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Checked out an area that is contiguous to an assumed riverway travel corridor. Walked a mile or so down the trail last night before the storm came in. Today was a daylight recon down the atv/utv access through this fairly prime habitat. There was a sighting of an adult and a juvenile crossing a road not far from here around this time of year 2006. Outside of great habitat we saw a few grouse, turkey and a pair of beaver: Ended up at a wind turbine site with some new ones going up. Striking a pose for scale--that crane is loaded with 16 10 ton weights:

"Ask Bob Gimlin if there was anything paranormal about Patty. Ask anyone who is a knower. Between us and the animal kingdom I only see one creature intelligent enough to remain "undiscovered", both in guile and in low numbers, which has ALL of the capabilities necessary to remain undiscovered without moving toward something beyond entirely physical." Hiflier, this is the most likely reason why bigfoot remains so elusive. Bigfoot is probably very woods wise and intelligent when it comes to evasiveness, living unseen, and surprise attacks. It knows humans are not to be trusted, so it uses its keen senses to know when humans are close by so it uses every trick in the book to slip away. If bigfoot's family is close by, and moves too slowly, then it uses terror to drive the intruders away. If bigfoot is old and too lame to catch deer and along comes a single human ................... well, what do you suppose happens in some cases? I camped in a historic hot spot this summer along the Sixes River, north of Port Orford, Oregon. My courage was good, so I slept under the stars with my 40 semiauto to at least warn other campers that we have BF visitor. There are two remote campgrounds up this river canyon. The most remote one is farther upstream, and has tent spots and small trailer camp sites. This site is where miners were attacked in the 1800's by bigfoot, and one death was assumed to be the work of bigfoot. The miners hired a hound hunter to track down the killer, and his dogs were ripped up so he left the area. From the campground there is no trail to get to where the miners dug tunnels and formed a small cluster of miners.

I did get out for part of the day today, but not for mulies in the cascades, as I got a late start, so my daughter and I just went into the nearby coast mountains, above the town of Hope, where the elusive deep woods blacktails (and sasquatch) hang out. It was drizzly and cloudy from 10AM to 2PM, then the clouds really socked in, and the rain got heavy enough that it wasn't worth stay in the high country, so we headed back downhill about 5000 ft to the highway and home. At the crest of the ridge we got into light snow, on the ground, and falling, but found no tracks in it. The only sign we found was some fresh bear scat below the snow line. I hope to get out again tomorrow, as the forecast is better, but have to be back by 5:30 for Thanksgiving dinner, so can't get too far afield.

We had a honey hole two miles out of town on private land that a herd would frequent during hunting season. Hunted there for about a decade and got some decent bulls... Then the elderly landowner leased out the land to a guy running cattle and he decided that we were no longer welcome. That was two years ago and nobody has gotten an elk since. Wolves have changed the elk's behavior and made them harder to hunt, along with impacting their numbers.

Washington Eastern Tag except Selkirk here is spike only. Selkirk herd (NE Wa) is any bull. Western tag is 3 pt or better. Why that is? No idea. The boundary is the eastern edge of Rainer NP. PNWexplorer- I hunted Idaho for many years. The wolves have pretty much wrecked me for paying out of state tags and licenses. It’s the same problem with the Selkirk herd. We hunt on the Idaho line. If you have a successful spot in Idaho? Great. I don’t. Now I didn’t shoot a spike above Naches. But we were in Elk everyday. It’s better than any hunting I ever did in Idaho. Selway and Frank. If I were you I would start putting in for a branch antlered bull tag for the Eastern Tag. You are virtually guaranteed a dandy bull if you draw. Rattlesnake. We were at 5000 feet. And he was curled up when I saw him on that rock. I poked him with a stick. He hissed and rattled put wouldn’t strike. He was lethargic. It was in the 40s and raining when I left and Stevens pass got snow. So I bet he is in a den by now. Ebikes. Quiet Kat promised me those bikes by Sept 12 for Wyatts archery hunt. No dice. My bike didn’t come til the end of muzzleloader and Wyatt brought it over. They sent the wrong trailer axle and so I cannot pull the trailer. I’ve since heard stellar things about Bakcou bikes. Like sending out by air freight a loaner bike to save a guys hunt whose motor went TU. Quiet Kat doesn’t have their act together. But the bikes themselves are impressive. We had about a 10 mile loop we were doing in steep terrain and we would have some battery life to spare. 20 percent. If it’s super steep you have to pedal and pin the throttle. If you can’t make it it has a walk feature. Where the bike walks along side you. The batteries take about 3 hours to charge on a smallish generator (2000w). Im 250 lbs and I can sit on my butt and not pedal and go uphill on a FS road at about 10-12 mph. Downhill I’m going about 25 mph. The batteries will also charge in my pickup on the dash 110 inverter. The brakes are hydraulic disc. Not traditional bike brakes. And I wanted the bafang ultra mid drive. It’s the torque king. And you can run it through your 9 speed unlike hub motors.

I've been considering going for elk in Washington, but I'm right on the border of Idaho, and all the good public elk hunting is a couple of hundred miles away in areas I'm not familiar with. So, $500 in license/tags to hunt with family where I grew up in Idaho, 30 miles away, or under $100 to hunt a couple of hundred miles away, alone, in unfamiliar territory?

I don't mind the giant photo dump, when it's that kind of great country! Spikes only for that area? Where I have hunted elk in the past, it has always been 5 point or better. I'm also curious about the Ebikes, I've had one on my wish list for a while. When you get the time, fill us in a bit on your experience with them, good or bad.

Just curious, what was the elevation and temps like? I would have thought that snakes would already be hibernating by this time that far north.

Beautiful area and fantastic pictures. How did you like the e-bikes are how are they on steep terrain (4th and 9th picture from the bottom)? I noticed the picture of the western rattlesnake-is it unusual to encounter one? In my middle picture, I have laid out snakeproof chaps that I use for off-trail use. I use gaiters by the same company (Turtleskin) for on-trail use.

IMG_1278.MOV IMG_1279.MOV Giant photo dump, sorry! Lots of elk, could have shot three branch antlered bulls. Forest is crawling with elk and sign. Never saw someone bolt a chair to a stump to hunt them. They are that regular here. Popular spot though. No bear sign and one old cougar track. Stark contrast to my neck of the woods. We heard one weird call one night. Kinda a scream yell? A fair amount of hunters in the woods so who knows?

Sometimes in the field you win and others times you come home empty. Returned today from an overnight. It was really windy and en route to a spot I wanted to stay, a dead branch from high up on a tree broke free, hit a low branch, spun, then hit the side of my face like a baseball club. Almost knocked me out. Cut and bloody, I decided to shorten my trek and get to a lean-to a mile away where I felt safe from falling objects. It was really strange. Howling winds during the day, at sunset the winds had died down, then picked back all up night long. It was a good call to stay at the lean-to as much as I wanted to continue on to one of my spots. I couldn't hear anything with the wind and likely couldn't have been heard. I built a fire and hoped to get lucky but nothing happened last night. Oh well, I strikeout a lot more than encounter things but am committed to keeping my line in the water.

Today is the first day of elk and deer season for firearms in Idaho. Hopefully we don't have any missing hunters come Monday.

I came across a beaver dam in a very small pond created by these engineering wonders. There is a creek which flows into it and one that flows out of it. I put a trailcam on both ends and should capture anything that enters the creek area. We'll see.

Cool track find! We were up there a few weeks ago, the park was packed so stealth camped at the end of the road in the refuge, don't tell anyone. Over here following day, which was packed also, at least 100 cars all down the road, last time there, had it to ourselves: Only sign of our quarry:

Last Saturday, I finally got out in the H3 to an area I hadn't visited in about 20 years. It involves a steep climb up one creek drainage, a traverse along a very rough ridgeline trail, and an even steeper descent down the next creek drainage to the north. Total distance is not much more than 10km (6.2mi), but it took from 11AM to 4Pm to drive that distance, with stops to check for tracks and scat. It was overcast and showery all day, with a smattering of snow along the 6,000 ft. ridge, but even the limited views were great, looking down on the Chilliwack River valley on one side of the ridge, and the Fraser Valley and the town of Chilliwack on the other side. A couple of washed out bear tracks were the the only signs of wildlife for the day.

Just got back from spending 2 weeks on the Maine Downeast coast. The coolest thing was on the rocks at the shore line. I think it was waiting for us to get there. It was about 7 ft. tall and quite a work of art like I've never seen. The only thing holding it together was gravity, two days later the wind kicked up to 40 mph! and blew "Poseidon" over: And then the wind toppled it over: