Stories by the Campfire

On quiet nights in the La Sal Mountains, campers at Deer Creek Retreat say they hear distant voices drifting up from Coyote Creek, calling for help in a tone that sounds almost human. Some blame echoes and wildlife, but others whisper about the Bigfoot-like “Coyote Creek Mimic” lurking just beyond the firelight.

In Old La Sal, rustlers were easy to blame—until cattle began vanishing without a trace. One rancher’s encounter with a red‑brown shape in the La Sal treeline became the Red‑Brown Drifter legend guests still whisper about at Deer Creek Retreat.

At the edge of Old La Sal, a quiet cow town abandoned to floods, I went looking to debunk the legend of a Bigfoot‑like Sentinel—and met heavy footsteps in the dusk between Deer Creek Retreat and the ruins.

Up above Moab, Mirror lake in the La Sal mountains, a small fire, and a chorus of coyotes turned into more than just a campout. The night demanded courage, where the mountains didn’t blink.

A winter storm slams into our La Sal cabin, turning the world outside into white noise and shrinking life to four walls, a handful of flashlights, and the question of who we are when the wind reminds us we’re not in control.

A simple detour off Highway 46 turns into a quiet walk through Old La Sal’s ghost streets—stone foundations, fading light, one sharp yip from the canyon, and four kids suddenly very aware that this valley holds more than grass and old fence posts.

Alone in the open sage of Old La Sal, a midnight noise in the brush pulls me back to a childhood campout when I heard a baby crying in the La Sal Mountains. This campfire-style story sits in that thin space between “it was just a deer” and “what if,” out at Deer Creek Retreat.

What do Bigfoot, campfires, and La Sal Mountain solitude have in common? This Moab kid’s tale connects childhood legends with the real-life quiet of Deer Creek Retreat, a tiny home in the trees near Moab. Come see why families leave with new stories to tell—and maybe keep one eye on the woods at night.