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I decided to explore La Ventana Wilderness in Monterey County California in early April. There are only 4 BRFO reports (in the SSR database) for Monterey County in California but I have heard of other non-public reports. I have never visited this wilderness area before. Attached below is a Google Earth image snip with the 4 BFRO Reports plotted (3 orange dots and 1 yellow dot) to put in the context the route I took. I went backpacking into the Ventana Wilderness via the route shown in the attached map. It was a 3 nights and 4 days backpack. The first night was spent at Vicente Flat campground which was next to a creek. The campground had lots of people ~15. The second night was spent at Goat Camp (a beautiful location with creeks north and south and view of the ocean). Only saw 3 other people there. On the 3rd day, we took a long day hike to Cone Peak and back, and spent the last night at Limekiln creek. This is not a campground, but we crashed on a wash on the creek (see photo). We saw no large wildlife (deer, coyote, etc.). Did not even see squirrels! Saw snakes, bluebirds, and numerous other birds. I used my audio recorder the first 2 nights, and there were plenty of barred owls and other type of owls. No unusual sounds were detected. On the 3rd night by the creek, the creek sound was too loud to record anything so I did not record. I took my big thermal imager and tripod all the way up to Goat Camp and back and did not use it. I did not use it because my strategy was to keep it in my tent off until I heard some anomalous sound. Then I will turn it on, scan the area and mount it on tripod. Neither I nor my buddy (who does not believe in BF nor cares about looking for it) heard any weird sounds during all 3 nights. I did this trip because I wanted to explore deep into the Ventana wilderness and see the different ecosystems. We saw diverse types of vegetation (chaparral, cypress, live oaks, redwoods, sugar pines) and also grass and lupine meadows. There was plenty of water in those creeks up there. I saw no sign of BF in all in the areas we visited. I don't know if BF is still present in the coastal areas south of Monterey. This wilderness area gets lots of visitors in the spring (after rainy season and before the hot summer). The whole trail had poison oak all along the way. We took Tecnu and washed every time we thought we touched the plants. While I did not get any rash while I was there, I did get hit with a poison oak rash on my left arm after I got home. Whole left arm is full of blisters and swollen. Probably won't hike again in coastal areas with poison oak anymore since I am extremely allergic.

My son Rick and I got out for a full day yesterday. We spent the day exploring some of the old deactivated logging roads in the Chehalis Lake/River valley. The H3 got very muddy, and lots of pinstripes from the overgrown brushy trails. Once we left the main FSR, we had most of the trails to ourselves, only meeting 2 other vehicles in a 6 hour period. It looks like the bears are not out yet, as we found no tracks or scat, but there were lots of deer tracks. The weather was good all day, till about 5 PM, when some heavy black clouds rolled in, bring some rain, and a few snow flakes. It was great to share a day in the mountains with my son, and we both came away happy to have had the time out there.

This is Damon from Spokane, WA. I've been somewhat obsessed ever since my first sighting on a motorcycles about 12 years ago. I have since been on many expeditions and have had several more class A's as well as numerous howls, whoops, knocks etc. You can find me in Bluff Creek, Mt Hood national forest and the olympic peninsula. Just getting started in my new backyard of western washington and north idaho.

Ancient megafauna, a lot older than we are. Just my speculation.

Snow was not patchy this morning at my house...

Got out in the woods today! Snow is pretty patchy. Can’t wait for spring!

Yes remember some of the original discussion. Didn't the locations get in the first two seasons get busted? Season One was shot on a dude ranch. Lots of folks claiming that the cave with the poison gas in it is easily accessible. Season two's location seemed to have been discovered too. They had removed the numerous houses from their graphical map to make it look more rural. Dr Mayor will be fully aware of the shenanigans and the BS. Makes the idea that she is in this from a hard science and evidence perspective difficult to get on board with. A 'serious' scientist being so heavily involved in a show which cannot even be straight up about something as fundamental as location tells us how much folks want to be on TV.

Can one disagree and still be open minded?

I would think that after so long, you would be setting up some sort of remote camera system or even rigging an observation post in your house upstairs or in the attic where you could just lie in wait. you hear a slap, hit the switch and the lights come on or the cams start rolling.