The Curse

From: Anonymous
Story type: Ghost
Location: Moab, Utah
Source: Form Submission

This event occured in 1998, in Moab, Utah.

After a tough day biking Slick Rock, my group of nine mountain bikers decided that the following day would consist of an easier ride. One which maybe entailed a swim at the end. The weather had been quite nice, around 85 degrees everyday.

After finding what looked like a good trail, located about 50 miles out of town, we loaded everyone in the 1993 Suburan. We trailored most of the bikes, with a few on top, and a few in the back. My husband, an experienced 4X4 driver, took us up the desolate, curvy road to our destination. The terrain was harsh, and desert-like. The road began climbing up in elevation. About 30 miles into our trip, we spotted an old man with a 6 foot wooden cane with feathers & such hanging off the top. He looked very old, and appeared to be hitch-hiking. With 9 people plus bikes, we did not have room for him. Someone made a sly comment "Like we're going to make room for some old hitchhiker, we barely have room to breath as it is". As we sped quickly past him, we all noticed that he stopped, shook his cane at us, and appeared to say something. I spoke up and said, "He was probably a Shaman, putting a curse on us for not picking him up".

While determining how much further we had, someone noticed that the road led to basically nowhere. It was at least 50 miles back to town if we continued on. There were no homes or other cars for as far as we could see. We all felt odd about the man, and wondered where he could be walking to.

Before we knew it, there was snow on the ground. We had been climbing in elevation quite quickly, but snow! We were all in shorts! We were all shocked, and there was disagreement as to what we should do...turn back or continue on. It was interesting that no one at the bike shop warned us about snow!

We decided that we should continue on. Well, before we knew it, the Suburban overheated. We had the Suburban checked prior to our trip, so we were quite perplexed. Anyhow, we let the truck cool down, then tried to find a place to turn around, this was not easy considering the road was now down to a one car road. We finally did it. But shortly after, started sliding off the road. With everyone yelling, the driver slowly gained control. After that, we where all very uptight, but turned the music up and tried to relax. Well...the CD player suddenly quit working. No sound! O.K., the stereo was brand new. Just our luck. I spoke up again, and stated..."Well, it appears we've been cursed by that old Shaman. When we see him on the way back down, let's make sure to smile & wave". Well guess what...no old man in site the entire way back. Where could he have gone?!

We had been camping up the river up till this point, and decided we should continue to camp, considering the weather was so great. We had made hotel reservations, just in case. So, after returning to town, we dropped off part of the gang at their vehicle. We told them that we would cancel the reservations and meet them back at camp. We pulled in to the hotel, turned off the Suburban & all went in. After cancelling the reservation, we hopped back in the truck, and again, just our luck...the truck wouldn't start. It appeared the starter was shot. At this point, I told my husband, "That's the third back luck incident. Hopefully, this is the end to our curse?!". Four hours later, we pulled into camp. One of the bikers walked up cussing that we had her bike on top, and that she had been waiting for hours to ride. She grabbed her bike & took off. Again, too much tension for this gang!

No one slept well that night, but the next morning was beautiful and full of hope. We all laughed about the bad luck that we had endured yesterday. Part of the group decided to site-see, while the others decided to go on another mountain bike ride.

While touring around, no one seemed to get along. As the day came to a close we noticed storm clouds quickly rolling into town. Then the rain started. Not just a light sprinkle, but full on downpour. On the way to camp, we decided we'd grab some of our gear, and do the hotel thing for the night. We arrived to our worse luck yet. Our camp had flooded...a flash flood had stormed through. My husband & I had been sleeping in the Suburban, so most of our belongings were O.K. It was pitch black out, but with our flashlights could see camp gear floating down with the water. We couldn't have imagined anything worse that this. Everything was gone.

Instead of getting angry, we all decided that we would band together for the night and salvage what we could. Luckily, some kids from a higher camp had pulled some of our nice gear up to shore before the deep water set in.

Hours later, nine wet, ex-campers headed to the last hotel room in town. We had pooled some money together for the kids that saved our gear ($75 to split between them!), kept our spirits up and all felt pretty damn good, considering!

From that point on, our trip was terrific. We're not sure what exactly stopped the curse. Maybe it just ran its course. We didn't really dwell on that. We do all agree that we had been cursed, for whatever reason, and don't wish to be cursed ever again. 48 hours of pure bad luck is plenty!!