Field Trips

[hiflier]

I edited my post with a recalculation to a higher level but it still is off from 3,500 by quite a bit. Doesn't really matter but it was fun to estimate. That's why the time difference between you post and my edit. You got yours posted before I revamped the estimate. I don't like it when that happens so I thought I'd let you know why the discrepancy.

Edited May 18, 2016 by hiflier

[BC witness]

 Sun., May 15th, myself, Thomas, and MagniAesir got together for a trip up the logging roads in the vicinity of the famous 1940's incident at the Chapman farm. This sighting is one of the classics, and can be found in John Green's database, as well as in Chris Murphy and Thomas Steenburg's book "Sasquatch in British Columbia".

We hadn't been on the forest roads in the area since last summer, when the 2 main ones were quite busy with construction traffic for a twinning of the main power lines that run across the mountains. It was nice to see that the work is now finished in the 2 watersheds north of the Chapman place, and the roads are now much quieter, with no logging in those valleys, either. The downside, of course, is that the winter storms have done some damage to the roads, which probably won't be repaired until a new timber cut opens up, but that's why we drive 4x4s, right? Most of the blowdowns have been cut through by ATVers and 4x4ers where they were blocking the trails, so they weren't any real challenge, but each of the branches of the roads ended in washouts much too deep to attempt, even with Magni's short, very lifted old Jeep.

On the first Creek system, we explored all of the branches, stopping at the site of a report from a bear hunter of a large rock thrown across a swamp at him by a dark, upright creature, in Sep. of 2008, so that Magni could record a short interview with Thomas at the spot where he had found and cast tracks the day after the hunter had reported the incident to him. We found no evidence anywhere on those roads and cutblocks, other than a few piles of recent bear scat, and by the time we were done there, it was time for Magni to drive Thomas back home, so he could catch a few ZZZs before going on shift at 10PM.

I had no such obligation, so I said my goodbyes to the guys, and headed a few km further east, to the second FSR system. Conditions were much like those at the first Creek, though there was much more bear scat in evidence. I managed to get over the pass between the 2nd and 3rd  creeks, but at just 11km from where the 3rd Cr. FSR returns to pavement, came to a blowdown across the road, with a mudslide 80 meters further along, followed by a 5' deep x 15' wide washout just beyond that. I took that as a definite sign to backtrack the way I had come, call it a day, and head home for supper. Altogether, I cruised about 60km (40miles) of deteriorating logging roads today, so the truck and I are feeling a bit jostled and dusty.

Because of the quieter conditions in these 2 valleys this year, we will make a point of returning as often as possible to look for evidence, or better yet, some tracks with a Sasquatch still standing in them!

 

A few shots from the trip:

[hiflier]

Pretty rugged looking country there BC. Looking at some of the photos I was thinking if the cutters would leave a few trees then washouts might not be such a problem unless the rains are sudden deluges.

[BigTreeWalker]

Some beautiful big country there BC. At least it sounds like someone did some of the work on the blowdowns before you headed in there.

Hiflier, mostly it's the roads themselves that create the problem. When the culverts plug that usually results in a washout. That 1st picture of BC's you can see where the slide took the trees right with it.

[BC witness]

hiflier, a lot of the washouts are actually deliberately created by the logging companies when they finish cutting on a particular road system. They will remove a culvert, and/or cut a deep trench across the roadbed at a low spot, so the water will flow across the road, rather than along it, as is happening in pic 4 of my post #282. Sometimes these trenches are only a few hundred feet apart, making for lots of bumper scraping when driving through them. It's a lot cheaper for them to come back a decade or 2 later for more logging, and simply have to drop in a new culvert and a few loads of gravel at each of these spots, than to have to rebuild the entire road.

 

With regards to the intensity of rainfall here, it can often rain steadily for days, at a rate of 1 or 2 inches per day, and occasionally increase to rates of an inch or more per hour, which would create devastating flash floods in most other parts of the planet, but our terrain has been sculpted by millenia of this weather to handle this rate of flow. It's in areas where we have tried to impose our control on the flow that the real problems occur, taking out roads, dikes, and other infrastructure when the really big rains hit every few decades.

 

A couple of shots of these trenches:

Edited May 23, 2016 by BC witness

[hiflier]

Thanks guys. Never let it be said that I can't learn something new. The washouts being one of those details of learning. And you know something? Other members have now learned it as well! Much appreciated.

Edited May 23, 2016 by hiflier

[BC witness]

Always glad to be informative, hiflier. Those culverts in the last pic above are 1m (~40") in dia,, and that washout is 5' deep by 15' across. Also note the very rocky road surface in most of the photos, making it very hard to see tracks of any sort, unlike the roads at Blue Creek Mtn., in N. Cal., with their thick layer of soft soil and dust. We make a point of stopping to check out any damp areas along the way to look for prints. In post #282, photo 6, Thomas is standing beside the Jeep at a location where the brush behind him is in a very wet marsh, allowing him to locate and cast the tracks made by the rock thrower reported by the bear hunter back in Sep 2008.

Edited May 23, 2016 by BC witness

[BigTreeWalker]

BC, I've driven a road ditched like you described, dug out every 100 yards or so. In that case they weren't as deep as the ones they use to keep people out but I'm thinking just a means to keep the water from running down the road and creating ruts. Which is another bad thing that can happen to them. But it sure gets old fast driving up one of those. Of course in this case the payoff was worth it because that led to our 1st bone pile discovery.

[MichaelX]

I'll echo hiflier and say thanks for the informative posts BC and BTW!

 

A TIL moment as in Today I Learned...

[Guest SDBigfooter]

I was in the Sierras in the Mammoth Lakes area this past weekend and also made my way to Lovelock Cave for the first time.  Had a great time and would love to go back and check out the museum at some point.  Lovelock is 6 miles outside of town off a dirt road.  I found a mini owl cave near the mouth of the cave and made some new friends.  I also checked out the shores of Mono Lake.  Interesting to see so many different tracks.  There looked like some big cat tracks which I unfortunately didn't snap a pic of but lots of deer as well.  I was in a hurry so I didn't spend much time there but there were also some barefoot tracks

 

 

[BC witness]

Love the owls, SDB. Are the prints fresh, or fossilized?

 

Thanks for the report on an interesting site, it's a place I'd like to visit.

[BigTreeWalker]

Some beautiful country there SDB. Lovelock cave would be interesting to visit with all the controversy surrounding it. Interesting tracks and it looks like a peregrine falcon had some lunch.

[Guest SDBigfooter]

Thanks gentlemen.  I know its still a little cold and icy around Mammoth but I should be doing a nice backpacking trip into horseshoe meadow which is a beautiful spot I haven't been to for over 10 years.  I've done more of the crowded areas like devil's postpile and minaret falls enough so definitely want to go deeper where there are less people.  I will say for anyone that gets a chance to get into Yosemite that the whitewolf to soda springs hike is incredible.  I did it a few years back and always thought there was some strangeness to that hike.  Other than that simply gorgeous.  It runs you through Glen Aulin which to me is one of the area's best kept secrets...oops. 

 

The footprints are in the muddy areas on the shores of Lake Mono.  The closer you get to the water's edge, the muddier it gets.  Lots of tracks there of everything.  It was just funny for me to see that people had apparently gone barefoot through there because to me that seemed a little odd.  The smaller print was older but the larger one was fresh.

 

Lovelock was awesome.  There is only about an hour or two of things to do around the cave and believe me I got dirty in there checking out all the cracks and crevices.  To me it seems there may be more to find there because there is a lot of old plant material layers that looked like they hadn't quite been all the way searched.  Anyways, my guess is some old tule growth?  It's very dusty once you start really getting your hands dirty but anyways the town is very small and unassuming but there was a full bus and about 5 trucks coming back on the road while I was on my way out to the cave.  I had it all to myself with my brother.

 

The entire inside of the cave is charred black which fits the stories of it being burned out at some time.  Pretty interesting stuff and lots of mentions of you know what in the guest book near the cave by the sign from the pic I shared.  If you notice in the pic above the "Native Americans" is scribbled out.

 

Next time I'm up there I will check the museum.  I have a lot of family that happened to move to a small town around Sierraville between Tahoe and Reno.  None of them had heard of the cave and I certainly got them interested with my pics and the stories we have all heard.

 

Fun stuff.

[daveedoe]

A few pictures to enjoy from the past few days from the Olympic Peninsula and the Olympic National Park. My daughter rented us a cabin. My granddaughter and I did a little field trip into the forest looking for animals, animal tracks, plants and of coarse Bigfoot. The only tracks we found were deer and human.

 

We did see deer a bald eagle quite a few ravens, the ravens were entertaining squawking and flying through the forest, checking us out. I should have taken more time and headed up to the high country, maybe later this summer or fall. There are a couple of shots from Hurricane ridge looking south into the Olympic Mts. 

[BigTreeWalker]

Great pictures Dave. Hurricane ridge is a beautiful place to be on a nice day. When I was up there the deer were all over the place. Thanks, brings back some good memories. Was the cabin near there?