Harpy back up

   I am told if you want people to read something you're supposed to have an eye catching opener. So how's this, the moth man is alot sexier up close. Catchy enough? Okay let's get down to the nitty gritty. I actually don't livewhere near Ohio or Pennsylvania or whereever mothman was, I'm not even sure they're related, but I've heard about the black bird of Chernobyl, and looked up various bird-human creatures after this all started; and honestly closest thing I saw that fit was a Harpy...more so the sexy monster girl versions online, less the Greek mythology ones; although looking it up did find out those were apparently wind spirits originally and not the flesh and blood bird people in popular culture so...next closest thing are stories of owl witches and whatnot, so its really confusing. Because, not anywhere near Greece either. No, this all happened in the good ole US of A, in north western Montana, near the boarder with Idaho.

   To be clear, I'm not originally from around these parts, this was a summer camping trip, I'm from Northern California, not..too different really; but alot less congested camping grounds; but with a shit ton of more warnings about the dangers in the mountains and lack of rangers, easily getting lost if wandering off hiking trails, bears, ect... I have always been an avid hiker and camper. I have a ton of stories I could tell ranging from animal raids on my coolers before I invested in bear proof coolers and bear hangs; sleeping in hammocks up off the forest floor to avoid bears and other predators sniffing out the tent. Hell even had a few encounters vagrants living out in the woods I guess and stealing from people. You hear alot about people like that going up and down the rivers; scary to think in this day and age mountain bandits are still a thing.

    To be fair not everything that harassed me when I went off the trails was entirely human, or animal. It is scary to think though that these might have been people; if there are people running around naked in the woods, thin from lack of food, and driven mad, with exaggerated hideous features from in-breeding. You get alot of local color folklore when you go hiking and camping in odd places. One problem is the locals dressing up to mess with you because they think a guy with a bunch of gear must be from some tv show or just some wacko looking for bigfoot. Another problem being that same gear seen in town gets you marked as an easy target by thieves, and being local they tend to know the woods better. Makes a guy like me have to move further off the trails to get a good spot to sleep. I guess I do have money to burn, I won't get into my occupation or home life; but that doesn't mean I automatically deserve to be beaten and robbed by every local down on his luck who wants someone to blame. Why I do try to at least stick to parks and avoid private land as best I can.

  The event I am leading up to takes me to a national park in Montana and Idaho, there are more than a few, and for personal security as I suspect something else is going on here; not that by the end anyone who isn't a spook will believe a word of this; I won't be saying which of the many parks I was hiking in; I will say however the rangers felt sketchy. Its not unusual to want to know what gear I am taking in, can't have poachers after all, how many days I intended to stay; and so on; one reason I prefer going to Canada and just sneaking off somewhere by a town; but this guy was really specific; and seemed really nervous. I did note the ranger station was surrounded by really big flood lights and he had some serious heat in the station. I had to ask if there were major grizzly problems; he said there were and chuckled a little, a nervous sort of chuckle that was more than a little creepy.

    I decided to stay five nights. I was roughing it for the most part, and by myself. I told them I was bird watching, getting away from nature, fishing; had a fishing license of course. The area I was in was a no hunting zone; but you could tell the park was right up against private lands, the river, even see several towns from the mountains; so not exactly the hardest park to sneak into if someone cut across another patch of forest over by one of the towns only a few miles away. I set up an infrared trail cam on the tree I hiked my camo hammock into. I like to see what was crawling around under me when I sleep. My plan was to hike to different locations each day and spend the night in different areas. Problem was that first night I was woken up to noises on the forest floor. I was about 300 feet from the hiking trail, and a good stone's throw from a creek. I thought by the sounds it was people down there. I lied perfectly still as I heard foot steps and at least two, maybe three people talking in some language I didn't recognize; and I mean I could barely tell it was words, more like hissing noises, gurgles, and groans. I didn't have a gun on me, just bear spray, a stun gun, and a knife I kept in a bag in the hammock, but reaching for it would mean moving and risking making noise. If they sounded like they found the ties or were trying to get up the tree I'd have gone for it. However instead after a few minutes had passed they left, heading down the mountain by the sound of it.

   The next day I found the trail cam intact thankfully, but I wouldn't be able to see what it got till I got home. I made it a point to go much further up the mountain, steeper terrain, more rocky, further from the water. I decided to just have some sandwiches I had in my bag, and a protein bar; I was planning to hike down to the lake on day three for some fishing. That night the only trees I could find weren't steady enough, or close enough together to get the hammock set up. The flaw in hiking into rocky terrain; however I was able to clean out a crevice in the rocks and get my gear set up, set up the mosquito net, which was graded to keep out snakes as well. I didn't set up the trail cam that night; which I regretted come morning as during the night, making sure I had no lights; just in case whomever was around the night before came up this way; or anyone else for that matter. In the night I awoke to the sound of rocks tumbling followed by hissing and gurgling noises. I grabbed the knife and the stun gun and was ready. I tried look out into the darkness but the clouds were obscuring the moon so I could only make out a pair of roughly human sized shapes pacing around the loose rocks about fifty feet below. I told myself stopping here had been a mistake and I should have found a more secure spot. But just as the shapes took a few steps forward something huge swooped down in the darkness. It looked huge, was dark, and definetly flying. I heard a hellish scream and the sound of tree branches breaking. A sound like very large wings flapping and a very clear crashing sound like something dropped onto the rocks. I looked out the crevice just enough to see one shape dragging the other to the tree line while making horrible high pitched noises. Something however landed on the cliff above me, small rocks fell down the side in front me and it sounded like the crevice might cave in on me. It then lept from the rock and took off, thanks to the angle I was at I just barely saw what looked like bird wings. I didn't want to leave, but whomever was down in the trees was clearly heading towards me, and my best guess at the time was ran afoul a very large bird; my mind did turn to stories of "thunder birds", however that aside I had to pack up and get out of there; if those were people I thought, then this bird clearly attacked them.

    My watch told me it was 4am, so I decided to be up and head out. I don't know if this was a mistake or not but the clouds parted enough from the moon to see my way around the side of the mountain to a more brush filled area and found a nice look out spot. I stayed there, awake till sunrise. It was going to be a long day. But my plan was, in the light of day I could take a nap while fishing before hiking further up the mountain that afternoon. In the light of morning I did look around where I saw the figures at, it was actually further down than I had thought and by the angle they might not have seen me, at least not very clearly; but surely from there one could make out something was off about the rocks. That said I did find a bunch of broken branches, unfortunatly no way to make out foot prints, but there was blood on the rocks, especially in one spot; like the bird had picked someone up and just dropped them there. Something I knew some birds did to kill tough prey or large prey. I was hoping in the dark I just seen a pair of goats in a fight with an eagle and my sleeping mind thought it something else. Again, regretting not having the trail cam out; or a more immediatly easy to view camera.

   At any rate I made my way to the lake, and there is not like a lake to remind you how not alone you really are in a park. Saw about four boats go by from the southern shore which was a few miles down and around a bend according to the map, and the lake also overlapped the boundaries of the park with a town right on it up north east aways. While fishing I did have a pair of rangers stop and ask me some questions, apparently some other hikers had called in to the rangers' station about people, not animals, raiding their camp sites the night before along the lake, and to keep a look out for anyone suspicious. They figured someone had come down the lake from the town up north, a pretty easy way into the park and was pranking people, dressing up in ugly masks and costumes. Yeah, they told me the people reported a small group of men wearing bad halloween costumes and ugly alien masks tearing up their camp site, but ran off shortly after when someone shouted from the woods in a "made up" language. The way the rangers retold it sounded, off to me, like they weren't sure what to tell and what change. Had that sort of stop and think flow when someone is telling you a half truth. The lake isn't too far from where I had been two nights before; its not like I was trying to hike for miles each day.
    The rangers asked me where I was the night before, yeah, and were shocked when I told them I may have seen a goat getting pummeled by an eagle and to check out the spot up in the rocks. As they walked away I heard one of them whisper how I was all by myself with no weapons. Let's call that red flag number four or five, and anyone who still believes me is asking, why didn't I just leave right there and then? Well because I'm stubborn, that's why, and as far as I knew it was just a bunch of idiots in costumes gurgling like made up movie monsters trying to scare people as a prank; wouldn't have doubted they were recording it too, to post online as some scared these campers prank. People get bored in small towns.

   So after my nap and catching a few fish I cleaned and cooked em, packing one away for the next day in an airtight bag and salt...and lemon, flavoring it as well as preserving it for later. They weren't exactly big fish. Maybe eight inches long, so just a few fillet slices out of them.