Leaderboard

Cotter - I never saw it. We'd set up camp and planned to spend the night. Had dinner. I walked over to the lake to make a few casts. It was still daylight. Since midway through dinner, we'd been hearing rocks rolling on the wall of the cirque above us behind trees. Not random rockfalls, these were from a point source that was moving slowly from high right to lower left. The trail out crosses the ridge in line with where the sound seemed to be heading. We got an uncharacteristically bad feeling about it and decided to pack up and leave. There was still a bit of daylight left and it wasn't that far to the trailhead. As we left camp and hiked around the lake, the sound seemed to be intersecting our intended path. The route up to the ridge and very slightly beyond is fairly open. It has tree trunks but not brush. I half expected to see what we'd been hearing because it should have been right there when we crossed. Nope. The trail went around the ridge, leveled out, and went around the back of a canyon. Not far beyond the ridge it went from open to very heavy brush along the trail Besides the firs which provided canopy, there was a jungle of rhododendron and saddler's oak underneath thick enough to be .. though not truly impassable for a person, practically so. We'd gotten just a short ways into the brush section when the noises started. The source was generally 40 yards away, a bit above and somewhat behind us. Seemed to be on two feet. When we got into some of the thinner areas, I couldn't see "it" but I could see the brush tops move as "it" plowed through seemingly effortlessly. A time or two it got more nearly directly above us, even slightly ahead, then it would stop making sound until we passed it and got to where it was 45 degrees or so above and behind again. Each of those place were places where I might have seen it if it'd continued on unabated. This went on for a mile or more 'til the brush thinned out too much to provide cover. I don't interpret what happened as aggression. It was just .. herding. In an earlier chapter of my life, I worked cattle. The positions it took up relative to us are exactly what I did relative to cows to get them to move the direction I wanted. There were no threat displays. No knocks, no yells. It was just following us and not hiding. A couple years ago I was talking to a local bigfoot enthusiast and mentioned what'd happened. "Oh, you ran into *him*. He's a grumpy *******." Also apparently quite large. The guy indicated our interaction was less confrontational than other people had reported. Beats me. We've had 3 big fires out there since. The big timber is gone, the brush has regrown. No repeats so far, just that one "event." I suspect the loss of cover / concealment may have pushed them to other locations. MIB

Would you mind describing the 'herded out' scenario a bit more? Were there any shows of strength (deliberately breaking branches or the like). Was there any smell associated? I had a pal (and his pal) get 'escorted' out of an area in SW Oregon in the early 90's. It was a dry summer and they were out prospecting and came upon a small spring fed pond. Whatever was up there wanted them out, they were circled with by something and it surely let them know they were there. They ended up retreating back down the mountain, back to back, with their shotguns drawn. They never saw anything only heard and smelled it. It stayed JUST out of sight in the thick brush.

How close are you to Bridgewater? Have you heard of the Bridgewater triangle? Any place coined as special by Lauren Coleman would be as good as any place to start an investigation. Have you read any of the missing 411 books? You might want to look in to the hunters edition. My take on it, if BF wants you dead, you will not know until you are dead. If they are chasing you throw the woods, they just want you to leave.

I would love it if I could get a bigfoot to chase after me in the dark. He would get 500 eye blinding lumens followed by 500 grains of hard cast lead to the face.