Historic News Article by The Portland News 1924

[Whistler]

Found this old article clip online, and I didn’t see it posted on here. I love old stuff like this! Let me know what y’all think..

 

Cheers!

[SWWASAS]

This is the media report of the Mt St Helens Ape Canyon event.   The miners were from Kelso.    The same event that the US Park Department claims was a youth group throwing rocks down on the miners in their handout.     The authorities at the time were concerned enough to send people out to look.   The miners were very sure they had shot one of the attackers.       A Portland paper the same day announced that the youth group had returned home the morning of the event.      Somehow these kids are supposed to have thrown rocks at the cabin all night until daylight hours, then hiked 7 miles in the dark back to the Spirit Lake area, to depart for the return trip to Portland after daylight.     A return to Portland in that era would have taken all day.   No kid was missing from the group.     This and the Portland paper are available and a cursory search by the US Park Service could have found it like you did.    That the Park Department fabricated a story to explain away the Ape Canyon event is in every way a government coverup.  

The US Park Department also claimed that the cabin never existed for a while.     After the miners left, they never returned.     The location of the cabin was unknown until a couple of guys found the remains of the cabin a few years ago.   At a presentation of their findings as a Portland Hopsquatch event,   they said there was evidence the cabin had been burned down.    No forest around it was burned so it was not a natural event.    The grandson of one of the mentioned miners was at the meeting.   He told his grandfathers story about how the miners had fired most of their ammunition at the attacking apes holding them off until daylight.        One had gotten on the roof, and a big hairy arm reached through the shingle roof to try to grab minors inside.  It was sort of a lean too up against a steep ridge.   The reason it took so long to find was the fact it was burned and the steep slope down to the level of the cabin.  

An additional thought on this event.     The miners had been there a long time looking for gold in the area.    Long enough and often enough to build a cabin in the remote site.     The BF trouble did not start until one of them spotted a BF and shot at it.    That to me is one of the best reasons not to shoot at BF.   That act can make things go South very fast.  

[Wolfjewel]

Isn't that missing hiker from Ohio who was near Mt St. Helens also somewhere near Ape Canyon? Sounded like in the news clip they said the Ape Canyon trail was nearby.

[SWWASAS]

The news media is inaccurate like normal.   Ape Canyon is SE of the summit of Mt St Helens.  I have hiked that Ape Canyon trail a few times.   Looking for the cabin myself.     The area is interesting because it was saved from the 1980 explosion by a ridge line that deflected the blast.    The lahar for the explosion went  Southeast and the blast North of the Ape Canyon area.     The missing hiker is off the Blue Lake trail system which is SW of the peak of Mt St Helens.     There was a report of a BF encounter probably about 15 or 20 miles from where he went missing.   I found a footprint on the shore of a lake in that area.     Visitors to the Ape Canyon area pretty much clear out every night.     It is day use area only.      There have been reports by people leaving just before sunset hearing BF vocalizations in the area.      The trail meanders Northwest and eventually you can end up at the Spirit lake area on the North side of the mountain.    Just South of the trail,   is the lahar formed when hot ash and rock came tearing down the mountain.     The trail runs right along a ridge that parallels the lahar.          I found a footprint out in the lahar near a rock stack.     

Here is a picture of the ape canyon trailhead.      The trail runs through the trees right at the edge of the lahar.   

It just occurred to me that BF might think this place a magic place.   If they were in this area during the 1980 blast they might have survived.  If anywhere North in the blast area or in the lahar area they would have died.  Perhaps that is why they frequent this relatively small patch of forest.    I always felt like I was being watched hiking the trail.  

Edited August 15, 2018 by SWWASAS

[Patterson-Gimlin]

I love old articles, Bigfoot or not. Thanks for sharing. 

SWWASAS. That is awesome information. Thank you for sharing as well .Having relatives that worked in the government, nothing they say or do surprises me 

 

 

[SWWASAS]

It was at the edge of the lahar about a mile from the trailhead picture that I found what looked like a grave formed by rocks that were unnaturally stacked.   It was about 4 by 12 feet and rectangular in shape.    The shape was what got me over to look at it.   Rectangular is unnatural in the area.      At one end was a rock stack that looked very much like a bird.   Nature could not have left the stones balanced like that.  I examined it, took pictures, and had the feeling I should leave the area.    I posted the pictures on the forum.     I do not have the original pictures because I lost most of my pictures when my computer was hacked.      When I was looking for the above picture I found a picture I had taken from the air at one point that seems to show the gravesite.   I don't know the time relationship of the picture to my finding.      The next spring I went back to the area looking for the suspected grave.    It was not there.   It was near a very large down tree that had been basically sandblasted by the pyroclastic flow.     The winter snows and runoff seemed to have either washed it away or the cliffside fell on it.     The embankment washes away more each year and trees fall over when the embankment is eroded.     Since BF frequent the area, and the mountain in the area is composed of deep ash fall,  I like to climb up along that embankment and hope to find the skeleton of some hapless BF that got caught in a previous eruption hundreds of years ago.     For those that do not know,  Mt St Helens is the most active of the Cascade volcanoes.     It was erupting when Lewis and Clark did their trek to and from the West Coast.  Most of the eruptions are ash producing events that have the potential to kill anything caught in the ashfall.    It was a pretty conical mountain until the 1980 explosion.  

Edited August 18, 2018 by SWWASAS