Demon Cows

One thing that I loved about living in Logan, Utah was how much outdoor stuff there is to do. Just drive less than 20 minutes up the canyon right outside town and you’re in the perfect place to rock climb, hike, or raft. An activity that I discovered in Utah was hammocking. I fell in love with this place called Tony Grove, because it was the perfect place to hammock in pine trees and look at the stars. Another activity that I got into was backpacking. So when my cousin, Mat, texted me and asked if I wanted to go backpacking by Tony Grove with his (now) fiancee who is one of my best friends, I hopped on that opportunity. There’s a lake called White Pine Lake about four miles down this one trail, and that was our destination. We left super late at night, around 10 or so. As the three of us were hiking, we noticed eyes staring at us from the woods in the light of our headlamps. We realized that they were a herd of cows, settled down for the night. So, like children, we decided to yell at them. We were all just saying weird and stupid stuff. The cows just kept on chillin’. At one point, Lauren, Mat’s fiancee, yelled out, “we eat youuuuu.” Then the weirdest thing happened. All the cows started mooing really loud, almost like screaming. It was absolutely wack. They quieted down and we kept walking. But then things got straight creepy. I had hiked this exact same trail before, and I’d never seen a single bovine. As we were hiking, suddenly there were cows all along the trail. When we got to our campsite, we laid down a tarp and our sleeping bags, and crawled in. As we were falling asleep, there were footsteps, or hoofsteps, I guess. Cows had freaking followed us that far. Mat was worried about them being clumsy and accidentally trampling us. But Lauren and me were worried about the far more likely possibility. The cows were angry about her earlier comment and were there to kill us in revenge for their burger friends. Despite our fear, we eventually fell asleep, but I’ve never forgotten how weird it was that cows had apparently understood English and followed us.