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I think that bones get eaten ,chewed up . I find it a bit puzzling that a few people think we should be finding their bones . I'm going to give just a for instance . When I use to deer hunt in CT there was a swamp in the 1500 acres I hunted . The swamp was maybe about 40 to 60 acres give or take . I can say with some authority that not a soul had wadded through that place in 100 years or ever for that matter. What I'm trying to get at is these creatures I believe know when they are dying same as all other animals do. The old deer who finds a bunch of soft pines to lay down on. Your family dog who stops eating and drinking and goes to find a quiet spot to die . I believe that they go to areas where we just won't walk into and lay down to die. I don't think they bury their own or anything like that. Most places we walk in the wilds are just that ,places where we can walk . It's our nature even when hunting big game to take the path of least resistance . There's swamps that humans have never walked through or deep thickets that we walk around while hiking or even when searching for Bigfoot.

I went down there in '83 or '84 (I'm pretty sure, I was attending U. of Pueget Sound at the time) coming in from the NW side, got up to the final blockade, but still surrounded by all the downed timber, an amazing sight, ran into a bio prof of mine doing amphibian population impact studies, but most everything under all those trees had little chance. I haven't been back, So I don't know if they ever did anything with the timber or if it's still there, but I'd bet there's at least one body under all that wood...

Daveedoe the prime mission of the National Guard was human rescue and recovery. There were a few rescued but most of the job was recovering bodies. Some burned badly or suffocated by ash. Not a pleasant task for the crews so I would imagine the crews did things to lighten the mood. Then again we do not have any reports from the crews themselves. People on the ground were reported to have seen a tarp fly off a stack of bodies. I do not recall about sightings North and East of the Mountain before the eruption. Perhaps someone with a good data base would know. Anything in the blast zone was vaporized or covered with debris. The Eastern flanks had the lahar flow so anything there would have been covered also. Areas of that were protected by topography and there are still patches of forest up to the tree line. It could be that BF simply left. The harmonic tremors were going on days before and BF may have actually been able to hear them if they can hear infrasound. Animals have been known to leave the vicinity of a pending eruption because of the earthquakes. Far enough away and ash fall was the killer instead of blast. . Most of ash went East. So the West and South flanks were survivable. That mountain has a history of eruptions back in recent history. It was erupting when Lewis and Clark went past in the early 1800s. Perhaps BF had an oral history and knew to get out of the area when the mountain started acting up. Depending how long they live, 180 years is only a few generations. I do walk the stream banks on the East side hoping to find a BF body washing out of the ash layer. That seems the most likely way to find a BF body / skeleton that I can think of. But that might be a waste of time if BF were smart enough to have left the area. .

Startling: I have never seen a bear body in the woods. I know they are there for a while until the scavegers get to them. Supposedly some where killed and gathered together for a mass burial after the Mt St Helens eruption. I wish we could find a whistle blower to confirm that. There are a couple of stories about forest fire kills. Separating BF mythology from factual accounts is difficult. Then again, if that Mt St Helens whistle blower comes forward, we have to believe his story, just like we have to believe any witness.account. Having a body in possession is key, even in skeletal form. If we could find that Mt St Helens burial site, then there would be no more dispute, either about existence or government cover up. .

I'd get shot....

They completely showed their colors when they launched into the "we're bad-ass and everyone wants to be like us" in last week's episode. They're now on a level of Mountain Monsters crew. Now THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is entertainment.

Just wondering if you were able to make a flight this week? With the cold but clear and sunny weather. I agree with you on the ability to differentiate between snowshoe tracks and boot or bare foot tracks from the air. I might add that in snow over 6" most people tend to shuffle through the snow. Then the problem arises of trying to differentiate people from other animals. If you did spot a clear inline trackway in deeper snow then you could probably eliminate people or other animals. Another thought came to mind that if you lived in areas of large deciduous forest and snow fall. Not like our evergreen forests. It would be great to be able to fly over those areas in the winter. Anything large, dark and moving would be fairly easy to spot. Especially if it was leaving tracks behond. Just a thought.

For those hardy enough or foolish enough to do field work in the winter, it does have one big advantage. It is very difficult for a living hunter gatherer to move around on snow covered landscape without leaving footprints. I hope a clear day opportunity comes up soon so I can scout deep in the snow covered back country of Skamania County with my airplane. Footprints in the snow 30 miles from the nearest road are unlikely to be human without snowmobile tracks nearby. I can differentiate snow shoe tracks from boot or bare footprint tracks from the air. Just cannot measure or determine if they were a bare footprint or boot from the air. If some area is active, miles from the nearest road, it might point out active areas worth checking out when the snow cover allows. .