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Flew an aerial recon of the GP yesterday. The winds at altitude were light and it was not real bumpy. The leafy trees are dropping leaves and leaving more open ground to be seen. The focus of my recon are mountain ridges, SW facing slopes, and high open areas where humans are unlikely to be just because of the climb and accessibility. I keep hoping to catch a BF moving about in the clear because there are no humans around and catch them when I come roaring past at 200 or 300 feet. Or see them basking in the sun on some SW facing slope. Some of my observations yesterday are: There is a huge amount of forest out there with little or no human access. There are hanging valleys with heavy forest and streams, with no mark of human presence anywhere near. You could be hiding an army of BF out there and never know it was there. A lot of the ridge lines that connect to other ridges have trails on them. Some are marked on USGS maps and some are not. They could be used as a sort of BF highway to move easily from one area to another. The ones with trails that seem most heavily used are the ones that run East West. While I was flying, I thought about the time I saw the military helicopter flying in and out of an area along the East Fork of the Lewis River. I saw it from a ridge about 4 miles away when I was sitting there with my spotting scope. So I located the ridge where I had been with the scope, looked off in the distance and figured out where the river bend was that the helicopter was going behind as it flew in and out. I flew out there to have a look. The area is heavily timbered. I could not even figure out where they were landing or why they would have been going in and out of there. Then suddenly I saw a glint of sun off something shiny. Circled around and there, with absolutely nothing anywhere near was a large solar panel array. It looked like 4, 100 watt panels plunked down in the middle of dense forest. I have one of those panels and it puts out over 5 amps of 14 volt power. 4 of them would be over 20 amps. That is a lot of power. No buildings around, no towers or structures. no road leading to it., just panels in the middle of a patch of dense forest. What in the world is it powering? My mind flashed back to once when I was driving SW of Mt St Helens. I saw a flash on a ridge, looked up, and saw the sun glinting off what looked like huge metal doors on the side of a cliff far above. I was so curious about what that could be way up there, that I stopped and went back to where I had seen the doors on the ridge above, turned around looking up, and nothing was there. It was as if someone had draped camo netting back over the doors and they were no longer visible. I tell you what. There is some strange stuff out there and it does not necessarily walk around on two feet. I noticed campers, camp trailers, and vehicles all over the place. I guess due to hunting season. I found a high rock outcrop that had a road circling around it, and there were two vehicles near the top, and two more winding their way up there. The roads were carved out of the cliff sides and probably only one lane wide. Then I noticed one vehicle headed down and one headed right at it. I did not stick around but someone was going to have to back up a long way for anyone to get past. Another thing I look for is signs of lava tubes. Ape cave the lava tube on Mt St Helens is quite visible from the air. The vegetation is different because large trees do not grow above the tube because they cannot develop good root systems. You can look on Goggle Earth and see where the tube runs. Anyway nice day to fly and like usual I end up with more questions than answers.

Makes one wonder what could be watching from above. I need to look up in them big trees more. One Summer i planted trees for the forest service. We were planting a clear cut and on the edge was an old growth cedar. Someone spotted an animal about 30' up sleeping on a big branch. As I recall the fur or hair was a medium brown color. We all observed it. The one thing no one could figure out was what it was. Just this big ball of fur sleeping next to the trunk on the big branch. I've wondered ever since if it was a wolverine, not sure they climb trees. Most likely it was a cat or bear or maybe a small Bigfoot.

If I have a complete specimen in the back of my truck. I'm going to find a untraceable place to store the body in cold storage. I'm also going to do this more than once with body parts. I will not have all of my eggs in one basket. I would then take a sample to the scientist of my choosing, and have the DNA analyzed. When the sample came back as a new species of primate I would offer the body to the University of my choosing. I would ask for a donation from them to a 501c conservation group of my choosing. And I would keep several samples for myself. And I would make sure that the university set up a press conference and anounced the findings to the world. I would also request that I was kept in the loop on the study of the type specimen and reports would be given to me on their findings. I would then use that knowledge to further the conservation groups understanding of the creature and formulate a plan on how best to protect the species. I would also lobby the USFG for federal protection of the species.