The location may be known as the Devil’s Elbow, but she is an angel. An angel in the Devil’s Elbow.
At an unspecified time in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a couple was riding on a horse-drawn carriage in the Wopsy Mountain. According to the most common version, the father of the bride was chasing them in anger, which startled the horse and resulted in it picking up speed. When the horse lost control, the carriage went over Devil’s Elbow. The husband was killed and decapitated, while sources claim the woman survived. The head of the husband was never recovered.
Shortly after this tragic accident, locals reported seeing a woman dressed in white wandering not far from the crash site. She has been observed carrying a lantern or candle and has a distraught expression. Other eyewitnesses claim they had offered rides to a woman in white, who’s reflection didn’t appear in any of the car mirrors, and who always disappeared after a while with no signs of escape. None of the sightings were able to offer a rational explanation or motive about this strange figure, with the most popular consensus being that the woman is looking for her husband, or his decapitated head.
What makes the White Lady of Wopsy Mountain unique is not just the image of her as a supernatural spirit, but that she isn’t meant to be scary. Unlike the archetypical depictions of supernatural myths that are flying spirits or bloodthirsty monsters, the White Lady appears to be a weary depiction of humans being cursed to wander forever. In a way, she represents unattainable desires and is a reflection of our desperate needs to accomplish a task.
It took us almost an hour and 20 minutes to arrive at the site near Devil’s Elbow. Once we arrived at the spot, we began our hike into the woods. The mountain and forest scenery made Penn State University Park look like a booming metropolis. I laughed with the others at the fact that people said that our university was in the middle of nowhere. If only they could come and visit this part of Altoona.
After taking in the scenery, we began our hike. The first order of business was to try and follow a trail and locate an estimate to the spot where the White Lady fell. This was my first time hiking in many years and so far, it had been like a special comeback. Wearing a hoodie and jeans and trekking through hard sticks and leaves in semi-hot weather. Clearly, someone underestimated the outside temperature.
One of the first significant challenges we faced was a sheer cliff that descended to a lake at the bottom. Thankfully, one of our group members had a rod that he used as a grip for us to carefully get back on the trail with. A couple of times, we needed to place our feet on a rock and test it to see whether it wasn’t going to slip. Some rocks were adhered to the dirt and some were waiting to break free. Thankfully, we were able to clear the pathway. Definitely need to take more hiking lessons before going on another adventure.
Back in the woods, we observed that the surrounding area wasn’t entirely like we predicted. Rather than being a dense forest, we were surrounded by skeletal trees and scattered broken leaves. Bushes covered every angle we tried to move through and this hindered our view. At a few areas, we saw what appeared to be an abandoned lifeguard chair. Brown and rusted up, it was just standing in the middle of the forest. At this point, the forest appeared to be more like an abandoned theme park. The site where we proposed the White Lady’s cart crashed looked less like a part of the road(the road was actually 10 minutes from the spot) and more like a random spot where she fell.
Hiking through the bushes was the only way to get to the main road. As we descended, we decided to record a few videos where we would showcase our appreciation for chasing the White Lady and during the videos, I constantly yelled “SHOUT OUT TO PROFESSOR TUTTLE!” I mean, come on. We’re college students who are spending our weekend out in the woods chasing a supernatural legend. What better assignment to shout out our professor with?
Getting to the main road was difficult. We could see the silver outline of the road, but to get there, we needed to descend down another steep, bush-covered, drop. We decided to keep walking on the mini cliff and locate a less steep descent. The minutes passed by till we realized that the only way to get to the road was down the cliff. Once again, the grueling task of descending down an incline presented itself. I struggled a little bit more with this incline as every rock for foot support seemed to break off at the slightest touch. It took us nearly 20 minutes to get down on the road and watch for cars. Thankfully, we were very rural and were able to get to the other side of the road unarmed. Just imagine the White Lady wandering around and watching these four college students get lost in the woods.
Overall, we didn’t exactly find what we were looking for. The Devil’s Elbow wasn’t exactly how we pictured it, but the surrounding area did give off an eerie vibe that something did happen here. Maybe, not necessarily the White Lady’s death, but instead, people could have gotten lost here and only a select few made it out. Well, maybe we’re the lucky ones.