Just Creepy: Scary Stories · Just Creepy

3 TERRIFYING Hiking Horror Stories That Will Make You Never Hike Alone Again

February 23, 2026·1 hr 19 min·6 clips

Trapped in a snare with an armed man closing in, the hiker frantically saws at the cord with a folding knife.

The fear starts with a car that looks ordinary enough to ignore. At the North Loop Trailhead in the Mount Charleston area, a nineteen-year-old spots a dusty SUV with cracked windows and no owner in sight. It is odd, but not odd enough to stop the hike. That small hesitation gives the story its bite. The gear is simple: water, snacks, a cheap headlamp, a first aid kit, and the easy confidence that lets a person explain away warning signs. Las Vegas feels close, but the trail is described like another place above the city, with pine, limestone, steep drops, and pockets where the phone quits. At first, everything has a practical answer. Long loops, early starts, carpooling, and trailhead habits all make the abandoned-looking vehicle seem possible. Then the rain comes in. Along a confusing river corridor, the narrator looks for people and tries to treat fear like ordinary caution. The route will not cooperate. Braided trails, roots, boulders, rhododendron, rock outcrops, and gorge walls make every direction feel suspect. Then the pack appears. It is upright against a log, damp but not soaked through, with a trekking pole and metal cup placed nearby, as if someone only stepped away for a minute. The host does not rush that moment. The narrator leaves the bag alone, does not paw through private things, and calls out instead. A voice answers from the rocks. Relief comes too quickly, and the story turns on one bad choice: moving toward a stranger instead of making the stranger come closer. The warning near the end is plain. Leave, get to the car, do not look back, and do not open the tent if the forest goes silent at 2.14 a.m. What lingers is not just pursuit. A draft email, twenty missing days, sand in shoes, pine resin on hands, and an unfamiliar moleskin journal suggest something came back with the narrator.

As heard by us

A mountain hike turns into a slow-burn account of missing time and a voice that should not be there.

This episode tracks a 19-year-old hiker in the Spring Mountains outside Las Vegas as a solo trip starts to slip: a lonely trailhead, an abandoned pack, a voice in the trees, and one wrong move that keeps shrinking the space between fear and fact. What works here is the patience.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A simple hike in the Spring Mountains, then a voice in the trees.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Just Creepy: Scary Stories