Oregon
Expedition Journal
July
13-19, 2015
Skye
Evans
*Disclaimer: What’s written is from my own
experiences. Roughly 30 people attended and their stories are their own. This
is mine.
(photo by Cindy Caddell)
Every
expedition I’ve been on has made me anxious; did I pack everything? Do I have
enough money? Did I put enough air in my tires? Endless questions run through
my mind the night before I leave and I always make a plan to leave as early as
humanly possible to avoid traffic. This trip killed that.
My friends,
Lost Dog Street Band, had just spent the weekend with me to play a concert together
and hang out and after they left on Sunday, I had still been so happy to spend
time with them that I didn’t end up falling asleep until midnight. I woke up
for my 2:30am alarm but there was no way I would risk driving with that much
sleep deprivation; even I’m not that crazy. I decided to go back to sleep,
maybe for a few hours, but ended up waking up at 7am and rushing out the door.
(My favorite people)
The drive was
quite uneventful. I was mainly stuck in endless lines of traffic and luckily
didn’t have to make any stops for the restroom. On my way to the site, I wasn’t
able to find the landmarks from the directions that Barbara had sent out so I
followed my “trusty” (semi-sarcastic) Google Maps. I drove around a popular
lake that looked more than appealing after 10+ hours on the road but I had to
press on up the mountain. I followed a red Jetta and sped through the dirt
enjoying my Outback’s off-road freedom and almost collided with a small pickup
truck that I hadn’t seen coming head on through the Jetta’s dirt cloud.
I hadn’t seen much
animal life on my way through the hills but at 5:10pm, a deer stepped out
almost directly in front of my car and would’ve been Bigfoot’s free meal, a
sacrifice or offering if you will, had I not slammed on my brakes. This may be
a sign that I need to slow down but hey, nothing’s happened so far.
Eventually at
5:30pm, my Google Maps informed me that I had arrived at my destination. I
thought, “Huh. This is quite the basecamp.” I was in the middle of a dirt road
with no spots to park, let alone pitch a tent, so I checked my real trusty GPS
map,
BackCountry Navigator, and saw that I indeed had been close to basecamp;
it was just directly up the mountain a couple hundred feet. So, I followed the
road, over the river and through the woods, and eventually made it to what had
in fact been basecamp at 6pm. Not bad timing.
Arriving at
basecamp early affords me the luxury of picking the best spot and a small inlet
with a pre-made fire pit called my name and I called it home. Well, because the
spot also had two bars of 4G cell service, I called it “Camp LaQuinta.” My
bigfooting buddy Wayne mailed me an 8-person tent that he no longer used so with
my new cot, devices, and chair inside, this was actually better than the motel
chain itself. I may open my own chain one day so watch out, LaQuinta.
Since no one else
was around, I listened to some music (
Mustered Courage, among others) and took my
time setting up. Wayne’s tent was quite a puzzle to assemble but not as
difficult as setting up the big canopy by myself. Once my motel was up and
running, I played a little guitar and bummed around until succumbing to sleep
at 11:30pm.
I woke up at 8am
Tuesday morning and took the obligatory pictures of my surroundings. The ants
weren’t as vicious as in
Washington but the horse flies and mosquitos did
nothing less than massacre me. I explored the area a little bit and found a
nice enclosed camp bordering the creek where someone built a rock fireplace.
I didn’t wander
too far because my back has been having problems, as usual, so I stuck close to
basecamp for most of the day playing guitar and a game called Spelunky. Mike
Collier arrived at 3:30pm and we talked a little bit about his trips between
this and when I saw him in June on the CA expedition.
At 7:45pm, my back
could no longer take the anguish so I went to bed. I know, I know; “Skye,
you’re such a mountain man. So handsome and fit.” Well let me tell ya,
sculpting perfection is a process, right Michelangelo? Top arrived around 9pm
that night but I couldn’t move so I stayed inside while he talked to Mike.
The next morning,
Wednesday, I woke up at 8:30am and caught up with Top and his two weeks of
adventuring since I last saw him in Washington. We decided to go look for a
meadow that was nearby and headed up to the end of the road from basecamp and
bushwhacked in.
On the map, the
meadow looked so accessible that it had to be right off the overgrown road.
Nope. We crossed logs and trees, slapped by every bush and stuck my every thorn
and the meadow had to have been further down the hill than we could get to. We
were scouting it for night hike potential and the only certainty was that at
night, this would’ve spelled “death.”
As we climbed
trees that lay up to our necks, I made my way to jump up one and as I swung my
leg over, my shorts ripped. Classic squatching. My shorts didn’t rip at the
butt though, it was all crotch. Top and I had a great laugh about it, me
informing him that this was an up-and-coming fashion in the Bigfooting world
and he said it was innovative in its aerodynamics and keeping me cool. We made
it back to basecamp a little while later and Barbara had arrived followed a few
hours later by Cindy and her husband Jerod.
I had felt well
enough after our exploring to lead a small night hike that evening so at 10pm,
I set out with Ron and his son Brett to find a lake that Mike said was close by
on one of the trails. Ron and Brett were attending as their first expedition
from Indiana and I really liked them a lot. We followed my map and were out
there for about an hour and couldn’t find any way to a pond that said was close
to us on the map so we sat for a bit and listened.
I made two knocks
at 10:28pm and 30 seconds later, heard a faint response from the direction of
the small pond that we thought we were trying to get to. It was Brett’s first
time really out in the woods and after a while decided we should pack it in.
Other than the knocks, we didn’t hear much. We made it back to basecamp at
12:30am and I talked to Barbara, Top, and Vern for about an hour on Top’s
tailgate before deciding to go to bed.
I woke up Thursday
morning at 9:30am and hung out with Andy, Cindy, and Lisa. Lisa is a fellow
BFRO Investigator from New York and had just appeared in an episode of
Finding Bigfoot and she recounted her sighting that happened while on a BFRO
expedition in the Adirondacks. I highly recommend watching the episode for her
story. She came all the way from the Michigan expedition to attend this one
since she has her summers off thanks to her job. I’m quite jealous.
After last night’s
failure of finding the lake Mike had talked about, I went with Top and Ben to
track down the lake. It was about a 40-minute leisurely walk from Tony’s camp
(the enclosed one) to the lake. It was beautiful and much bigger than I
expected. The lake seemed shallow around the shore but there was a drop off further
out where fish were jumping. Ben fished a little bit with no success.
The OR Hunter’s
Association made a site with a fire pit, wood benches, docks, and a line to
hang fish off of. This was the perfect place to remote camp. We hung out for
about an hour exploring around and eventually made our way back to basecamp.
Thinking of the immense amount of info attendees seem to require on these
expeditions, I noted that it took 30-minutes to briskly walk back to Tony’s
camp and that you step over exactly 16 logs. How’s that for information?
(photo by Cindy Caddell)
(photo by Cindy Caddell)
(Ben making his way to the docks)
(The benches and fire pit already set up)
Barbara had gone
out of her way to Canada to pick up the R2 thermal unit, the same from the WA
expedition, and I rode with Top, her, and her niece Kristen, to scout areas for
night R2 drives. After securing some promising routes, we dropped off Barbara
and Kristen at basecamp and Top and I went to Estacada to eat at Subway.
Subway just
sounded so good that entire day and when I mentioned to Top that it sounded
good for lunch, he told me that he had actually picked some up before arriving
and forgot about it and it got ruined so this was the perfect opportunity to
go. I played some of my favorite bands for Top and he told me on the way that
some people call Estacada “Incestacada” and I could half-believe the reason
why. Just kidding. But it’s a small town where most folks picture something
like Deliverance going on.
We successfully
got our foot-long sandwiches, chips, and drinks and we headed back to the
highway bound for basecamp to further prove that this was a luxury trip. Top
showed me some of his favorite country artists like Earl Thomas Conley and Don
Williams. Browsing through his tablet’s music, I recognized a Don Williams song
“
I’m Just A Country Boy” and we both sang our hearts out. I played some Randy
Travis, Jim Croce, and Conway Twitty and we belted those sad cowboy songs too.
Driving down the
road with this new friend from Texas was surreal enough but singing country
songs with him and spending another week together was something really special
to me. It’s trips like this that finding Bigfoot is the purpose but everything
happening around it makes it more worthwhile. Just two new friends, decades in
age difference but of the same cloth, bonding was just one of the most
memorable things that I’ve taken away from this trip. All the people I meet on
these trips are special friends of mine and I just love you guys.
Anyways, we made
it back just in time for the 7pm meeting that was full of attendees. There were
around 30 people total. Many of us were returning folks and there were quite a
few of us BFRO Investigators: Brian, Russ, Su, Lisa, Megan, and myself. It was
great seeing the people from Washington but I also saw Linda and Jane from the
Redwoods expedition, Tony from June’s CA expedition, and meeting some great
first-time folks. Barbara divided up the hikes and Lisa and I were going to
lead a group to the lake at 10pm.
We ended up having
the biggest group that night so Lisa led the way in and I held up the rear to
half-keep us spread out and the other half-avoid all the noise and lights going
in. I’m not a big light person and I understand that many are, I just like
keeping things spread out and objectively listening. I don’t do this as a
stealth tactic, I do it for my own listening and to not get distracted my 20
headlamp shadows bouncing through the trees looking around. If you go on
Bigfoot expeditions, by all means be safe but also be conscious of the other
senses at your disposal and how to wield them.
Megan, Paul, and I
hung back from the rest of the group a little bit and when the group stopped
for a breather, Megan and Paul heard a knock at their 1-2 o’clock looking
further down the trail.
We didn’t hear
anything at the lake despite our calls and knocks. I tried to cross some small
logs to make it on the docks and almost fell in. What a tradition that would be
to fall in on every expedition crossing logs over water like in Washington. My
headlamp also fell out around the time that I almost fell in and it took me 20
minutes to find it. Guess where it was? Safe on shore in a bush.
After an hour or
so we all decided to go back to basecamp. We had the biggest group and just by
sheer number of people walking around, I couldn’t hear or see anything during
the hike. That’s not to say we were doing anything wrong, its just luck and we
did all we could. I made it to bed at 1:42am.
I woke up Friday
morning and had breakfast next door with Top, Lisa, Jerod, Megan, and Cindy
outside their trailer. They brought an abundance of food so we had a small
feast. I was still in a bit of a delirious sleep state but we headed to the
morning meeting where other groups reported some anomalies. The groups all had
note-takers and radio people so after recording the times of every sound made
and heard, there were some knocks, whoops, and rustling in the forest that
couldn’t be attributed to the other groups.
This is the best way to discern
who’s doing what and narrowing it all down to noises made by something other
than us: one person with a watch recording every noise, their direction, and
the time and another person on the radio to announce other groups and their
own. People who believe everything is Bigfoot are in for a rude awakening when
they get out with other people who are observant note-takers and can back
everything up. If you go out on expeditions of your own, try this. It’ll be a
lifesaver.
When our meeting
was over, I announced to people that I had four trail cams that I wanted to go
set up and people were welcome to come along and explore. Turns out, more
people wanted to come than I expected so I went out with: Jane, Lisa, Megan,
Melissa and Gary, Ron and Brett, Mark, and Greg. The journey went from
12:40-4:40pm.
On the trail to
the lake, there’s a hidden path to the left to what looked like the small pond
that I tried to get to with Ron and Brett on Wednesday night. Unsure if there
was water in it or not, we first set out toward that. It ended up being a big
meadow surrounded by delicious blueberries and huckleberries. There were some
tiny frogs in a few of the open dirt patches despite there not being any water
nearby. One thing that was interesting was that there was a 16.5’ dry log that
was tipped or moved over 24” away where you could see it’s depression and parts
of the log were still embedded in the ground. We couldn’t lift it. It was just
something interesting that Ron had found.
We explored around
and found some great spots to hide down in at night to make calls. I set up a
camera looking out over the meadow and it didn’t get anything that night or the
following morning.
We turned our
efforts back towards the lake and on the way found a small pond that had about
7 very detailed bear tracks that were about 9” from claw to heel. I eventually
came back Saturday to cast one. Further up the trail, we came to another small
pond with lots of frogs and deer tracks. I placed a camera there that also got
nothing.
We made it to the
lake where Gary, Melissa, and Mark went ahead to meet up with Top and Ben. I
set up a camera a little ways past the camp and that got nothing as well other
than Mark and Andy goofing off when they remote camped there. Haha.
By the time we
made it back to the road after I set up the three cameras, everyone was pretty
tired and headed back to basecamp. Megan and Paul decided to continue on my
quest with me though and we headed up the road to where Top and I had gone
exploring on Wednesday. We came to the Rimrock Trailhead where there was a fire
pit and small, unused camp and I set up my camera low to the ground looking out
over the camp and into the trees. As you may have guessed, it too got no
photos.
Throughout the
final stretch of my camera quest, Paul told us about his time in the forestry
service and told us about all the plants we passed. On the way back to
basecamp, he told us about the mushroom club he’s a part of and about how
lucrative the mushroom business can be. I was astounded that such a thing even
existed where people get together and share mushroom recipes, snack on them,
and go on trips to pick them. It’s no weirder than what we were doing but I
didn’t know that there was such a thing as a mushroom sub-culture. Paul told us
about how some are like gangs or drug cartels in defending their crops and
areas. So, now you know; mushroom clubs are a thing.
I was, without a
doubt, exhausted by the time the three of us made it back to basecamp. The walk
was easily 4-5 miles but the heat and carrying all the gear is what took its
toll on me. Since the Washington trip, Cindy and I had made tentative plans to
play some music together and she brought her songbook from when she sang in a
band years ago. We sat under my canopy, Megan poured us sangria, and jammed out
for an hour or so. Megan was getting our setlist together of songs I only had
vague knowledge of but we sang our buzzed hearts out to Linda Ronstadt, Allison
Krauss, Def Leppard, and P!nk. It was awesome.
After our encore
for our millions of fans, Cindy made us delicious lasagna with salad and this
cheese that I’d never heard of before. It’s called Blue Bell, wrapped up in a
tire shape, and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t fall in love with it then
and there. It was the cherry on top of the delectable meal.
We sat around
trading stories, Bigfoot theories, and Cindy mentioned that she and Jerod had
been working on a screenplay for a loosely Bigfoot-based movie. It sounded
really compelling and with a subject that has been countlessly iterated on, an
idea like their's is absolutely original and hasn’t been done. I can’t give it
away but if it ever comes to fruition, you’ll want to see it.
As our meal and
conversation went on, I’ll admit it, I had more than one cup of sangria and I
may or may not have begun my career of Bigfoot standup comedy. I heckled
Cindy’s future anthropology class, called out the big names in the Bigfoot
world, and made Cindy and Lisa cry with laughter. If anyone ever wants a
performance, know that this first one was something truly…. special? But, I
will definitely do it again. “Pithecus!”
At the 8pm
meeting, Barbara gave her Bigfoot
Manifesto class. Kevin Llewyn followed it up with an excellent presentation
on eye glow and eye shine. He’s a veterinarian with extensive experience in the
subject. The biggest takeaway I had from his presentation was that scientists
discovered last year that dogs actually do see colors except red and that their
vision is just blurry. It was very informative and worthwhile.
I decided to lead
a night hike to the Rimrock trail at 10:20pm since it was an area that no one
had explored at night yet. It was the ideal group for the night, just Ron and
Megan. The three of us had spent a lot of time in the woods so we were all on
the same page about listening and going about our efforts scientifically. It
was perfect and a night I will never forget.
(View from where I made "woo" and where Portland can be seen at night. Photo: Lisa)
We headed out at
10:20pm and at 11:06pm, I made a “woo” call over the ridge of the road with no
response. From the point at the fork in the road where we turned right,
Portland could be seen off in the distance. Megan’s first wood knock got no
response. At the first place we sat at by what we thought was either a meadow
or a pond (daylight revealed a little of both), there was a tapping at our 11
o’clock at 11:25pm (we looked out towards the clearing). A creaking noise was
heard at our 1-2 o’clock at the same time. Megan tapped back and got no
response. The tapping was light but discernable and rhythmic. Ron noted to
patterns in our notebook.
At 11:30pm, there
was a very distant call in the direction of the creaking sound. It sounded
human but no one made a call at that time and we were so far away from everyone
else. At 11:41pm, there was another call made but at our 10-11 o’clock that was
distant but also human sounding. This one was most likely Cindy and Russ’s
group who continued up the road where we went off to the right.
At 11:43pm, I made
a small whistle and there was a water-dripping-faucet sound to our 11 o’clock.
It was like a “bloop.” Could’ve been a frog but it had also been occurring
while we were making our little noises and didn’t happen when we were silent. At
11:47pm, I heard some rustling behind us up the hill where the other side was a
ridge that sloped straight down. At 11:58pm, Megan left her apple on a log and
we continued further down the trail.
Now what happened
next happened really quickly and Ron took down as many notes as he could while
we were getting very nervous. We made it to a great spot to sit and listen at
about 12:20am. At 12:29am, this is where the weird noises started happening; I
heard two simultaneous voices make open-mouthed “ah-oo-eh-vowels” sounds like a
deaf person learning to talk or the initial sound you hear of kids coming off
the bus home from school. I was closest to it and it sounded like they were
crossing the trail not 25-50 yards up my 3 o’clock. They came from the ridge
and headed straight across the trail. It lasted about six seconds and stopped
at about the time I estimate that they reached the trail and crossed it. We
were almost sitting on the trail and were visible.
-
The next day when all of us investigators,
except Russ, went up to investigate it further, Megan walked as far away as I
heard the noise and at the spot she replicated it, the trail turned down towards
the woods to the left where I believed they had crossed the trail had I not
known that the trail actually turned in that direction.
(Me showing the direction of vowel sounds. Photo: Cindy)
Megan and I had
decided to make a series of whoops back and forth and at 12:34am, there were
three separate noises that took place one after the other. The first (1
o’clock) sounded like an elk squeak sound, the second (12 o’clock) was a
creaking sound, and the third (11 o’clock) was another squeak sound. There was also rustling on the ground heard
that followed it but the distance between the three lead me to believe that it
wasn’t an owl even though it vaguely reminded me of their sounds. I thought it
may have been an elk since we could hear it moving 30-50 yards down in that
direction and I didn’t want to be near anything of the sort so I got uneasy and
that's about when I began to pull out my audio recorder. The distance needed to
cover to make these sounds is more than an elk can do without more ruckus and
happened too fast for an owl to make these minutely differing vocalizations.
-
Investigating the site the next day, since we
couldn’t discern that night what we were experiencing, there were tons of trees
that lay all over the place out there but it was still thick enough to barely
make any people out. The ground was level despite the trees and you couldn’t
hear much of the movement. Lisa found two separate indistinct tracks that
measured 13.5”. It was also easy to move on the dead trees and between them on
the ground.
(Where we sat. Photo: Cindy)
(Going over notes. Photo: Cindy)
(Megan recounting story. Photo: Cindy)
(Photo time)
(More photo time)
(Showing where the chatter came from)
From
12:43-12:45am, we heard very distinct monkey chatter. These did not sound like
owls at all. The only way I could describe it while we were experiencing it was
like something akin to being at a carnival with “zingers” and that abrupt,
high-pitched clown laughter. I called them clown carnival sounds because they
were so sporadic and they came out of nowhere from our 10-11 o’clock. It’s
worth noting that I am rarely one to use any light when I’m sitting and
listening; if anything, it’s a red light. Ron scanned the area with his iPhone
Seek thermal camera and his Gen I night vision binoculars and didn’t see a
thing. We scanned high and low all over, to no avail.
After two minutes
of this going on in the direction where the previous three sounds culminated
to, we were all pretty nervous. The noises sounded like they would be close
with some also not much farther away. It was not a single sound, there were 3-4
other vocalizers making these noises. The audio I recorded only picked up about
3 seconds of the sounds and the three of us trying to rationalize the situation
and talk ourselves down muddles the rest it. It was extremely unnerving and we
aren’t people to overreact or get scared. We turned on our white lights and
scanned the area for a good few minutes and the sounds stopped.
At 12:48am I made
a hillbilly call with no reply and did a howl two minutes later. After my howl,
there was that tapping sound close by at our 10-11 o’clock and a distant
tapping at 9 o’clock. Megan tried tapping three minutes later and got no reply.
Three minutes after that, we walked very briskly out of that trail with our
white lights lighting up that forest like a Kiss concert.
Our walk back to
camp was filled with rapid discussions of what it could’ve been and if we did
the right thing by leaving. It was overwhelming to have that much action so
close to us and the noises were unsettling to the extreme. As we were walking
back, just about the area where you walk over rocks that are covered by
foliage, I turned back and said, “Man, I feel so much better now.” and Megan
almost immediately answered that she was just going to say the same thing. Once
we reached this certain point, we felt a relief like a weight being lifted off
our shoulders.
Our enthusiasm was
obvious when we ran into Chris Fosnight as we made it to Tim’s camp (which was
a little ways up from Tony’s). I got a well-deserved scolding for not running
my audio the entire time. Lesson learned: don’t headache about reviewing all
the useless audio leading up to the event, just do it. Chris thinks it was a
Barred Owl, which is the common Bigfoot vocals misconception, but I don’t
believe it was and when I played the audio for him, he agreed that it was no
Barred Owl.
After talking with
Chris and heading back to basecamp, Paul scares the shit out of us almost
jumping out of his car along the road. He told us that not ten minutes before
us walking by, a big stick or rock was thrown and hit the side of his car from
the woods across the road from him. He was sleeping inside and it was a loud
noise hitting the side of his car. We looked around for any scratches or
possible sticks but found none. He followed us in his car and spent the rest of
the night at basecamp.
Saturday morning,
I woke up and we told the story of our encounter last and I played the sounds
for everyone on Chris’s laptop. At 12:30pm, all of the Investigators, except
Russ since he was hanging out with Joe Beelart (of Oregon Bigfoot Highway),
went to the sites and recounted everything that happened. The apple Megan left
remained untouched. Luckily, there were enough of us to scour the area and look
around for tracks and signs of movement. At the spot of the main encounter at
12 o’clock, Barbara and Lisa found two separate and indistinct tracks measuring
13.5”. To the 10-11 o’clock, Ron and Brian found two tracks as well.
We spent a few
hours combing the area but it turns out that there aren’t any elk in this area.
We walked up to the ridge behind our encounter and took photos with the
beautiful scenery and Cindy got some great shots of the recreations. After our
thorough investigation that resulted in footprints being found, we weren’t 100%
validated that it wasn’t something other than Bigfoot, but this is one
encounter I know, at the very least, began with a pair of Bigfoot making the
vowel sounds up the trail. I believe the chatter was sasquatches as well but I
know the vowel sounds were a pair of them.
(Ron sitting and showing where we heard sounds)
(Further up the trail, I believe)
(The view from where I sat)
(The notes Ron took with my recreation notes at bottom)
(After coming out)
When we hiked back
to camp, I was pretty tired but had to go right back out to grab my trail cams.
I passed by one couple a few times, as they were in the creek by Tony’s camp,
later along the trail, and at the Hunter’s Camp. At the small swampy pond, I
made a cast of one of the bear tracks. After collecting the three cameras that
were out there and carrying out the bear cast, a pair of men hiking asked what
the cast was and I told them about the bears in the area.
Upon returning to
camp, I had reached my limits and I was pooped. I knew I had to get out of camp
early in the morning to make the drive to Portland to attend my first
HopSquatch event so I broke down my canopy and packed up all the essential
items. Joe Beelart had been invited to attend and he told us some good stories
that took place in the surrounding areas. That was a pretty neat talk because I
bought his book but hadn’t had a chance to read it yet and now I’d like to even
more.
The plan for night
hikes that evening was to have three groups go together to the Rimrock trail
and the group in the rear would drop off and certain spots. We left at 10pm and
Lisa had a group with Ron and Melissa. They stopped and sat at the pond meadow
where we left the apple. They had some ground movement, tapping, bloops, faint
monkey chatter, a rock thrown that landed 30ft away, and something bumped the
log that Melissa and Lisa sat on.
Brian and Mark
dropped off second, in the middle of the trail. They heard knocks, significant
tapping, and movement.
My group with Gary
and Brett at the encounter site didn’t hear very much at all other than some
small movement and knocks. I made some small sounds with no responses.
We were out there
for a couple of hours and the plan was that the groups would only head back if
something major happened or the other group came to meet up. Since my group
didn’t have much action and people were growing restless, we decided to walk
back first.
Lisa’s group had the
most unusual encounters and when we got back, they were totally shaken up
almost to the point that we had been the night before. That’s really awesome
that the three of them had the encounters that they did. The rock throwing and
log bumping are especially peculiar.
When we all made
it back to the trailhead around 1am, I suggested that we compare notes now,
that way we could eliminate all of the things that had been man-made and
wouldn’t have to do it at the morning meeting. After we were left with
everything that our three groups couldn’t account for, we went back to basecamp
together. I went to bed at 2am and crashed hard.
On Sunday morning,
I woke up at 7am, fighting the urge to go back to sleep, and packed up the rest
of my gear before the early 8am meeting. There wasn’t much activity that night
from any of the other groups. The only thing the R2 unit picked up on the whole
trip was heat-signatures from ants on a tree.
After saying
goodbyes, I left basecamp following Tom and Megan at 9:08am. I stopped at a
Burger King to change out of my pajamas and eat a light breakfast. I’ll tell
ya, I may have looked like I’d been in the woods all week but I even more so
smelled like it. I made it to the Lucky Labrador in Portland at 11:40am and
saved a table for the big group of us that were showing up from the expedition.
This was my first
HopSquatch event, this one being hosted by
Monster X Radio, and I was pretty
excited because it’s an event where every month, Guy Edwards gets great
speakers to come and talk. This one was a town hall meeting where people shared
their stories and I saw some people I’d seen on
Finding Bigfoot. I also saw Craig Flipy and Tyler Bounds. I almost
got up to tell the story of what I’d just encountered in their neck of the
woods but some of the people just went on and on for 20+ minutes and I ended up
just saving my story for this blog. The pizza and prices were fantastic.
There were 11 of
us from the expedition and John H. from the Washington expedition showed up as
well. It was great to meet up with Barbara, Cindy, Top, John H., Garrett, Russ,
Mark, Brian, and Lisa after our long trip in the woods and further unwind
eating pizza and drinking cider. Though some of the people telling their
stories went on a bit longer than I’d have liked, the event was awesome and it
was great to go to one of the things I had only heard about; especially with
these new friends of mine. It’s something Reno will probably never have and to
be a part of that special community was fun.
(Monster X Radio hosting)
(John H. telling his story)
(James or Jonah telling his story)
(Top, John, Barb, and Mark hanging out)
(Garrett, Brian, and Lisa hanging out)
I can’t overstate
enough to people that while the goal of the expeditions is to gather evidence
of sasquatch, don’t underestimate the friendships you can form along the way.
The people I’ve met and continue to meet are very near and dear to my heart and
they always will be. Doing things like this with like-minded people is
something you’ll never experience sitting behind a computer or in daily life.
To make things happen and pursue your passions, you have to do it so if this is
something you’re interested in, come along. Don’t second guess yourself or make
excuses. Come have the time of my life and your story may be similar to mine;
or perhaps you’ll have an even better one. You’ll never know unless you make it
happen.
If you’ve read all
19 pages of this, thank you. If you've read any of it, thank you too.
Please bookmark this page, add it to your RSS
feed, “like” the
Facebook page, share this story, and keep up to date with my
adventures in Bigfooting.
* All relevant audio will be posted
as soon as I can sift through it all. More photos are on the
Facebook page.
* As a side note, the Rimrock trail
had been an area of activity the night before the encounter I shared with Ron
and Megan. Brian’s group had also heard tapping and knocks in the same areas we
were in.
