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Field Trips


BC witness

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Great snow pics all. Dave, it appears you really can't lose in east Texas. Check out the rivers and lakes south or east of where you'll be. You should record overnight if you can. Watch out for snakes!

Spring is almost here, and have a couple of trips coming up. Next month will visit the Olympic peninsula and the following heading down south to the desert. Should be exciting to hear the different night sounds.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Great snow pics all. Dave, it appears you really can't lose in east Texas. Check out the rivers and lakes south or east of where you'll be. You should record overnight if you can. Watch out for snakes!

Spring is almost here, and have a couple of trips coming up. Next month will visit the Olympic peninsula and the following heading down south to the desert. Should be exciting to hear the different night sounds.

 

Got back here to the PNW last night from east Texas. We arrived last week during all the flooding. The rivers and lake all at record levels. The weather broke and was pleasant but the water was still on the rise. We did try to go to Caddo Lake but had to turn around due to flood water over the road. Take flooded roads and flash flood warnings serious, the warning were everywhere "turn around or drown". 

So I did not get out for a field trip this time.

We did have a great time though, I had the pleasure of giving my daughter away at her wedding.  

I love the East Texas, and the hospitality. 

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Glad to hear you had a great time Dave!

I think it rained around here the whole time you were gone. Didn't hear of any flooding but I was sure wondering on Monday. Had to make a trip up to north of Centralia. Really hard to see the freeway in places it was raining so hard.

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  • 1 month later...

Spent the last three days up in the Bumping Lake area. We had to clear about two miles of blowdowns to get in where we camped. The weather was sunny when we arrived, but turned to usual Washington rain the next day. Hiking the woods was atrocious due to all the blowdowns. Didn't see much evidence of sasquatch but plenty of elk in the area. The snow was still in some areas but melting fast. We did find one straight line of tracks that were made just before the last snowfall. About 14" with a fifty inch step. A little pointer here when measuring tracks in the melting snow measure the compressed ice portion of the track. Melt out always makes them look bigger. The long straight step length was interesting here, but indeterminate at best. Didn't get any good pictures as it was almost dark.

We did take 2 nights of time lapse pictures and audio. Still to be reviewed. At the base of a ridge about a hundred yards from camp and the best approach because of the lack of snow.

It's a wild area this time of the year but it probably gets pretty busy during the summer.

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Congrats to you Dave. BigTW, those pics are beautiful. Of course, you know that's a hotspot, so hopefully you'll have evidence.

 

I traveled to southern WA over the weekend. Recorded near a river, didn't seem to capture anything but A LOT of birds, cool to hear. Next month, I'm recruiting an assistant to record in Maryland. That will be interesting!

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Beautiful area. The description of the track way  sounds promising, 50 inches is a very big step! 

 

Any bones found?  I like the way you have the wood in the fire, I'd bet with all the blow down there was no shortage of fire wood.

 

I hope you captured something on the time lapse, thanks for the report i love this thread.

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Thanks JKH and Dave. We did find some bones. I'll post the info in the bone thread. Nothing exciting.

There was lots of wood! I was trying to reflect some of the heat toward the tent without burning it down! :) That was a very rainy night.

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Sounds like a great trip, BTW, and the trackway brings back memories of a very similar one I came across back about '80, large melted out tracks with no detail in the bottom, but a 40"+ step length, in a straight line up the logging road for as far as I could see. I've been slack about reporting here, so I'll add a couple of recent outings in the next day or two.

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 My buddy Thomas and I had made arrangements a few nights ago, while out with friends for Chinese food, to get together today, Sunday, May 8th, for a run up  to a remote valley, as Thomas had heard a second or third hand report of a logging crew seeing very large, human-like footprints near a specific landmark in that area. He is a long time Sasquatch researcher and author , so of course he wanted to check the report out, and I have  an interest in the big hairy hominids, so it was the perfect excuse for a road trip.

We got away at 0730 for the 40km highway run to the turnoff, then another 30km up that logging road to the valley turnoff. This route took us through the scene of last year's major forest fire, which I reported in another trip thread last August, and through a much smaller new fire that was burning today, with ground crews and bucket helis working to douse it. Once on the  branch road to the reported track site, we slowed down, as it was rougher than the main FSR, and we wanted to keep our eyes peeled for tracks. About 4km in, Thomas spotted some tracks in a small muddy pond alongside the road, so we stopped to check them out. They were from a good sized black bear, with the pads of the front paws half again as wide as my own size 12EEE boot, and just down the road a dozen yards or so, there was a large pile of bear scat, and a game trail through the weeds and crossing the road, but no sign of the track maker in the flesh.

Just beyond that spot, we came upon a couple of loggers pumping water into their fire supression storage tanks, mounted on a big flatbed trailer, so we stopped to chat, but got no further info on the reported tracks, as they were not part of the same crew that supposedly made the original report. Beyond the branch road where they were working, it was obvious that no logging had occurred in the last year, as the road became much rougher, and had frequent washouts. When we reached the reported area of the tracks, it was obvious that there had been no logging anywhere within miles of the landmark Thomas had been given as "the location", but we continued to the end of the trail just to see how far it carried on. That turned out to be another 10km, where a washed out old bridge, with a very swift, deep, snow fed creek running through what was left of the old road. We were disappointed that the intel Thomas had received was proved unreliable, but were glad for the chance to get together and check it out, regardless.

At this point, we stopped for lunch, then headed back out, checking out a few of the branches off the main road, We also located a lovely little lake in the forest that Thomas remembered from a previous ATV trip through the area several years ago.

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Edited by BC witness
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Thanks for the update BC. Too bad about the bum steer on the possible track location. But, it's always good to check out new country.

My son was able to review the time lapse today. All we got were a couple deer checking out our camp and a rabbit. There's one frame of the area in the daytime.

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I'm going to guess the cam is at around 5000'+/- elevation? At least it looks that way from your barometric pressure reading.

Edited by hiflier
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Actually 3600 feet. The lake itself is in a big glacial valley at 3500'. If anything wants to go to a lower elevation they need to head east toward Yakima or over the Cascades to the Mt Rainier area on the west.

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