty six kills, had
been torn apart, pages scattered across a quarter mile of forest,
except for one page, entry nineteen, his first kill in

(43:43):
Blackwood Gorge, a young woman named Lisa Park who'd been
camping alone, trying to get over a bad breakup. He'd
written about her in detail, savoring the memory. The page
sat centered on a flat rock, held down by a
stone no human could lift beside it arranged with terrible precision.
Were items he recognized. A necklace, a watch, a pocket knife,

(44:08):
Lisa Parks's belongings that he'd hidden two years ago in
a place only he knew. They'd found them, found all
of them, all his hunting grounds, every state, every park,
every kill site, marked with an X forty six exes,
his entire bloody history laid out for anyone to see.

(44:29):
The huntsmen stood in that circle of accusation, finally understanding
he wasn't the first serial killer to hunt in Blackwood Gorge.
Others had come before, nine others, and the creatures had
dealt with each of them. He was number ten, the
last in this cycle, and his judgment was coming. The
huntsmen knew they would come for him. During the storm.

(44:51):
He could feel it building all day, the pressure dropping,
the clouds massing like an army on the horizon, the
birds falling silent hours before the first drops fell. By nightfall,
Blackwood Gorge was in the grip of a tempest that
seemed personal in its fury. Lightning turned the forest into
a strobing nightmare. Thunder shook the mountains to their foundations,

(45:14):
Rain fell in sheets so thick that visibility dropped to
mere feet. He chose in his position carefully, the abandoned
ranger way station from the nineteen forties, forgotten in a
grove of ancient cedars, three miles from any marked trail,
one entrance, stone walls, a defensible position where he could
make a stand. He'd prepared everything, weapons arranged within easy reach,

(45:38):
bear traps at the entrance, flares to illuminate whatever came
through the door. If they wanted him, they would have
to take him on his terms. The waiting was the
worst part. Hours of rain, drumming on the roof, wind
screaming through the broken windows, his own heart beat loud
in his ears. Every flash of lightning showed him empty forest.

(46:00):
Every roll of thunder masked potential footsteps. Then between thunderclaps
he heard it. Footsteps on the cabin's porch, slow measured,
the boards creaking under tremendous weight. Come on, he screamed
at the door. I know you're there. Let's finish this.
The footsteps stopped silence except for the storm. Then they resumed,

(46:24):
circling the cabin round and round, the same pattern he'd
used at Cedar Lake with the couple the same pace.
Even the same slight hesitation at the corner where he'd
paused to adjust his pack. They were showing him again,
showing him they'd learned everything about him, absorbed his methods,
made them their own. Something hit the wall. The entire

(46:47):
structure shook, dust rained from the ceiling. Another hit, another,
testing the walls playing with him. The door exploded inward.
The thing that entered had to duck to fit through
the door frame, eight and a half feet of muscle
and dark fur that gleamed wet in the lightning flashes.
The face caught in the flarelight was almost human. There

(47:09):
was intelligence there, ancient intelligence, and something that might have
been pity. The huntsman raised his rifle and fired. The
creature moved, but not quite fast enough. This time, the
bullet grazed its shoulder, sending up a spray of blood
and hair. It roared a sound that bypassed the ears

(47:29):
and spoke directly to primal terror centers in the brain,
But it didn't charge. Instead, it spoke not in words,
but in complex vocalizations that somehow conveyed meaning perfectly. You
had your chance to leave, You chose this. The huntsman
chambered another round, but The creature was already moving, not

(47:50):
toward him, around him, circling, studying, waiting. What are you?
The huntsman screamed. It stopped its massive head. When it
spoke again. The vocalizations were different, structured, almost like language,
and somehow impossibly, he understood. We are the first, We

(48:12):
are the watchers, We are the balance, your killers, just
like me. Something that might have been laughter or contempt
rumbled from its chest, then more vocalizations. You kill for pleasure,
we kill for justice. You are the disease, We are
the cure. The huntsman fired again. This time the creature

(48:34):
didn't even try to dodge. The bullet struck its chest
and stopped as if it had hit armor beneath the fur.
The creature looked down at the impact point, then back
at him, disappointed. Then it moved faster than anything that
large should be able to move. The rifle was torn
from the huntsman's hands and bent in half like a

(48:55):
plastic toy. His knife appeared and disappeared, just as quickly,
flung through the window into the storm, The creature grabbed
his arm and squeezed. The bones snapped like dry twigs.
Compound fracture white hot agony. The huntsman screamed and dropped
to his knees, but it wasn't done. It dragged him
to his feet by his broken arm, sending fresh waves

(49:18):
of pain through his body. Then it pulled him close,
so close he could see into its eyes. They were
brown flecked with gold, almost human. Almost It spoke again,
and this time the meaning was crystal clear. The others
are waiting. It dragged him out into the storm, through
the driving rain, illuminated by lightning, He saw them, dozens

(49:41):
of them, all sizes, all ages, standing in a circle
around the cabin, watching, waiting, witnessing a tribunal, a judgment,
a family dealing with a threat to their territory. The
large one, the elder, the huntsman realized, dragged him to
the center of the circle, forced him to his knees

(50:03):
in the mud. The rain was so heavy he could
barely breathe. Lightning struck a tree nearby, showering them with
sparks and splinters. The elder spoke to the others in
their language of tones and gestures. The huntsmen couldn't understand
the words, but he understood the meaning it was telling
them about him, about what he'd done about the forty

(50:24):
six lives he'd taken. One by one, the others approached,
Each looked at him, into him, through him, seeing every kill,
every cruelty, every moment of suffering he'd inflicted. Some turned
away in disgust. Others growled low in their throats. The
young ones were held back by their parents, protected from

(50:46):
getting too close to such corruption. Finally, the elder dragged
him to the edge of the circle, to where the
forest opened onto a cliff. Devils pour over. He realized
a sixty foot waterfall plunging into a churning pool. The
storm had turned it into a monster of white water
and violence. The elder held him at the edge, letting

(51:07):
him look down into that boiling chaos. Then it spoke,
one last time. You showed them no mercy, we show
you the same. Wait, the huntsman gasped, Please, I'll leave,
I'll never come back, I'll never kill again. The elder
pulled him back from the edge. For a moment, hope

(51:27):
flared in the huntsman's chest. Then the elder vocalized again,
did they beg The huntsman closed his eyes. He knew
the answer. They had all begged every one of the
forty six, and he had savored their pleas, collected them
like treasures. Yes, did you listen? No, then neither do we.

(51:49):
But it didn't throw him over. Instead, it dragged him
back into the forest through the rain and mud and darkness.
His broken arm screamed with every movement. His mind was
fracturing under the weight of terror and pain. They brought
him to a grove of ancient cedars, where the canopy
was so thick that even the storm's fury was muted. There,

(52:10):
carved into the largest tree were marks, crude but deliberate,
nine vertical lines, each crossed through. Below them a tenth line,
still fresh sap, still weeping from the bark. The elder
pressed the huntsman's face close to the marks, making sure
he understood nine before him. He was the tenth, the

(52:32):
last of this cycle. Then it began. What happened in
that grove is not something that should be described in detail.
Some horrors are better left to imagination. What matters is
that it was justice, not cruelty, punishment not torture. The
huntsmen experienced what his victims had experienced, the fear, the pain,

(52:54):
the terrible knowledge that no help was coming. When it
was over, When the storm had passed and dawn light
was creeping through the canopy, they scattered his remains across
a mile of riverbank, not hidden, displayed a message to
any who might follow in his footsteps. The official report,
filed by ranger Patricia Morse, blamed the storm flash flood.

(53:17):
It said body caught in debris flow, traumatic disarticulation from
being battered against rocks, natural causes, tragic accident. She'd arrived
at the scene first, having been mysteriously directed there by
an anonymous tip. She'd seen the truth of what happened.
The tracks, dozens of them, all sizes, forming a clear

(53:39):
trail from the abandoned cabin to the grove to the riverbank.
The marks on the largest cedar, the deliberate placement of
the remains. She had also found the huntsman's journal, wrapped
in plastic and placed where she would find it. Forty
six confessions, forty six families who would finally have closure,
forty six cases that could be closed, boosed, But she

(54:01):
burned the journal after memorizing the important details. She erased
the tracks. She crafted a story that the world would
believe because the truth was too large, too strange, too
threatening to the comfortable lie that humans were alone at
the top of the food chain. Before she left, she
added her own mark to the cedar not carved. She

(54:21):
wouldn't dare to face their memorial, but placed at the
base her ranger badge a promise. She would watch too,
She would know the signs. She would turn away when
justice older than law did its necessary work. As she
hiked out, she heard woodknocks echoing across the valley, not warnings,
this time acknowledgment, approval, partnership. The watchers had found an

(54:46):
ally in the human world, someone who understood that some
predators couldn't be stopped by human justice, someone who knew
that monsters required monsters to stop them. Six months have
passed since the storm that came Kiel, the man everyone
knew as Tom Bradley. Blackwood Gorge is peaceful. Families hike
the trails without fear. Children splash in streams and chase butterflies.

(55:11):
Couples camp under the stars and make memories that will
last lifetimes. The Park Service reports that disappearances have dropped
to zero. They credit increased patrols and better safety education.
The tourists nod and follow the mark trails and never
venture into the deep woods, where the shadows move wrong
and the silence has weight. Patricia Morse continues her work,

(55:33):
but with new purpose. She's become an expert at reading
the signs others miss, the fresh scratches on trees that
mark territorial boundaries, the arrangement of stones that indicate approval
or warning, the wood knocks that tell her when something
dark has entered her forest. Three times in six months,
she's had conversations with hikers who made her instinct scream,

(55:56):
people whose eyes held that particular emptiness, whose questions were
a little too specific about isolated trails and emergency response times.
Each time, she's told them about the storm that killed
Tom Bradley, about the bodies that are sometimes found scattered
along the river bank, about the things in the deep
woods that don't appear in any field guide. Two of

(56:17):
them laughed it off and left anyway, never to be
seen again in Blackwood Gorge. Their cars were found in
parking areas fifty miles away, at different parks in different states.
They'd heard her real message and chosen safer hunting grounds.
One didn't listen. His name was Richard Vance, though that
was almost certainly an alias. He'd come to Blackwood Gorge

(56:39):
in October, asking all the wrong questions, showing all the
wrong interests. Patricia had warned him, but he'd smiled that
empty smile and headed up the trail anyway. The wood
knock started before he'd gone a mile. By mile two,
he was being herded back toward the trailhead. By mile three,
he was running. He reached his car, covered in sweat

(57:00):
and shaking with terror, started the engine and drove away
without looking back. Patricia found the message the next morning,
Stones arranged in a spiral at the trailhead. In the
center a driver's license, not Richard Vance's. That identity was fake.
The license belonged to Amy Patterson, a college student who

(57:20):
disappeared in Montana three years ago. One of his victims.
The watchers had known what he was the moment he'd
entered their territory. They'd smelled the death on him, seen
through whatever mask he wore. They'd let him run, not
out of mercy, but as a message, we know who
you are, we know what you've done. Come back and

(57:41):
join the others. Patricia added Amy Patterson's information to her
private files and made sure her family received an anonymous
tip about where to search for their daughter's remains. The
Watchers couldn't bring back the dead, but they could provide closure, justice, balance. Sometimes,
late at night, Patricia wonders about them, the Watchers. How

(58:03):
long have they been here? How many are there? Do
they exist in other wilderness areas? Or is Blackwood Gorge
special somehow? She's done research, careful and discreet. Native legends
speak of them, though never directly, always in whispers and warnings.
The first People, the old ones, the keepers of the balance,

(58:25):
different names for the same truth that humans have never
been alone in the wilderness, never been unmatched, never been unwatched.
She's found patterns in missing persons cases going back decades.
Clusters of disappearances that suddenly stop, serial Killers who vanish
without a trace, Predators who simply cease to exist, always

(58:46):
in wilderness areas, always in places where the forest is
old and deep and full of shadows. The FBI has
noticed the patterns too. They have a term for it,
spontaneous predator cessation events. They have theories about vigilante groups
or territorial serial killers who target other killers. They have
no idea how close and how far from the truth

(59:09):
they are. The truth is this Blackwood Gorge belongs to them,
the watchers, the first people, the ones who were here
before humans gave names to the mountains, and will be
here long after humans have forgotten those names. They're not
Bigfoot or Sasquatch or any of the names we've tried
to pin on them. Those are just labels for something

(59:29):
we don't understand, attempts to categorize the uncategorizable. They're not animals,
though they're not human either. There's something else, something that
exists in the space between what we know and what
we fear. They have their own language, their own culture,
their own laws, laws older than human civilization, laws written

(59:50):
in the movement of seasons and the growth of trees,
and the bones of those who violated the natural order.
They don't hate humans. If they did, the trails of
black Wood Gorge would be littered with bodies. They coexist
with us mostly. They watch us with the patience of
stone and the wisdom of ancient things. They judge us
by standards we barely comprehend. But when we bring our

(01:00:13):
darkness into their domain, when we hunt our own kind
for sport or pleasure, or whatever sick need drives human predators,
then they act not with cruelty, but with finality. Stay
tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after
these messages, not with hatred, but with purpose. They are

(01:00:35):
the balance, the natural correction to human evil, the reminder
that we are not God's in the wilderness, just another
species that can be judged and found wanting. The Huntsmen
learned this truth in his final moments. Nine others learned
it before him, and someday when the count begins again,
and eleventh will learn it too, because there will always

(01:00:58):
be predators among humans, always those who see isolation as
opportunity and wilderness as a hunting ground. But in Blackwood
Gorge they'll find something else, something that's been waiting patiently
in the shadows between the trees, something that knows the
difference between a lost hiker and a stalking killer, something
that has been judging humanity since before we had words

(01:01:20):
for justice. The tourists come and go, taking photos and memories.
The rangers patrol their roots and file their reports. The
town of Cedar Falls prospers from outdoor recreation revenue. Life
goes on as it always has, But in the deep woods,
where cell phones don't work and helicopters can't land, where
the trees are so thick that noon looks like twilight.

(01:01:43):
They're watching, always, watching, generation after generation, century after century,
keeping their vigil. They know every trail, every camp, every visitor.
They can smell fear and guilt and intention. They can
read the human heart like we read weather signs. They
know who belongs and who doesn't, who comes seeking beauty

(01:02:06):
and who comes seeking blood. And when someone crosses that
invisible line, when a human predator enters their domain with
darkness in their heart, the ancient justice of Blackwood Gorge awakens.
The wood knocks echo across the valleys, the massive prints
appear in soft earth. The stalker becomes the stalked, and

(01:02:26):
the balance is maintained. I told you at the beginning
that this may be a true story. Maybe you believed me,
maybe you didn't. Maybe you're telling yourself right now that
it's just a campfire tale, a story designed to give
you chills on an October night. That's fine. Skepticism is healthy,
probably safer. But if you ever find yourself in the

(01:02:47):
Pacific Northwest, driving through those endless forests and you see
a sign for Blackwood Gorge. Remember this story. Remember what
I've told you about what watches from the shadows. Remember
that some places have their own law, their own justice,
their own way of dealing with those who bring darkness
into the wild. If you go there, and many do,

(01:03:09):
it's beautiful country. Go with respect, go with wonder, Go
with the intention to leave only footprints and take only pictures.
The watchers have no quarrel with innocent visitors. You might
hike for days and never know they're there, never see
anything more unusual than a deer or a hawk. But
if you go with other intentions, if you look at

(01:03:31):
those isolated trails and see opportunity, if you notice how
far you are from help and feel excitement rather than caution,
If you carry darkness in your heart and think the
wilderness will hide your crimes, then know this. You're not
alone out there. You're never alone. Something ancient and patient
and terrible is watching from the spaces between the trees.

(01:03:54):
Something that has judged nine of your kind before and
found them guilty. Something that's ready to make you number
ten or number eleven, or whatever number we're on now.
I don't keep track anymore. The count is theirs to keep,
carved in bark and bone and the memory of mountains.
The locals have a saying in Cedar Falls. They tell

(01:04:15):
it to tourists heading up to the gorge, usually with
a smile that doesn't quite reach their eyes. Respect the
wilderness it's watching. Most people think it's about bears, or
weather or getting lost. Good let them think that the
truth is too large, too strange, too threatening to the
comfortable lie that humans are in charge. We're not in charge.

(01:04:37):
We never were. We're just another species sharing this planet
with things we don't understand. Things that we're here first,
things that will be here last, things that maintain the
balance in ways we can barely comprehend. In most places,
we've driven them back or driven them extinct, made the
world safe for our particular brand of civilization. But in

(01:04:59):
place this is like Blackwood Gorge, they remain patient, eternal, necessary,
because without them, what would stop the Tom Bradley's of
the world, the huntsmen who walk among us wearing masks
of normality, waiting for chances to reveal their true nature.
Human justice fails as often as it succeeds, but the

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justice of the Gorge never fails, never hesitates, never shows
mercy to those who showed none. Some call them monsters,
some call them guardians, some call them myths. I call
them the reason Blackwood Gorge is safe for families to
camp and children to explore, and couples to make memories
under the stars. They're the invisible line between civilization and savagery,

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the thing that hunts the hunters, the balance between predator
and prey. They're real. They're out there right now, moving
through mist and shadow, checking their territory, maintaining their vigil.
They know every trail, every time campsite, every visitor. They
know the difference between a photographer and a predator, between
a hiker and a hunter of humans. And if you're

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the wrong kind of visitor, if you come to their
forest with the wrong kind of intentions, they'll know that too.
The wood Knox will start before you've gone a mile.
The feeling of being watched will grow with every step.
And if you're smart, if you have any instinct for survival,
you'll turn around. You'll walk back to your car, You'll
drive away and never return. Because the alternative is joining

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the Huntsmen and the nine who came before him, becoming
a number carved in bark, a lesson for the next
fool who thinks the wilderness will hide their crimes. This
is the truth of Blackwood Gorge. This is why it's safe.
This is why predators who enter those woods with dark
intentions should know. You're not the apex predator there. You

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never were. Something older watches those trails, something that remembers
when the mountains were young and humans were just another
species scrambling for survival, something that has decided in its
ancient wisdom to maintain the balance, to protect the innocent,
to remove the guilty. Some justice happens in courtrooms, some

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happens in prisons, and some happens in the deep woods,
where the trees are thick and the shadows move wrong,
where massive shapes walk upright through the mist, where wood
knocks echo across valleys like drums of judgment. That's the
justice of Blackwood Gorge, ancient absolute final. The watchers are

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out there right now, moving through their territory, checking the trails,
reading the signs, waiting for the next predator to reveal themselves,
waiting for number eleven, or maybe they've already found them,
maybe somewhere in those seventeen thousand acres of wilderness, another
Tom Bradley is learning what it feels like to be hunted.

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Maybe the wood knocks are echoing right now. Maybe justice
is being served in the old world, the permanent way,
the way that ensures the innocent can walk those trails
without fear. I hope so, because as long as the
watchers maintain their vigil, as long as they patrol those
ancient paths, as long as they remember the names and
faces of every predator who thought the wilderness would hide

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their crimes, Blackwood Gorge remains what it should be, a
place of beauty, not horror, a place where families make memories,
not where killers make victims. A place where justice wears
no badge and needs no courtroom. But is no less
real for that more real, perhaps more final, more certain.

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The storm that killed Tom Bradley was six months ago.
The forest has reclaimed the places where violence touched it.
New growth covers old scars. The trails are peaceful, the
campgrounds are full of laughter. But in the deep woods,
if you know where to look, you can still find
the tree, the ancient cedar with ten marks carved in

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its bark, ten lines each cross through ten predators who
learn too late that in Blackwood Gorge humans are not
the apex predator. Below those marks, fresh bark grows, unmarred,
waiting because there will be an eleventh somewhere out there.
Another predator is developing their taste for hunting humans. Another

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monster is practicing their craft, Another Tom Bradley is perfecting
their mask of normality, and eventually, inevitably they'll come to
Blackwood Gorge. They'll see those isolated trails and deep forests
and think they found the perfect hunting ground. They'll be right.
It is the perfect hunting ground, just not for them.

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The watchers are patient. They've been patient for thousands of years.
They can wait a little longer. And when the next
predator comes. When number eleven enters their domain with darkness
in their heart and blood on their mind, the ancient
justice of Blackwood Gorge will wake once more. The woodno
will echo, the hunt will begin, and the balance will

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be maintained forever and always. In the deep woods, in
the mist shadows, in the silence between heartbeats, this is
their forest. These are their laws, and their justice is absolute.
Remember that, friend, as we head deeper into this spooky season.
Remember it when you're walking alone and feel eyes on

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your back. Remember it when you hear sounds in the
darkness that don't belong to any animal you know. Most
of all, remember it if you ever find yourself in
Blackwood Gorge standing at a trailhead, reading the warning signs
about bears and weather and staying on marked paths. Those
aren't the real warnings. The real warning is older, simpler,

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carved in the bark of ancient trees and written in
the arrangement of stones. We are watching. We know what
you are, we know what you intend. Come with respect,
leave with memories, come with darkness us, never leave at all.
That's the law of Blackwood Gorge. That's the justice of
the Watchers. That's the truth that keeps the trail safe

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and the innocent protected. And that's the story I wanted
to share with you as we begin our journey into
the dark months ahead. Next time I'll tell you about
something different, But those are stories for another night tonight.
Remember Blackwood Gorge, Remember the huntsmen, remember the watchers, and
remember some monsters need to exist to stop the other monsters,

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to keep the balance, to ensure that evil when it
walks upright on two legs into the wilderness meets something stronger, older,
and far more terrible than itself. Something that doesn't care
about rights or laws or second chances, something that only
knows one truth. Predators who hunt the innocent will themselves
be hunted in Blackwood Gorge. That's not a threat or

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a warning. It's a promise, a promise kept for thousands
of years, a promise that will be kept for thousands more.
Because the watchers are eternal, The forest is patient, and
justice true, justice never sleeps. It just waits in the
shadows between the trees, massive and silent, watching for the

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next fool who thinks the wilderness is his hunting ground,
waiting for number eleven. Or maybe they've already found them.
Maybe right now, as you listen to this, somewhere in
those dark woods, justice is being served. I hope so,
for all our sakes. I hope so, because as long
as the watchers keep their vigil, the rest of us

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can sleep a little easier knowing that somewhere out there,
something stands between us and the Tom Bradley's of the world,
something with eight foot strides and eighteen inch footprints, something
that knows the difference between human and monster, something that
maintains the balance, one predator at a time. This is
the truth of Blackwood Gorge. This is why the trails

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are safe. This is the story that needed to be told.
And now you know, sweet dreams, friend, And remember, if
you ever find yourself in the Pacific Northwest and you
see that sign for Blackwood Gorge and you feel that
little thrill of curiosity, go ahead, visit. Hike those beautiful trails,

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camp under those ancient trees. Just make sure you go
with a pure heart and clean intentions, because something will
be watching from the shadows, something that knows exactly what
you are, and God help you if it doesn't like
what it sees. The watchers are real. The gorge remembers everything,
and justice, ancient and terrible. Justice walks on two legs

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in the deep woods of Blackwood Gorge forever and always watching, waiting. Ready.

(01:14:50):
Di