10/15/2026
Dead in the Holler- A Dogtown Halloween Presents:
TALES FROM THE HOLLER — NO. 2
The Yahos of Kibler Valley
Deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 45 minutes from Floyd, lies Kibler Valley. It's a beautiful, secluded stretch of mountain country along the Dan River. But according to the people who lived there, something strange once roamed those mountains.
They called them the Yahos.
In 1978, folklorists recording the oral traditions of the Blue Ridge interviewed longtime Kibler Valley resident Will Barnard and his family. Among their stories was an unsettling account of mysterious creatures whose cries echoed through the mountains after dark.
The sound, Barnard recalled, was like a woman screaming. Sometimes it ended in an eerie, almost human laugh. Others described hearing screams followed by whistling.
And whatever made those noises seemed to move impossibly fast.
People claimed they could hear a Yaho calling from the top of a mountain, only to hear it practically beside them before they could make it back to the house.
Barnard's daughter reportedly encountered something near her home. She described an animal resembling a large black dog, but slimmer, with unusually long legs. Barnard himself had seen tracks that looked like those of a large dog, only longer.
One evening, the strange cries became too much to ignore.
Barnard's family and neighbors gathered dogs and went toward the woods to investigate. But the dogs, including animals ordinarily willing to confront just about anything, came running back out, frightened.
Whatever was up there, they wanted no part of it.
The stories frightened people so badly that Barnard's wife recalled being afraid to venture outside after dark. Neighbors would warn one another to watch out for the Yahos.
Some believed the creatures were mountain lions. Barnard himself leaned toward that explanation.
But there was something that puzzled him.
Despite keeping sheep, cattle, and hogs, Barnard couldn't recall losing livestock to the mysterious creatures. If hungry mountain lions were roaming the hills, why weren't they taking the animals?
Perhaps there was a perfectly ordinary explanation for the screaming, the strange tracks, and the terrified dogs.
Or perhaps the people of Kibler Valley were hearing something else entirely.
Have you ever heard of the Yahos? Or heard something in the Blue Ridge woods that you couldn't explain?
Photo is of a witch grave, up the hill from the Barnard house. Apparently, the Yaho wasn't the only strange phenomena in Kibler Valley.
