National Park After Dark
427 episodes listed below
Campfire stories with sharper edges.
National Park After Dark treats parks, trails, glaciers, historic sites, and backcountry places as places where beauty and danger sit close together. Danielle and Cassie move between researched accounts, listener-submitted Trail Tales, guest conversations, and lighter detours into strange reviews or outdoor community life.
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National Park After Dark treats public lands as places with memory. Parks and trails are not just backdrops here; they are active settings shaped by weather, terrain, policy, animals, visitors, violence, and loss. Danielle and Cassie anchor the show with a conversational rhythm that can start with jokes, dogs, snacks, or listener mail before shifting into something much darker. The format is flexible. A researched episode might follow the questionable death of Duncan McPherson in the Stubai Alps, where a family pushes against official explanations after a disappearance near glacier country. Another may trace the wartime removal of families to Manzanar, holding space for fear, heat, uncertainty, armed control, and the rupture of home. The Appalachian Trail episode uses statistics as a starting point, then refuses to let Claudia Brenner and Rebecca White become only numbers in an outdoor-violence report. That is a recurring strength. The show likes facts, but it keeps returning to people. Trail Tales episodes loosen the structure and let listeners send in family lore, uncanny encounters, park stories, and personal moments that can be funny, sad, angry, or strange. Those segments make the audience feel unusually present without turning the show into pure call-in chatter. Guest episodes add another gear, especially when Liz Crandall appears to talk about ranger work, public land advocacy, visitor education, and what is happening inside public lands. Not every episode is grim. The Acadia bad-reviews installment turns park culture into a comic roast, with complaints about popovers, parking, check-in chaos, and overworked literary comparisons. The Glacier Bay episode about Stikine shows the warmer side of the show, following a small dog through Alaskan expedition lore with genuine delight. Still, the title is honest. Death, disappearance, injustice, animal peril, haunting, and wilderness danger all belong to its regular weather. National Park After Dark is for listeners who want outdoor stories with personality rather than sterile documentary distance. It is researched enough to orient the listener, casual enough to feel human, and serious enough to know when a trail story has stopped being funny.
Made for: Best for listeners who like national parks, trail culture, survival stories, outdoor history, and true crime with a strong sense of place. It also fits people who enjoy conversational hosts who can move from jokes to grief without losing the thread.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by making public lands central to the story rather than scenic wallpaper. Its mix of researched cases, Trail Tales, guest advocacy conversations, animal lore, and occasional comic park-culture episodes gives it more range than a straight wilderness true-crime format.
Hosted by two friends who share a passion for public lands and a fascination with what can go wrong there, each week hosts Danielle and Cassie explore the darker side of our National Parks. But it isn’t always chills and thrills. By sharing inspiring tales and their desire for protecting our planet’s wild places, they hope listeners will be inspired to take a walk into the wild and create meaningful adventures of their own.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Outdoor history meets rescue detail and companionable humor in stories where recreation can turn dangerous, strange, or unexpectedly moving.
Danielle and Cassie make outdoor danger understandable by keeping terrain, human judgment, and the mechanics of survival in the same frame. Narrated episodes reconstruct desperate rescues and risky feats, while Trail Tales editions turn to listener accounts involving family…
A river rapid and a trapped leg become campfire stories you cannot responsibly hear before bed.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Listener stories, a vivid park setting, and relaxed banter keep Trail Tales Edition moving.
Trail Tales Edition keeps its focus on listener stories, opening with family lore before shifting into a sharper account set at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The hosts keep the tone easy and steady, which lets the personal turns land without feeling strained.
A small Alaska story turns into a sturdy, warm listen about a dog with more nerve than sense.
This episode keeps things simple: John Muir's Alaska story becomes a small, memorable chase, with Stikine the dog refusing to be left behind and swimming a rapid to stay with the group.
A Grand Canyon stunt story that keeps the spectacle in view but never lets the recklessness off the hook.
National Park After Dark frames the Grand Canyon stunt as a quick look at how people dress risk up as spectacle. It opens with the familiar showmanship of Houdini, Copperfield, and Criss Angel, then moves into the 1922 airplane attempt and the plain details that make it stick:…
A dark, low-key detour through graveyards, family history, and one very elegant creepy ring.
This Trail Tales installment leans on a birthday month check-in, a Victorian mourning ring that is equal parts pretty and eerie, and a listener story that moves from a cemetery tour into medium territory. The mix works because the hosts let the odd details breathe.
A grim rescue story that keeps the practical stakes in focus.
The episode turns a river rescue into a blunt reminder that a scenic day outdoors can tip into a life-or-death problem fast. It moves from ordinary reasons for heading into nature to the rescue itself, keeping the details practical and the stakes plain, while a bit of dark humor…
Nilay Patel presses tech and media CEOs on how they actually run their companies.
Physician Shoshana Ungerleider pairs TED talks with interviews on aging, drug prices, and menopause.
Food52 hosts break down recipes and food-business origin stories, from sourdough to Salty Pimp cones.
Dan Pashman revisits food science with Kenji López-Alt and rotating live comedy guests.
This episode features a discussion about hiking socks and a follow-up conversation with guests about Acadia National Park.
National Park After Dark Trail Tales Edition 91 features five listener-submitted stories read by hosts Danielle and Cassie, covering incidents from 1912 to 2025.
National Park After Dark host Danielle tells the story of John Muir's 1880 expedition to what is now Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, focusing on his relationship with a small terrier named Stikine who belonged to Reverend S.H.
This episode explores the mysterious disappearance of former NHL player Duncan MacPherson in the Austrian Alps, drawing parallels to the discovery of the ancient ice mummy Otzi and detailing his parents' relentless investigation against uncooperative local authorities.
This Trail Tales episode features returning guest Liz Crandall, a former U.S.
This episode recounts the forced evacuation and internment of Japanese American families during World War II, focusing on their journey to Manzanar National Historic Site.
This episode of National Park After Dark's Trail Tales Edition introduces the segment where hosts read listener-submitted real stories, encourages more submissions, and gives a shout out to a fan.
This episode examines the murder of Claudia Brenner and Rebecca White on the Appalachian Trail, highlighting the human stories behind crime statistics.
This episode explores the dark side of Arctic exploration, focusing on the physical and mental toll on explorers.
Hosts Danielle and Cassie welcome podcast friends Taylor and Morgan to share creepy listener stories and a classic creepy account from 2021.
This episode explores the history of Route 66 and its abandoned remnants within Petrified Forest National Park.
The episode investigates the mysterious disappearance of Sophia Coatsier in Murchison Falls National Park, questioning whether it was an accident or foul play.
Hosts discuss a new merch design and share listener stories about mishaps in national parks.
This episode explores President Franklin D.
Hosts address current events before delving into a dark story from a national park.
Hosts share listener-submitted true crime stories set in national parks, starting with a tale of a near abduction in the Arctic Circle.
This episode explores the story of Christopher McCandless and the hidden truths behind his death in the Alaskan wilderness.
This episode discusses the evolution of global connectivity and information sharing, contrasting modern instant communication with historical methods like letters and couriers.
The episode explores towns haunted by unsolved tragedies, including the Villisca axe murders, Centralia's underground fire, and the Keddie Cabin 28 murders, leading to a suspicious fire in Fayetteville near New River Gorge National Park.
This episode explores the mysterious disappearance of Canadian landscape painter Tom Thompson in Algonquin Provincial Park in 1917.
National Park After Dark hosts Danielle and Cassie survey decades of daring live stunts performed at the Grand Canyon, from a 1922 biplane landing on a 60-by-450-foot strip 50 feet from a 1,200-foot drop to Robbie Knievel's 1999 world-record motorcycle jump that ended with three broken ribs.
National Park After Dark hosts Danielle and Cassidy read five listener-submitted Trail Tales involving paranormal encounters, near-death experiences, and historical cemeteries, including a Civil War ghost leading a crash survivor to safety, a lonely ghost named Bob who responds to conversation and boundary-setting, and a listener's research project revealing that more than 200 graves at Burr Oak Cemetery near Chicago were desecrated — including Emmett Till's historic coffin being found in a storage shed.
National Park After Dark host Cassie tells the near-recent survival story of Valdis Bialuskas, a 65-year-old Lithuanian whitewater rafter who fell into the Franklin River in Tasmania's Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park on November 22, 2024, wedging his leg between rocks in 50-degree water just above class-five rapids.
This episode explores the ongoing struggles of indigenous communities in the United States, challenging the misconception that they belong to the past while highlighting their vital role in environmental protection and the systemic injustices they face today.
This episode explores the incredible survival story of Truman C.
Hosts interview the creator of the Morbidly Curious Book Club, discussing book recommendations on dark topics like death, cults, and plagues.
This episode explores the mysterious death of folklorist Robert Kirk, who documented fairy lore in Scotland's Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park, blending true crime with supernatural history during Halloween week.
Hosts share spooky and creepy stories from national parks, with a mix of animal encounters and eerie tales as Halloween approaches.
This episode explores the historical significance of cemeteries as America's first public parks and conservation projects.
This episode examines the dark histories behind public monuments, focusing on J.
Hosts share a spooky listener story about a legendary howling creature in a national forest.
This episode explores how life's meaning is measured not by lifespan or heartbeats but by the impact and legacy one leaves behind, using the example of George Meléndez Wright.
This episode explores how Norman Olestad's father instilled a 'never give up' mentality through adventurous challenges, which later helped Norman survive a life-threatening situation.
Hosts discuss a true crime story titled 'Locked in the Bryce Canyon National Parks Taxidermy Museum' after promoting merchandise.
This episode explores a strange incident at Birmingham airport where a passenger's prolonged shower leads to suspicion, tying into a broader theme of human fascination with birds and flight.