“Mud pots belch steam and fart sulphur. Geysers flush like toilet bowls. Ominous volcanic bubbles lurk at the bottom of singing lakes. Wildfires leave behind skeleton forests and moving hot springs make ghost trees.” Andrea Lankford sure knows how to paint a ghoulish picture. Add to this a selection of strange, twisted and paranormal tales and Haunted Hikes: Spine-Tingling Tails and Trails from North America’s National Parks is a perfectly spooky Halloween read.

From California’s Death Valley to the Deep South’s Natchez Trace, from Effigy Mounds in Northeast to Canada’s Nahanni, Lankford dives into creepy tales from National Park trails and then gives readers maps and directions to hike haunted sites for themselves. Go batty at Carlsbad Caverns, sit dunetop and watch for UFO’s at Great Sand Dunes National Monument, join the hoards documenting paranormal events in the Mammoth Cave system, or walk quietly near a murder scene along the Appalachian’s White Oak Trail. Regardless of your level of sensitivity – there’s a haunted hike ready to jump out at you in this book.

A Skinny-Dipping Spirit, The Devil’s Footsteps, A Sinister Sign, Curse of the Calusa – each section starts out with a few stories. Each tale is based on Native American mythology, settler folklore, modern myths or documented events reported in various media. Almost all of the anecdotes are tagged with the name of an associated hike. Each hike is given a one to four skull rating – one means the fright factor will make a 7-year-old giggle, four means that the associated story gave the author (a former park ranger) nightmares and she’d rather not discuss them. Lankford outlines distance, effort, accessibility (vehicle, bicycle, water route, kids, handicapped), trailhead location, and trail description for each hike. She also includes park seasonal information and contact phone number and website links where applicable.

While I really enjoyed Lankford’s creative writing skills (Florida’s skunk ape stinks like “vomit mixed with rotten fish”), I found the book a little awkward to use as a prospective trail guide. A story would catch my interest, but then I’d have to read or flip through several other tales before coming to the trail descriptions – the back and forth referencing was a bit distracting. I’d have preferred to have the hike information and map as part of the related story, but that might just be me.

Haunted Hikes: Spine-Tingling Tails and Trails from North America’s National Parks is a unique combination of ghost stories and hiking guide – guaranteed to add a new dimension to your next spook-tacular hike!