Sasquatch On The Roads

[hiflier]

Hello All,

 

We all know and have read the numerous incidences of people encountering Sasquatch in the daylight hours and at night either on or crossing a road. In John Green's book "Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us"  he told of an account where a new road went in. Some of the people who began to use it were reporting seeing our Hairy Friend on or next to it.

 

It has caused me to think that perhaps old Sasquatch trails, well known to Sasquatch for a long time were being partially overlaid with new roads or crossed over by new road construction. This of course will include fire roads in timber mining country. Sasquatch will still use it's old routes; like when we see deer and moose crossing signs. Deer and moose will continue to use archetypically known routes even if it means going through new sparcely settled neighborhoods and across interstate highways.

 

Road crews in areas of Sasquatch habitat might have some good stories to tell. And it would be a lot of work but the timing of new road installations with new Sasquatch sightings might be interesting as well. As usual, just my two rocks.  

[MIB]

It's an interesting ideas.    

 

There is little to no road building activity in my area, not since the mid 1980s.    There has been a massive decrease in logging.  It was logging that fed most of the road building activity here.  It was also logging ... via timber revenue and haul fees ... that paid for the maintenance of most roads on national forest.    The conditions of roads has fallen off considerably since the mid 80s.  Many places we drove easily with 2 wheel drives now require four wheel drives, often with chain saws to remove trees and winches to pull the vehicles across washouts.  

 

The run of the mill public is slowly, silently losing access to a lot of public land because the roads are not maintained.

 

I don't mean to be entirely negative.   I have some recollection of reading about road builders in my area back in the 50s and 60s having precisely the sort of experiences you suggest.   It's not exactly the same thing, but I think it might be interesting to spend some time on a mountain bike beyond slides or gates that block roads into remote areas.

 

MIB

[Guest DWA]

I'm not sure how to think about this.  Animals cross roads; and the path isn't always something they've done daily forever.

 

I might think that road work would scare away all critters until the road's been in quite a while.

 

Of course, one way to get data would be a stakeout at a road-cross report location.  Anyone done that?

[BobbyO]

Of the 209 Class A sightings I've analysed in WA State, 53 have been Road Crossings, 25.3%.

[Guest DWA]

It further occurs to me that any stakeout at a road-cross location might want to be predicated on finding a trail at the point of the crossing, indicating possible regular use.

[BobbyO]

Of the 556 Class A's across the North American Continent that have been analysed so far, 156 have been Road Crossings, 23%.

[hiflier]

Hello BobbyO,

 

I hope members appreciate you having the data in order to come up with those numbers. I know I certainly do. Could be time to see what the JWG database has to offer, eh? Thanks for taking the lead on it. It is interesting and probably just coincidence that the percentages are relatively close between your two searches.

 

MIB brought out a good observation: that some roads that were once good are falling into disrepair. If these are in areas of Sasquatch habitat then I think it's a good thing. DWA's idea of staking out a known point of a crossing reported, either past or present, is a fine idea as accessing the deep woods or bushwacking in difficult terrain wouldn.t be such an issue.

 

I might just mean more folks would see it as a way to get more involved and be able to take the equipment they wouldn't normally lug into those harder to reach places. 

Edited October 28, 2013 by hiflier

[BobbyO]

Looking forward to getting them in the system Hiflier, for sure..

[hiflier]

Hello BobbyO,

Yeah, me too! I'll do a quick run past the data and post what I find. I have not broken out that kind of description as of yet but it wouldn't take long to do. I'll bring it here when it's ready, or at least the results in the manner that you have done.

Here's a good question: Once done, Would anyone be willing to check out a place near them? If I could create a small database of just sightings either crossing, on, or near a road with the county, or town would it be helpful? I could maybe include a Lat/Long for the area as well.

I think that BobbyO's data contains stuff that's more recent than John Green's stuff but Sasquatch habits of traveling may not have changed much over the years if they're food supply has not been uprooted too much. one drawback is that the JWG wouldn't contain road names or GPS data. That might be a stumbling block for many.

Edited October 28, 2013 by hiflier

[Guest DWA]

Hello BobbyO,

 

DWA's idea of staking out a known point of a crossing reported, either past or present, is a fine idea as accessing the deep woods or bushwacking in difficult terrain wouldn.t be such an issue.

 

 

To piggyback, and address an issue BobbyO has brought up elsewhere, this might be one place that the so-far-no-soap alternative of game cams could, possibly, be redirected, just to see what happens.

 

We've got the cams (tons); but we don't really have too much of an idea of travel routes and frequency.  As I'm aware of at least two reports of  sightings from a road on CONSECUTIVE NIGHTS, at locations very close together, (both reports from FL, and I'd rather test my premise before presuming them nuts or lying), maybe the problems of setting up game cams in remote areas might not apply to road crossings.

 

In Area X, NAWAC didn't have any activity around their cabin until they'd been settled in for quite a while.  This seems to happen, too, with houses on the edge of occupied habitat.  Maybe it's similar with roads:  the human presence is (or rather, becomes over time) more or less predictable, so the animals might not note and avoid yet another human activity along them.

 

Just a thought.  As BobbyO says:  cams aren't working, that anyone's showed us, anyway.  So let's try something else with 'em.

 

(You are gonna get lots of car photos.  Yup.)

 

The first report:  http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=36710

The second report:  http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=30267

Edited October 29, 2013 by DWA

[hiflier]

Hello DWA,

 

In this biz one has to think of, and try EVERYTHING. I think road patroling isn't outlandish. Make a picnic of it. For me Maine's pretty quiet. But elsewhere? Yeah there's history and hot spots and reports by the dozens. Set up a wide angle cam on the roof of a car looking wherever one wishes. In the past year the police here have been using video mounted to their driver's side mirrors. Wonder what they're getting on them when they patrol those areas?

Edited October 29, 2013 by hiflier

[Trogluddite]

I'm in the "don't overthink it" crowd.  Bigfeet have to get from Point A (where they're at) to Point B (where they want to be). Particularly in the east, they just can't avoid roads, even if they wanted to.  Out of 430ish reports in PA-WV-NY, I've got 113 (around 25%) occurring on/near a road.  Most, as I recall, are going across the road; the few going along the road usually are happening in bad weather - snow or heavy rain - and almost always late at night.  (And thanks for suggesting another metric - crossing v. along - I hadn't segregated out).  FWIW, I don't think staking out a recent road-crossing sighting will have much utility.  As a large animal, they need a large range and the chances of them re-using a particularly spot to cross the road seems unlikely absent restrictive terrain in a given area.

 

The one exception to this - interstate highways?  These are high volume during the day and some volume most hours, reducing the opportunity for animals to cross.  They also have deer fences that are (hopefully) maintained.  Damage from a large critter climbing over them would attract attention.  I've wondered whether bridges over streams or culverts would be a preferred method for bigfooti to cross.

 

And yes, I'm fishing to find the preferred plural - bigfoots? 

Edited October 29, 2013 by Trogluddite

[Trogluddite]

Hello BobbyO,

.... I have not broken out that kind of description as of yet but it wouldn't take long to do......

Here's a good question: Once done, Would anyone be willing to check out a place near them? If I could create a small database of just sightings either crossing, on, or near a road with the county, or town would it be helpful? I could maybe include a Lat/Long for the area as well.

I think that BobbyO's data contains stuff that's more recent than John Green's stuff but Sasquatch habits of traveling may not have changed much over the years if they're food supply has not been uprooted too much. one drawback is that the JWG wouldn't contain road names or GPS data. That might be a stumbling block for many.

Hiflier, 

 

When you refer to "that kind of description," do you mean a description of the road?  For what its worth, when data-mining reports, I try to characterize the nearest road as (1) high volume, (2) medium volume, (3) low volume, (4) fire trail/dirt road (which civilized Americans never use any more....) rather than Interstate, 2-lane, etc.  I make a "best estimate" based on the type of road, the general population in the area, and time of day. For example, even a two-lane local road can be medium volume if its in the Pittsburgh suburban blob. 

 

I've already personally gone to look at a BFRO reported encounter on a road near where I live.  That was what triggered me on this project.  First, I thought that "Finding Bigfoot" mischaracterized the neighborhood where the encounter occurred as "rural."  Second, whilst there were positive things - woods, powerlines - nearby, this was a daytime encounter near a very busy road.  The "nearly deserted rural road" is actually a connector between two busier roads that I'm sure a lot of locals use to avoid the heavier traffic of going into town.  Made me somewhat skeptical of the given report. 

 

Nearest Road by type - 434 NY-PA-WV reports

 

1) High volume roads       - 45

2) Medium volume            - 136

3) Low volume                  - 154

4) dirt/fire trail                   - 76

 

Numbers don't add up to 434 because I did not attempt to characterize nearest roads for historical sightings (e.g., pre-1900s)

 

(Edit: Crud - that auto-merge function just cost me my 74th post....) 

Edited October 29, 2013 by Trogluddite

[BobbyO]

Great stuff as usual Trog.

[hiflier]

Hello Trogluddite,

I agree w/BobbyO. Great stuff for sure. When I said "that kind of description" I was trying to stay in context: that being the idea that roads have been unknowingly(?) laid down along or across habitually-used Sasquatch routes of travel. So for me, when I break out the description data it will reflect "crossing a road", "on or near a road", and "along a road". To me the size/width/number of lanes, or condition of the road surface, doesn't really matter. The action occurring during an encounter definitely does though, especially the crossing aspect for reasons already mentioned- the possibility of seeing a pattern for a possible monitoring station that anyone could set up.

I firmly believe that the more folks out there trying to get a PGF type of a recording the better. The idea of making it easier for people to get involved in securing proof or, as some would call it, evidence the better. Winter is coming and the leaves are dropping which may stymy the process a bit but it is still a good time to practice the method.

Edited October 29, 2013 by hiflier