Leaderboard

I grew up 80 miles South of Coeur D'Alene and moved back here a few years ago. Most beautiful country you will find. However, it's been sad to see that area get invaded by Californians and change from a sleepy resort town to San Diego. Spokane is referred to as Spokompton or Spokanistan. I would never live in either town. I would look a little further North in Sandpoint or Bonner's Ferry. The increased snow has kept the California invasion to a minimum. My company has a field office in Spokane. We have dozens of such offices all over the country and world. The most problems we have with theft and homeless is by far at the Spokane office. My favorite place in the world to fish is on the Coeur D'Alene river for Cutthroat trout near Kingston, ID. It's 125 miles from my house, and the worst part of the drive is getting through CDA with all of the California refugees.

There are two pieces to that ... clearly modern human (Homo sapiens sapiens) by the markers used for that identification, but by comparing mitochondrial mutations, there were a set of mutations shared with current African populations, a set of mutations common to all current African populations that are missing in Khwit's DNA, and additional mutations in Khwit's DNA not found in modern Africans. Mito mutations are added at a pretty steady rate, a sort of heartbeat, so by comparing what is shared, what is missing, and what is unique to Khwit & family, it isn't too hard to put a ballpark timeline of when their ancestors were last mixing genes with the folks who stayed in Africa. We believed that the Sahara provided a substantial barrier to migration north out of Africa, but we are learning that not that long ago, 5000 years or so, that area was much more wet. Archeologists considered the Sphinx to be roughly the same age as the pyramids. The Sphinx shows some signs of water erosion not present on the pyramids. Indications now seem to suggest the Sphinx could be about twice as old and date to the time when the Sahara was tropical rain forest .. jibing with the erosion, perhaps. There's some indication that the Nile used to have a branch that went west quite a long ways and drained the area south of the Atlas (?) Mountains (sorry, my African geography is weak). Anyway ... Zana/Khwit DNA could support paradigm shifts in our understanding of the "out of africa" migrations.

I currently live in the northern panhandle near Sandpoint,ID. I am always looking for folks who are serious about field work. Feel free to send me a PM or email.

I've been giving some consideration to moving to the northern Idaho area where western Montana and eastern Washington State are a day trip. Coeur d' ALene looks good as it is a city with a population mass to support commerce and is close (enough) to Spokane and the Flathead Lake Region. Does anyone have any thoughts about this area as far as how the economy? How about the sasquatching opportunities in this general area--are they good?

Drove some backcountry farm roads today testing out my new tires. Lots of mud and fresh tracks, but all belonged to deer and coyotes. Tires performed amazingly well, though.

Not in detail. They are there, but if I recall correctly, they were not noticed in the older tests that just separated human from chimp from gorilla, etc, the testing had to be refined once the existence of "something else" was noticed and a way to screen for one vs the other found and incorporated. We would most likely face the same issue with sasquatch. We're not going to detect them using the existing species ident tests, we're going to need the full genome first, then we can find specific loci to test on to differentiate and develop a more specifically detailed test than we have now. .. that is, assuming they are very closely related to us. If they are not, then the presence of something novel will either jump out screaming for attention or be missed as garbled / degraded / grossly contaminated and thus ignored. It's hard to say which of those extremes we're at right now with any scientific certainty. Opinions, sure, science, no. MIB

A good friend moved to Priest Lake several years ago. He and his large family are very happy there. He is one of the finest men I've ever known......quite literally a rocket scientist (missile defense engineer). He now manages a significant federal facility in the region. While here in Alaska he was an adventurous outdoorsman, and he tells me that the outdoors opportunities around his new home are quite satisfying. One of the nice aspects of such an area that I miss as an Alaskan was illustrated by Airdale above: you can drive to so many places so quickly and easily, both urban and remote. It's four long, hard driving days for me to reach northern Idaho (over 2000 miles), and through a foreign nation who won't allow me to carry weapons without significant intrusion, documentation, fees, etc. While Alaska's remoteness has its advantages, its island-type political and geographical attributes definitely have its disadvantages, too............

Make sure you check that the brakes disengage the motor every time you ride. I rented an electric bike in Maine and it took me into a 4 foot ditch because the motor did not disengage when I applied the brakes. Broke a rib in a couple of places and cut me up pretty bad. I looked like I had just been in a bar fight. I hit the gravel enbankment doing nearly 30 MPH. I went over the handlebars and then the bike hit me in the back when it came down. The pain was something for a few days. Good thing I was on a cruise and had free booze to kill pain.

There also could be some good things said about having a routine that a BF may get familiar with enough with to feel perhaps less and less threatened? Almost along the same lines as habituation. Didn't a guy named Morgan put out a pamphlet or small guide book on that idea? Ummm, hold on. Yep here it is: Bigfoot Observer's Field Manual

Most of the time I am quiet and listening once it becomes dark. I will often, but not always, leave camp after sunset but before total darkness and spend an hour or two at a location I've decided on earlier in the day. There, I will sit quietly, be still, and listen for any noise the forest gives me. A thermal imager will be with me and I will be scanning the woods and focusing on areas I hear movement or other sound. At some point during the night, I will do a single wood knock and just listen for a response. When I've decided that being away from camp is not paying dividends, I'll head back and then quietly do normal camp activities for the remainder of the evening. I probably need to change my evening agenda and try new approaches. It's easy to stick to the same protocol rather than try new, fresh ideas.