Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park / Rebecca Latson
If you’ve ever read stories from Andrea Lankford’s book “Haunted Hikes,” you’ll know National Park Service units are not immune from ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night. In honor of Halloween, I thought I’d pen a quiz that’s all about those ghosty ghoulies and their associated protected lands. A few of these questions plus trivia are even derived from past Traveler stories. See how much you know before looking at the answers at the bottom of the page.
1. When Edgar Allen Poe wrote “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” he “was the first to introduce a character that solved the mystery by analyzing the facts of the case.” He called these types of stories:
a) Tales of logical reasoning
b) Tales of deliberate inference
c) Tales of ratiocination
d) Tales of rational reasoning
2. If you’ve visited Yellowstone National Park, maybe you’ve had the chance to stay a night or two in Old Faithful Inn. There are quite a few ghost stories associated with this National Historic Landmark, including one about a headless bride, decapitated on her wedding night at the Inn. That story was made up by a bellhop to either satisfy a “pesky reporter” or “guests' appetites for the morbid,” (take your pick). This beautiful hotel, considered to be one of the largest log-style structures in the world, is, in part, made with rock from the Yellowstone caldera:
a) basalt
b) diorite
c) rhyolite
d) andesite
Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park / Stefan Serena
3. Most people find Yosemite National Park landscapes to be peaceful and serene, or rugged and dramatic, or both. The Ahwahneechee, Yosemite’s original inhabitants, have not-quite-so-serene legends of this land filled with death and evil spirits. As a matter of fact, there is a place they call Po-ho-no (“spirit of an evil wind”), known to us as:
a) Bridalveil Fall
b) Vernal Fall
c) Horsetail Fall
d) Sentinal Falls
4. The first official flying saucer sighting was made in 1947 over which national park?
a) Mount Rainier National Park
b) Yellowstone National Park
5. During a guided cave tour in places like Mammoth Cave National Park, sometimes the lights are turned off so attendees can experience the total blackness of these underground caverns. It can make some people a little nervous even under these controlled circumstances. Now, can you imagine exploring deep within a cave system all by yourself and experiencing a malfunction in your headlamp, leaving you completely in the dark? In 1989, during the search for a lost caver who was participating in a mock rescue in Wind Cave National Park, the park received a call from a psychic saying that the lost person would be found in a room with a specific name. What was that room’s name?
a) Draco Room
b) Duncan Room
c) Room Draculum
d) The Dungeon
A moody morning on Lake Crescent, Olympic National Park / Rebecca Latson
6. Lake Crescent, in Olympic National Park, harbors a secret or two in its deep, clear waters. In 1940, a couple of brothers out fishing pulled up more than just Beardslee trout. The body of a woman wrapped in blankets popped up from the depths, remarkably preserved for having been in the water for 3 years. Hallie Illingworth had been murdered by her husband, wrapped up, and deposited in the lake. When the brothers found her corpse, her skin was perfectly preserved (with the exception of missing facial features, fingers, and toes) through the process of ___:
a) Dehydration
b) Deep freezing
c) Bog mummification
d) Saponification
7. Even Virgin Islands National Park has its share of supernatural beings. One type comes from an African word for “malevolent supernatural being”:
a) Zimwi
b) Mzuka
c) Duppy
d) Djumbe
8. A story tells of a 14-year old boy who, in 1969, went looking for Indian artifacts near Everglades National Park. He found a gold medallion which gave him nightmares and ultimately is believed to have driven the boy to suicide. Subsequent owners of this medallion have reported nothing but bad luck. Archeologists believe the medallion belonged to royalty of a particular tribe. This tribe was known as the “Shell Indians” who discarded huge amounts of shells into trash heaps which built up into mounds. Over the years, vegetation turned the mounds into islands, of which Chokoloskee Key, just outside of Everglades National Park, is one of the tallest. This particular tribe was called the ____:
a) Calusa
b) Tequesta
c) Seminole
d) Miccosukee
9. “According to legend, the Spaniards blindfolded Indian workers and marched them from San Vicente to a rich ore of silver in the Chisos Mountains [in Big Bend National Park].” The Indians revolted, killing all the Spaniards and then hiding the entrance of the mine with a large rock so it would never be found. Legend has it “if you stand in the doorway of the San Vicente Chapel on Easter morning, a beam of light will strike the mountain peak” where the silver mine is located. Aside from the fact that this chapel is in ruins and there is no doorway, and geologists say this area is not favorable for producing any sort of precious ore like silver, this trail still makes a very nice hike:
a) Lost Mine Trail
b) Old Ore Road
c) Old Maverick Road
d) Mule Ears Spring Trail
A stormy start to the day along the South Rim, Grand Canyon National Park / Rebecca Latson
10. We see the Grand Canyon as this amazing chasm of colorful layers of rock looming above the silver-blue ribbon of the Colorado River. The Hopi see the Grand Canyon as home to Maasaw, a god who can appear either as a handsome youth or a “monstrous corpse” (think blood and slime and burnt skin and horrible odor). Maasaw’s lair is a cave deep within the canyon, near what the Hopi call the Gateway to the Underworld, a mound in which is a “muddy, cervix-like opening from which the Hopi say their ancestors entered this world and through which the dead will return. This opening has another name:
a) Kiva
b) Sipapu
c) Estufa
d) Xibalba
Trivia
Painted Desert Inn, Petrified Forest National Park / Rebecca Latson
If you’ve ever visited Petrified Forest National Park, you’ve probably stopped in at the Painted Desert Inn for a looksee. Did you know, though, that the inn is believed to be haunted by the ghost of cigarette-smoking hotel manager Mrs. Marion Mace, who died of smoke inhalation from the burning inn over 70 years ago. To read more about this haunting, click here. To read more about the Painted Desert Inn, click here.
If you find yourself fascinated by vampires and bats, then Carlsbad Caverns National Park should be on your bucket list. This park is famous not just for the 119 caves with their wondrous formations, but also for the spring-through-fall nightly outflights of Brazilian free-tailed bats as they search for insects (not blood) to eat. To read more about the bats in this park, click here.
The view from the Watchman Peak summit, Crater Lake National Park / Rebecca Latson
Crater Lake National Park has its share of spooky scaries. The Klamath Indians believed the lake to be “too sacred for human eyes.” To gaze upon the lake invited “death and lasting sorrow.” Speaking of death, on December 3, 1945, a Grumman Hell Cat fighter pilot flew out of formation and into the clouds some 21,000 feet above Crater Lake, never to be heard from until some 25 years later, when a ranger was exploring the area between Skell Head and Mt. Scott, investigating the place to try and find out if rumors of an old airplane wreck (and people stealing parts from it) were true. After searching for several hours and not finding the wreck, the ranger sat on a log to figure out what he should do next. He got the distinct feeling someone … or something … was watching him. He looked around to find a human skull staring at him from a log. The ranger had found the Hellcat pilot … or what remained of the pilot …
Quiz Answers
1c
Actually, all of the above mean essentially the same thing, but Poe, himself, called them “tales of ratiocination.” To learn more about Edgar Allen Poe and his life, click here. Better yet, the next time you are in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, stop and visit the Edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site.
The rustic interior of the Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park / Rebecca Latson
2c
The stone for the building’s foundation and huge lobby fireplace comes from an igneous rock known as rhyolite. To read more about the Old Faithful Inn, click here.
3a
According to the story in Andrea Lankford’s “Haunted Hikes,” while picking berries near the top of the falls, a young maiden became mesmerized by the swirling water and waded in it near the brink of the falls, “where a mischievous wind pushed her off the edge.”
"The Mountain" and the Milky Way, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
4a
“On June 24, 1947, a private pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying from Chehalis, WA on a business trip when he got wind of a $5,000 reward for the discovery of a U.S. Marine Transport airplane that had crashed somewhere in Mount Rainier National Park. After searching over the park and finding nothing, he prepared to continue on his trip to Yakima. Suddenly, Kenneth saw a bright flashing light in the sky over Rainier. Afraid he was dangerously close to another aircraft he looked frantically about him, only to find no one else was there. Then more bright flashes appeared – nine total. After testing multiple theories to what these lights might be (geese, reflections from his plane windows), Kenneth was at a complete loss as to what they were. They quickly approached Rainier and then passed in front, occasionally still giving off bright light flashes as they flipped around erratically. Arnold described them as a series of crescent-shaped objects, and likened their movement to saucers skipping on water. After reporting his findings to friends, and soon after – news outlets, the story gained national attention. Due to his logical and detailed account of the event, he was found to be a credible witness. But as a witness to what, no one quite knew. Now, 70 years later, we are still using Arnold’s depiction to portray aliens from another universe arriving in ‘Flying Saucers’.”
5b
“…When the lost person was located, she was found in an area of the cave that hadn't been named. [Later cavers surveying that area] then named the room Duncan Room, ‘thus confirming the psychic prediction’.”
6d
Lake Crescent has a depth of 650 feet, more or less. “The doctors called it an ‘Ivory soap’ corpse because of the skin's condition. This was because of a process known as saponification which converts fatty acids into soap. When the body had been submerged in the deep waters of the lake, the cold prevented decomposition and the salts and calcium in the water slowly converted the tissue into a material like soap, called adipocere.”
7d
A djumbe (jumbie, jumby), depending upon its mood, can be fun and playful or mean and spiteful. St. John’s Jumby Beach is so named after these ghosts (which might or might not be nothing more than stories made up by locals).
8a
While all of the tribes listed for this question are indigenous peoples of the Everglades region, the Calusa, known as the “Shell Indians,” lived along the shores of southwest Florida and were described as a very “fierce” and “warlike” people. Their trash heaps of shells are known as Calusa mounds.
The view from the Lost Mine Trail, Big Bend National Park / Rebecca Latson
9a
Lost Mine Trail. Yes, this one’s a gimme. It is, indeed, a nice trail to hike – especially in the spring when the cactus are in bloom. Hikers will see Casa Grande Peak and broad vistas as far as the eye can see.
10b
A Sipapu is both “the Place of Emergence and the Gateway to the Underworld.” Word has it that non-Hopi who have ventured too close to the Sipapu in Grand Canyon National Park have suffered “lightning strikes, anxiety attacks, violent vomiting, bone-breaking falls, and death.” Personally, I wouldn’t go there if I were you.
References
Lankford, Andrea, Haunted Hikes: Spine-Tingling and Trails from North America’s National Parks, Santa Monica Press, LLC, 2006
https://www.yellowstone.org/old-faithful-inn-history-ten-interesting-facts/
https://wnpf.org/spooky-national-parks/
https://www.myolympicpark.com/park/the-lady-of-crescent-lake
Comments
A fun read and quiz - but I did terribly on the quiz!