This happened in the nineties-
about '96 and has been a puzzle ever since.
At that time I lived and worked in Lakewood. I forget the name of
the road but I think it was in Lakewood across from the land that
used to be a ranch, I think. I do remember that as you
approach the area where the dinosaur tracks are there is a small house
on the right (immediately before the turn to the left up the hill)
which house is/was the info center. Across from this info
center there was a small parking area, but most people parked on the
hill.
One day a friend and I took lunch up to a small grassy
area that was just past the tracks. It was up a short,narrow,
sort of switch back trail. Once up there we could sit in a
fairly small area with trees and I believe there was some rocks to sit
on. The area was bordered by the sheer rocks where the
tracks are and by a drop off to a valley below and then a bunch of
trees or something that we couldn't go through- or didn't...
My friend and I enjoyed our lunch and spoke at
length about a spiritual crisis she was going through. When we
started heading back down the trail I was a little nervous anyway
because I'm afraid of heights and the trail was narrow. (even though it
was really only thirty or forty feet high!) Well, wouldn't you know it
but a family started walking up the trail and I had to move over to the
side.
There was (blonde)woman who looked like she was anywhere
from 30-45 years old, two children and an older man followed by a
weirdly attractive younger man. ( I say weirdly because he was
powerfully attractive although I don't know why and I had no business
being attracted) Well, I was praying for safety ( because of the
height thing) and forgiveness (cause of this attraction thing) and
feeling generally guilty because I hadn't wanted to move over to the
side!
Then I started getting annoyed because the woman and
children didn't even look at us- but they looked very tired and
unhappy. So, I was less annoyed after I thought about it for a
second. When the older man approached I apologized that I hadn't moved
over right away and said "I'm afraid of heights" He didn't look at me
but nodded and otherwise kept moving up the trail, looking worried
and tired. Then the younger man went by and smiled at me and he
didn't look half as worried or tired. Then whew! we were finally
down the hill. My friend had moved over before me (she was ahead
of me down the trail) BTW- they were all dressed in
sort of western garb, but I didn't think much off it- The
woman wore a longish short of skirt and the children weren't
wearing shorts or anything. The older man was wearing
some sort of old fashioned black pants, white shirt and maybe a black
jacket, but I'm pretty sure he was bald or balding.
As soon as we got to the bottom of the trail -maybe
3 minutes at most -we turned left (at this point we had about 20 feet
to walk and then began the chain link fence and all the parked cars )
But as soon as we started down the hill we saw,just passing the fence
and cars coming up the hill was the same ?family we'd just
passed!
I was confused to say the least! I hurried to meet
them and I said "Didn't we just see you?!" Again they just walked by
without even acknowledging my presence- this time there was no sign
from the elderly gentleman. But the young man smiled and
winked at me!!!! I started to ask him more questions and
turned around to follow them up the path to find out how they'd done
that ! But my friend grabbed my arm and was in a
nervous panic "I saw them too- don't go near them- they're
evil!!!" She practically dragged me down the hill and we
leaned on the car across from the info center while I tried to reassure
her that they probably weren't evil - but it was a mystery! She
wouldn't go back up to look to see if there was any way they could have
done that, that was reasonable.
Later, however, I made several trips there and took
different people up that way to see if they could figure it out, and
they all said it wasn't possible. If I'd been alone I would have
thought I was hallucinating or something!
Periodically through the years I've tried to find out if
anyone else witnessed the same thing or knew anything about
a family that maybe once made the trip up that path- but could never
find anything out.
Why would we have seen them? Do they need something?
So whether it was a ghost sighting or not I don't know,
but the event still, once in a while, haunts me.
I would be very interesting in learning if anyone else
ever saw the same thing there!