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That's exactly it Norse. Boots on the ground. Wearing down the leather gumshoeing. Most people watch the various tv series where they find footprints every time out, howls, wood knocks, encounters, and the like. You have to kick a lot of tires before you drive out of the parking lot with a car. Dogged determination as you said. Many people go out in the woods excited knowing that just around the bend will be a Bigfoot. They quickly find that instead they find nothing and become cold, wet, hungry, tired, and come up empty in the process. It is easy to tuck your tail between your legs and head home. You have to love the process and just being out in the woods. Any residual finding, whether it is a return wood knock, a footprint, a scream, or sighting, is icing on the cake.

As part of the PCTA trail crew recently I did not encounter anything unusual other than some elk calls a few nights with odd barks, screeches and whistles that were fairly explanatory. Checked mud around lakes for prints. Mostly elk with one canine print likely a coyote. Why one, prolly more a function of me not wanting to get quagmired than a spirit coyote. More than one crew member experienced a loud thud near their sleeping area which could not be explained apparently. I saw three snakes, numerous frog species, a duck or two, a couple birds of prey, numerous chipmunks including young crawling down into a hole near a tree on alert from mom; but no bears or larger mammals. A few pika were seen by others higher on the trail than me on an off day. No goats. Lots of frustrated PCT hikers due to fire closures. A squad of hunters got a bear kill while they were around town. Despite the haze from smoke several bluebird days were great for field and trail work. Bugs were present but the flies were worse than the mosquitoes in my neck of the woods. Yes, I got yellow jacket stung doing my pick/mattock work---took five or six good thunks to find where they were at---one sting through a glove was enough for me---haven't moved that fast in ten years. These crews would only make it deep into the backcountry to maintain trail with the assistance of the Washington Backcountry Horsemen/women that make provisioning remotely possible. Kudos to the cooperation of those dedicated individuals. (and thanks for the watermelon). The large group of international hikers coming through were quite inspiring: Germany, Netherlands, UK and many well known trail angels from parts south. We had one international member on our team. Many of the thru hikers were profuse with the thanks. The platform is playing havoc with my ability to post pictures. I will have to post them up as able. We had two wilderness med trained persons and several MD or physician extender types on the trip, that reassures and great radio communication with USFS everyday by the leaders. Smoke from wildfires was troublesome several days but the blood-red moonsets were nice and several red sunsets.

Evening everyone. I thought I’d share a few pics from my Mogollon Monster expeditions! I have a Jeep for longer outings, this was just a quick overnighter. The NC700x is NOT an off-road bike, lol...except when some guy like me makes it go off-road. It did well enough on the 2 1/2 hr, 65mph+ ride there and tackled the high clearance roads north of the rim family decently that it has earned its spot in the stable. I chose a spot towards the north end of Turkey Ridge for this one. I’ve typically stayed farther west in the past, but I’ve been hearing vocalizations east at night and things seem pretty West so I thought I’d scout a few miles east...it’s been worth it. Some pretty significant tree breaks in the early evening, some unidentifiable growls, and what you see below. This spot was pretty close (within a few hundred yards of an elk bedding area so I thing the growl was from an elk...didn’t sound like a bear. It was about 100yds from my op at the time and accompanied by a crash through the woods. Anyway, First pic is camp the first afternoon. Second is camp in the morning. 3rd are a couple cubs (circled as one was really interested in the underside of that log) and momma bear following the creek bed below camp. The photo of momma bear is too big so I left it out. They passed within about 30 yds of my spot while I was video recording the creekbed. I waited until they were 50 yds or so past before I switched to my dslr so as not to give myself away. If you stare at the pics long enough you can almost hear my prayer to the cubs “go the other way...this way is boring...”. Lol, the G20SF never felt so good on my hip and the photos were taken from roughly 80yds away with a Nikon D3200 and 300mm Lens. They did not seem aware of my presence as I was fortunately downwind. 4th pic is a track that was in the middle of a two track fire road. The 5.11 light is 5 inches long putting this track around 14”x 8”? The ground is pretty well covered in leaves and the two road tracks fill up with mud when it rains (every afternoon). Whomever, or whatever, made this track obviously either hopped across or stepped across. I went 100 feet on either side of the road and there was no other ground conducive to tracks. 5th pic is interesting. A fairly long tree (30-ish feet) laid across a log about 4 feet across that was rotten. A rock was placed on top of where they met. That drew my attention. The log looks like it was gutted by something looking for grubs perhaps. There were pieces of the log scattered around and several undefined indentions that could have been large prints immediately in front. I am up at 3 am to head back out to a nearby spot with the family so I hope the pics all come through!

Want to mention some facts about BF's movements as they relate to the South/Southeastern states. Typically, when it's normal weather, they will leave their bedding area about an hour before dark, and move as slow as molasses, stopping dead still every few yards looking forward and listening. Numerous witnesses have watched them from elevated hunting stands and say that they remain so motionless in open woods with some under story brush and small trees that they just seem to disappear from view. I personally believe they depend as much on their ears as they do on their eyes for detecting movement of people or other animals. When it gets dark or very close to it, and they intend to join others to hunt, they will start, or respond to the "gathering calls" of others of their kind. Basically clock time to them is immaterial, its the time darkness falls which determines their movements in the evening. Their movements during the day time hours - and days of the week - may be related to one or many other factors they have no control over. One of the most common conditions that causes them to move more frequently during the day is the very hot summers and drought years that have plagued the South/ Southeast many times in recent years. It is a dead certainty that during such periods the individuals and family groups establish bedding areas within just a few minutes walking distance of fresh water, when possible, a cold water spring will be their first choice. Many times the animals have had to move as individuals and family groups because of the commencement of the clear cutting or controlled burns of large tracts of land on private lands or in the National Forests. (Timber companies actually own the land and harvest the timber off of huge tracts inside National Forests.) Such work typically is done Monday through Friday, and Bigfoot families will not remain in those areas, although individuals (most likely males) may slip in to watch the action from cover and from a distance. For some reason, they are known to be interested and curious about the work of humans; from their construction of homes in remote areas, cutting and moving timber, or watching people on tractors making food plots for deer and turkey. A friend of mine called me by cell phone one day about three years ago to tell me that he was using a tractor, disk and seed spreader along a river in central AR. He said he was being watched from one part of an adjoining pine thicket by a female Bigfoot "with the prettiest red, shiny hair I've ever seen!" He said the animal would partially hide each time he turned the tractor in her direction, so he pulled his cap down low and slightly bowed his head so he could hide his eyes a little and watched her until he finished the small food plot. He has seen more Bigfoot than I, and spent WAY more time than I in those river bottoms.

More importantly is that just like hunting or fishing moon phase reports about the “best times” to fish or hunt? These are just broad guidelines.....there is NO magic bullet. Any outdoorsman knows that you have to be out there hitting it hard to make any of it pay off. Even if the reports say its not probable. The number one weapon in your tool bag is dogged determination and a never say quit attitude, with boots on the ground.

My thoughts exactly above, we are at the mercy of the report itself and the detail, or lack of them in some cases, that are in it. Just to add, I have full faith and trust in both my own and Redbone's ability to decipher and extract factual and accurate information from x and y report that at times wouldn't have word for word specifics, that gives our database the most accurate data it can possibly have via a lot of what Redbone has written above.

Agree. I hope the truth is kept a secret or a myth as long as possible. The more FB and KB fades away into the abyss the more people will forget about it. That suits me just fine. It's my mission to either have a sighting or get something on thermal for my own satisfaction but if that never happens, so be it. I'll continue to put myself in a position where it can happen. After that, it's the winds of fate that will decide one way or the other.

I had not been by in awhile and when I saw this article on Fox News I immediately thought of the forum and you specifically--"knowing" you had to have posted about this!

Great! I knew that of course. The charts don't plot unclassified reports. Before you came aboard, I took the BFRO database KML file and mined it for the report URLs, GPS coordinates, date time and Class info. The SSR was "primed" with that info and a flag which marks the report as unclassified. When you edit the report, it flags it as classified. That's how it knows which ones to skip. So no worries.

no - 6 pm if not specified But note that midnight is default on all those hundreds of unclassified entries already linked to reports and all those that I've edited. Every time some value has to be added. 6pm is only for new entries (please don't change it now that I'm almost done)

So much of what I feel about our skeptical peanut gallery is on exhibit here Norseman, in the responses to a simple account of seeing unexplained and unusual tracks all those years ago. You have a very understandable and relatable need to be taken seriously on that point. They know that quite well and will bear down on that pressure point to get a reaction from you, ad infinitum. Because, in the end, it is about the reaction they are able to elicit from you and any other witness. It is a position of arrogance that comes from the unstated belief that no other human has attained their superior level of discernment or sophistication in evaluating what your senses told you very plainly those years ago. Those who have reached a certain level of emotional maturity in matters of the world don't tell people they didn't see/hear/smell/feel what they know they did. Their unrelenting need to do that is a character flaw that none of us will be able to correct or overcome. I long ago stopped wondering if it is feigned, or if it is genuine. It is of no count is all.