The Whitney Mountains

Ever since Lauren and I were kids, we have been inseparable. We saw each other almost every day, since our families lived on the same street. Over the years, both of our families became extremely close, and we eventually started going on yearly camping trips together.

This year, instead of going to our normal camping spot just outside the small town of Arlindale, we decided to go to the Whitney mountains. It added another hour or two to our six hour road trip, but I heard that it was worth it from my uncle and his family, along with countless blog pages saying the same thing.

Lauren and I both did extensive amounts of research on the place, finding out that it was supposedly an ancient land, inhabited by many strange things. I read that some of these entities were good, while others would bring trouble, sometimes only causing a minor inconvenience to campers, some taking them, never to be seen again. I had read about some campers' experiences with these creatures, each article drawing me in more and more. Lauren didn’t believe in these stories, saying campers that go often just made them up to scare others away, therefore keeping this hidden gem to themselves. I, on the other hand, was a bit more skeptical. I didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts and other supernatural creatures, but a part of me always felt like maybe they really did exist. Plus, I thought it would be fun to stay up at night and try to find them, and maybe scare Lauren and Hailey, her younger sister, or my older brother Jeremy in the process.

We decided to go in the middle of June, staying out in the woods for a week. It took us about seven hours to get there, and the farther into the woods we got, the more I was entranced by it. It was almost as if it was talking to me, trying to get me to go deeper and deeper. Eventually, we arrived at our campsite. When we all got out of our cars, we were awestruck. It was the most beautiful campsite I’ve ever seen, and the best part was that it was located next to the lake. The water was crystal clear and the most beautiful shade of aquamarine, the canopy of trees all around us shielding us from the scorching-hot rays of sun, and also made for a perfect place to set up our hammock. We quickly helped set up our tents and the rest of our camp, exploring a bit after we finished.

As per usual, we had three tents in our campsite: one for Lauren’s parents, one for mine, and one for Lauren, Hailey, Jeremy and I. Our parents never allowed us to go out of camp by ourselves after dark, but that rule never stopped us. After we were certain that our parents had fallen asleep, we took our flashlights and all four of us snuck out. We ended up taking our dog Zeus along with us. The full moon faintly lit our little clearing, and made the lake glisten a bit. We were so far away from the bright city lights that we could see as many stars in the sky as there was sand on the beach right in front of us. As we slipped deeper and deeper into the forest, it felt like the forest was swallowing us. I noticed that the trees were becoming thicker and more dense, thicker than they looked from our campsite. Soon it got so dark that our flashlights barely lit our path and we couldn’t see much.

While we were walking, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. We should turn back, I thought. However, I didn’t want to be the skeptical one of the group and ignored my thoughts. When the feeling started to get stronger, Zeus started growling at something. We all stopped, looking at each other and sharing the same look of concern and confusion.

“What’s going on now?” asked Hailey, with a hint of fear in her voice.

“I don’t know, but don’t you guys get the feeling that we’re being watched?” answered Jeremy, looking at each of us, instinctively knowing that we all shared the same thought, even though we never said it.

I started to look around, seeing if I could see anything. After a while, I noticed a few faint green lights. I pointed my flashlight in their direction, but they disappeared. I pointed the flashlight away, then they reappeared. “Guys, look over there,” I said, motioning my head towards the lights.

“Lori, there’s nothing there. You’re crazy,” my brother said to me, pointing his light in the direction of the lights.

“I am not!” I retorted. “Stop shining your torch in that direction and look again”

They all looked, and eventually they saw the green dots dancing back and forth in the distance, right where Zeus had been staring at when he was growling. After much debating, we let our curiosity get the best of us and decided to follow it, despite our gut instincts telling us to leave it and return to our tent and fall asleep. It was already almost three AM, so I wouldn’t have minded heading back and sitting in my warm, cozy sleeping bag. At this point, Zeus had stopped growling, and we had decided to turn all our torches off except Lauren’s because we still needed to see, and having less light meant that we could see the glowing orbs of green better. As we trudged through the woods, the lights would change directions, sometimes moving to the left, sometimes to the right.

After what seemed like an eternity of walking, we stumbled upon a dirt path. Once we stepped foot onto it, the lights disappeared entirely. We ended up following the path, and about half a mile in, we found a very worn down and abandoned house. We tried finding out exactly where we were, but there was no cell signal. We then noticed a group of people dressed in bright, flowy clothing and gold jewelry silently dancing barefoot around a fire, as if they were taking part in a ritual. We thought we had found other people, but then I noticed that they casted no shadows, even though they were around a fire. They soon noticed us, and motioned for us to follow them. We all exchanged glances with each other, not knowing what to do.

“I don’t think we should join them,” my brother whispered, fear creeping into his voice, putting the rest of us even more on edge. Jeremy never showed any hint of fear in any situation, so to hear him scared freaked us out even more.

“Well, I think we should,” I hissed. “These things may seem like humans, but look! They don’t have shadows. They obviously aren’t human. I think we should do what they tell us, because I don’t want to find out what happens if we make them angry.”

The three of them nodded in hesitant agreement, and we made our way towards the beings. Before we joined the dance circle, a woman with a flower crown and wavy brunette hair, dressed in a white, flowy ankle-length dress offered us all some kind of drink from a giant golden flower. I took the first sip, and immediately noticed that it was sweet, having a floral note to it. After I drank, I joined the circle, followed by the others. Somehow, my limbs moved perfectly in sync with everyone else, even though I did not know what I was doing. I started to feel dizzy and soon blanked out, as if I was on autopilot.

It was dawn when I regained my consciousness. The ring of people had come to a halt, and the same lady that offered us drinks last night led us onto the path.

“Thank you for joining our dance,” she said, her sing-song voice soothing our past anxieties about what had happened. She then turned to me, leaning down a bit to speak to me. “It was wise of you to convince your friends to join us and drink,” she whispered. “Some others aren’t so wise. They are the unlucky ones, the ones that are never seen again. And if they are seen again, they’re never in one piece,” she said, a seemingly innocent smile forming on her face, while my eyes widened in horror. If we listened to Jeremy, we would’ve been dead, I thought, silently thanking the gods that we didn’t.

She led us to the park ranger’s shack. She knocked on the door, and a blonde woman in park ranger uniform answered the door. The mysterious lady waved to the blonde woman, and the blonde woman waved back and nodded her head in thanks for bringing us to her. The dancer crouched down to pet Zeus, then turned on her heel and walked back into the woods, and wouldn’t return unless she was bringing another lost camper. The ranger, who we later learned was named Amy, asked us a few questions about what we saw, where we came from, and other related questions. She told us that things like this happened often, and that we were lucky we didn’t encounter a more malicious being. We learned that we had seen what was known simply as the lights, a benign entity which are known for getting people stupid enough to follow them lost, and sometimes leading them to other beings, as it had for us. The entities that it led us to were known as Damhsóirí, which are typically peaceful unless provoked.

Amy helped us locate our parents, and when we got back, we told them what had happened. They were upset that we snuck out and didn’t believe us at first, but after Amy told them about the things that reside here, they finally believed. We ended up staying the rest of our stay safely, thanks to a haphazardly written set of tips and general rules Amy wrote for us. We suggested that she write a handbook of sorts for people who want to camp here, and later we learned she took our advice and made one. Now that we know what can happen in the Whitney mountains, we can come back more prepared and not wander into the woods at night.