Hunting the Woo Woo

In June, a group of us decided to head out on a cryptid expedition.  That is, we were looking for a creature known as the WooWoo (AKA the Bighoot). 
I know, some of you are probably scratching your head wondering what in the world this has to do with hiking or backpacking.  If you remember, I've been working on a book of paranormal stories along the Appalachian Trail for a couple of years 3 years long ass time.  The WooWoo is a creature that has been described as a giant owl that lives in the Delaware Water Gap area of the AT.  It's said you can hear it's cries at night, and naturalists have been unable to identify the type of bird making the sound.  So we booked a campsite at Worthington State Park in New Jersey as base camp and headed out into the woods. 

The Delaware Water Gap is actually an active paranormal spot for the most part.  There is the WooWoo, the Messing-W which is a Bigfoot type creature know to the Native tribes of the area (and also thought to possess supernatural powers), Old Red Eyes another Bigfoot type creature and the ghost of an old witch.  I was pretty excited about going on this trip to see what I could find for the book and get some photos.  Unfortunately, I was still wearing a boot because of my broken foot.  No one wanted to head out on the AT without me, so we didn't get to do much in the way of WooWoo hunting.
I did hike a short distance into the woods near our camp.  How did I do this on a broken foot you ask? Well the orthopedic said to "make sure you wear your boot".  So I did.  I wore my hiking boot. It is a boot and it is mine. I didn't make it far before I opted to head back. 


While we didn't spot any WooWoos or Bigfoot creatures or ghosts, we did spot about 30 Red Efts (newts) and a few small toads.  And there were a couple of waterfalls on the short hike.  And I will say, listening to my three year old grandson tell another little boy at camp about WooWoos and the ghost witch on the mountain that they have to stone to kill (I swear that's not what I told him) was pretty amusing. 
We did actually have one strange occurrence with an odd light on the very top of the mountain.  Was it a house, a hiker with a large light, the ghost witch?  Who knows.







Worthington State Park is on the list of places to definitely return to.  I want to be able to hike the AT in the area and spend more time checking out the other larger waterfalls in the area. 

Red light in the woods

Kittatinny Ridge home of the Ghost Witch

Excited!

This time next month I will have hopefully returned from my section hike and will be able to move.  Hopefully I won't still be lying on the side of the trail somewhere above Harper's Ferry, or be buried in a hole dug by poop shovels or, as my 9 year old son warned me, end up missing because Bigfoot or a UFO abducted me (I really shouldn't share all my research on ghosts and the paranormal on the AT with him).
In the meantime, I'm getting all my gear together.  There will be a last trip to REI next week for the hubby's pack and some online sales to get the stove and other various odds and ends (I'm taking my small Olympus Tough camera so I'm getting extra batteries- worth the extra weight for me because I love taking photos, plus I want to be ready in case I see Bigfoot).
Sunday our group is meeting to plan all the logistics of the trip.  At some point this weekend, I want to start preparing food or at least experimenting with some recipes.  Part of me thinks it would be far easier at this point to just stock up on Mountain House food, but as someone who has high blood pressure, I can't really have the amount of sodium that Mountain House has.  It's a shame, really, because some of there meals are darn good. 
So, with the flurry of activity, I'll post here when I can about updates on the gear choices and food.
I'm so excited!

And for your listening pleasure, one of my favorite songs: