norseman Posted June 23, 2013 Admin Posted June 23, 2013 (edited) norseman, My hypothesis for these "postholed" tracks in deep snow is a four-legged bounder. I've never read an account of them or seen photos that would rule that out for me. You say you didn't see any hoofprints or any evidence that a quadraped had broken gait. That's interesting, but still doesn't rule out a quadraped. A "bounding deer that was able to keep up that gait for a longer distance than norseman thought possible" is still more likely than a striding bigfoot. Coyotes, foxes, fishers, and maybe some other candidates might also be possibilities. Snow conditions could've prevented any identifiable hoof marks, or cause you to interpret them as 5 toes. While I cannot explain your experience to your or my satisfaction, that doesn't mean that bigfoot was the culprit. You say the prints were 8' apart and the snow was how deep? For a little "back of the cocktail napkin" figuring, I've got a 34" inseam and my stride on a "giant" step is about 4'. I could no way "posthole" if taking giant steps, however, unless the substrate was really shallow, e.g., < 1". If I was trying to posthole in a deep substrate, e.g., soft, knee-high snow, my stride would have to be much shorter, maybe only about 1.5'. Now if I run to increase my stride length I could come closer to 8' but my prints would be less likely to appear postholed. So if bipedal, those impressions were made by something walking, not running, and something that was lifting the knees up high on each stride, not stretching out to lengthen the stride. Here's some math for Saskeptic. I'm 6'2" (74") and my inseam is 34". On my normal stride on level ground, the toe-to-heel distance is 25". When I max out what I could "posthole" in knee-deep snow, that toe-to-heel distance is reduced to 15": 60% of my normal stride length. If the 8' distance of the prints in the track was measured toe-to-heel (and assuming a biped of Saskeptic proportion), the walking stride length would normally be 40% longer than 8', or about 134"(about 11'). So I've got a 34" inseam and a 25" stride. We're looking for the inseam of something with a 134" stride. My algebra skills are a bit rusty, but I come up a 182" inseam for that 134" stride. That's a biped that, if shaped like me, would enjoy a cooling breeze in its crotch 15' above the ground. Now my cocktail napkin analysis could have gone awry in several different places, so I'm not going to hang my hat on this and say: impossible! You'd need a bigfoot close to 30' tall to make those prints! But, have you considered just how tall a biped would have to be to have made the track you found? If the prints were really postholed, in deep snow, and really 8' apart, then we have to be considering a biped very much bigger than bigfoot is reported to be, right? This was no 7-footer, for sure. What do you think? I think I need to clarify, and I'm sorry if I have caused confusion. The picture that I have posted here REMINDS ME of my trackway that I observed with my father. The trackway that I have pictured above is from Keller Washington in 2008. http://www.bigfootencounters.com/sbs/keller-WA09.htm The snow was nine inches deep at Keller. I wasn't there, at Keller, but this Larry Bateson was: http://larrytheanimalguy.com/main.html The trackway I observed was in much deeper snow than nine inches, more like 3 feet. But we never measured the stride length........we had an axe because we were Xmas tree hunting that was all. This is more along the lines of what I observe when I see a Mule deer bounding: Along with the fact that Mule deer do not continue to bound for a very long ways. Nor is it very common with Mule Deer to only see one. But whatever, I've tracked Deer, Elk and Moose since I was 14 years old........all I can tell you is that it didn't look like any of them. I don't have the luxury of playing the odds.......like many of you chose to do. I have to discern which tracks are compelling and which tracks are easily identified OR a hoax. I feel that a bipedal "looking" track way in deep snow that does not break gait into a hooved quadraped at any time, is a compelling track way. Especially when it exhibits scale outside of that of a human OR a human wearing big feet stompers. This trackway went for three miles, does any one think that a lost Mule Deer in Minnesota bounding or stotted whatever you prefer for three miles? And if it's a hoax? How did they do it? http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2012/03/video-of-three-mile-trackway-in.html I understand completely the old stomper tied to the back of the pickup trick on a soft dirt road. Snow is a much harder medium to work in both for the vehicle and the stomper, and in many of these cases there is no evidence of a vehicle being any were around. Again, I find these snow track ways compelling...... Your mileage may vary...... I've even got proof!! Giant Bigfoots with little tiny feet and their coyote buddies roaming the countryside, smokin cigs, gifting and playin tic tac toe.....I'm on board It's too bad Saskeptic beat you to a scientific rebuttal of my assertions............too bad. But thanks for the straw man rebuttal anyhow..... Edited June 23, 2013 by norseman
Guest DWA Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 I don't think there is any four-legged bounder doing that in snow of that consistency and apparent depth.
Guest Cervelo Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 (edited) Norse, Your really off your game today...here ya go this might help ya... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man No science there just common sense. Humor, satire, ect...maybe but if you took it serious well that says a lot....I'm also kinda thinking you can count me out on Grendal project if we'er having this much trouble communicating each others intent....adding guns to the mix ain't gonna work for me. Good luck with your project! Edited June 23, 2013 by Cervelo
norseman Posted June 23, 2013 Admin Posted June 23, 2013 Norse, Your really off your game today...here ya go this might help ya... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man No science there just common sense. Humor, satire, ect...maybe but if you took it serious well that says a lot....I'm also kinda thinking you can count me out on Grendal project if we'er having this much trouble communicating each others intent....adding guns to the mix ain't gonna work for me. Good luck with your project! We are talking about a snow track way and your inserting jabs about me proving something..........Sasquatch playing tic tac toe, whatever. That's a straw man. Your lumping me in with people who proclaim bizarre stuff to make my position look bad.........and you can easily dismiss it. It's just a dishonest way to debate. And if you do not want to participate in my project, more power to you. I would add that you don't find anything credible anyhow, so I have no idea where you would find a starting point anyway to pursue it. Later. 1
dmaker Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 I don't think there is any four-legged bounder doing that in snow of that consistency and apparent depth. Then how would you explain it in light of Saskeptic's theory on the size required to make those tracks? You're not suggesting a 30' Bigfoot are you? So what would you suggest?
norseman Posted June 23, 2013 Admin Posted June 23, 2013 I don't think there is any four-legged bounder doing that in snow of that consistency and apparent depth. Then how would you explain it in light of Saskeptic's theory on the size required to make those tracks? You're not suggesting a 30' Bigfoot are you? So what would you suggest? Sas's computation is off, bless his heart. The eight foot strides were in 9 inches of snow. Being the mad mathematician that he is, I'm sure he will recompute the firing solution. 1
Guest Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 norseman, You should know that I find stories like yours compelling, too. Unless you're a complete Internet fraud, I'm happy to take you at your word that you are an avid outdoorsman who has stocked many a freezer thanks to his skills in identifying and tracking edible wildlife. I've mentioned Huntster a few times recently, and he was a similarly outdoorsy guy whose interest in bigfoot stemmed from a trackway he found in snow that he couldn't explain. These accounts are anecdotal and subject to the same types of competing explanations as any anecdotal account, but there's much higher confidence for stories like yours and Huntster's than for a typical "saw a bigfoot crossing the road" story. Please don't write off my cocktail napkin figgering as an attempt to belittle your experience, because it wasn't meant to be. I'm trying to get at some way we could apply some kind of analysis to what you witnessed. I think the key elements are the "posthole" effect and the stride length: how long would bipedal legs have to be to poshole in a substrate ____ deep with a stride length of ____? Do you agree that those are things we'd like to know to help estimate the size of a bipedal walker that hypothetically left the track?
Guest DWA Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 Well, I can say that sasquatch are reported to have a different stride - and stride length - from humans. So using computations scaled to human stride and stride length might not work here. I don't think there is any four-legged bounder doing that in snow of that consistency and apparent depth. Then how would you explain it in light of Saskeptic's theory on the size required to make those tracks? You're not suggesting a 30' Bigfoot are you? So what would you suggest? ^^^Above. Whatever made those tracks in that snow was big and heavy. I don't think a deer, coyote, rabbit etc. needs to 'bound' in that kind of snow; their normal four-legged transit will do just fine.
norseman Posted June 23, 2013 Admin Posted June 23, 2013 norseman, You should know that I find stories like yours compelling, too. Unless you're a complete Internet fraud, I'm happy to take you at your word that you are an avid outdoorsman who has stocked many a freezer thanks to his skills in identifying and tracking edible wildlife. I've mentioned Huntster a few times recently, and he was a similarly outdoorsy guy whose interest in bigfoot stemmed from a trackway he found in snow that he couldn't explain. These accounts are anecdotal and subject to the same types of competing explanations as any anecdotal account, but there's much higher confidence for stories like yours and Huntster's than for a typical "saw a bigfoot crossing the road" story. Please don't write off my cocktail napkin figgering as an attempt to belittle your experience, because it wasn't meant to be. I'm trying to get at some way we could apply some kind of analysis to what you witnessed. I think the key elements are the "posthole" effect and the stride length: how long would bipedal legs have to be to poshole in a substrate ____ deep with a stride length of ____? Do you agree that those are things we'd like to know to help estimate the size of a bipedal walker that hypothetically left the track? Sas, I want you to know something, your one of my favored forumites to discuss things with, and yes we have our disagreements sometimes. But I find your napkin figuring very cool, so no worries there. The Keller trackway had an eight foot stride or distance between steps and was in nine inches of snow. Oh.....I wouldn't lie to you bud, and my ranch is always open to you. But I'm not the best tracker in the world and I would certainly like to get better at it.
MIB Posted June 23, 2013 Moderator Posted June 23, 2013 DWA brings up a good question, one I was thinking of as I caught up on my reading. Saskeptic's "napkin math" assumes human stride. What does applying Patty's stride do the math ... help or hurt? How does it apply to post-holing? Would there be more "drag" in the same amount of snow or less? Look at the Memorial day footage ... jogging to running ... what do the feet do? What would that say about post-holing, foot drag in snow, etc? What other sources of information do we have that don't just apply "they're exactly like us but bigger", that change the mathematical assumptions of the model? MIB
Guest Cervelo Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 (edited) Well if you want to consider their knees work like this...but that might conflict with the PGF Edited June 23, 2013 by Cervelo
Guest Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 Well, if we take a look at some composite bigfoot art from Pete Travers, I think we can see that if anything bigfoots have proportionately longer torsos than humans. Take this guy, for example. That's a pretty typical looking bigfoot according to many reports I've read. The apparent inseam on this bigfoot is 29% of its height; my inseam is 46% of my height (and no, I don't appear to have freakishly long legs). A bigfoot proportioned like this one would have its crotch 15' above the ground in my silly example, but instead of a Saskeptic-proportioned 32' total height, its head would actually be grazing branches more than 50' high. Clearly, this is untenable. Let's reverse-engineer a bit. An 8' (96") bigfoot proportioned like the one above would have a 28" inseam. Proportioned like me, an 8' bigfoot would have a 44" inseam. Of all his full body drawings, this one from Travers looks to be the leggiest. Even that one, however, has legs 33% of its total height. That'd be a still-stumpy 32" inseam for the 8' total height. If my 34" inseam couldn't make the track, then no 32" inseam is going to do it either. Maybe Travers' artwork biases a bit toward a top-heavy, "Incredible Hulk" style. Let's try the famous William Roe bigfoot sketch (done by Roe's daughter). I get about 38% inseam/height, so an 8' Roe-proportioned bigfoot would have a 37" inseam. (Just for giggles because of all the difficulties of eyeballing measurements like this with foreshortening, etc., my estimates for Patty are all over the map, and all longer-legged than Travers' creations. My best guess is that Patty's inseam would be about 40% of her height, or a 38" inseam for an 8' height. {Near as I can tell doing this the same way and with the same limitations, Bob H's inseam looks to be about 44% of his height.}) Norseman provided information on a track of postholed prints in 9" snow with 8' (96") separating the prints. With my 34" inseam, I can't do that, and it's not even close. (Try it yourselves.) The biggest stride length I can manage (and no way could I keep this up for miles) while picking up my feet high enough to posthole in 9" is about 22". (The depth of 9" hits just below the middle of my shin.) My stride with a 34" inseam is 74" too short to have made the track, and my legs are longer in proportion to my height than those of any bigfoot. If I was a Traver's-style bigfoot (that would RULE!), my 34" inseam would still give me a stride 74" too short to make the track in question, but I'd be about 9'8" tall. So just how tall would a biped have to be to posthole in 9" of snow with prints 96" apart?
norseman Posted June 23, 2013 Admin Posted June 23, 2013 (edited) Well, if we take a look at some composite bigfoot art from Pete Travers, I think we can see that if anything bigfoots have proportionately longer torsos than humans. Take this guy, for example. That's a pretty typical looking bigfoot according to many reports I've read. The apparent inseam on this bigfoot is 29% of its height; my inseam is 46% of my height (and no, I don't appear to have freakishly long legs). A bigfoot proportioned like this one would have its crotch 15' above the ground in my silly example, but instead of a Saskeptic-proportioned 32' total height, its head would actually be grazing branches more than 50' high. Clearly, this is untenable. Let's reverse-engineer a bit. An 8' (96") bigfoot proportioned like the one above would have a 28" inseam. Proportioned like me, an 8' bigfoot would have a 44" inseam. Of all his full body drawings, this one from Travers looks to be the leggiest. Even that one, however, has legs 33% of its total height. That'd be a still-stumpy 32" inseam for the 8' total height. If my 34" inseam couldn't make the track, then no 32" inseam is going to do it either. Maybe Travers' artwork biases a bit toward a top-heavy, "Incredible Hulk" style. Let's try the famous William Roe bigfoot sketch (done by Roe's daughter). I get about 38% inseam/height, so an 8' Roe-proportioned bigfoot would have a 37" inseam. (Just for giggles because of all the difficulties of eyeballing measurements like this with foreshortening, etc., my estimates for Patty are all over the map, and all longer-legged than Travers' creations. My best guess is that Patty's inseam would be about 40% of her height, or a 38" inseam for an 8' height. {Near as I can tell doing this the same way and with the same limitations, Bob H's inseam looks to be about 44% of his height.}) Norseman provided information on a track of postholed prints in 9" snow with 8' (96") separating the prints. With my 34" inseam, I can't do that, and it's not even close. (Try it yourselves.) The biggest stride length I can manage (and no way could I keep this up for miles) while picking up my feet high enough to posthole in 9" is about 22". (The depth of 9" hits just below the middle of my shin.) My stride with a 34" inseam is 74" too short to have made the track, and my legs are longer in proportion to my height than those of any bigfoot. If I was a Traver's-style bigfoot (that would RULE!), my 34" inseam would still give me a stride 74" too short to make the track in question, but I'd be about 9'8" tall. So just how tall would a biped have to be to posthole in 9" of snow with prints 96" apart? I would have to assume (sorry Travis) that Sasquatch has a much longer inseam than we do.......why? Because their foot is so much larger than our own. If your inseam is shorter than a humans but your feet are twice as big? You would look like someone wearing flippers on a beach somewhere trying to walk. If your ten feet tall and have a (roughly 50%) 60 inch inseam I could see you making an eight foot stride. I just tried it with a 36" inseam next to my 6 foot couch and my step was over half the couch. I'm sure though if trying to step straight down that distance would be shorter. In the case of the Keller tracks, I think what we are seeing is that the front of the track is indeed dispersed abit, but the snow being granulated has simply fallen back down into the track. The tracks I saw where absolutely post holed, but again, we did not measure the distance, but the snow was much deeper than the Keller track way. Edited June 23, 2013 by norseman
hiflier Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 Hello All, The assumption here is a walking gait. What if it were not? http://www.arkive.org/verreauxs-sifaka/propithecus-verreauxi/video-06b.html
Guest Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 If your ten feet tall and have a (roughly 50%) 60 inch inseam I could see you making an eight foot stride. I just tried it with a 36" inseam next to my 6 foot couch and my step was over half the couch. I'm sure though if trying to step straight down that distance would be shorter. Okay, but you just gave your imaginary bigfoot a much longer inseam than anything in Travers' collection, the sketch of the William Roe bigfoot, Patty, or me. On what did you base your assumption that a 10' bigfoot has a 60" inseam? Next, you went about 40" with your 36" inseam, and this is, I assume, a toe-to-heel measurement that was comfortable for you to do, i.e., not a "giant step". The measurement seems too long to be toe-to-heel, however. My pace is just under 1m [~38"] toe-to-toe, but toe-to-heel - the distance measured between impressions in a trackway for measuring stride length - you need to subtract the length of your foot. This gives me a stride length in the neighborhood of 25 - 27", and I'd suspect yours would be not 40", but probably closer to 30". You state that this was without "post-holing" your steps. For me, post-holing reduces my stride length by about 25%, and I suspect it would for you too. That would give you about 23 - 25" for a post-holed stride length measured toe-to-heel with your 36" inseam. We'll be generous and say 25". Here's where the algebra comes in. If your 36" inseam gives you a 25" post-holed stride length, then what would a 60" inseam give you? Spoiler alert: the answer is 42"; well short of the observed 96" stride length, and this is with an inseam far longer than our best information on bigfoot proportions would predict even for a 10-footer. Now we could do some hand-waving about "biomechanics" and "allometry" that these crude approximations aren't capturing, but the fact remains that we're not even close to the observed stride lengths in the field. Hello All, The assumption here is a walking gait. What if it were not? http://www.arkive.org/verreauxs-sifaka/propithecus-verreauxi/video-06b.html Postulating an unexpected gait would be one way to potentially account for the discrepancy. I don't know of any accounts of bigfoots moving like sifakas though, how 'bout you?
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