Horse Thief Canyon is a beautiful, relaxing spot to hang out, camp, hike, or ghost hunt. We have spent several evenings under the stars on warm summer nights, looking at the stars and hoping for a visit from at least one of the ghosts that seem to haunt this area.
In my research, I haven’t quite figured out the history of the area. Many conflicting stories. One story is that a woman was trampled while horse thieves were bringing a herd of stolen horses through the canyon. Oral history states the the canyon got its name because of a “backslider” form the Mormon church named Herber Young lived there. He was known to buy horses stolen from Mormons in Utah. The story that I do know as fact, is a farming/ranching family lived, loved, and a woman named Jennie died in a farmhouse in the canyon. (could she be the woman in white that people report seeing?) I also know that there is something haunting the area.
My team and I originally started investigating the canyon when it was reported by a waste truck was driving through to pick up a dumpster. The driver said something “whooshed” through the truck. She is not a follower of the paranormal and was pretty shook up.
The first time we went up there it was probably the most active and unusual. We usually walk the area, checking out what might be “hot spots”, getting a feeling of the area. That is easier to do in small enclosed locations, but we did hike around some. We than sat in a circle, talking, collecting evps, watching for potential shadows, and seeing if motion detectors would go off. That is when I had my personal experience. The air temperature was 64 degrees that evening but I began to feel extremely cold. When hitting me with the the laser thermometer, my body temperature, as well as the chair I had been sitting on for several minutes, showed up as 46 degrees. We did not get any electronic voice at that time but it took me 20 minutes and a heavy jacket that one of the team members just happened to have in their car, to warm up.
We decided to walk down the road and do an EVP session. We stopped at a spot that interested us in the moment. Team member Lynn began to complain about a sharp pain in her back. She was doubled over for a few minutes while we tried to get a possible spirit to talk to us. Lynn stood up and announced her pain was gone. At the same moment, we did get a woman’s voice say “I’m done”.
We decided that this location definitely had some paranormal activity.
The next time back there, we really didn’t have much activity to report. There was the whisper of a woman’s voice on my recorder. We were unable to decipher what was said.
Some of us returned at the beginning of this past summer. I seem to capture the voice of a woman every time there, so we were hoping to contact her again and would really like to know who she is. We didn’t get any names but a white mist formed twice by two of our investigators. Was that the Woman in White that many people have reported seeing in the canyon?
We will return again, and maybe next time we can come up with a name and a story of the woman.
Western Slope Paranormal 