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I generally swore off of forums years ago due to too much contention of some posts. This forum is pleasently mild. COGrizzly called me and told me of this post of BobbyO maps and so I came to see. Always interesting. I began noticing a possible elevational movement pattern in an instance of a plethora of sightings in the winter of 1993/94 down at the south end of the San Louis Valley in an area where elk migrated to out of the Conejos drainage. The people living in that area are rather guarded in regards to publishing the sightings in that area and I was asked by the Conejos Sheriff at the time to not give out names or location details due to privacy. The winter was especially harsh that year at upper elevation and the elk were forced even further down and out into the open more in some fairly human populated areas. The elk connection started forming in my mind at the time due to a pretty good unpublished sighting there in that area and time by a local rancher who watched through binoculars from his deck as two sasquatch were apparently hunting a small herd of elk in some open brushland adjacent to a forested area. One sasquatch was approaching the herd from one direction while the other was on the escape side of the herd. The rancher said the two sasquatch seemed to be signalling each other with arm movements. He said the two sasquatch were both very large, at least as bulky as the adult elk they were hunting, well over 600 pounds and likely much more. Ranchers are fairly good at estimating weight due to purchase of cattle by weight and this rancher also had the adult elk right there in his view with the sasquatch. Their hunt failed in this instance as the herd went the wrong way for the two big hairy ones. There was corroberating evidence in the area at the time as former law enforcement officer Joe Taylor Jr. found a set of two large tracks of two sasquatch traveling together not far from the ranchers location. Taylor described the tracks as 19 inches and 21 inches respectively. Larger than any tracks I have found in that area. The largest set I have investigated personally was the 19 inch tracks in the Eagle CO area, which were definitely genuine and represented a foot length of over 18 inches long. Massive. 21 inch tracks boggle my senses. Taylors video of the tracks was poor and I could not see the detail I wanted in them and he never had anything in the video of the tracks to give me scale of their size. They did appear to be saquatch tracks however. There was no BFRO database at the time, and getting information was much more difficult, but in some ways better as one had to make many contacts with local law enforcement and such. Around that time I got a list of email addresses for Colorado hunting guides and outfitters and sent out a general email to as many as I could, requesting information if they had had any sightings or track finds in Colorado. I figured if anyone in CO had info on local wildlife, it would be the professional outdoorsman. I got back I think 7 positive responses and they all seemed to have something to do with elk or high elk density areas of Colorado. A couple of the guides had up close and personal encounters while bugling for elk, as the sasquatch seemed to be responding to the elk calls the guides were making at the time. Both were personally bowhunting themselves at the time of their respective incidents, in full camo and in hidden positions so that the sasquatch got in close before realizing their mistakes. Sasquatch can make mistakes, just like all hunters. Another interesting email from one of the guides described how two of his clients had stalked up on what they thought was a large black bear feeding on an elk or a deer in some willows only to discover they had stalked up on a huge "gorilla looking man" who glared at them and then stood fully upright and walked away into cover, leaving the carcass behind. It made no threats to them, just left. This was secondhand, but the guide said he fully believed his hunters, as it apparently nearly scared them to death. Interestingly, the two guides with up close personal sightings also said that when the sasquatch they called in discovered their error, those sasquatch also made no threats, but simply walked away from them. They seem to just want to avoid humans as much as possible, especially in the daylight. I think the only reason my sons and I were apparently threatened by one of them was because it could smell us from the other side of some willows as I was smoking a cigarette at the time, but did not know exactly where we were located. Getting screamed/roared at from close range makes a human feel small and fragile I can tell you. I didn't bust through the willows and tear us limb from limb, as I was expecting any moment during the incident. I knew nothing of sasquatch at the time and feared for our safety at the time, and probably still would in the same situation. At any rate, I refer to our own incident due to the fact there were cow elk calling to their calves back and forth in the area of our incident just prior to our incident. We were fishing in some beaver ponds at the time, not hunting. As time went on, I continued to see some correlation with sightings in apparent relation to elk density numbers and seasonal elk movement in Colorado. In Colorado at least, sasquatch seem to be active all winter, if tracks in snow and winter sightings are of any relevance. Winter might even be a fairly easy time for them, as winter killed ungulates and ungulates slowed in escape by deep snow might make easy pickens. Puma have no trouble finding food in winter. Though nothing is ever really easy for any top predator. There does seem a correlation in the Pike with elk movements too. There seems to be also a correlation on the west side of the continental divide with those from the forests there possibly moveing downhill and south into the Navajo Reservoir area and even down into Russian Olive infested drainages there in northern New Mexico. They seem to stick to cover, but have to go where food is available, even if it means getting somewhat exposed as happened there in the south end of the San Luis Valley and in the olive infested cover of northern New Mexico in winter. There is of course much we don't know about them and can only make guesses based on more known wildlife. My speculations are just based on personal interviews and track investigations. Still speculation with lots of maybes. I speculate a territorial social system very much like that of the Orangutan, but on a terrestrial level of much larger territory. Territory based on caloric need for survival and very similar to the puma territorial requirements times 4. Even at peak population, no one area can support hoards of sasquatch in a group due to the fact that they would eat themselves out of house and home and die of starvation after they killed off too many of their prey. Orangutans and puma have their territorial social system for a reason. Long calls of the male orangutan and mating screams of the female puma are for a reason, having to do with distance from their fellow mating partners and the need to get together for procreation at times. With the orangutan also having to do with keeping other males out of their areas. He says, "my fruits here, my mate come here, you other males stay away". I have no real population estimates for sasquatch in Colorado, only that they seem pretty dang rare and that we really can't support huge numbers of them due to food limitations. Obviously they might be at danger of inbreeding if either the young males or young females did not move a distance, dispersal, into some area besides their father and mothers territory. Gorilla females generally leave their troop for another troop, males subordinating at home or growing to take over the alpha role at home. Orangutan young adults fan out independant of gender and try to find a place they can eat and breed in peace from other orangutans, similar to puma dispersal. Though in puma it is the young males that move the farthest. I speculate that sasquatch are similar to orangutan and puma dispersal to new territory, rather than a trooping behavior of gorillas. The most tracks together that I have ever seen is two individuals together, both apparently large and likely two adult males. Usually tracks are of one lonely sasquatch going from point A to point B. If they trooped in groups, we would likely see their passage as one sees when a herd of elk passes in snow, a rather obvious disturbance of the snow. While it would be nice to see where a dozen sasquatch crossed the highway between Cripple Creek and Divide Colorado in the new fallen winter snow, it has not happened. But, if you keep your eye out there you might find some outsize tracks of one individual sasquatch traveling east to west or west to east across that highway in the winter snow at some point where fingers of forest meet the highway area on both sides of the highway. But only rarely at that. So rarely that I fear more extinction of the species rather than fearing meeting a hungry group of them there. Every time I see some physical evidence in Colorado, I breath a sigh of relief that there is at least one still left. I saw evidence of one last summer on the Conejos, just downstream of the Lake Fork drainage, so there is at least one there. Tracks were in the 17 inch catagory but in so much needle duff and in dust with lots of small vegetation that I couldn't even get good photos of them to share. I got some pretty good photos of where it had stopped and scraped an odd marker of some sort in the dirt with its fingertips and then stepped in the dust it had disturbed leaving a very good round heel print. At the time I took the photos I thought it was making the scrape marks with it's toe tips, but after looking more at the photos and doing measurements I realized it was using its fingertips to mark the ground rather than it's toe tips. The heel print made me think it was toe tips at the time. Looked like it was drawing purposefully a pointer arrow shape on the ground, but it might have been only trying to scrape a grasshopper from the ground to snack on or something. They certainly have big fingertips, or at least that one did. I would have not noticed the tracks had I not seen the odd mark in the soil first. There was a somewhat accidental photo of one of them taken in 2009 near Pikes Peak that I deem genuine. A man named Ron Peterson was taking photos of some apparent sasquatch tracks and caught what appears to be a female sasquatch in the distance as it was intently watching him from cover. Mr. Peterson was not a bigfoot researcher or anything at the time, just taking photos of the huge tracks in very shallow snow/frost that were interesting to him. He could also smell a strong stench in the area at the time and was kind of afraid because of the combination. Little did he know he was being very intently watched from some 50 yards away. Looks also to be a young sasquatch with the apparent female, with the young one holding on to or even climbing the tree next to her. I think the photo is genuine because as a wildlife artist I have been doing some sculptures based on the Patterson footage and see in the Peterson photo the same exact skull structure, hair length in regards to body location and hair reflectivity as the Patterson footage. You might have to play with photo contrast and bring out colors in a good photo software to see the detail I am describing, but as one who usually laughs at blobsquatch photos, I am extremely impressed with the Peterson photo. The Peterson subjects nose appears less hooded than the Patterson subject, but it does not concern me as there are individual differences in soft tissue structure in apes and humans. The Peterson nasal passages exactly match the apparent nasal passage locations evident as much as possible in the Patterson film subject. I can probably only see the relationship well because I have a sculpture of the Patterson subject staring at me from my workbench that is based on a caliper defined sculpture of the face of her from all the angles she presented to the cameraman. Bill Munns series of the head detail photos really helped me get a better idea and sculpture than I have ever been able to do. Sasquatch cranium is so gorilla like from the brow back that it is almost amazing. Form follows function in anatomy and they need the skull structure to support the head the way it is held, and the incredible sasquatch trapizoid muscles. The semblance between gorillas and sasquatch in the head from the brow back is likely not due to close primate relationship, but rather simply one of anatomical function. Petersons photo can be seen on the website Sasquatch Investigations of the Rockies, in the "bigfoot pictures" part of the website. Sasquatch win no beauty contest, except with other sasquatch. I also think the camera trap photo taken by Extreme Expeditions is likely genuine, due to the incredible trapizoid muscles clearly evident. I flip my sculptures around backward and the form matches precisely in muscle anatomy. If the Extreme Expeditions subject is a hoax, it was made by a good fellow sasquatch anatomist and they did a good job with hair length too in the correct areas based on my own study. That recent photo also gives me hope that extinction has not happened yet and may not be as pending as I fear. I hope that is a youngster in the tree beside the Peterson subject there in the Pikes Peak area . It would make me happy if it is. The Peterson subject does look pretty intent in the glare she is giving the photographer, like "one more step toward us and you are toast". Keith Foster

bipedalist, There was a young pine tree about 4-6 inches in diameter and maybe 10-12 foot tall pushed over with its root ball exposed and pointing its top in the same direction as the pointer on the ground and about 15 feet in front of the scrapes on the ground. It would take alot more strength than I have to push over the tree like it was pushed over. The tree was still alive, but the soil was healed at the rootball and so it was done much earlier in time than the scrapes were made. At least weeks before, likely months or more. I don't think the scrapes were more than a day old at the most. They were so fresh that I was looking for dermal ridges in the heel print and actually thinking I might see some. I couldn't as it was very dry dust. There may be no correlation with the pushed over tree and the finger scrapes. I have never seen sign of an elk pushing over a tree like that however, and there were no damage marks on the young pine. No tracks at the tree location could be descerned of any species, including sasquatch. I rarely find sasquatch tracks when looking actively for them. I found the scrapes and tracks while fishing again. I always have my eye to the ground looking for tracks of any species. I like tracking and trailcraft. On tracking, interesting facts about tracking humans was written by tracking expert Ellsworth Jaeger in his original book "Tracks and Trailcraft" in the 1940's. It is a fact that humans in the habit of going shoeless or wearing soft bottom moccasins show much less toe out "angle of gait" than humans in the habit of wearing hard soled shoes. Shoeless humans step softer to avoid heel damage and their feet point more directly the direction they are traveling by proxy. Another fact relayed by Jaeger was that a human wearing a backpack or carrying much weight has much less straddle in a line of their tracks, with one foot being directly in front of the other foot, rather than the more obvious human left right left pattern. Even to the point that their right foot may track slightly left of the left foot in a line of tracks. I have noted this on the trail with backpackers carrying 50 or more pounds in their backpacks. Also watch a backpackers legs when they are carrying much weight and you will note an avoidance of harsh steps and also an avoidance of hyperextension of the knee joint. They walk much more like a sasquatch when bearing much weight in a pack. Combine the bare footed human habit of less angle of gait and then put a backpack on that human and you have tracks one in front of the other like the guy is walking an invisible tightrope. The barefooted backpacker tracks are laid out just like the huge 17 inch tracks I found in the SSJ Wilderness in the early 90's that got me to start researching the mystery. One huge foot directly in line with another huge foot, all pointing directly the same direction and no straddle whatsoever. A heavy laden backpacker will modify his steps shorter to bear the load, but ole sasquatch just treks on out strongly bearing the immense frame they carry around daily as an adult. They are amazing. Jaeger was a tracker of experience, not just a track form expert. Self proclaimed track expert Jim Halfpenny's criticism of tracks in snow not showing "bipedal" staddle of the left right left pattern of a bi-ped holds no water. Halfpenny's criticism of my assessment of some of the track lines in snow in Colorado on that Monsterquest program were due to his ignorance of human tracking evidently. Also the program did not relay that the track finders had dug down in the snow to see that the huge imprints were indeed made by the massive foot as it compressed the snow underneath. Interestingly, I also show no straddle when I am sprinting, just one track right in front of the other, all in line. Sasquatch pretty much walk like a human sprints, even to the point of that heel coming up pretty dang high between steps prior to rotating the leg forward in the next step. Experiment. Instruct a friend to walk across an area that you can see his tracks in, say shallow snow or damp sand on a beach. Tell him to walk across the area without ever fully straightening his knees, maintaining at least a 15 degree bend in his knees during each step. Then observe the line of tracks he makes and compare them to what they look like if he just simply walks normally across the same area. Don't tell the friend why you are doing the experiment until after the tracks are laid out for study. You can also do an experiment with your unwitting friend by putting a 50 pound backpack on him and observing the track line he lays. Make him barefoot for a mile with the pack on and he will really get "compliant" gaited. Sasquatch walk like they do, whether any so called track expert likes it or not. Sure, they might show some straddle when walking slowly enough and even some angle of gait at times. Their foot is what it is, their anatomy is what it is. It all seems to work together in perfect orchestration. Cool design. I'm going to have to make friends with one so I can have him carry my backpack for me to some wilderness lakes I've wanted to get to. Shoot, I'll just have him carry me and my pack up there. Sasquatch never cease to amaze me. Mainstream science is certainly missing out, with their self inflected blinders. There is a difference between reading tracks, i.e. real tracking, and just knowing the shape of a certain animals tracks. There seem to be plenty of track experts today, but reading the tracks themselves is evidently a forgotten art if some of the comments on sasquatch by the "track experts" are taken into account. Ellsworth Jaegers book "Tracks and Trailcraft" is still available in reprint from Amazon and even original 40's editions are available used. He knew nothing of sasquatch evidently, but relayed why they walk the way they do in his book.