The Bone Pickin' Monkey Man

My parents are pretty brilliant people.

I don't mean to brag, but seriously.  They have some smarts.

When I was very small, we moved form Illinois to Colorado.  They liked the mountains.  They liked hiking.  They also had little kids.

Little kids are super strong.  Their muscle to mass ratio is way the hell up there, and they are capable of phenominal feats of strength for their size.  The issue is getting them to want to try to do anything.  Like hiking, for example.

This last weekend, we went for a hike on Crosier.  This is the same area that I noted in THIS post.  And THIS one. 

Sometimes they would bribe us with candy, and leave Skittles or Reese's Pieces along the trail to draw us along.

More often, they would just tell us horrifying stories about the Bone Pickin' Monkey Man.

Crosier Mountain has two trailheads within 45 minutes of town, so it is one of my "default" locations if I want to hike, but haven't planned properly or get a late start.

We didn't believe them.  Not really.

"Better walk faster, kids, or the Bone Pickin' Monkey Man is gonna get you!" they'd say, "He always gets the person walking in the back."

We didn't believe them, but we were a little bit scared anyway.

Originally, we were planning to ski on Saturday, but I was slow.  I needed to sleep in a bit, and I took a long time waking up after I got up in the morning.  Luckily, everyone else who was going didn't seem to mind, so we went with the hiking thing.

I remember arguing about the Bone Pickin' Monkey Man.  If I was in the back, I would say, "No, he get's the middle person!" because usually my dad or mom were in the middle.

At some point, the Bone Pickin' Monkey Man became a complete boogey man of my childhood.  My brother was extremely imaginative, especially when it came to scaring the shit out of his little sisters (I am still confused that he isn't a best selling author of horror novels).

The Bone Pickin' Monkey Man had a face like a dog, and he didn't have skin, just slimy muscles.

There was a fire at some point up there.  It was more noticeable than the last few times I had been this way for some reason.  Maybe it was the snow on the ground.  Maybe the trees finally hit a certain point of dryness and started to actually fall down.

The Bone Pickin' Monkey Man had wings.  I don't remember when this occurred.  I remember being scared he was hiding behind rocks (no, not scared, it was fake, not REAL, I don't believe in the Bone Pickin' Monkey Man!), and then later I would be worried about walking across meadows because he could swoop down and carry me off.

Maybe it was the snow highlighting everything, but there were dozens of caves visible from the trail.  I thought they were old mines until my father pointed out that they looked like they were right in the side of cliff faces.

I find it funny that this childhood monster comes up so often.

I don't have kids, but I tell my friends' kids about him.  The Bone Pickin' Monkey Man.  They have the same arguments that I did.  "No, he gets the person in front!"  Sounding nervous, they don't believe me.

But they almost do.

He said, "Probably the Bone Pickin' Monkey Man".  I laughed.  Sort of.  Because the Bone Pickin' Monkey Man is something we made up.  But Dad was right.  He would totally live in those high cliff caves.

Of course, the Bone Pickin' Monkey Man goes after kids first, and leaves the stringy adults alone.

Usually.

One of the many possible dwellings of the Bone Pickin' Monkey Man. 

And here I was worried about trolls.