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My last backpacking trip this year was to Kings Canyon NP in late August. Did the Rae Lakes loop (counterclockwise). This was not a BF research trip and thus I did not bring any audio recorder or thermal imager. Nonetheless, I always kept my eyes and ears open for BF evidence given that BF presence was detected in 1968 at Bullfrog Lake (a lake side trip from the main loop trail) per the BFRO report link below. http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=2876 This area of KC is beautiful and the Rae Lakes loop trail is so popular that permits are required and there is a quota limit. So many people go thru this area every summer, that if BF was still present, we would hear more about it. I saw 3 bears during 5 days. Mother and cub up the Bubbs Creek trail and another down Wood Creek trail. On this trip, I finally made the switch from using a Garmin GPS unit to my i-phone using the Gaia GPS app. The topo maps obtained with the Gaia GPS app are much better than the Garmin maps and the iphone GPS appears to be more accurate than Garmin (when I tested both together earlier this year). The disadvantage of using i-phone is the short battery life. But I bought an Anker battery pack that can provide 5 full charges to my iphone.

I live in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Sasquatch Sightings have been reported all around but not in this county from what I can find. I had an encounter with something that has haunted my mind having visual flashbacks of it since it happened I'd: 1. Like to get off my chest where it will be taken seriously and not made fun of insultingly. 2. Like opinions on what others think it might have been, could have possibly been. Early September 2020 I was driving for Door Dash. No judgement on that please I was clearing an average of $800 a week and never worked more than 25 hours any of those weeks. I was doing that to transition from working 90+ hours per week to retiring from a 30 year career of working that many hours every week being an industrial mechanical engineer. I got dispatched to pick up from a local pizza shop and deliver it to a home in Panther Valley which is a fairly remote area. I arrived at the home which required driving on the home's private road that had a one-vehicle rickety old bridge that crossed Panther Creek. After I delivered I got back in my truck and did a half-horse shoe turn in reverse to face the bridge again and go back toward the main road, Panther Valley Rd. When I looked to my left out my drivers side window something was standing there staring at me maybe 10 feet away from my vehicle. All I could see was it's eyes since it was somewhere around 10:30pm at night and due to it being the remote area it was in there were no other lights except my vehicle's brake and headlights and whatever amount of light made me visible from my dash cluster. Whatever this thing was was humungous. My truck is a 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo with a 6 inch lift front and back with 38" tires on it so at the roof my jeep is 6 foot 4 inches tall and whatever this thing was was WAY taller than my jeep because I was looking UP at it as if I were looking up to return a stare down with Manute Bol. At a guess it's eyes were around 8 feet off the ground. I couldn't see it's shape at all. All I could see were it's not-perfectly round shaped eyes glowing in the dark staring at me. It was close enough that I could also see it's oddly shaped pupils. They were slightly slit like a cats eye but the points were horizontal instead of vertical and the pupils were also big and round in the middle. Because of how far off the ground this thing's eyes were and the shape of it's pupils I know (knew at the time) it was not a deer, horse, cow, bear, bull, goat, or bird hovering. I guess it could have possibly been a horse if it had it's neck stretched out and in the air as high as it could go? But again this things eye's were not horse' eyes are. There weren't any trees where this creature was so it wasn't a mountain lion or cat or bird in a tree. To this day I wish I would have pulled my flashlight out of my pocket and figured out what it was for sure. I knew whatever it was was a living creature because it blinked twice and quickly looked away then back at me again once and it's eyes swayed back and forth as if it was bipedal adjusting it's stance similar to how a wrestler or MMA fighter purposely doesn't stand still. It readjusted like that twice but otherwise stood dead still staring right back in my eyes at me. The expression in it's stare was as if it was thinking "Go ahead. Make a move.". It wasn't afraid of me at all because it seemed to know it was much stronger and capable than a human. After what seemed like maybe 3 minutes of both me and this creature staring in to each others eyes waiting for each other to make a move I drove off. When my brake lights went off from me releasing the brake it turned it's back to me and ran away. Where this all happened was in this homes dirt / turn around area that was maybe an 80 foot radius circle-shaped maybe 70 feet from the door of the home I delivered to. Anyone have any suggestions of what it might have been? I'd really like to get what it probably was settled in my mind. If I can.

Spent part of the day snow shoeing. Found a pair of Bigfoot tracks. Must have been snow falling out of a tree. They looked good! In places the snow is as high as a four strand barb wire fence. It was a work out!

It was probably a Morris costume with elbow extenders, hip waders and a football helmet. That's Ape hoaxing 101 you know!

Looked like a chimp to me. How did they find a guy that small and with arms that long to get in that suit?

Nice wheels...congrats with the new Jeep. It will confidently transport you hither and yon in the backcountry. There is plenty of time for add-ons and customizing your new rig. Just enjoy.

2022. Arrived a month ago yesterday. Got the plates on Friday. It's on its second tank of gas. There are upgrades in its future but first by bank account needs a breather 'cause along with this, I got Starlink and a new Sage fly rod. Time to put the brakes on for a month or two. In the mean time, I headed for the woods yesterday. Mostly fishin' but also keeping my eye open for tracks and running an audio recorder. It's about a month past the "hot time" for the area so it was no surprise that I heard / saw / smelled nothing at all. River crossing is via the white log. Sketchy but .. sketchy. The burn scar from a fire in 2008. Up on top above the ridgeline the burn continues. It is just over a mile to the top. I've spent a lot of time down in the shadow along the trail looking up into the timber with big glass .. spotting scope, 'nocs, and camera, but I haven't seen anything interesting in there yet. Nor have I heard anything. This is probably my favorite view. As a fishermen those pools look **good**. Can't get to them from the trail side though, there's a 15-30 foot drop-off into the water all along on my side. No way to get back out. The views are great. It's not that pleasant, though. By the time the river drops enough to fish the mosquitoes get real bad and by the time the mosquitoes back off the yellowjackets, then hornets, get going. There's always some kind of irritation. It's a nice place to hike in winter if you can get to the trailhead (snow). Also not a real safe place to camp because of the trees from that fire 14 years ago that are still falling. MIB

Bringing my requisite camp carbine; a Henry Black in .45 Colt with a weapon light and red dot. Great little rifle... On my hip at all times will be my Springfield Armory XD-M OSP Elite 3.8" 10mm loaded with 200 grain HSM "bear Loads". I'm the most dangerous thing in the woods, lol.

Heard two whoops today and some wood knocks. 🤷🏻‍♂️ I thought it might be loons but the 3 birds on the lake looked small for loons. I poked around while Wyatt fished. Caught all small rainbow…. Mystic lake, Moon lake, Browns lake. We got kicked off Browns lake. Fly fishing only. We did see a 6 pt bull go out past us in a pickup. Oct 1st I will be heading back in for muzzle loader Elk. Big burn in there. Lots of grass.

Got a dashcam going on that truck at all times? Might be a good thing for a guy who lives in sasquatch country.

We had some of that action on the Whipsaw run, though the toughest obstacles had bypasses that were a little less puckering. I definitely made good use of my skid plates and bump stops on a few occasions. Two of the guys are 4x4 bloggers, and took loads of video and drone footage that should be edited and posted in a week or 2, and I'll link to those when they're up.

Several members have drones and have tried them; unfortunately, they are impractical unless equipped with FLIR. because the camera cannot penetrate the tree canopy.

I got out for the day yesterday, to the eastern end of our large research area, to get a look at what damage the forest fires had done there in the last month. I had last been there in June, before the fires started, and was dreading what I might find on this trip. I was very relieved to see that the majority of the valley had been spared, though the far eastern end of the drainage had a fire ignite low in the valley, which had burned over the ridge into the next drainage east, and in fact was still being mopped up by several small fire crews, one of whom I had a chance to talk to for a bit, and to thank for the dangerous work that they do. That fire had reached another, which was much larger, and had started to the SE and climbed the back (east) side of the large mountain at the east end of the valley. I was able to follow the logging roads over to that side of the mountain, and was stunned by the vast burn on that side. There was still wildlife in "our" valley, as I saw a number of deer, some grouse, and a lot of cattle in the 6 hours or so that I was there. Being at the eastern extreme of our research area, this region is on the rain shadow side of the Coast range, so is much drier than the western slopes that we normally visit, and much more at risk for these fires. Here's a few shots from the day:

For some reason I kept getting an error the other day when trying to post my pics. Here are some of them.

We went out on a Whale Boat in the San Juan's which was the highlight Dave. Orca's and Bald Eagle's, beyond beautiful..

Beautiful pictures Bobby and biped! Bobby did you see any wildlife? I spent a couple days on Hood Canal, but wasn't able to get out in the forest, there was a fire up the Hama Hama recreation area. The air quality was to bad for me and my wife to go hiking. Been a crazy wildfire season for sure. I'm going to try and get out in the woods this September. Been a tough year for my health but I plan on getting healthy and getting back out there. Keep the field trips coming love them.

Some from WA earlier in the month. The Olympics and MRNP.

Thanks for those beautiful pics, and the excellent write-up, bipedalist. And thank you very much for your trail maintenance efforts, those great hikes don't happen without guys like you!

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.