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Been turning this idea over. There has been a lot said regarding tree knocking or howling in order to elicit a BF response. Coupled with that dialogue is the thought that a howl or a tree knock could be a hoax perpetrated by another Human in the woods, or innocently by another researcher who may have thought one's howl or tree know was real and so responded. The result is the possibility that the two different researchers may have been falsely alerting each other since there can be quite a distance between the two when the techniques are deployed. I think we can all get that. So what I was thinking is utilizing rock throwing instead. It would be a close proximity technique that may eliminate the likelihood of hoaxing. Something like this: throw a rock into the woods an wait. We all know that a response to that could only come from close in by something that has hands. If BF's throw rocks, which apparently they do, then a BF would understand that a rock landing in the woods nearby could only come from another BF or a Human. If there is a response then get the thermal out and/or a camera and just wait. One thing about this maneuver is that it is highly directional- especially if a rock, stick, or pine cone gets returned. In other words, a researcher will know where it came from. It's bound to raise a BF's curiosity maybe by thinking there's a competitor in the area. Plus it's a much quieter technique which has the advantage of keeping a researcher's presence more private. Thoughts?

Big pile of Bear poo!

Great info! Thank you! And I would return the favor anytime yer in my neck of the woods bud! This is why I like diesels.

This is the real reason Norseman likes diesels...

Here is Norseman's answer. Skip ahead if not interested. No, it's not really possible to just drive around off-road. There is very little public land. Basically, just some National Parks (where the photo was taken) and a few forest reserves. Those are highly regulated and have nearly no roads. The parks have LOTS of rules. No off-road is one of them. That said, if 4x4 is your thing, I have to lock the hubs to get to my house about half the year (during rainy seasons) as I live on a pretty steep hill. Last night we were coming back from some traveling 'up country' and got stuck in traffic as we returned to Kampala. We left the main road and took side streets to get around "the Jam". Only the main roads are paved. Even in the city. Everything else is just dirt. My 'cruiser has a 4" lift, aftermarket coil springs all around, and gobs of wheel travel. I had a wheel in the air 2 or 3 times traveling those streets. These streets are on Google Maps, mind you. The bad parts are when you meet another car and have to cross a ditch or rut. The folks in 2 wheel rigs and small cars can't manage and so it's me that ends up jumping the ruts to get by, just because I can. There are no guns allowed for anyone except military, and some police and security guards. In fact, even pocket knives are considered concealed weapons and are illegal. There are lots of military and security around. Military provide a good amount of security presence and are almost all carrying AKs. There are lots of fuel stations, as long as you are on main roads. The issue is fuel quality. The international chains are Shell, and Total. The rest you have never heard of. You can guarantee that there is at least kerosene mixed into the diesel at local stations to increase their profit. Shell and Total are supposed to be pure fuel, but you never really know. I do know the car likes their fuel better. The farther from main towns you get, the farther between good stations. Sometimes 50-75 miles. One town I go to about twice a year, is at least that and you have to go back to the station because there is no good fuel in the town there. We carry a jerry can or two to make sure we can get back without having to buy bad fuel. My 'cruiser can run rougher fuel, but I hate pushing it. Big animals are pretty much just in and around the National Parks. Lions are there, but nowhere else. Crocs are more common, but still pretty rare. People kill them anytime they find them. Parts of the Nile have them, and sparsely populated areas of Lake Victoria and other lakes. You can sometimes find hippos outside the parks, but it's rare. If you see a critter, it's usually monkeys, snakes, or a Nile Monitor. Come on over. We'll go for a ride and see the sights. 17x7

Hiflier, you only have 1 page on this thread after 15 hours. Is this thread an I.Q. test? What you propose is a provocative action against a larger, faster animal. Not a David and Goliath scenario. You have a lot of ammo for your test. Throw your book. If it gets thrown back after a short delay, check it for DNA.

Aluminum block with steel sleeves, and an aluminum head. Not a power beast, by US standards, but it works. It's from '93 and still gets me 20ish MPG running African fuel (which usually contains diesel, but you're never really sure what else). The aluminum engine just doesn't like it when you run out of water. Once it gets too hot, she's done. 17x7

First of all, when one fellow at the seminar said that the University of Indiana used @ 700,000 tons of calcium chloride in a single winter, I about swallowed my tongue. Ft. Richardson has about 300 miles of streets and roads along with parking lots for a few thousand buildings, and we went for several years on 800 tons of magnesium chloride. We mixed it with sand, which provides melting properties to the sand as well as keeps the sand from freezing into clumps. Secondly, we only spread the sand (also stored in a huge barn so the snow and rain stayed off it) on intersections, curves, and hills where the traction is needed most, or spread more widely during freezing rain situations. Thirdly, we used magnesium chloride instead of calcium chloride. Mag chloride reacts hotter than calcium chloride, doesn't corrode metals, and was even cheaper than the calcium chloride, although admittedly that may have been due to shipping costs. Mag chloride is the salt found in the Utah salt flats, and the calcium chloride cones from the salt mines in the Great Lakes region, likely why those guys still use it. I stress the fact that we used sand. More recently contractors have been using tiny crushed rock (@ 1/8th or minus) in parking lots throughout Anchorage. While it's cheaper than sand (because it likely has few other uses), and it does work great for traction, it gets carried out onto the streets in the tire treads, gets flung up at speed, and chips/cracks windshields. During his last trip up here, my brother noticed that all my vehicle windshields are chipped/cracked.........like everybody elses. He asked if everybody in Alaska has a cracked windshield, and I had to answer "yes". We tried the tiny chipped rock one year on Ft. Rich, and when some colonel got his windshield cracked, he put an end to it, and I agreed with him. Sand works. Also, studded tires are still legal in Alaska. I have a set for each of my vehicles.

My immediate thought to your initial thought is that if I'm in rock throwing distance of a BF, he's in 450 Marlin range for me. Checking me out is okay. Stalking me? That makes him a freebie.

The only time our group encountered rock throwing, we had stopped at the side of a freshly built new logging road, which we had just walked end to end, looking for tracks in the freshly disturbed soil, about a mile each way. We paused for a cup of tea and a snack, heating the water on backpacking stoves. While waiting for the boil, we had three rocks thrown, over a 2 or 3 minute space. The first came from downslope, the second and third from upslope, on the opposite side of the new road. None landed where we could see them, but we heard the rocks passing through the branches of the evergreens. They had to have come from at least 2 different individuals, as we could see for at least 100m (110 yds) each way down the road, and nothing crossed our field of view. I have to admit, we were all so stunned by this, that we never thought to respond in kind. We all had cameras in hand after the first rock, in case something did show. This occurred about 4 years ago, and we still try to make sense of the event. I like your idea of trying to provoke a response in kind, for the reasons you state in your post.

I've had a big grizzly and a big wolf do that exact same thing to me on two different occasions. The wolf really disgusted me. I had been sitting for hours watching a moose gutpile hoping fir another bear to show up (I had already shot a big black bear off that pile). I heard the guys coming to get me in the riverboat, so I started packing my stuff, then stood up. That's when this big wolf stepped out of the tall grass looking at me less than 50' away. He was gorgeous. Then he stepped forward into the grass again and disappeared. He had been waiting for me to leave.

Great thread. My daughter has found foot prints and heard interesting howls. She lives near the Patterson film site. . A former co-worker now deceased told me of his sighting in the forests of North Florida by a river. When I told him he was obviously mistaken . He got angry and red faced. Told me Buddy boy I know what I saw . Foot prints and the subject was about 50 feet from him and crossed the shallow portion of the river and went into the woods. This occurred in the 1960s. One other person told me of an encounter that his uncle had in the same area and the same time period. My grandmother was born in 1899 and told me that the creature was observed by her and her siblings on their dense wooded property when she was a child in the early 1900s.. Her older sister confirmed the story when I asked her separately.

I have a very good friend that believes once night while riding his bike home he had a BF pacing him just inside the tree line. He never had a clear view of it because it was dark but he swears it was in thick brush and woods and the faster he went it had not problem keeping up. He only saw a large shadow/outline of the thing for brief glimpses between the trees. After a while it just stopped. Another friend who has since passed away from cancer tell me stories of when he was working for a place, they would take smoke breaks out the back door. Off the back door just a ways was the beginning of a pretty large stretch of woods. He told me that for a few weeks he and other employees believed there were a few BF that were living in those woods. At night when they went out to smoke they would hear growls and sounds they did not recognize just inside the tree lines and on multiple occasions they would throw sticks and rocks out at the smokers. I believe he also said there were instances where they would shake trees and break branches. Unfortunately I am unable to question him any longer on the details. Where both of these two friends had their respective encounters is about 15 miles apart.

Remarkably, nobody in my family or friends where I grew up have had experiences. But, in what should be expected, my family (with the exception of my Dad, who grew up in the bayou) were all city folks from well south of good sasquatch habitat, and few were outdoors people. After living in southcentral Alaska for 45 years, I still have no friends with experiences, either, but now I think I'm north of prime sasquatch habitat. I did have an unusual discussion the other day while at fish camp. The beach was rather crowded with fishermen and families. People were doing whatever while waiting for a fishable tide. A pickup truck pulled up near my camp with a man driving and a woman passenger. They parked and were just watching the activities and looking out over the beach. I was walking by and said hi. We started talking about the fishing and whatever. We introduced ourselves. They were both Alaska Natives from Kenny Lake, but who now lived in the Kasilof area. The conversation included discussion about the village of Chitina, another popular salmon fishery area on the Copper River near Kenny Lake. Then, out of the blue, the woman asked me if I "believed in Bigfoot". That probably got a smile. They then tell me that they both saw one walking the river flats above the Chitina bridge over the Copper River. He went on about being a river float guiding operator on the Tonsina River for a number of years and how that river was rather spooky. I thought that was rather interesting, especially after the fascinating story another Kenny Lake resident wrote about on the Alaska Outdoor Forums several years ago and which I pasted here on the forum here: Apparently Kenny Lake (a very small village) is a bigfoot believing area..........