Most trailheads have a wooden box with a notebook inside: the trail register. You write your name, your car, how many are in your party and when you plan to be back. The Pencil Hiker signs it too. Always on the line right under yours. Always in pencil, in neat, old-fashioned handwriting. Always your own name, spelled wrong by one letter. Party of 2. The return time is left blank.
Hikers who have seen the line say they never saw anyone sign it. Some of them, later that day, noticed a person in a gray-green windbreaker about two hundred yards behind them on the trail. When they stopped, the person stopped. When they walked, the second set of footsteps started again.
The Rules of the Trail Register
- After you sign in, always read the line under your name.
- If there is a line in pencil, cross it out before you leave the parking lot.
- Don’t camp that night.
- If you hear footsteps behind you that stop when you stop, don’t turn around until you are back at the register box.
Some readers think the blank pencil line in a hiker’s story from Mount Sherman was his. Nobody can say for sure.
Every Story About the Pencil Hiker
These are the Pencil Hiker files, oldest first. Each one stands on its own.
The first file is being written. Check back soon, or read a random story while you wait. Random story →
Have You Found a Pencil Line?
If you ever found a name you didn’t write in a trail register, tell us which trail in the comments. More deep woods horror stories are here.