This Halloween season, I’ve visited my fair share of haunted houses, but nothing tests bravery like an old-school legend trip.

“Legend tripping,” as folklorists call it, involves traveling to a remote and reportedly haunted place at night, then performing some ritual believed to trigger a supernatural response. Common themes include stopping your car to see if ghostly fingerprints appear, or honking the horn to summon a spirit. While legend tripping’s status remains unclear in the social media era, in my day (shakes fist), it also served as a rite of passage — or a way to scare the living daylights out of your friends.

This year, it didn’t take much to sell me on braving Shades of Death Road in Washington County. Pittsburgh City Paper photographer Mars Johnson and I made the legend trip to the supposedly haunted two-mile stretch near Avella, Pa., 35 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.

As legend trip destinations go, Shades of Death has everything. The rural road is surrounded by woods with only a few houses nearby, and anchored at one end by the once-abandoned Bethel Church and Cemetery that sit ominously atop a hill. The road’s lore spans centuries — dating back to the area’s early settlement, with the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village only four miles away — and encompasses murders, cults, car crashes, and other mysterious deaths.

Shades of Death Road in Avella, Pa. Credit: CP Photo: Mars Johnson

Pittsburgh author and archivist Thomas White investigated the many myths surrounding Shades of Death in his 2015 book Haunted Roads of Western Pennsylvania, starting with the origin of its name. While accounts vary, the simplest explanation is that the trees lining the road were once so dense that they blocked out sunlight, even at midday. Farmers traveling by horse and buggy in the 1800s had to use lanterns to navigate.

Terry Wiegmann of Avella’s local history museum, the A.D. White Research Society, recently told Washington County’s Observer-Reporter that the “original virgin forest” would have made for an even shadier canopy before industrial development. (For its part, Avella honors the road with an annual 10-mile Shades of Death Run supporting its fire department — where a costumed Grim Reaper is known to appear.)

Other unverifiable stories involve Ku Klux Klan murders, a young man who died by suicide along the road in the 1970s, Satanic Panic-era sacrifices, and, in a more contemporary vein, a legend-tripping teenager killed in a car accident while exploring Shades of Death Road.

Ghosts of these doomed souls are said to appear, sometimes startling drivers by popping up in the middle of the road. Visitors have also reported hearing phantom whispering, disembodied footsteps, and seeing glowing eyes — perhaps even belonging to a forest-dwelling ghoul or cryptid — in the darkness.

Shades of Death Road in Avella, Pa. Credit: CP Photo: Mars Johnson

The only historic account about Shades of Death involves a 1922 coal miner riot that occurred in Avella, which sits about four miles from the West Virginia border. During a strike at the Richland County Coal Company’s Cliftonville mine, a clash between hundreds of union and nonunion workers turned violent, killing some 13 people, including the Brooke County, W. Va. sheriff. Some speculate that the miners may have died or been buried along Shades of Death Road, which White believes likely spurred the myths.

“Whether real or not,” he writes in Haunted Roads, “they are a shadowy reminder of the hardships, and often tragedies, that coal mining communities face.”

In contrast to our legend trip to Campbell’s Run, aka 13 Bends Road, which goes from the interstate to a mostly developed Harmar, the drive to Shades of Death is already eerie, with vanishingly few landmarks the deeper you drive into the woods.

On our hour-long drive, we were greeted by several omens: a malfunctioning GPS, deer roadkill (maybe not that ominous), and two black cats, one crossing a road, and another looking on calmly as we turned around a bend.

Legend trippers are tasked with driving the two-mile length of Shades of Death, a winding dirt road connecting Campbell Drive and Bethel Ridge Road. To rouse ghosts, one has cut the engine and park at the road’s lowest and darkest point — a dip that crosses a creek — turn the headlights off, and honk the horn three times.

We made two passes, starting the journey at the top of the hill with Bethel Church and Cemetery. Immediately, we suspected the scariest element might be the large number of deer roaming around — the foretold glowing eyes.

A deer crosses Shades of Death Road in Avella, Pa. Credit: CP Photo: Mars Johnson

Though the road was not as shaded as I’d imagined (the hype was such I’d pictured the prehistoric forest of Jurassic Park), it’s difficult to emphasize just how quiet and dark it becomes at sundown, something I’m still unprepared for as a city dweller. As with 13 Bends, driving Shades of Death quickly becomes a testament to how suggestible you are as night falls in an isolated place.

The road is still largely private (go at your own risk), and no-trespassing signs popped up and glinted in the darkness. On our first pass, Mars drove over a piece of metal that sounded like a distant cough in the woods that made me jump out of my seat. I never fully recovered from the fright as we drove one way to find the storied creek, then doubled-back to park and complete the legend trip.

By the time we stopped the car and turned off the lights, it was pitch-black out and perfectly still. Had I not been terrified already, the experience might’ve been peaceful, with faint trickling sounds echoing from the creek and what sounded like a lone frog.

First, I want to say that fellow legend trippers including Thomas White and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s David Templeton, who investigated Shades of Death in 2001, apparently punted on going at night. So it’s only with some shame I admit that after stopping, I was too afraid to honk the horn. I’ve seen Candyman too many times, and it’s not worth the risk. (Let us know how it goes if you’re more courageous.)

Bethel Church located on Shades of Death Road Credit: CP Photo: Mars Johnson

During a full minute of darkness, no phantom or creature appeared. Mars noted the scariest part of the trip was flipping the headlights back on, imagining what horror they might reveal.

We made one final stop at the church and cemetery. Shining the car’s brights, we noticed all gates to the cemetery were flung open (despite no trespassing signs), and took that as our cue to flee.

Seeing a car in the churchyard, someone from an overlooking house came to the window, appearing as a shadowy figure on another hill. After multiple jump scares, I didn’t need another sign, and was all too glad to be waved off and back to the city.

This article appears in Oct. 29-Nov. 4, 2025.

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