Today's podcast will feature three hiking-related horror stories that are actually all still shrouded in mystery.

The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.

The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

The first story you'll hear is called Stephen Thomas, and it's about a hiker who leaves his tent to confront someone or something and does not return. The second story you'll hear is called Stephen Thomas, and it's about a hiker who leaves his tent to confront

someone or something and does not return. The second story you'll hear is called Just Curious,

and it's about a Boy Scout who goes missing just seconds after being seen. And the third and final

you'll hear is called Into the Forest, and it's about a woman who's recorded on CCTV entering an infamous

forest in China, but that might be the only part of the story that's grounded in reality.

But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious

delivered in story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload

two, three, even four times every week. So, if that's of interest to you, please offer the follow button your seat at the

table. But as they go to sit down, pull the chair away right at the last second. Okay, let's get

into our first story called Stephen Thomas. In April of 1976, 1976, 19-year-old Stephen Thomas was asked by his good friend Bruce Weber

if you wanted to join Bruce and Bruce's four other friends on a hike in New York State.

Steve didn't know these four others, but he really liked Bruce and he loved hiking, so he agreed to go. The mountain they were going to climb was Mount Marcy. It's one of the biggest mountains on the East Coast, and it's very rugged, it's very windy. The temperatures dropped dramatically towards the summit. It's a dangerous place, unless you treat it with respect. On the morning that Steve was leaving for this hike, his mother told him that she had a bad feeling about the hike and that maybe he should just cancel because it didn't seem like a good idea to be hiking such a rugged mountain with people he didn't know. But Steve, who had a lot of experience hiking, said it was totally fine, he was eager to go, and that he would see her in a couple of days. On April 12, 1976, the six men are making their way up Mount Marcy, and they get near the summit by about 3.30 p.m. in the afternoon, and even though they could have pressed on and made their way up to the summit, they were all really exhausted from the trip so far, and they decided they would make camp where they were, and they would attack the summit the next day, and they were all eager to do that, with the exception of Steve.

Steve didn't want to stop.

Steve was sitting in Bruce's tent, looking at the map of Mount Marcy, and he said to Bruce,

hey, do you want to go for a quick walk with me? I just want to walk up the path a little ways.

And Bruce was like, no, man, I'm tired. Let's just go tomorrow.

And so Steve just continued to stay up looking at this map. He made tea for himself. And at some point, he folded the map up and said, hey, Bruce, I'm just going to walk up the path a little ways. I'll be right back.

Bruce told Steve this was a bad idea.

Don't go up there on your own.

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