Winter - Where Do They Go

[SWWASAS]

 

 

 

You are correct there are some winter sightings.

 

Alaska is big, for sure.  There are 5703 general aviation aircraft in Alaska (thanks Google).  There is a saying up here, that 10% of aircraft do 90% of the flying, I happen to agree.  That means 570 probably fly about 100 hours a year, some more.  The other 90% who knows, we won’t even count them.   I think 100 hours a year is a good average though.   That’s comes to 57,000 flight hours annually of general aviation pilots flying this state from one end to the other looking out the window as they go.   Most planes have at least 2 seats, that’s a second pair of eyes – looking out the window.   The see every kind of wildlife the state has, winter and summer.   I just don’t hear about BF sightings from the air, yes there have been a few, but not many.   How come?   It just doesn’t add up.   Law of averages pilots should have the bulk of reports.   Even though Alaska is vast, in reality not much of it is unseen.   A flight of 57,000 flight hours – looking out the window, cannot be shrugged off.   

How often through the year is there heavy cloud cover though when visibility is low to non existent to see spot trackways from 10,000/20,000ft in the air ?

 

 

 

I flew into Anchorage about once or month or more for many years.    In the winter heavy fog and overcast is so common that arrivals were usually IFR with low ceilings and fog in the Anchorage area.   It is unnerving to descend in there in the clouds when you know how much high terrain is East of there.    You hope the controller does not descend you early and run you into the ground.  .    So light aircraft are not doing much flying there in the winter.   No one is seeing much of  anything from the air in the winter months.   Even though I have searched for BF from the air and have dozens of hours doing it, only one time have I seen what might have been a BF.      I think they hide from airplanes too.   What I saw let me fly by and it moved around the backside of some trees to get them between me and it.  It was big, on two feet, and wanted to hide from me.    A human would have been waving.    The only way you can see a BF from the air is if you catch it in the open as did.       I think aerial search might have more chance for success in the intermountain West where the tree density is much less and there are more open spaces.    Eastern Oregon,  Eastern Washington,   Idaho, and Montana would be good areas.      In Alaska and the PNW the trees are too dense to see down through them. 

 

  My comment was about trackways in the winter and those trackways are well away from areas where humans are active.          To answer Gotta Know they seem be going someplace, are not particularly in the woodlines or I would not see them from the air.   If they or anyone are in the trees they are for the most part unable to be seen from the air.      And finally with all honesty,    while you can see the trackways and assume they were not made by humans because of the remote areas they are found in,  with no vehicles and tire tracks on roads in miles,    you cannot in all honestly differentiate between human footprints and bigfoot prints from the air.   Size in snow is meaningless from the air because once any melt starts a footprint gets bigger in snow.    And you certainly cannot tell from the air if a footprint has toes or is made by a boot.      Vehicles are a sure indication from the air that humans are present anywhere in an area.     They and their tire tracks in snow are easy to spot.    If the surrounding roads are snow covered with no tire tracks,  you can reasonably assume that no humans are in the area unless you have some sort of mountain man that does not have a vehicle.   It is hard to explain the lack of roads to people not familiar with Skamania County.     There are very few roads to begin with, and in the winter most are closed.   

 

Anyway when we get a clear sunny day I will get over there in the remote areas and photograph some track ways.        I wish I had a helicopter and could get over there and land.     It could be that some migration routes could be discovered comparing photographs of those track ways year to year.     That might be a study I could start and run several years.     But there is no reason that winter migration routes would have any relationship to presence in the other months when you can get in there on foot.     Another idea I just had is if there are a bunch of footprints in areas where there are lava flows, lava tubes,   and possible caves,   their footprints might lead you right to their winter dens.       That might have some potential.        

 

I don't know where you get your facts, but you have some messed up info.   Anchorage/Lake Hood is the largest general aviation facility on the planet.  Over 500 float pond slips alone for float aircraft.   I checked, and feel free to check as well 45000 general aviation flight operations a year off of Lake Hood.   The weather is not always bad, there are lots of Visual Flight Rule (VFR) days.  I checked on that too, an average of 21 days a month ANC is VFR.  Fairbanks even more days.  Most aircraft on Lake Hood put ski's on in the winter, because they fly in the winter.   A blanket statement that very little flying going on up here in winter is crazy.

I never said anything about spotting anything from 10 or 20 thousand feet in the air, hell you would be lucky to see a bus from that height.  I said 1000 ft agl.

 

I was referring to Alaska on my comments not PNW, Chicago or Florida.

 

Alaska has too many tress to see down through, what are you talking about?   Above tree line there are no trees and you can see down throw most of the trees in winter no leaves.  It's not a rainforest in the interior.   Tundra areas have very few trees there is millions of square miles of tundra.

 

 Fish and Game has no trouble doing aerial surveys to count bears, moose, sheep or what ever less they care to count from the air.  

Counts are accurate enough to set bag limits and seasons for hunters.   

 

You can banter about this till you blue in the face, the fact is there are a whole bunch of folks up here with the opportunity to see "something" and they are reporting nothing.   It's either a big secret and they don't tell anyone, or they don't see anything.   We don't have many lava tubes handy for BF to hide in.  Brings me back to my original statement, where are they going in the winter?   I think it's a good question.  It's obvious to me BF are leaving the area before heavy snow, how they do I don't know.   

 

Maybe they are not seeing anything from the air because there is not much to see.    Alaska is not a bigfoot sighting hotspot and  the few sightings are along the coastal areas where the temperature is more moderate.  BFRO data:    Total Alaska bigfoot sightings ever are 22.    Total Washington State Sightings 618   Total Oregon Sightings 242.     Now where would one expect to find footprints in the snow?    Not Alaska.        Above the tree line?    BF rarely breaks cover and ventures above the treeline.    Why would it do that, there is nothing up there it wants?     Deer, water, etc are all down in the lower elevations.   Moose are wandering around downtown Anchorage.     Fly into Alaska in the winter and all the airplanes parked outside are covered with canvas covers.   Go to the airport right now and look around.    I get my facts from having been there.   

Edited February 16, 2016 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[Lake County Bigfooot]

The fact that there are not more snow print finds should tell us several things, they are not moving around a whole lot, and two they are not generally near places people are going in the winter months. I think it is the combination of finding very secluded areas and moving around at a minimum and living off of the fat they build up in the fall. Just like bears they do tend to come out the winter stupor and move around from time to time, but I think they mostly remain inactive for long periods. Sometimes the winter prints almost suggest that the creatures are disoriented or a bit out of it, other times it seems they are clearly hunting. If it is a warm winter I think their activity levels stay fairly high, the colder it gets I think the more they tend to hunker down. Of course that is purely a subjective opinion, but most of the track finds I have heard of were not during the coldest period of winter, during a thaw, or just before a deep freeze, during a heavy snow, it seems to be more about the change in the weather, and however that relates to them moving around, whether for food or better shelter.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Lake County Bigfooot

[norseman]

There are reports summer/fall of BF sightings here.  But very little in the winter, there are some, but the vast majority is when snow is gone.  Where do BF go?   They go somewhere.  I would think mountain pass routes would be used and not climbing over the Alaska Range from the interior would be prudent.   Around 2800 feet is tree line in the central Alaska Range, if I was a BF I would not go above tree line you would be seen in very short order.   That leaves traveling in along rivers in riparian habitat south, or staying in the boreal forest for cover.  Checking the map, (thanks Google Earth) the Alaska Hwy does that very thing.   That could mean there should be more sightings on that route than others.   Ha, this BF stuff is easy.  I checked reported sightings along the Alaska Hwy vrs the rest of the state.   All I can report here is there is a conglomeration of web sites and reports and my head was spinning by the time I looked at two web sites.   I suspect, that theory doesn’t hold true.  

 

When you play the game of connect the dots at some point things should start to make sense and straight lines should appear.   Not the case here.

I understand where you're coming from no doubt but for me, as there are reports from winter, that goes to show that they don't necessarily go nowhere.

We have to go back to the old "For a Sighting, you need a person".

Admittedly I have no experience of an Alaskan winter but I can't imagine there are too many people out in winter there as there would be in summer or at other times of the year anyway.

Flying, yeah ok tracks can be spotted from the air, trackways can, but I wouldn't personally bank on a lack of reports by pilots leading me to believe that Sasquatches aren't there, especially not when we are talking about an Alaska with 129 million forested acres.

David Badorf (sp??) of the squatchers lounge podcast had a nice map of migratory patterns for the suspected prey animals for sasquatches (for PNW area).

It seemed at least plausible that, if they are corporeal animals, they might shadow those migratory routes.

I'm not in snow country but would that offer any sort of solution to the lack of discernible prints?

Supposing that they are moving with or just a bit in front of the animals as they migrate to winter grazing? I think that would take care of food, I'm curious about whether that might mask prints. Shelter is another matter altogether though, no idea at all how that would work if they were moving along the routes.

 

I think they're mythological, just to be clear, but I did think that Badorf (?) had an interesting idea.

I tried to look for that map but with no joy, do you know where he posted it or have you got a link please ?

It's Batdorf by the way.

Hey Bobby,

It was during one of the squatchers lounge podcast shows. I don't recall the season and Kelley loves using clickbait for his episode titles so trying to go back is tricky. I think it was season 2 and they were discussing migration and or sasquatch moving ranges seasonally.

So noted. But come on, you wouldn't be here unless you held a little bit of hope that they just might be real, right?

 

Just playin'. Carry on.

I think they're mythological, just to be clear, but I did think that Badorf (?) had an interesting idea.

I'm really into the sound recordings. The audio is just cool. The idea of a giant that hasn't left a trace in say, 50,000 years of residing in, seemingly, all of north america is sorta silly when you look at it logically.

 

It would be very very cool to be completely wrong about that though. In the meantime the audio is great campfire creepy pasta type fodder

I dont think its any more silly than the idea of little hobbits running around the jungles of Micronesia. At least until they found bones very recently....no one is laughing anymore.

Just read that study in France has confirmed the skulls of the hobbit were healthy and not modern human.

The day someone finds a giant primate bone/fossil in a cave somewhere in North America sasquatch will be plausible. Until then it's supposition based special pleading. IMO Special pleading because of all the excuses which have to be made to explain why the things never leave traces, avoid detection by game cameras, etc, etc, etc....

 

That said, IF someone digs up a fossil....whole new ballgame.

Maybe.

A couple of thoughts.... were there local legends of little people in the jungle? Yes. When did we find these bones? About five to ten years ago. How old are the bones? 15000 years old.

But Science scoffed at this 30 years ago. Nothing was taken seriously. And if you were looking for this creature 20 years ago you were a cryptozoologist. But now? Thats all changed. I said maybe earlier because the question about the hobbit being extinct vs extant is still open to interpretation and searching.....

It seems odd to me that whatever archiac homonid the hobbit is? And looking at the distribution of archiac bipedal homonids worldwide? We supposedly are the only ones to make it to the new world? And keep in mind that science says the hobbit had to boat to Flores island.

I truly believe we have a lot left to learn about human origins.

[Yuchi1]

^^^ Plussed.

[FarArcher]

^^^^

This.

[Rockape]

Maybe Alaska is just a summer vacation spot for them & they go south in the winter.....

 

I hear most have a home in Key West

[Guest Crowlogic]

They must portal back every now and then to account for the winter sighting reports. That, or people are just making stuff up as usual.  You would think a bigfoot would be pretty easy to track in deep snow.

They have to do it on a a time share since it costs a lotta deer meat to swing a full season

[Lake County Bigfooot]

I am frankly sick of winter...

[Incorrigible1]

I am frankly sick of winter...

Calling for mid-60s Thursday, Friday, Saturday here in Omaha. You'll probably see that early next week.

[Bodhi]

 

 

 

There are reports summer/fall of BF sightings here.  But very little in the winter, there are some, but the vast majority is when snow is gone.  Where do BF go?   They go somewhere.  I would think mountain pass routes would be used and not climbing over the Alaska Range from the interior would be prudent.   Around 2800 feet is tree line in the central Alaska Range, if I was a BF I would not go above tree line you would be seen in very short order.   That leaves traveling in along rivers in riparian habitat south, or staying in the boreal forest for cover.  Checking the map, (thanks Google Earth) the Alaska Hwy does that very thing.   That could mean there should be more sightings on that route than others.   Ha, this BF stuff is easy.  I checked reported sightings along the Alaska Hwy vrs the rest of the state.   All I can report here is there is a conglomeration of web sites and reports and my head was spinning by the time I looked at two web sites.   I suspect, that theory doesn’t hold true.  

 

When you play the game of connect the dots at some point things should start to make sense and straight lines should appear.   Not the case here.

I understand where you're coming from no doubt but for me, as there are reports from winter, that goes to show that they don't necessarily go nowhere.

We have to go back to the old "For a Sighting, you need a person".

Admittedly I have no experience of an Alaskan winter but I can't imagine there are too many people out in winter there as there would be in summer or at other times of the year anyway.

Flying, yeah ok tracks can be spotted from the air, trackways can, but I wouldn't personally bank on a lack of reports by pilots leading me to believe that Sasquatches aren't there, especially not when we are talking about an Alaska with 129 million forested acres.

David Badorf (sp??) of the squatchers lounge podcast had a nice map of migratory patterns for the suspected prey animals for sasquatches (for PNW area).

It seemed at least plausible that, if they are corporeal animals, they might shadow those migratory routes.

I'm not in snow country but would that offer any sort of solution to the lack of discernible prints?

Supposing that they are moving with or just a bit in front of the animals as they migrate to winter grazing? I think that would take care of food, I'm curious about whether that might mask prints. Shelter is another matter altogether though, no idea at all how that would work if they were moving along the routes.

 

I think they're mythological, just to be clear, but I did think that Badorf (?) had an interesting idea.

I tried to look for that map but with no joy, do you know where he posted it or have you got a link please ?

It's Batdorf by the way.

Hey Bobby,

It was during one of the squatchers lounge podcast shows. I don't recall the season and Kelley loves using clickbait for his episode titles so trying to go back is tricky. I think it was season 2 and they were discussing migration and or sasquatch moving ranges seasonally.

 

 

So noted. But come on, you wouldn't be here unless you held a little bit of hope that they just might be real, right?

 

Just playin'. Carry on.

I think they're mythological, just to be clear, but I did think that Badorf (?) had an interesting idea.

I'm really into the sound recordings. The audio is just cool. The idea of a giant that hasn't left a trace in say, 50,000 years of residing in, seemingly, all of north america is sorta silly when you look at it logically.

 

It would be very very cool to be completely wrong about that though. In the meantime the audio is great campfire creepy pasta type fodder

I dont think its any more silly than the idea of little hobbits running around the jungles of Micronesia. At least until they found bones very recently....no one is laughing anymore.

Just read that study in France has confirmed the skulls of the hobbit were healthy and not modern human.

The day someone finds a giant primate bone/fossil in a cave somewhere in North America sasquatch will be plausible. Until then it's supposition based special pleading. IMO Special pleading because of all the excuses which have to be made to explain why the things never leave traces, avoid detection by game cameras, etc, etc, etc....

 

That said, IF someone digs up a fossil....whole new ballgame.

Maybe.

A couple of thoughts.... were there local legends of little people in the jungle? Yes. When did we find these bones? About five to ten years ago. How old are the bones? 15000 years old.

But Science scoffed at this 30 years ago. Nothing was taken seriously. And if you were looking for this creature 20 years ago you were a cryptozoologist. But now? Thats all changed. I said maybe earlier because the question about the hobbit being extinct vs extant is still open to interpretation and searching.....

It seems odd to me that whatever archiac homonid the hobbit is? And looking at the distribution of archiac bipedal homonids worldwide? We supposedly are the only ones to make it to the new world? And keep in mind that science says the hobbit had to boat to Flores island.

I truly believe we have a lot left to learn about human origins.

 

Oh most certainly there's loads to learn. For me, if anything, the discovery of the hobbit is another nail in the coffin for sasquatch for the reasons below.

Science demands evidence and evidence was produced. The evidence was critically examined and so were the claims of the scientists who made the discovery. The claims withstood examination and were accepted.

 

Something to ponder:

The Smithsonian didn't "hide" the skeletons. Certainly this find unsettles the status-quo and yet, you don't read the conspiracy theories about the hobbits that I read here regarding "giants".

 

The dna results/bones weren't "lost" or "stolen", etc...

 

Suspicious that all these weird calamities with sasquatch evidence only seems to happen in the cryptid fields of research? Smells a lot like excuses and special pleadings to me. Anyway this is probably off topic. Sorry OP

Edited February 17, 2016 by Bodhi

[norseman]

^^^^^^^^

I see it the other way.

Science got its evidence, but it wasnt the predicted hypothesis. Neanderthals died out 35000 years ago leaving us as sole survivors of hominids. Then the hobbit was discovered because someone evidently took ebu gogo legends seriously. And history had to be rewritten.

So what does this discovery do for other hominid myths? Well it makes them more plausible. Albeit evidence is still needed.

That Sasquatch bone could still be out there in American or Canadian wilderness I believe. Or it could be in a misidentified box in a basement somewhere. Species are discovered occasionally that way as well.

[dmaker]

 

 

 

There are reports summer/fall of BF sightings here.  But very little in the winter, there are some, but the vast majority is when snow is gone.  Where do BF go?   They go somewhere.  I would think mountain pass routes would be used and not climbing over the Alaska Range from the interior would be prudent.   Around 2800 feet is tree line in the central Alaska Range, if I was a BF I would not go above tree line you would be seen in very short order.   That leaves traveling in along rivers in riparian habitat south, or staying in the boreal forest for cover.  Checking the map, (thanks Google Earth) the Alaska Hwy does that very thing.   That could mean there should be more sightings on that route than others.   Ha, this BF stuff is easy.  I checked reported sightings along the Alaska Hwy vrs the rest of the state.   All I can report here is there is a conglomeration of web sites and reports and my head was spinning by the time I looked at two web sites.   I suspect, that theory doesn’t hold true.  

 

When you play the game of connect the dots at some point things should start to make sense and straight lines should appear.   Not the case here.

I understand where you're coming from no doubt but for me, as there are reports from winter, that goes to show that they don't necessarily go nowhere.

We have to go back to the old "For a Sighting, you need a person".

Admittedly I have no experience of an Alaskan winter but I can't imagine there are too many people out in winter there as there would be in summer or at other times of the year anyway.

Flying, yeah ok tracks can be spotted from the air, trackways can, but I wouldn't personally bank on a lack of reports by pilots leading me to believe that Sasquatches aren't there, especially not when we are talking about an Alaska with 129 million forested acres.

David Badorf (sp??) of the squatchers lounge podcast had a nice map of migratory patterns for the suspected prey animals for sasquatches (for PNW area).

It seemed at least plausible that, if they are corporeal animals, they might shadow those migratory routes.

I'm not in snow country but would that offer any sort of solution to the lack of discernible prints?

Supposing that they are moving with or just a bit in front of the animals as they migrate to winter grazing? I think that would take care of food, I'm curious about whether that might mask prints. Shelter is another matter altogether though, no idea at all how that would work if they were moving along the routes.

 

I think they're mythological, just to be clear, but I did think that Badorf (?) had an interesting idea.

I tried to look for that map but with no joy, do you know where he posted it or have you got a link please ?

It's Batdorf by the way.

Hey Bobby,

It was during one of the squatchers lounge podcast shows. I don't recall the season and Kelley loves using clickbait for his episode titles so trying to go back is tricky. I think it was season 2 and they were discussing migration and or sasquatch moving ranges seasonally.

 

 

So noted. But come on, you wouldn't be here unless you held a little bit of hope that they just might be real, right?

 

Just playin'. Carry on.

I think they're mythological, just to be clear, but I did think that Badorf (?) had an interesting idea.

I'm really into the sound recordings. The audio is just cool. The idea of a giant that hasn't left a trace in say, 50,000 years of residing in, seemingly, all of north america is sorta silly when you look at it logically.

 

It would be very very cool to be completely wrong about that though. In the meantime the audio is great campfire creepy pasta type fodder

I dont think its any more silly than the idea of little hobbits running around the jungles of Micronesia. At least until they found bones very recently....no one is laughing anymore.

Just read that study in France has confirmed the skulls of the hobbit were healthy and not modern human.

The day someone finds a giant primate bone/fossil in a cave somewhere in North America sasquatch will be plausible. Until then it's supposition based special pleading. IMO Special pleading because of all the excuses which have to be made to explain why the things never leave traces, avoid detection by game cameras, etc, etc, etc....

 

That said, IF someone digs up a fossil....whole new ballgame.

Maybe.

A couple of thoughts.... were there local legends of little people in the jungle? Yes. When did we find these bones? About five to ten years ago. How old are the bones? 15000 years old.

But Science scoffed at this 30 years ago. Nothing was taken seriously. And if you were looking for this creature 20 years ago you were a cryptozoologist. But now? Thats all changed. I said maybe earlier because the question about the hobbit being extinct vs extant is still open to interpretation and searching.....

It seems odd to me that whatever archiac homonid the hobbit is? And looking at the distribution of archiac bipedal homonids worldwide? We supposedly are the only ones to make it to the new world? And keep in mind that science says the hobbit had to boat to Flores island.

I truly believe we have a lot left to learn about human origins.

 

There is a difference between scoffing at something and passing because something does not pass the evidence sniff test. There just isn't enough hard evidence to warrant a serious look by science. And that has not changed in 50 years.

[norseman]

^^^^^^

By your logic then? The hobbit should have failed the sniff test as well. They were completely unexpected. And the west had known about the legends as long as we have known about Sasquatch roughly.

[Guest freelygiven]

I understand where you're coming from no doubt but for me, as there are reports from winter, that goes to show that they don't necessarily go nowhere.

We have to go back to the old "For a Sighting, you need a person".

Admittedly I have no experience of an Alaskan winter but I can't imagine there are too many people out in winter there as there would be in summer or at other times of the year anyway.

Hello fellas: I may be new to this, but  it makes sense that there would be proportionally fewer encounters in inclement weather and on snow-covered terrain. Witness me sitting here in my recliner, and it's only raining out. Admittedly, this is the extent of my experience, but from what I see on TV, they just seem to stay home, like most of the rest of us, but what do I know? Interesting discussion, though.

[ShadowBorn]

That Sasquatch bone could still be out there in American or Canadian wilderness I believe. Or it could be in a misidentified box in a basement somewhere. Species are discovered occasionally that way as well.

 

Or in some ones basement who has no idea what it might be but scared to turn it over. Collecting dust in the back of a museum. 

 

These creatures must fatten up before winter, so there must be more deer kills in the fall or deer lost by hunters during these seasons. I have seen tracks in the winter in Michigan with other researchers. I have also seen tracks on trails where people walk a lot on which surprisingly seems to hide their tracks. Ridges are the best places and off the beaten path of lakes in the winter. If they were to sleep in areas I would say the pines where it is dry underneath where most deer bed down in the winter as well as elk. But again this is just my opinion and it does not mean much to most of you.