Sasquatch Hunt
Date: 20-Mar-04Â
Supporting link -Â http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=6785
I am a bowhunter of 30 years big game experience, have taken way more than my share of Pope and Young qualifying animals in those years. I love wilderness areas and places few other humans ever wander, especially when seeking places to fish for big trout in timberline lakes. I found a set of a couple dozen 17 inch long sasquatch tracks in the South San Juan Wilderness across a dirt slide which perked my interest in the possibilities (who would fake 17 inch human-like tracks in such a remote area?). So, in spite of how ridiculous the notion of sasquatch seemed to me and others, I started collecting sightings from other bowhunters and eventually got 6 sightings and track find reports from Colorado hunting guides and outfitters. Some of these sightings by hunting guides were long term daytime sightings, one of which was from less than 30 yards distance in broad daylight while the hunting guide was bugling for elk. Another guide in Colorado watched a sasquatch sunning itself by a beaver pond for over 10 minutes through binoculars at a range of 125 yards. Long enough and close enough to see detail of the face. None of these experienced Colorado outdoorsmen seemed to be making up their stories. Weird, but true none-the-less, that these reports were made to me. A few years ago I investigated a set of 19 inch long tracks along the Eagle River that were found by fishermen in the month of March. Another set had been found by fishermen near Gypsum about 7 miles from the set I investigated in the same time frame. The local CDOW biologist, local law enforcement and myself came to the conclusion that this 19 inch long set of tracks were “genuine” and not hoaxed. Several foot experts anthropologests also came to the conclusion that the set of tracks from the incident were not faked. Pretty neat, but weird of course. A search of local historical archives in that area revealed that sasquatch have been reported from that area by white men since the 1880’s, as detailed in an article from an 1880’s newspaper article from Leadville of miners and hunters seeing sasquatch there. The indians that lived in that area previously of course had tales of sasquatch, just like all indian cultures of western North America. All of the indian stories and the miner sightings and current bowhunter sightings are all of the same critter. An upright walking hairy man-like creature of large size, usually dark brown to reddish tinted hair, that leaves these huge somewhat human-like tracks that I found and have investigated a few times that others have found.
So, here I am, an experienced bowhunter, who found tracks of a creature that can not possibly exist, in my favorite stomping grounds in a wilderness in my favorite state of Colorado. Is sasquatch real? Hell, I don’t know, but I am pretty sure its tracks are real. Bear tracks just are not 17 to 19 inches long and are not all that human-like. I am in a mental stalemate, my mind tells me that sasquatch can not be a real creature, but my eyes tell me that the tracks are real. I also listen to very serious hunting guides in Colorado as the relate to me their very personal experiences with sasquatch, and just know they are telling me the truth.
Overall, I have no trouble thinking that it is insane to think that sasquatch could possibly exist, but have very much trouble believing my own eyes in regards to the tracks I found and have investigated along with CDOW and local law officials. A deputy sheriff also video taped a series of two sets of 19 inch and 21 inch long tracks down near where I found that set of tracks. The tracks he recorded were in snow and mud and he followed them for over 1/2 mile as they wandered along the backside of a local ranchers land along the treeline and up a valley with a stride of about 48 inches long going uphill. The deputy said that in the better tracks in the mud, he could even see where the tracks showed chisel like toeneal imprints and the front of the toes very much like human toenails as the sasquatch evidently curled its toes downward into the mud to get a grip when walking uphill in slippery conditions. Pretty weird.
So, overall, we have Colorado hunting guides, bowhunters, hunters, and general hikers seeing and reporting the same exact kind of critter, and we have these tracks that are all pretty standard in Colorado being found every so often and recorded. We have law agencies and CDOW biologists investigating the tracks from time to time, scratching their heads, and filing them away. Sasquatch can not possibly be real, so why bother pursuing the stupid thing?
Though I still have trouble believing that sasquatch could be real, I do have opinion to what it might be if it exists. I think that if it exists it can only be one thing. I think it could possibly be a predator that has a social system similar to the orangutan. Orangutans are not highly social primates, but live pretty much to themselves except during breeding. Orangs have territories that they protect and keep other orangs out of, especially orangs of the same gender. Cougars have a very similar social system. Sasquatch tracks are always found in high elk density areas at the times that elk are there, so I think that sasquatch specialize in preying on elk. I think that sasquatch males protect a large area of territory and that they are very much rarer than cougars. Dominant male cougars may have a territory of over 125 square miles, and I think that for a sasquatch to survive a male sasquatch may keep a territory of over 400 square miles to himself. I think they are very much more intelligent than a cougar and much better at avoiding humans. Kind of like a cougar with the brains of a chimpanzee, which would be almost impossible to hunt. I think that if sasquatch exist at all, that the track finds and sightings indicate that there are three main areas in Colorado that have them. These three areas are the South San Juan Wilderness and adjacent national forests, the Holy Cross Wilderness and adjacent forests, and the Lost Creek Wilderness and adjacent forest areas. Especially where elk densities are highest in those three areas. This is where the lions share of the tracks and sightings are being found. Like cougars, when someone sees a saquatch, it is almost always alone, and usually the indications are that it is a youngish adult sasquatch of from 7 to 8 foot tall with tracks around 15 to 17 inches longs. Tracks up to 22 inches long have been found and recorded, but the largest set I have personally investigated were the 19 inch tracks from the Eagle River just east of Eagle Colorado. Several of our nations best physical anthropologists have determined that the tracks are very real and fit into a very specific anatomy. I agree with them on the track morphology, but still have a very hard time accepting the reality of the track makers.
Is sasquatch a very rare type of predator primate that came over here from Asia during the ice age and a few of them still remain to hunt elk in our western forests? We have a few fossil pieces of such a large primate from Asia, and most Asian animals migrated here from the old world, so I suppose that this primate could have come to American shores to. All I know is that I found those tracks and heard many tales from other bowhunters and hunting guides from Colorado, along with investigating several other tracks since. Like I said, I have a hard time believeing that a creature such as sasquatch could exist, yet have a hard time disbelieving my own eyes or the serious stories from hunting guides. Sasquatch can not be real, but it’s tracks are real, is my opinion. So maybe the sightings from Colorado hunting guides are real too. ???
For you other bowhunters who have harvested most every other big game animal in Colorado with your bow and want another challange, here it is. You will be hunting this quarry with a camcorder instead of a bow and arrow. It is a predator that preys on elk. It is well furred, large and very very rare in any one area. It likes to spend its days in cool or cold environments and hates heat. It stays pretty much to the deep forest areas where it waits for elk going to or returning from bedding areas. It avoids human trails and human contact almost completely. It knows human habits and elk habits. In summer it likes heavily forested north slope exposures because they are up to 10 degrees cooler than other places in the mountains. It seems to usually be seen near standing water, such as small lakes or beaver ponds in that environment, though streams seem to also be part of its travel routes.
The whole reason I am writing here is that last May (May 29 of 2003) a sasquatch was reported on a trail to Mt. Elbert as detailed in this link from the BFRO http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=6785 Perhaps sasquatch are creatures of habit and that a sasquatch will be in that area in the last weeks of May or first weeks of June in 2004. This is only a couple months away and time enough to plan to intercept it on its travel route. Maybe that sasquatch lives there year around, or maybe it was only traveling through, or maybe sasquatch do not exist at all. But, if they do exist, here is at least a better chance to encounter one of them perhaps. Sasquatch are the ultimate quarry I suppose, or maybe a wild goose chase, you decide. In any event, just being in the woods away from the rat race for any reason is a good thing in my opinion. It is too far for me to drive to the Mt Elbert area for a sasquatch hunt in May, but maybe some of you guys live closer and can have a chance to get good video of a sasquatch there this coming May. As you experienced bowhunters know, it is nearly impossible to find tracks of any soft footed animals there, due to rocky compacted soil and pine needles everywhere, so finding tracks is very rare and very unlikely. Maybe there will still be some snow on to help with that. In spite of sasquatch size and weight, they only make tracks about as deep as barefooted human or bear tracks in any type of soil, simply because their feet are big too. On the tracks I have investigated, such as the 19 inch tracks at Eagle, the depth of track was the same as human tracks, which indicated a weight of about 900 pounds to have the same weight per square inch of foot bottom in comparison to the human tracks at the same location and condition of soil. Someone faking the tracks would have had to have had a pile driver to get the huge tracks as deep as normal human tracks, because of the size. Our investigations of the tracks reveal that the sasquatch seem to have about the same weight per square inch of foot bottom as human, which makes them very heavy when you encounter a set of tracks nearly or over 20 inches long. You can not really envision the immense size of these tracks until you see them yourself in person. I have seen 12 inch grizzly tracks in person, and these sasquatch tracks dwarf them. Of course grizzlies walk on four feet, so they spread their weight amongst four legs, so don’t need all that big of feet to get around on. I have size 13 feet, only 12 inches long, and only weigh about 200 pounds. Sasquatch are apparently much larger and much heavier if the tracks and sightings are any indication. Similar in body mass to coastal grizzly bears, with males often over 1000 pounds. Some of the tracks I have investigated were every bit as deep as human tracks, yet so much larger that if they were faked the hoaxer would have had to be wearing a 700 pound backpack and taking steps over 48 inches long while walking uphill. If they were faked, I have not figured out how. The tracks were definitely not drawn into the ground, but rather naturally pressed into the ground, even showing flexibility in the toes and such. Like I said, sasquatch can’t be real of course, but the tracks are real. Hope you get to come across a sasquatch or at least its tracks some day, and then you will know what I am talking about.
In any event, believe in sasquatch or not, there is a chance to meet one on a trail to Mt Elbert in late may or early June of 2004. If you can’t be there, try the Lost Creek Wilderness in December or January of next year, the more remote the better. Maybe it’s a wild goose chase, or maybe not. The ultimate quarry may be out there waiting. Colorado has from 4000 to 10,000 cougars, depending on who you ask, and you know how hard it is to even get to see one of them. What if cougars had the brains of a primate and there were only less than 100 of them in the whole state of Colorado? Now you know what you are up against, if it exists at all. The tracks exist, and they are huge, but what are those tracks from? The tracks themselves seem to match the animal reported by the hunting guides, bowhunters, hunters and hikers, so maybe it does exist.
Go out, sit down by a tree in the dark forest at night in late May at 11,500 foot elevation on a trail to Mt Elbert and just bugle on your elk bugle to wake up and perk the curiosity of any nearby forest grimlin. Then just sit silently in full camoflage and scent shield and see if anything shows up. It is a different way of hunting, but it might get exciting. A bugling elk in the spring time at night would sure perk my interest if I was a nocturnal elk hunting ape. Maybe one will show up if it is within a mile or so of you. You might never see it if it does come to check out the night noises, but maybe you will. Maybe you will get to hear its own vocalizations to ponder for the rest of your life.
For some reason, even though I am a grown man and know better, I get a little tingle up the spine when sitting quietly alone at night in the quiet forest on a cold north slope of dense forest far from any other human. My senses are at their highest, and I am keen to every forest sound. Stepfalls of animals become louder, elk breaking deadfalls sound so much bigger than they do by daylight. I feel very alive, but also feel out of place. I feel like I belong there, but also feel like an intruder. I didn’t feel this way until after I found those huge tracks that fit the sasquatch mold in that beloved remote deep forest habitat. Now I live in a world with something that makes huge human-like tracks in a place where before I only found elk and deer tracks and an occaisional bear track. If a 1000 pound, 9 foot tall ape comes walking into your Colorado wilderness world some night, it will make the forest nights more interesting from then on.
Any reason to get into the backcountry with a backpack on at any time of year is a good reason, so just do it.
Good hunting.
Date: 21-Mar-04
Bear, I prefer to go it alone instead of with a large group, simply because that is the way I am successful bowhunting too. Several of the bfro people are good investigators however and you could learn much about preserving evidence and such from them. They will be broadcasting what they think might be recordings of sasquatch vocalizations, so that will be interesting, but more likely to be successful if employed alone or with only two people instead of a large group of noisy people.
In regards to sasquatch vocalizations. My sons and I heard what may have been a sasquatch screaming at us in the SSJWilderness. The sound was different than any other animal sound I have ever heard and much louder. The source sounded to be about 100 yards from us with willows between us and the sound maker. Hard to describe the very loud sound, but it sounded kind of like car tires peeling out on dry concrete with kind of a gravelly nature to it. Really, really loud and scary sounding noise to hear in the forest at close range. It also had a resounding nature to it that you could feel as well as hear, similar to the way you can actually feel an African lions roar when it is close by you. Since we did not see what was screaming at us, we can’t really say it was a sasquatch, but I have no idea what else could make that noise. Some of the recordings of supposed sasquatch noises sound very similar to what we heard. Others don’t sound anything like what we heard. Al Herrin, of Traditional Bowhunter Magazine, had a similar incident of a screamer south of Silverton. South of Silverton is where 4 bowhunters reported catching a sasquatch in the open in the Twin Sisters area. They all reported the same well furred heavily muscled man-like creature that ran in full view of them for some 200 yards across open ground while they were there elk hunting. They had taken bear with their archery equipment, so knew it was no bear. Bears don’t run on their back legs anyway. I don’t think they conspired to make up the story, so you can decide what they saw and reported. So that area might be a good place to go look for sasquatch in the archery season period. Two motorcycle riders reported seeing a sasquatch above a timberline while riding east of Silverton. They were speeding along and evidently got between it and the cover of the forest below. They reported that it evidently felt threatened because it started screaming at them and hurling large rocks down on them. One of them was almost hit with the first throw, which is what alerted them to its presence in the first place. They left of course. Quite a few other bowhunters have heard those loud odd screaming/roaring sounds that are unmistakingly out of place and abnormal for Colorado, but we just can’t say for sure it is a sasquatch making the noises heard.
As for protection, one would want a weapon capable of stopping a coastal grizzly charge. I don’t think you have to worry about it, because I don’t know of anybody killed by a sasquatch. There are only a few cases where something killed a hunter and left tracks at the scene that might have been sasquatch tracks. I have never investigated any attacks personally, so have no idea as to any merit of the few incidents. Most encounters where a sasquatch has been aggressive were false charges similar to the way a gorilla bluff charges. A chase, and that’s it. A sasquatch could easily catch a man, so they evidently don’t want to come into physical contact for the most part. Rock throwing is very common however. If large rocks start plopping down around you in the wilds, you might want to investigate the source.
Back in the 60’s there were places in northern California and southern Oregon where just about anyone could go out for a few days of searching and find at least one set of sasquatch tracks, due to the ashy nature of the soil there. Hundreds upon hundreds of sets were found there by very many people and documented during that period. They were all pretty standard in shape, but varied only in sizes found. Nowadays you can go to the same area and search for months on end and never find a set, which does not bode well for sasquatch there. I spent over 300 days in the SSJWilderness in southern Colorado and found only one set of sasquatch tracks there. So searching for tracks in Colorado is pretty tough because of the rocky nature compacted nature of the soils. Soft footed animals are very hard to track in Colorado environment. Two other Colorado outfitters have found sasquatch tracks in the SSJWilderness area, so there is a chance to find them if enough time is spent there. While hunting elk there in 1975 we found grizzly diggings on a hillside with grizzly tracks in the turned soil. That was about 3 miles from where Wiseman was attacked by a grizzly sow in 79. We told the local game officer about the diggings and the tracks when he checked our permits in camp, but I guess no one officially investigated the diggings or the tracks. We found no grizzly sign there before or since, so they are probably extinct there. One interesting thing happened in the SSJWilderness with a conservation group scoured the area for grizzly sign in the early 80’s. They found a 15 inch track in the edge of an elk wallow that was determined not to be a grizzly track. Interestingly the track was like a huge wide human track with 5 toes and no claw marks. So they were searching for grizzly spoor and find a 15 inch long human-like track. They make no claim as to what the track was from, but it is interesting non-the-less that they found it there. Interesting to me, because I found a whole line of that type of track there too, only difference being that the set I found was 17 inches long each and looked to have been made by a foot about 16 inches long and nearly 8 inches wide. Hope you guys get to find a set of these tracks for yourself some day.
It might be a good idea to be in a stout tree when calling at night. Might be a good idea to be pretty high up too, if a large sasquatch happens to come to you. Some of the tracks I have investigated in Colorado were pretty big and may indicate a pretty tall creature. If it has as long of arms as the Patterson film creature it can reach pretty high too. If you measure the relative length of the arm on the Patterson film subject, you will see that the arms are nearly as long as its legs. No human has arms that relatively long to leg length, which is why many anthropologists believe the film is genuine. If it was a man in a gorilla suit, you could get the arms that long with extensions, but you can’t get the elbows to bend in the correct place as is clearly seen in the film. There have been 7 people so far that have claimed to have been the man in the gorilla suit that Patterson filmed. Just recently two more people have claimed to have been the person in the gorilla suit that Patterson filmed on that fateful day. None of those people have arms nearly as long as their legs, nor do their arms bend that far down at the elbow when walking. The film needs looked at scientifically as is, not just taking some persons word that he or she was the person in a gorilla suit. If I were Mrs. Patterson, I would get all 7 of these claimants in a courtroom at one time and sue their butts for defamation. I also wonder, if it was a person in a gorilla suit, how they got the arms to hang straight down in spite of the chest being wider than any human chest on the face of the earth. You could build out the chest width on a suit, but not also get the arms to swing straight down as is clearly evident in the film. When scientifically measured, you just can not get a human being to fit into the mode of where the joints bend on the Patterson film creature, which makes the film very interesting to me. Most people do not know that we also have photos of people with marked measuring sticks at the same location and the comparison to the dead trees in the area that make measuring the filmed creature very exact. Dead trees don’t change size. When put to the test it puts Shaq O’neal to shame. It is about the same height as Shaq, but the chest is about twice as wide, and the arms still hang and swing straight down anyway. How do you do that with a gorilla suit? The thighs on the filmed creature are nearly the same diameter as Shaq’s chest measurement and the upper arms are in comparison diameter to Shaq’s thighs. And, that was just a little girly sasquatch that left 15 inch tracks. Can you imagine the critter that made the 19 inch tracks along the Eagle River a couple of years ago? Show me scientifically how one fakes the creature in the Patterson film, and I will say that it could be a faked film too. A doctor recently watched a good copy of the film and discovered that it has a torn muscle in its right thigh that bulges every time it puts weight on the right foot, which makes one wonder why a hoaxer would put that identifiable malady into the gorilla suit. I’m not a doctor, so I can’t say whether he is right or wrong in his interpretation, but it is interesting. I will just stick to the measurement of relative joint locations in comparison to human joint locations and say that it differs quite a bit from any human ever measured.
Date: 21-Mar-04
Here is young Mr. Hodgeman at the exact location of the film Patterson made. Hodgeman is 6 foot tall and skinny built young man holding the measuring stick. We know this is compared exactly because we overlayed the dead trees in the background with the photos from the film and the photos of Hodgeman to get exact comparison of relative size. I place a photo of Shaq sized at the 7 foot level on the measuring stick being held by Hodgeman. Compare the mass of the filmed creature to Shaq. Same height, but oh so much more massive. Man in a gorilla suit? What man!
Date: 21-Mar-04
Here is 6 foot tall Hodgeman in a full view photo with several frame overlays from the film with the dead trees in the background sized exactly to each other to give relative size of each exactly. Remember that dead trees don’t change size and this Hodgeman comparison photo was taken only a couple weeks after the film was made. Other comparitive films and photos were made and all come out the same in relative size mode. The creature makes Mr. Hodgeman look like a skinny little elf doesn’t it?
If you want larger photos to look at, to do your own measurements, I would have to email them to you. Photo size is limited in this forum format, but I think that you can at least see the relative sizes here.
Date: 21-Mar-04
The photo came out pretty little, sorry. Hodgeman is the little guy in the white teeshirt in the photo in front of the four frames from the Patterson film. Hodgeman is standing facing the camera with his left arm extended holding the measuring stick. The tall dead trees are what is used to match up the photo and the film frames.
Ron, sasquatch are kind of like Kansas cougars. Bowhunters see them every so often, and they leave tracks that are found every so often, but they don’t exist. I have no trouble believing in a few cougars in Kansas, but have a hard time accepting the reality of any sasquatch anywhere, and this in spite of actually finding tracks of them myself. It is just too unbelievable to my mind, but the evidence is pretty dang good in spite of it. If I could get over the hump of my mental disbelief and trust the evidence, I would be better off maybe. I still need to see a dead body of one of them to be convinced completely, but several years of investigations into track finds and such have been very interesting to say the least.
Date: 23-Mar-04
Some hair was collected in Bhutan after a bunch of sightings of an apeman occurred there. The hair was fresh and sent to England and DNA analysed by Brian Sykes, on of Britain’s leading genetics experts. Conclusion was that it was a higher primate hair of unknown origin or species. There are only so many higher primates known, so comparison is easy. However, all we know about the hair sample is that it is from an unknown higher primate, not what that primate is.
Our knowledge and ability to extract DNA from samples of hair and scat is getting better all the time. If sasquatch incidents were treated like crime scene investigations, a series of consistencies would result through time if sasquatch is real. If sasquatch is not real the evidence would be inconsistent. No investigators have looked into fingerprints at the scene of equipment messed with and such, but it could be done. Dermal ridge expert and professional crime scene investigator Jimmy Chillcut seems to think that the dermal ridges evident in some tracks are consistent and unique to sasquatch feet, but it doesn’t make credible evidence to me yet. I am more impressed with the consistent foot morphology on hundreds of tracks from hundreds of different cases, collected by hundreds of different people from hundreds of different places. The tracks I found and have investigated are of the same morphology too, so that inspires me to at least be interested in the whole subject. Morphology not only includes shape, but also length to width ratio, unique attributes of toe placement, relative toe sizes, relative toe flexibility, foot flexion placement, weight distribution in the print, flexion crease placement and others. General track lay-out is also consistent and uniquely different from human. Some of the criteria have never been publicized for fear that some hoaxer will make tracks consistant with the baseline criteria. Some of criteria even I don’t know, so when I collected track evidence from a scene, I passed it on to the physical anthropologists who do know and they would evaluate the tracks for that particular criteria.
Scat evidence might be useful in the future, if we know what to look for. One bowhunter contacted me last time we brought this subject up on this forum and said he found some odd scat that appeared to have been latrined over a period of time. Weasel family creatures are latrine animals that return to the same locations time and again to defacate. The very outsized scat he described, all in one area did not fit the norm for any other creature, so perhaps he had accidently happened upon a sasquatch latrine. Other theories are that since sasquatch is a predator it buries its feces like a cat or it covers it somehow with a deadfall or something or defacates in running water. I know that when I have the call of nature while bowhunting I either bury it or lay a log on top of it in timber country. Separating DNA from bacterial contamination is getting better and better, so if you find any scat that fits no known animal that you can think of, collect it without touching it and bring it home with you and contact Dr. Jeff Meldrum at Idaho State University asap. If you are in Utah, you can contact their wildlife department because they have a biologist who is waiting for your sample. The only Colorado biologist who would be very interested just recently retired. Wyoming hunters can contact Dr. George Gill at their University and he will take the sample properly. Dr. Gill took the hair samples from a Wyoming incident that involved one of their wildlife biologists who saw a sasquatch that broke through one of those split rail fences and left some hair samples behind. It was before the days of DNA extraction, but the hair morphology was most similar to chimpanzee hair but with some differences when studied. The samples were sent to two different labs, only one of which ran did analysis. The other lab lost it’s sample and the former lab eventually lost the samples Dr. Gill had sent. If we still had those two samples collected by a trained biologist with a personal sighting, it would be a step in the right direction. Actually, Wyoming has had two of its own state employed biologists actually see a sasquatch in that state. Sasquatch sightings and sign have dropped off drastically of late in most areas however. A few places in Colorado and northern New Mexico and a few places in British Colombia down into Washington and Idaho still show some promise, but overall I think that sasquatch will be extinct before too long and we won’t have to worry about it. We will probably find bones in some cave in about 50 years, but sasquatch will may be gone for good by then.
Why haven’t we found any fossil bones of this rare primate? Gigantopithicus existed in Asia for well over 1 million years, yet you could put all the fossils we have of it into a 1 gallon bucket. If such a creature migrated to North America and has only lived here for less than 30,000 years, how many fossils of it would be available for study? Maybe they have been here longer, because we have a human-like primate hair extracted from a cave deposit of mineral deposits over 100,000 years old. All have agreed that the hair is over 100,000 years old, but have not agreed as to the species that wore it, human or some other higher primate. What other North American higher primate is there besides human? Interesting, but inconclusive.
It is all interesting thus far, but all is inconclusive. Sasquatch simply do not exist, in spite of the hairs that can’t be identified. Dr. Henner Fahrenbach of the Oregon Primate Research Center (a medical research facility), has 7 samples of hair from 7 different incidents that are consistent with each other, of unknown species origin, a higher primate morphology, all collected in western North America, but what are they from?
If there are less than 100 sasquatch in all of Colorado, they would hardly ever be seen, tracks very rarely ever found, and absolutely about zero chance of happening upon a fresh enough carcass of one of them to be identifiable. I say that you could lay a sasquatch femur in a human foot trail in Yellowstone National Park and people would step over it until someone finally threw that big “buffalo” bone off the trail so someone wouldn’t trip over it. I have seen unidentfiable pieces of skull bones in the woods, and never gave them more than passing interest as to the species that left it. A sasquatch jaw with a few teeth left in it might last a year or two on the forest floor provided one happened across it and knew the jaw was anything other than a part of an elk or moose jaw. This is provided a bear did not chew it up first upon smelling it while fresh, with the rodents not far behind getting their calcium supply. The teeth might last for 10 or more years, little white jewels buried by pine needles quickly, forever lost to science, and certainly hard to find in millions of acres of western forests.
There are good answers to every question as to why sasquatch could live in America’s western forests and remain undiscovered officially. The main answer being that very few are looking for evidence of it because it is impossible for it to be here.
My questions are, If sasquatch is real, then why wasn’t one shot and brought in when miners and hunters were shooting everything that walked in America’s west during the 1850’s to 1910’s. 60 years of wholesale slaughter of large animals in western America? Seems to me that at least one would have been killed and brought out then. In my research into Kansas cougars, I have no trouble seeing how sasquatch avoid modern science, but still have trouble seeing how they avoided buffalo Bill and his ilk. However, I think back still to the article from the 1880’s Leadville Colorado Newspaper and how miners were very scared of a sasquatch in a stream drainage in what is now the Holy Cross Wilderness. A good experienced hunter went into the area to put an end to the “monster” and was unsuccessful in his hunt. I think about how in the 1940’s the U.S. Army supposedly lost a member of it’s Mountain Division training in the area snowy forests, with the only evidence of his disappearance being some of the soldiers articles, blood in the snow, and huge human-like footprints. Such stories are nothing but old newspaper articles and tales by local residents still living in the area. Relagated to myth, not fact, especially with the passing of time. All the “tales” from the original native (indian) inhabitants of that land are relegated to absolute myth, not fact, because it is a known fact that the original natives of this land were backward idiots who knew nothing of their own environment.
Keep in mind that Asian aborigines tales of giant primates in their forests were relegated to “complete” myth by European contacts until such time as fossils of real giant primates began to trickle back to the “real” world.
The Jemez Pueblo came into the area of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico in the early 14th century and have plenty of “tales” and “myths” of giant hairy manlike beasts encountered in the high ponderosa forests in the very areas where I found just such tracks in 1993. They even named at least one pueblo city after the man creature. I had never even heard of or considered such a creature being in Colorado until 1993 and my track find, but my research in that area found that a government bear hunter named Willford had encountered a huge upright walking bear of some sort in that same area in the 1870’s and his stories of how the native indians would not go into certain areas because of this creature. I think these are interesting “tales” because of my own experiences with tracks and sounds that don’t belong to reality in just that exact area. Maybe I spent too much time in the woods and slipped into some alter realm where furry monsters that leave outsize human tracks and make horrible noises really do exist. If some thing starts throwing huge rocks at me from some hidden location there some day, I will not run away from it but rather take off running toward it to see just what the hell it is. If it kills me, I hope a crime scene investigation is done thoroughly. For now though, I have quit collecting sasquatch evidence and just wait for it to come to me while I am out there fishing a timberline lake of bowhunting some herd bull or timberline buck.
You know, I don’t expect a single one of you to even start to really believe that sasquatch could be anything but a native myth or misidentified bear by some outdoors inexperienced white neophyte citified backpaker. I still don’t “believe” in sasquatch after finding it’s tracks and hearing those aweful sounds in might make myself, or interviewing 6 Colorado hunting guides and outfitters with experiences with it, 3 professional wildlife biologists with experiences, and a whole slew of other bowhunters and other wilderness seeking people with sightings and track finds. I looked at those awesome 19 inch tracks from the Eagle River and just shake my head as to how some person hoaxed them so damn convincing to me and everyone involved in the investigation. It is ridiculous and beyond reality that some 900 pound creature with 19 inch long feet is walking around Colorado in the 21st century.
I look at that film that Rodger Patterson made in the 1960’s, and can identify most of the major muscle masses in form and natural flexation, realize its extreme bulk, outsize chest width, arms bending in the wrong place by scientific comparison, watch the smooth movement and joint rotational axis, know the 7 idiots that claim to have been the “man in the gorilla suit”, realize that no computer graphics or even very good gorilla suits or makeup art existed in the 60’s by comparison, realize the film was made by a rodeo cowboy and not a hollywood makeup artist, and think that maybe I am getting to see a female member of a species that made 19 inch tracks that I investigated myself. I guess I just say forget the media hype and look at the Patterson film real close and use a measuring device on every frame of the film like I have and come to your own conclusion. Even if sasquatch does not exist in Colorado, I think it might have in California in the late 1960’s. Go back and look at that one comparitive photo I pasted above and see how many muscle groups you can name from anatomy class and then go look at the 1970’s era Chewbaca suit and see how many muscle groups you can identify in the Chewbaca suit?
Date: 23-Mar-04
If you look at the upper arms of the Patterson film creature, I guess they are quite a bit larger than Shaq’s thighs, in spite of her similar height. It would be a moot point to compare her girly figure to a photo of “the worlds strongest man”, because she dwarfs him in musculature. You can do it if you want, because photos of both are available. I just wanted you to know the scientific proof of the massiveness and flexion points of the creature in the Patterson film. If you watch the film frame by frame, you will also notice that it curls and extends its hands from time to time while walking, which is an interesting part of the gorilla suit with extended arms.
Just this last week yet another person has come forth to say he was the man in the gorilla suit. He said that Patterson ordered a gorilla suit from some novelty supply place in the east and that he wore it in the film. Looks just like a 1960’s era gorilla suit doesn’t it?
Date: 24-Mar-04
I just watched a program on PBS TV about the Inca of South America. The European anthropologist talking on the program was climbing at high altitude, without oxygen, and commenting on “how did those ancient Incan people climb to these heights?”. Geez, You would have thought he was some kind of super human European and belittling the Incan peoples of old. It was like “I can get up here but how did some backward stupid indian get up here at these heights over 500 years ago?”
I think it is about time that white European people and American descendants of those people who have been in America such a short time, like me, give our native peoples a little credit. Sasquatch may be a Native American myth and nothing more, but it is a dang common myth in western North American culture and it’s tracks are still found by me and others in spite of the myths from these “stupid” Natives who don’t know better according to European scientists.
I am an invasive plant species professional by occupation and so I know a little bit about plants, non-native and native. I give presentations about native plant species, and so I study the uses of those plants as done by the native inhabitants of this area prior to our own invasion of this land. When I see modern science “discoverying” the uses of these native plants, I only shake my head because I know that the selfsame uses for those plants was discovered long ago by the native inhabitants of this land and even published by the first geographers and explorers of this land. Why do I say all of this? I say it because though you might be of “superhuman” European descent and belittle the sasquatch and those native peoples who have very seriously had the sasquatch in their forests for millenium, before you were born, you may be wrong about sasquatch if you reject it’s existance out of hand.
I once also rejected the existance of sasquatch, not because I was scientific, but because I was possibly blind to anything that didn’t fit into the preconcieved perception of the world I lived in. Sasquatch was just flat impossible and nothing else. Prior to finding tracks that fit this animal I maybe had watched the Patterson film once as a child and thought no more about it. It was simply just some guy making a film of some other guy in a gorilla suit, and that was as far as I took it. I have since studied not only every frame of that film but also the background of the events and people surrounding the film. I have heard 7 people say that they were the person in the gorilla costume and heard of at least 3 professional film makers who were behind the makeup art. The problem is that the 3 people who were supposedly behind the makup art have said in no uncertain terms that they had nothing to do with the film, and 7 different people can not wear the same costume in the same film. If you take even the simple evidence I have shown here as to the extreme bulk, chest width and the rotational axis of joints of the subject into consideration, you will see that the Patterson film subject is not as simple as some media would have you to believe.
Life may be easier if you are French and take a nuetral or negative position on everything, but that does not mean that the French are right, it only means that they are doomed to destruction some day. While I am attacking the French and their holier than thou attitude, let me also attack the liberals and the liberal media. Our president is currently being attacked by the media for not preventing the 911 attack, in spite of him being in office for only 9 months and working with a 8 year previous administrations entrenched peoples who were supposed to be the intelligence of this country. Was Bush supposed to kill every would be terrorist proactively and before the fact? Had he come into office and immidiately started dropping bombs on every terrorist cell in the world he would have been called a “Hitler” by the same media that says now that he should have done something more in those 9 months. Bush did see proactively that the obviously evil Saddam Hussein was a threat to not only America but the world, so he took proactive steps in that regard and is persecuted by the media now for that proactive step. He can not win for losing, can he? His predecessor did absolutely nothing to prevent any terrorist activty, yet is glorified by the same media. “Predecessor”, means the president who was president before Bush, who was Bill Clinton, to those of you who actually believe what the liberal media says and probably don’t know what the word “predecessor” means.
Let me tell you a few truths. The truth is, sasquatch might not be a flesh and blood creature as we know it, but it is truthfully a part of American native heritage and oral history and tracks fitting it’s description have been found repeatedly. The truth is that Native Americans have every bit as many brain cells as European stock. The truth is that militant Muslims will forever be killing innocent peoples by terrorist acts as long as they reside on the face of the Earth, no matter what political party or president is in office.
What does European attitude, French parliment members, political affiliation, the media, and sasquatch have in common? The answer is that “you will believe what you want to believe or hear based on your preconcieved perception or conception of your world and reject anything you hear that goes against that preconception”. Right now the highest court in the land is contemplating removing “Under God” from our “Pledge”, and eventually will likely consider removing it from our currency as well. I personally “believe” in God, though I can not convince you scientifically of His existance if you don’t want to hear about it because you have already rejected His existance. I can tell you the scientific odds of how millions of amino acids in exact combination came together by “accident” to form the smallest and most simple of life forms, and how impossible such an accident is, but if you already think that life came by accident you will reject it anyway. I will say that scientifically a simple bacteria is more complex than a Boeing 747 airliner with onboard computers, fueled and ready to fly, but you won’t believe me because it is impossible that a 747 airliner with onboard computers, fueled and ready to fly could have formed by accident in some primordial soup. Yet you will say that a bacteria formed by accident in some primordial soup, but also say that forming an aircraft ready to fly by accident is impossible. Such is science vs. fact or mathematical chance. My opinion, and it is opinion only, is that, if I can exist, why can’t God the Creator of things exist? You have to decide by what you percieve. I see the footprints of God on the natural world that I enjoy while bowhunting or fishing in some relatively pristine environment, and the footprints of sasquatch are so minute by comparison that they are rather unimportant. You can decide for yourselves. I emplore you however to consider the natives of this land and thier heritage. I emplore you to not discount Mr. Rodger Patterson and the one film he made after very many years of hunting quest nor the integrity of his living wife who loved her long dead husband and has forever believed in him and his met goal. I have spoken to this woman and she is a sweetheart, not just some woman out to make a buck on a film her husband made years ago. Real people, with real goals and real accomplishments, not just media figures to be downtrodden by the masses or the media they follow blindly.
If some sasquatch or some eastern cougar is hit by some truck or car, I hope that you will reconsider not that sasquatch is real, but rather reconsider the important quetions in life about yourself. Do you base reality on preconcieved notion of what you think might be real or unreal or do you base it on something else, scientific or otherwise. Iowa and Missouri scientists fully rejected cougars in there respective states until such times as very many cougars have been hit and killed by cars there very recently. Cougars are just coming out of the woods there now, in number, in spite of previous scientific rejection. Same could happen with God and sasquatch too, in spite of how both are not supported by very many scientists. Though we can mostly all hope that God is not hit by a truck on the highway to prove His existance, we can at least hope that we can someday know more about Him.
I hope that sasquatch is proven to be real someday, just so we can rethink our other other scientific preconceptions about reality. My reality has more questions than answers, but I am not afraid to seek the answers in spite of being called a fool. I have been called a fool for believeing God is worth seeking answers about and been called a fool for seeking answers to Colorado sasquatch and Kansas cougars. I am used to it, so call me stupid for seeking answers and make jokes about any of the above.
The last time we had a discussion about sasquatch on the Colorado forum a couple of years ago I gave names and contact information on at least 5 or 6 professional Colorado hunting guides and outfitters with very personal sasquatch encounters to one of the most outspoken critics and he evidently never personally contacted them himself to hear firsthand their personal accounts. The forum died and no one changed their opinion on the subject one way or another. So be it. Here we go again!
Date: 25-Mar-04
Dogcatcher you have to be kidding. Native Americans didn’t need wheels, as they had good self bows. I used to use wheels, but went back to the simple form too. No troubles, no fussing and oh so sweet to shoot and hunt with. My hunting bow weighs 17 ounces and shoots a heavy arrow like a pile driver right through any critter that walks.
Native Americans also had no horses to pull wagons, and a tavois worked fine and never broke down. Even when they did finally get horses they shunned the heavy wagon, as they knew how to survive without the proverbial kitchen sink, because they were wilderness saavy. When pulling something by hand through broken terrain, give me a travois rather than something with wheels anyday. Especially big heavy wooden wheels that catch on deadfalls and eventually break anyway. You would think if our European ancestors were half smart that they would have shunned the big heavy wooden wheels on their wagons and used titanium wheels.
Date: 26-Mar-04
Right now the largest natural gas field in the world, that I live nearly on top of, are running very dry fast. I heat my house with natural gas, and we run a large portion of our irrigation pumps on natural gas to supply your food. When that runs out what will happen? Our whole civilized society is almost entirely based on fossil fuels right now, in form and infrastructure, and most types of fossil fuel are coming to an end rather fast. All hell will break loose in the “civilized” world if we don’t start yesterday changing over to a hydrogen based society using renewable resources for hydrogen production. We are not making the transition fast enough in my opinion, so it may be that burning buffalo chips for heat and walking instead of driving a 10 mpg vehicle was perhaps a little smarter way to live to a ripe old age. Put several million people into a city, turn off their power, the power to deliver them water, and stop taking food to them by truck and see what happens. It could very well happen. Who had more survival strategy intelligence, we or the native societies we displaced?
As for me and mine. I am convinced that you could strip me buck naked and turn my family and me into any rural area of North America and I could feed us and clothe us in short order and we would live well and prosper. I know which plants– wild, native, non-native and domestic have high and edible starches and which ones have high proteins. I know how to hunt and snare my meat with simple things that I can build myself in very short order from natural materials. I know how to simply process poisonous prussic acid levels out of some of the highest protein seeds, and know how to convert poisonous starches into edible starches and sugars. I know how to make some of of those sugars into a simple brew to make for a little relaxation or party time whenever we want. I know which plants have poisonous alkaloid levels or other poisons and to avoid them. In the depth of winter I know where to get vitamin C, and carbohydrates from below ground.
If you and yours are dependant upon society and “civilization” to feed you, clothe you and keep you warm, you might some day be in a world of hurt and wish you were as “smart” as the natives that lived in this land prior to our coming. Intelligence is based on need, not on anything else. Necessity is the mother of invention, not the “superior” European brain.
Necessity continues to be the impetus behind invention, but smart people plan ahead. We are not very smart as a modern civilized society in regards to food supply and energy supply for the masses we have developed on the backs of fossil fuels. Nuclear energy is smart and modern nuclear energy plants are very safe, but we have stupidly planned on stockpiling radioactive residues all in one or two places. When men mine the radiaoactive elements and refine them into fuels, he does not create the elements, but rather only takes from the earth those very elements. They were at relatively low levels of radiation in their former form. but of high level in the risidue form that must be disposed of, simply because they are in one place. Instead of spending the time to recombine those elements back into the earth at previous low level in the very places they came from, we choose to make a stockpile of high radiation in some desert area. We are lazy and “stupid” in that regard. Making a problem that does not have to exist. How smart is that?
Though I know about how to survive in primitive situation, I also know how to produce alcohol from a pile of limbs through simple enzyme action and turn that alcohol into hydrogen through a homemade reformer and the hydrogen into a home-made fuel cell to produce electricity very efficiently. I am convinced that I can aquire all I need to do this within walking distance of my home, so if civilization collapses, I am not going to live very primitively am I? Why do I tell you this, I tell you this because I am no smarter than the European superbrains of old or the native Americans, but I just have a different base to work off of then they did. Neither Europeans nor native Americans were turning ethynol into hydrogen into electricity 200 years ago. Was it because they were stupid because they had less brain cells than I do? No it wasn’t.
You can learn how to make limbs off a tree into electricity too, by simple study on the internet. Where did that information come from? It came from unity of goal of getting it to you by peoples that were of every race and every color and creed.
I will defend any genetic pool of the human race, be they red, yellow, black or white in regards to intelligence potential. It is time for us to forget color and think about our species as one race, the human race. It is time to work toward goals together, whether it be to solve our energy needs, to pass on the value of hunting to our children, or even to solve biological puzzles such as sasquatch. Did you know that very very many persons in this civilized society look at hunters as barbaric idiots of low intelligence. They think this because they also view hunting/gathering societies of old as groups of unintelligent dimwits. I differ. My son has asthma of life threatening proportion and if society collapses what drug store am I going to go to to get his bronchial dialaters to keep him alive? I won’t have to because I have a very good brochial dialater growing right in the pastures beside my house. I learned of this life giving brochial dialater from the natives that lived here hundreds of years ago. Smart people weren’t they? Smart enough to preserve the life of my son hundreds of years later.
Date: 27-Mar-04
Sorry about the heavy discussion, but I just wanted some to see how so called intelligence is relative to need, so I had to explain the process fairly in depth I guess, to make people think about it a little.
There is nothing common about bowhunters. I have found that bowhunters on average are amoung the greatest thinkers. I think this is because those who choose bowhunting over other forms of hunting like to challange their minds and their bodies toward a goal. Since they are predisposed to that kind of challange/goal orientation, they also challange themselves in other areas of life and learning. I am proud to be in the group of humans who call themselves bowhunters. Those bowhunters who disagree with me on controversial subject are not at all any less intelligent than me either, but rather just working off a different baseline of experience than I, and that’s okay. Their arguments are sound for the most part, and their questions good. I argue with myself too in the question of sasquatch. My eyes and investigations have revealed the possibility of the reality of sasquatch, but my mind still tells me it is implausible.
There is something very interesting that I have found out about locations of sasquatch sightings and tracks in western North America that applies very much in Colorado too. If sasquatch is nothing more than misidentification or fabrication of a forest animal, the locations of sightings of it should occur in a random geographical order based on human/forest interaction. In Colorado there is a place called Rocky Mountain National Park that has very nice sasquatch habitat, plenty of wildlife of all kinds, and really good places for people to misidentify something or make up a story about a sasquatch sighting. There are also plenty of humans of all fabric of society who go there to have a sasquatch sighting, more so than almost any other Colorado location. That area should recieve the most sasquatch sightings by means of the highest number of human visitors, by virtue of relative mode. I however have not one sasquatch sighting from Rocky Mountain National Park, whereas I have a whole slew of sightings from one area less than 70 miles away that is visited very much relatively less by humans. Why is this? There is difinite correlation, but I don’t know exactly what it is, if sasquatch is nothing more than fabrication and misidentification. The correlative answer is simple if sasquatch is real, and that correlative answer is that sasquatch hates to be around a bunch of human activity to a great degree. There is also a correlation to sighting/track locations and relative elk density in western North America for some reason, including Colorado. What does that correlation mean, if anything? I have also found that in eastern North America, where bigfoot sightings also sometimes occur, the sightings are random and no tracks that fit natural deposition or morphological form are found. This tells me that if sasquatch is real, it is real only where tracks of a distinct morphology occur and where sighting locations for the most part can be correlated in some way to a distinct habitat. But, sightings of it in eastern North America indicate that only a percentage of sightings of it in western North America are real and true. Why do we have hundreds of documented tracks of a distinct type collected by hundreds of different people in hundreds of different locations in the western states and none from eastern North America? Are westerners better at faking sasquatch tracks by the hundreds, and easterners so bad at faking tracks that they rarely try and when they do try it is obvious? In this age of information, it should be that easterners could fake tracks every bit as well as westerners. One other oddity is that eastern American soils are more conducive to tracks by virtue of being usually of a less rocky nature on the whole than western mountain soil types, so faked tracks should be found there in relatively higher number because there are more places to fake them for some yahoo to find. Interesting, to me anyway.
How many professional guides and outfitters are there in Colorado compared to any other occupation? Those who make their living by hunting are a very small lot indeed, yet by correlation they have so much larger percentage of sasquatch sightings and track finds of sasquatch in Colorado than any other forest visiting persons of any occupation. Is it because hunting guides and outfitters are worse at wildlife identification or track identification than the general public, or is it because they are liars to a much greater degree than the general public? If sasquatch is not real, then one of those is true. I don’t believe that hunting guides are liars to such a greater degree, nor do I think that they are worse at wildlife identification than the general public, so I am at a point of stalemate. Sasquatch sightings in Colorado come from those who visit the wildest places more often than the rest of us for some reason. There has to be a logical answer for this. What is it?
Date: 27-Mar-04
I want you guys to see these three tracks from three different locations found over a period of 15 years by three different people and found before anyone published any criteria as to what a sasquatch track is supposed to look like. These three tracks range from 13 inches long to 17 inches long, but I have sized them all the same here for easier comparison of morphology.
These tracks are all obviously pressed into the soil instead of drawn into the soil. They all show absolute flexible foot bottom by virtue of relative weight distribution and lack of any impact ridges that would result from an inflexible wooden foot. Please note that each shows the most compaction of soil in the same locations as the others. Note that a short ways behind the largest toe that there is an indentation and flexion crease in that ball area of each of these track examples. Each of these tracks is from a series of tracks in relatively good tracking soils and each showed great flexibility in the toes as in some tracks the toes are more extended and in some tracks the toes are more curled and the tips of the toes show in the soil on some of the tracks moreso than in other tracks in the same track-line. Note that in each of these three examples that the heaviest compaction of soil occurs in a way indicating a relatively squishy foot bottom whereby the soil is not quite as impacted toward the center of the foot. Note the relative length to width ratio that is so much different than human footprints and how the foot is completely different than human in spite of a similar shape. Note the arrangement of toelines and how the little 5th toe does not track very well in many cases. I could go on and on and on as to morphological sameness of these tracks and why they are not from wooden fake feet. I can also go on and on and on about how they are different from human tracks or bear tracks. Having investigated the events, timeframes and the peoples surrounding these track finds I could also go on and on and on as why they were not faked by the same person. I can also tell you that I found tracks myself that fit this morphology and have personally investigated others that fit this morphology exactly in every way. What are these tracks from and why have they been documented just so in western North America over the last 50 years in photo and cast form? Why were these giant human-like tracks reportedly found by miners and hunters from Crestone Colorado to the Pacific Northwest since the 1840’s? Why did the Jemez Pueblo indians name one of their northern pueblos after the huge humanlike tracks they reportedly found at that location in the 1500’s? I wish cameras would have been invented in the year 1500 and that the forty-niners would have had cameras or plaster of paris to record the tracks they found too.
As information of this type of track becomes more and more available to the public, the incidence of these tracks is becoming less and less frequent. This is backwards to what one would expect if they are faked and indicates that the real makers of these tracks are becoming less numerous rather than more numerous as time goes by. Why? I am getting more and more convinced that this particular type of track will eventually disappear from North America, just as you can no longer find Columbian mammoth tracks here any longer, though mammoths used to be tracked and hunted by man here in North America. Sad.
Date: 27-Mar-04
By the Way, please don’t blame me for faking the tracks in the 3 photos I submitted, because I was in diapers when the black and white photos were taken. I have very very many more track photos and photos of casts in my files that fit just this morphology. Way to many to submit on a forum that is getting too long to download with small photos anyway. Actually I really came to the point that it was a moot point to collect any more track photos or casts because they were all the same anyway, no matter when or where in western North America they came from, as long as they were coming from high elk density areas. I have seen a few faked tracks and they were so obvious that it took me about 5 seconds to evaluate them. I live in an area with antelope and two species of deer. I have no trouble distiguishing antelope tracks from deer tracks even though they both have similar characteristics, they are distinctly different. Usually I can tell the difference between whitetail tracks and mule deer tracks by depth of the hoof edges, but not always. They are so similar that it is most often very difficult to distinguish between the two. I also have no trouble distinguishing sasquatch tracks from human or bear tracks, they having so many differences that distiguish them from each other. Why is their a distinct morphology to sasquatch tracks in comparison to human tracks? Why wouldn’t sasquatch track fakers just make big human tracks through all of these years or in at least some cases when the tracks looked naturally deposited? Never happens. When the tracks are rather obviously naturally deposited they all fit the same mold in spite of the size differences found. The 19 inch tracks I investigated a few years ago from edge the Eagle River fit the morphology exactly, even though they were in gravelly soils that are fairly hard to see detail in. The fact that within a few feet of these tracks that there was better track faking soil available only convinces me more of the genuineness of the tracks that were photographed. You may be surprised to know that the local law enforcement investigators and the local wildlife biologist came to the same conclusions as I. The tracks were real, they were 19 inches long, they were from an extremely heavy animal, and they were real, but what thing made them? My experiences with these tracks is kind of like living in the dang Twilight Zone. 19 inch long tracks about 9 inches wide and pressed dang hard into the soil can only be appreciated when viewed for yourself in full and glorious reality. You simply can not appreciate the size of the tracks and indications of weight involved until you see them yourself. If you even begin to believe that they are real tracks, the indications are scary and Twilight Zonish. Really big grizzly tracks are kind of that way too when seen, as they make you feel on the smallish size and kind of like you entered perhaps a realm of existance that you should probably avoid. I saw some pretty big grizzly tracks on Wyomings Bacon Creek while hunting black bear, and that was just a little boar inland grizzly. I can’t imagine seeing in person a very fresh set of big boar coastal grizzly tracks in person with only a bow in hand. Some bowhunters do, and they have my condolances. Did you know that Colorado once had grizzly boars who’s hides squared more than 10 feet and that apparently weighed more than 1000 pounds? This is in spite of most biological theory being that the farther south one travels the smaller any given species of mammal. Colorado grizzlies of old were big suckers. Wish they were still here. Wish there was a chance that my grandkids could find a set of sasquatch tracks while bowhunting Colorado 50 years from now. But I fear that sasquatch tracks will go the way of Colorado grizzly tracks in the near future. It’s not sad, it’s damn sad, to never see those tracks there again. Sasquatch just needed more space than we can give it now days. Maybe there will be a few sasquatch holdouts in British Columbia for awhile, if human disease does not wipe them out there. Maybe I will take a long walk in some relatively untouched area of British Columbia someday, uphill and downhill as far as my quickly aging legs will take me in a week or two and see whats there. There are some areas there where you could spend months on end and never see or hear another human even if you tried and the only indication of other humans is a plane flying over every once in awhile. I used to be able to hike uphill for hours on end with a 70 pound backpack strapped to me full of tent, bedding, clothes, food to last a week,and many things I never really needed (my personal limit during youth), but not anymore. I suppose I could take a piece of lightweight plastic to put over my lean-to for solid rain protection, a light axe, a little light cording, a light flat-bow, a couple arrows, a light sleeping bag with goretex outer, and live off the land. I would probably loose weight even though I am already a little too slim, and might not come back out, but it might be a fun challange to do it. I have responsibilities to wife, kids and grandkids here at home that kind of prevent me from doing that now, but I think that about the time that most people go into old folk homes I am going on a walkabout in a one way direction into the deepest darkest portion of North America to see what is there if I still have half my mental wits about me. I hope it is still deep and dark there 20 or 25 years from now. Don’t you think Saxton Pope, Art Young or Fred Bear would have rather ended their days on a walkabout rather than an old folks home? I do. We all have to say a permanent goodbye, but we might have a choice on how we go if we pay attention to indications of the end. Since women usually outlive their husbands by quite a few years, I wonder how long it takes to collect life insurance if your husband disappears into the depths of British Columbia? The older you get, the more you wonder about things like that because you know that life does have limit. My dad died at not quite 70 years old, so I might have to decide in less than 25 years if all goes well. With my luck I will probably start my walkabout at age 69 and come back out because of loneliness at age 75 to end my days playing cards in some old folks home and not knowing diddly squat because of aging brain cells and my wife will have collected the life insurance that she has to pay back and remarried. Guess if I go I will have to ignore loneliness until the end so that my wife doesn’t have to pay back the insurance payment. I don’t like playing cards or watching re-runs on television anyway. I would much rather feed my skinnly old carcass to coyotes, wolves and grizzly bears rather than anaerobic bacteria 6 foot underground anyway. I just know that Fred Bear, giving the choice in hindsight would have had it that way too. Maybe I will ask him someday, the same day I find out if sasquatch tracks were real or faked by some really good track fakers. Forgive me if I think that there is some great truth behind Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ” and Christs death and resurrection on our behalf. Forgive me if I think that life is more than 70 years of thought and struggle that ends in blackness and nothingness. I can’t scientifically prove that God created man, or intercessed logically on man’s behalf to make for Himself free will beings in difference to unthinking robots to keep Him company for eternity, any more than I can prove that sasquatch tracks may be more than faked tracks. But, God is universally and completely more logical to me than sasquatch. Sasquatch is relatively unimportant by comparison. You know, I would hate to go off into a final wilderness walkabout without preparing a good bow and matched arrows, and I would hate to end my last day on planet earth without preparing a good set of spiritual bow and arrows to take that trek, just in case I am more than flesh and blood. Never hurts to be prepared. I don’t care whether you ever find sasquatch tracks in the woods, but I hope that while you are in wilderness places you see the tracks of the creator. That is where I feel closest to Him, not in church. Ever wonder why the planets that circle our sun are so balanced in orbit and supposedly accidently spun off of some theoretical molten mass some billions of years ago, yet are so different from each other in spite of being from the same accidental spinning molten mass. If you don’t believe in God or creation, do this test. Put watery mud, sticks, stones or what-have-you into a ball and spin it at high speed and see what flys off and where it lands. You will see by this test that you have masses that will land at certain distances from the center of rotation in an ordered way depending upon relative mass. You can repeat the test over and over again and it will end the same relative way again and again as many times as you try it. The spinning mass that supposedly accidently happened to create our one solar system according to science is completely different from the result of this simple test of orbital deposition. Why is that? Is science ignorring something that is right there in front of it’s face because they want to ignore it? Like I have always said, you will see what you want to see, no matter how much evidence, even scientific evidence, contradicts it. I don’t care whether the morphological sameness of sasquatch tracks indicate a real species, as much as I care whether God exists or not. Science does a great job itself of ignorring any evidence of either it doesn’t want to see, so why should I. It also took science hundreds of years to admit that meteorites came from outer space, in spite of them holding them in their hands and human witnesses to the fact that these unusual rocks came falling out of the sky and the impact craters created that anyone could go out and see. Scientists by and large would rather stick to the very well known fact that rocks don’t fall from outerspace to earth.
Date: 01-Apr-04
I have talked to at least a couple dozen hunters in Colorado, both rifle hunters and bowhunters, who have reported seeing sasquatch in that state. Most times the sasquatch was in firearm range and in several cases the sasquatch was within bow range. None of these hunters even began to think about shooting such a man-like creature. Good thing, as I don’t want hunters shooting at me, in case they are mistaking me for a sasquatch. The only case I know of, of a sasquatch being shot was in the mid 60’s in Wyoming, when two college age rifle hunters from Ohio reportedly shot one, thinking it was a bear. They had never heard of “bigfoot” and thought they had accidently shot a local human freak. They fled home without telling anyone. When the Patterson film came out as a documentary in the early 70’s, the two men decided that this is what they must have killed and reported it to the authorities. No one evidently went to the location to look for any residual teeth that might have remained somewhere in the soil of the general location of the killing but the men supposedly both kept to their story. The two Wyoming biologists that have reported seeing sasquatch themselves in Wyoming had their personal experiences in the 70’s and 80’s, after the incident with the two hunters. One of the biologists, senior biologist John Myonczinski (sp?), recently retired from the Wyoming game department and so has gone partially public with his experience. He was their bighorn sheep field biologist and spent very much time in tents at timberline areas doing field study. The other biologist, who saw a sasquatch in open ground and somewhat chased it with his vehicle, causing it to break through a split rail fence and leave behind tracks and hair samples, still works for the state of Wyoming and so has not gone public. Those were the hair samples that went to two labratories via Dr. George Gill at Wyoming State University that were deemed to be similar to chimpanzee hairs. I have the test results somewhere in my files, but they really mean nothing now as the hairs got lost and were never returned to Dr. Gill. Interesting though, since a trained biologist was involved with the sighting and the hair collection according to professional evidence recovery standards.
The reason that I still don’t “believe” in sasquatch in spite of finding tracks, investigating tracks that are just so real looking, reading professional reports on hair samples, and talking to so many biologists with personal experiences and quite a number of professional hunting guides and outfitters with personal experiences and track finds, is that my logic may be faulted. Logically, after evaluation of so much evidence and testimony from evidently completely sane and experienced witnesses, I think that sasquatch must be real. However science dictates that all real things are logical, but not all logical things are real. Therefore, ultimately, sasquatch is not real until such time as the evidence is indisputable. I am also completely convinced that “sightings” of sasquatch will continue after sasquatch is completely extinct, even if it still exists in reality at this point in time. My reseach is completely useless until such time as sasquatch is proven to exist. If it is proven to exist in Colorado, my research will then possibly be important to establish possible distribution and location to begin official study of the species. That, and my own curiosty about the tracks I found, was the impetus of my research into the subject in the first place. Personally I have learned many things about all facets of science, biology, wildlife and human nature through my research into sasquatch, so it has not been a complete personal waste of time for me.
Date: 01-Apr-04
For those who completely discount any possibility of sasquatch being real, I just want to say that paradox exists in many forms in science. Some may appear to be contradictory instead of paradoxical, but there is a difference between those two expressions. It may seem that if we don’t yet have fossil or fresh flesh and bone example of sasquatch that it can’t be a real species to the point that this particular lack of evidence is contradictory to scientific reality, but that may not be the case. I believe that it is rather a paradox and that sasquatch is still worth investigative effort, by me or someone else according to expertise. I am not an expert in many areas that apply. Saying that, I don’t believe that sasquatch fits the realm of ontological arguments about reality in a generic sense, but rather in the realm biological argument.
Date: 03-Apr-04
Matt, if you did strike it rich, I don’t think any amount of money would result in catching up to a sasquatch. What would it take to catch a fairly intelligent 1000 pound ape with thighs bigger around than Shaq’s waistline. If the Patterson film is genuine then that musculature indicates that possibly it can walk all day long, uphill and downhill at over 5 mph. One sighting on the Colorado/New Mexico border was by a professional veternarian from the Chama area who said he watched a huge sasquatch walk up a rockslide just off Hwy 17. He said it rarely touched the rocks with it’s hands and walked steadily up the rock slide without stopping once. It ascended the rock slide in less than 10 minutes. The vet went back to the location the next day to try to find any tracks below and above the slide on the creatures route and he said that it took him about an hour, with several rest breaks needed to climb the same rock slide. He was just as impressed, excited really, with the creatures physical ability as he was the creature itself. When we look at the tracks, there are also very many indications of extreme flexibility lenthwise. They can evidently bend their feet more than we can, similar I suppose to how we can bend our hands, only not quite so extreme because of the thickness of the pad evident on the bottom of the sasquatch foot. What this bending might be for is climbing trees, similar to how an islander human shimmies up a palm tree for coconuts. I think that momma sasquatch sends junior sasquatch up a tree while she is out hunting, and perhaps that is why their feet are adapted to climbing. I really think that they are very good at hiding when young and when old. So they must be smart, can get from point A to point B in quick order, and can hide very well and know that hiding will help them survive.
Besides those things, if sasquatch is real, then it is a predator for the most part, not a herbivore. If it was a herbivore it would be seen in more open places where sun hits the ground enough to grow good plant foods. Their relative low population also indicates a predator species. Predators are naturally lower in number than their prey, and the bigger the predator the rarer they are because no one area can support very many of them. In my calculations based on size of a sasquatch male and prey availability, I think they need at least 400 square miles of forest each to survive, with perhaps one or two females and single offspring in that area too at times. In some areas a male cougar may require as much as 125 square miles that he defends against other male cougars. I think that sasquatch and cougar social systems are very similar. This type of lonely social system also exists for the orangutan, who also spend most of their lives alone. The hunting nature of a sasquatch also means that it knows how to hide in waiting for an elk or deer to come along down a trail. It knows about wind direction, and one thing it knows better than anything else is the movement patterns of its prey. Because it’s intelligence is geared around pattern of movement, it would naturally be very good at patterning the natural movements of humans that travel within its territory and be good at avoiding humans. Humans really do stick to the drainages and human trails for the most part, even most hunters. Even when I backpack into wilderness areas, I do most of my travel on human foot trails, because when going long distances I usually have a backpack on and it is easier to walk on the established trails rather than taking off cross country. Sasquatch also know where humans hate to travel, such as timber that is heavily strewn with deadfalls. That is where sasquatch likely spend their rest time, in the horrible stuff that even elk and deer avoid traveling through. Elk can run right through that stuff, but it is energy consuming for them and they avoid it if they can. Like us, most animals choose paths of least resistance until just before they bed down, if they like to bed in heavy cover.
If you think it would be hard to hide a 1000 pound dark colored animal, go moose hunting. Moose seem to be one of the dumbest of the herbivores, but they can hide without even trying. If there were only 50 moose in Colorado and they were as smart as a chimpanzee, you would probably never see one of them.
So, if sasquatch is real and living in Colorado in number between 30 to 100 of them, smart as a chimpanzee, a hunter par excellance, a lover of the forest and hater of open areas, how do you find one of them on purpose?
Since they spend almost all their time in heavy forest, even FLIR equipped aircraft can’t see down through the trees sufficently to see them.
I think the only way that you might have a chance at collecting a sasquatch is by an orchestrated effort of helicopters covering thoroughly a 400 square mile area of forest looking for sasquatch tracks in the snow. When a set of tracks is found you then concentrate on following it down by tracking with helicopter and foot soldiers dropped off from point to point until such time as you come to the end of the tracks where a sasquatch is making them. Flying helicopters in the mountains under such conditions is very dangerous, so it is likely that no one will undertake what it would take. Maybe it would be an ultimate challange for the military to track down a sasquatch, and the trained military and their equipment is probably what it would take. Even trained military with hundreds of men on the ground and many helicopters in the air have been unable to track a man that was hiding in a 40 square mile forest in eastern North America, so maybe that won’t even work. However, I think it would be much easier with snow on the ground. The last thing that any branch of the military is likely to do is use it’s resources and risk its pilots lives to try and track down a creature that doesn’t even exist, and I don’t blame them.
I hope some day that some law enforcement officer finds some good fresh tracks in snow and has the gumption to try to use some resources to try to follow them up to the end of them. Officer Joe Taylor Jr. almost did just that with two sets of sasquatch tracks in snow and mud in about 14 years ago southwest of Antonito Colorado, but he was on his own and in unofficial capacity. All he got was some video of the tracks and a lot of exercise. Those tracks were 19 inches long and 21 inches long respectively. 21 inches long is the longest set of tracks that I know of from Colorado. That is one huge set of feet making those tracks. I have seen 19 inch long tracks, and I can’t imagine them any bigger than that myself. Pretty scary looking. No wonder officer Taylor eventually gave up following those two sets of tracks, as he was probably afraid of finding the things that made them. I’m not sure I want to come face to face with one of them either, but curiosity would push me on I think. I really really hope that at least some of you other bowhunters will come acoss a set of these tracks yourself some day, and you will know exactly what I mean when I say the tracks are scary looking.
In officer Taylors case, the tracks were found at the edge of the forest on the backside of a ladies pasture while she was out tring to photograph some mule deer. She was Taylors niece, so she called him to go look at the tracks she had found on her property. He went, he saw, he video taped them, he followed them. He described them as having a stride of over 48 inches even while walking slightly uphill. He described how he could even see the human-like toenail imprints in the mud in tracks where the toes were curled downward. Who in the world would hoax such tracks in southern Colorado on the backside of a pasture where no one would likely ever find them and how did they walk with such huge feet on with such a long stride uphill?
Why did someone fake 19 inch tracks along the Eagle River in a gravelly area when only a few feet away was very nice soils to fake tracks in? How did they get them so pressed into the soils so well? If sasquatch is not real, then I don’t know who is out there faking these tracks or how they do it so well in so many places and cases.
Date: 03-Apr-04
Sorry, but I have to explain myself when talking about something as controversial as sasquatch.
Provided dogs would chase a bigfoot, a houndcam might work. About 8 years ago I was contacted by a professional Colorado houndsman/hunting guide who said he cut fresh sasquatch tracks in snow with his hounds and that the dogs acted cowardly and oddly at the scent for some reason. Whether his story had any merit I don’t know. I had sent emails to 23 long time Colorado outfitters/hunting guides asking whether any of them had had experiences with sasquatch in their hunting careers and that was one of the responses I got back from one of the guides.
Only 7 of the 23 responded to my email, four positively with experiences with sasquatch or tracks. One of the longtime hunting guides reported to me that he had a 30 yard range sighting while bowhunting and bugling for elk in the Lost Creek Wilderness in the 70’s. He thought it was responding to his elk bugle calls, which is why it got so close before detecting it’s mistake. He said it stepped in full view in a small meadow right next to him, so that he had no doubt about its size and every feature on it. He was very serious and glad that I was investigating the subject, and I could find no reason to not believe what he told me happened. I also found no reason to doubt Jeff Dysinger about his long duration sighting near Raspberry Mountain while he was guiding out of Colorado Springs. Raspberry Mountain is only about 20 miles from the other hunting guides personal encounter. Raspberry Mountain, immediately southwest of Woodland Park seems like an odd place for a sasquatch, but it also seems like an odd place for so many cougars. Most every winter there are sightings or track finds in the general vicinity of the Lost Creek Wilderness. Last sighting there that I know of was on 12/14/02 by several different motorists that reported a sasquatch walking near the edge of the highway during a heavy snow storm right on Kenosha Pass as reported to me by a sheriffs deputy who responded to the several calls they got from the motorists. Tracks were found by a coyote hunter 9 miles southeast of Kenosha Pass on Long Gulch on FR127 in Jan of 2001. So if you want to find sasquatch tracks yourself, your best bet might be to drive all the roads of that area in winter and look for big tracks. Then you can try setting the houndcam in action.
Sorry about getting long again, but if I don’t tell you about the reports from law enforcement and hunting guides, who will? As far as I know, CDOW is not planning any brochure on “Sasquatch in Colorado”.
Date: 03-Apr-04
Zeb, show me a body and then I’ll believe too. My first thought about the sighting on Kenosha Pass was that somebodies car broke down and the poor guy was walking along in a fur coat and people were going by thinking they were seeing a bigfoot. The deputy told me however that the people who reported the sighting were certain it was not a person in a fur coat or a gorilla suit. One of the motorists even reported that at first he thought it was some kind of joke until he got closer and also then realized how unlikely it would be for someone to be making a joke in such a serious and dangerous situation as a heavy snow on Kenosha Pass. Stay skeptical, but be aware and be thorough.
MF, there are so many different situations as far as how long a track will last that it is hard to say how long one will last. Tracks in snow are usually quickly covered with fresh snow in Colorado. However a gas powered leaf blower can sometimes reveal them in detail because the tracks themselves kind of turn icy where compressed. I have seen dinosaur tracks in Colorado on the Purgatory River, so I guess that tracks can sometimes last a long time. There are faked bigfoot tracks, but that does not mean that all bigfoot tracks are faked.
I think someone could fake dermal ridges in tracks, and most every other thing too. The only thing that convinces me of authenticity is anatomical continuity between tracks collected by many different persons in many different locations in many different years, before any publication as to what a sasquatch track is supposed to look like, such as the three examples above. The tracks I found personally and the tracks from the Eagle River were also very convincing to me, knowing every aspect of the situations involved. I can see no reason in the world to think the tracks are not real in many cases, but just still have trouble accepting the creature itself as being real. I hope the mystery is solved someday.
Date: 11-Apr-04
DSL, The tracks I found in 1993 were on the north edge of the South San Juan Wilderness, near the Lake Fork of the Conejos River, due south of a little lake called Rock Lake. A local outfitter found a set on the Rito Gato above Platoro Reservior in the late 80’s. A hunting guide found a fresh set in snow on the eastern edge of the SSJWilderness. Some people with the conservation group that went into the south edge of the South San Juan Wilderness looking for grizzly tracks found one sasquatch track in an elk wallow somewhere southwest of Conejos Peak. The two sets that officer Taylor documented were near the CO/NM border northwest of San Antonio Peak.
I spent 20 years hunting, fishing and hiking in that area before I ran across sasquatch sign, so maybe you are due for your own encounter.
There is evidently sasquatch activity all the way from San Antonio Peak in northern New Mexico toward the northwest clear over to the Silverton Colorado area. The Weminuche Wilderness is smack dab in the middle. There are certainly some huge areas in the Weminuche that are very rarely visited by humans. There are even some places that total more than 100 square miles that have no topographic map listed human trails on them. That is probably where sasquatch and grizzlies like to spend their time.
I heard from a former CDOW employee that a photo of a sow grizzly and two cubs was taken in the Weminuche in 1999, but I have not seen a copy of it to verify. There’s a kind of hush. It would be awesome to see a Colorado grizzly bear, especially after reading about how big the boars used to get in Colorado. Evidently Colorado had some really big grizzlies, which goes against the fact that usually the more southern one goes in North America the smaller the size of any given species. Evidently some of the Colorado boar grizzlies squared over 10×10 feet. Wow.
Date: 13-Apr-04
Maybe next time you will get to see what you think is a stump that then stands up like a 9 foot hairy man and walks off, instead of the other way around. I hope I do some day.
About the only time I was really startled while bowhunting was when I was in grizzly country and had a friendly horse come running up on me in the starlight darkness at high speed. I could have killed that horse, but he nudged me gently and softened my wildly beating heart. Took several years off of my life and gave me a few grey hairs in an instant however. I know carry my flashlight in my hand while hiking by starlight, though I usually still leave it off, so as not to disturb the peace.
Date: 24-Sep-04
Believer and “Rather be Hunting”, where did you hear your screams and could you describe the smell to me Believer?
I’ve heard bull elk make all sorts of sounds from normal bugling to braying and grunting. Sometimes their bugling is pretty raspy and could be mistaken for something else. I have also heard cougars several times, usually female cougar mating screams, but they are pretty easy to identify once heard.
At the time that I found that line of 20 or so 17 inch long sasquatch tracks in southern Colorado that got me interested in the possibilitie, I heard from pretty dang close range a series of three awesome roaring screams that have to be heard to be appreciated. I have no proof that the sounds were of a sasquatch, but whatever it was had a big set of lungs and good vocal cords and didn’t match any known species that I know of. Wish I would have got the sounds themselves on video tape, as I had a camcorder in my daypack but didn’t think about it being able to record sounds until later.
I definitely believe in sasquatch tracks because of the ones I found myself and the sets I have personally investigated since then and I believe in those sounds I heard. Something is making those tracks and I don’t believe that all of them are faked. Something is also making those horrible sounds out there.
Date: 24-Sep-04
Thanks Gary. Something messed around our cabin just outside the north edge of the SSJWilderness in Colorado one night according to my sister and a cousin of mine that smelled the exact description to the smell you describe. Their description was an outhouse smell with skunk and BO mixed in. Guess humans are pretty good at describing smells similarly. I have not smelled anything like that in any location before, but can kind of understand the description. While this aweful smell was going on, my 45 year old cousin said he saw a huge upright walking thing circling his RV that night. It eventually grabbed hold of the RV and rocked it violently while my cousin sat on the floor with a pistol in hand to protect himself. This happened about a year after I found those tracks in that area and he knew nothing of my track find or other experiences, as we had told no one outside immediate family.
Bears have been known to rock vehicles, including RV’s, and they also can sometimes stink to high heaven if they have been feeding on carrion. ???? As far as I know, bears do not scream however, nor walk around gracefully on their back legs.
Still, I will have to almost shake hands with a real sasquatch to be completely convinced, in spite of what I have found. Mostly because I am an extreme skeptic on nearly everything like this.
Date: 16-Dec-04
Possible clues on where to search.
My collection of Colorado sasquatch reports shows that December/January is best up around Kenosha Pass (last sightings there on 12/14/02), and up road FR127 which heads east just south of Kenosha Pass (tracks found there Jan. 21 2001 crossing the road on Long Gulch). Might need a snowmobile to get up FR127 most years in Dec/Jan.
Another location for Colorado sasquatch hunters in winters is down south across the border into NM, around the base of San Antonio Peak.
Good luck if you go searching for winter sasquatch or sasquatch tracks. If you find tracks, record them well photographically and with precise measurements and send them to me at kfoster@gcnet.com
Late March might find some migrating sasquatch along the Eagle River, around Gypsum to Eagle. I think they head from the lower country back into the Holy Cross about the last of March and the first of April depending upon the weather. I have some real interesting info from Sheriffs Dept. there that is not publicised. Actually some of their own deputies have seen the big pine apes with their own eyes, which is why it is not publicised of course. A good way to lose your law enforcement job is to say you saw a sasquatch I guess. I can’t say who, when or exactly where, but trust me on this. Sasquatch may be very rare, but it sure leaves real tracks and some very credible people have seen it lately in Colorado.
Date: 24-Dec-04
Stevet, Dysinger was very serious and straightforward in his descriptions and was in my opinion telling the truth in my visits with him on the telephone after the incident he described. Dysinger was not the only hunting guide to have a sighting in the general area. Another bowhunting guide also reported a sighting to me from that area. His occurred in the mid 70’s and was much closer range, about 25 to 30 yards distant. So we have two hunting guides in that particular area with personal close range and clear view sightings. Neither of the guides knew of the other guides sightings, as I had never shared with the public the first guides personal sighting. Their testimonies support each other very well in detail description of the creature involved despite the 20 years between the sightings. Dysinger got a long look at the details of the face as he watched it for 10 minutes or more through good binoculars at close enough range to see details pretty good. Generally he said it looked pretty much like a gorilla in the face, but with nostrils lower down closer to the mouth and not as flared. Kind of like a squished down human nose. It will be interesting to see the carcass of one some day to see the exact details.
The guide with the 70’s sighting is still alive, now lives in the Rifle area, and sticks to his story too.
I think sasquatch are animal and not human, but I still don’t think I could shoot one of them simply because I would hate to remove any individual sasquatch genetics from the general population. If it was a very old looking silvered male, I might collect it for science. I’d just like to see one myself, or at least personally find some more tracks. If I shot one, I would take lots of photos of the carcass, and cut off one foot and take it with me as I went out for help to get the carcass out.
Like I have said many times, I am convinced the tracks are real, consistent in a unique morphology, and made by a very heavy weight creature. I am pretty certain that most of the witnesses are telling the truth, but I still have a very hard time believing that the creature itself is real. I’ll have to see one myself to be completely convinced. It is definitely worth study however. I just hope they don’t go extinct before we know exactly what they are. There used to be locations in northern California where about anyone could go search for tracks and be pretty much assured of finding a set for themselves with enough searching. That is no longer the case in that area, which does not bode well for sasquatch population there. Tracking soil conditions are much better in most of the pacific northwest than in Colorado. I don’t think we could make population estimate decisions based on track finds in Colorado, simply because most of Colorado is not very conducive to tracking soft footed animals, due to rocky or hard packed soils and pine needles. Clear bear tracks are hard to find, and bears are quite numerous in many Colorado locations, so finding clear sasquatch tracks is kind of like winning the lottery. Snow would help, provided it was not snowing regularly to cover up tracks soon after they were made.
To find sasquatch tracks in snow, search in the areas where elk density is highest in any one locale. Sasquatch are evidently searching out good elk hunting, so I think we can increase our odds by a search for sasquatch where their evident food is located. A map of quality sasquatch sightings and sign are pretty much a map of good elk numbers at any one time of year, so their must be some correlation. Sasquatch are not prone to wander about in open areas for the most part, due to loss of stealth, so searching forested areas close to where elk feed in more open areas in winter might increase odds. If you wanted to have the best chance to catch an elk during winter and stay out of sight of humans, where would you go and how would you hunt. That is where I think you will have the best chance to find sasquatch sign yourself. If sasquatch is real, there are not very many of them because no one area will support very many of them. Like all predators, they are naturally rare. The bigger the predator, the rarer and the more territory each one needs individually. If an individual cougar needs nearly 100 square miles of hunting area, a sasquatch needs 4 times more at least I think.
I truely think that if sasquatch is real and is the predator it seems to be, that every fiber of its mental being is honed toward being able to pattern daily and annual movements of its preferred prey species. This unfortunately also makes it superb and being able to pattern human activity and movement within its territory for human avoidance. I think sasquatch are not dim witted, but very intelligent in the ways that it has to be. It may not use fire, tools, or make clothes, but it doesn’t have to.
Date: 26-Dec-04
Bear, I don’t believe 100% that sasquatch exists simply because it really seems absurd to my mind that sasquatch could have remained unofficially discovered up to this point in time in North America. Though I certainly know the tracks well, I just can not force my skeptical mind to completely fathom the creature that makes them. I am mentally torn between finding tracks that were so real, so natural, so huge and so dang off the beaten track, that it is also absurd to think they were possibly not real. Oh yes, the tracks were real, but what made them? When you find 9 inch wide tracks with 5 very clear toes across the front of each in somewhat human arrangement in some out of the way place and so naturally deposited with such evident weight involved, it is perhaps easy to jump to the conclusion that some form of huge man-like creature walks about in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Especially when several outfitters and hunting guides in the same area have also found these tracks or have reported seeing a creature that evidently matches the tracks. Not to mention the other bowhunters and rifle hunters who have seen the creature there too. Logically, if we put the testimony and the physical track evidence together, it would make a completely good court case, but it still does not make a perfect scientific case. Though there is no reason for someone to hoax tracks where I found them or even where I have investigated tracks found by others, and though there is no earthly reason why these hunting guides have any reason to make up stories, in fact the opposite. Tracks can be and sometimes are hoaxed, and people can and do sometimes make up stories. That is why science, and I, needs an example, living or dead, of the creature itself to be 100% convinced of the species itself.
On the other hand.
Of the general Colorado human population, professional hunting guides and outfitters by occupation represent a very small percentage of population. Lets say hunting guides represent .0003 percent of Colorado residents, and 6 of those guides have reportedly seen sasquatch or found their tracks in Colorado. And then lets say that 200 other Colorado residents or visitors to Colorado have reportedly seen sasquatch or it’s tracks there. If we scientifically chart the ratio of sightings by professional occupations, we find that hunting guides have a hugely greater rate of sightings and/or track finds than any other professional occupation. Why would this be? If sasquatch is not real, it means that hunting guides tell lies or are worse at wildlife identification at a hugely higher rate than the general public. Is this true? It has to be true if sasquatch is not real. On the other hand, if sasquatch is real, it means that hunting guides must have the best chance of seeing them or finding their tracks. Which conclusion seems more logical. It does seem more logical to me that a person who makes his living observing wildlife and searching the ground for tracks would be the one to have the greater chance of seeing what is living out there and also finding tracks of what is living out there than the general population. This is exactly how it is with sasquatch sightings, like it or not. If you want to have the greatest chance of seeing a sasquatch, be a hunting guide, specifically a bowhunting guide, in Colorado. In Wyoming, the ratio of chance increases if your occupation is “professional wildlife biologist”. Two Wyoming State wildlife biologists have reportedly seen sasquatch in that state. This means that if you want to have a hugely greater chance of seeing a sasquatch in Wyoming than the general population, you should choose the occupation of wildlife biologist. Why is that the case?
Why is it that in Colorado, there are no known sasquatch sightings in Rocky Mountain National Park, yet 80 miles south of that Park there are very numberous sightings in one area smaller than the park itself, and a couple of those sightings are by professional hunting guides? If sasquatch is not real, couldn’t it also be seen by wildlife inexperienced National Park visitors. If sasquatch is not real, this tells us most assuredly that National Park visitors are better identifiers of wildlife and/or more truthful than hunting guides. You can not have it both ways.
So, if you do not want to see a sasquatch or find its tracks, become a member of the general public and visit Rocky Mountain National Park as often as you please. If you do want to see a sasquatch, become a professional bowhunting guide and visit the Pike National Forest/Lost Creek Wilderness often. Why is it this way? One would think that inexperienced weekend campers, scared of the dark, and prone to wildlife misidentification would have the best chance of seeing something that does not exist, but they very evidently don’t. Why?
Some of the best evidence of the reality of sasquatch is not the tracks. Some of the best evidence is where sasquatch is not seen and by whom it is not seen, if one applies graphs, charts, maps and even a small amount of logic. Convince me that sasquatch is not real by telling me a logical reason why the general public is not seeing them in Rocky Mountain National Park at anywhere remotely at the same rate as hunting guides are seeing them in the Pike. This ratio is nearly wierder than sasquatch itself, so I guess maybe sasquatch must be 100% real afterall. I am arguing with myself here.
Please tell me why sasquatch is not ever seen in Rocky Mountain National Park by inexperienced weekend campers or anybody else for that matter, while at the same time quite a large number of persons, including hunting guides, see them with some regularity in the Pike National Forest 80 some miles to the south.
Date: 01-Jan-05
After years of investigating sasquatch sightings by doing interviews and such, I am convinced that a fairly high percentage of sightings are misidentifications. A few sightings are also simply made up lies. I truely think that sasquatch only lives in North America in places where a unique and identifiable type of tracks have been found. This area is from Northern New Mexico, up the spine of the Rocky Mountains clear up into the Yukon and over into the Pacific Northwest and into southern Alaska. The rest of North America may have sightings, but no tracks except for a very few tracks that seem fairly obviously fake to me. Sasquatch sign is rare to absent in the west however where wolves have a strong population footholds. Montana has very few sasquatch sightings and even less track finds, especially in and near National Park areas. If you want to rid the west of sasquatch, a good way might be to get lots of wolves in an area. Bears evidently don’t compete directly with sasquatch for prey base like wolves do. Bears are mostly vegetarian for the most part. Wolves are true predators, living nearly entirely on meat. Wolves kill elk and moose regularly, whereas cougars are pretty much specialists at hunting deer size game, taking few elk and nearly no moose. If sasquatch is real, there is only one environmental niche for it, and that is the niche of a true carnivore. If sasquatch were a herbivore, there would be more of them, plus they would be seen more as they would have to go more into the open meadow areas where sunlight makes vegetation grow and they would have to spend lots of time eating there. I truely also believe that there is a very good reason why sasquatch sign is always found only in areas where elk density is high. Elk are the perfect prey for sasquatch, as they are not as quick out of the starting block as the smaller deer.
How does a sasquatch catch an elk? The same way that you or I get within a few feet of an elk. I have sat within a few feet of the downwind side of an elk trail and had whole herds of elk trickle past without the least knowledge that I was there. If I weighed more than 600 pounds and was strong and quick, it would be a simple task to take two quick steps and grab a passing elk and snap its neck, or break its back legs. I have watch zoo keepers go into pens with small deer size animals and catch them and they always end up doing it the same way. They invariably catch both back legs of the deer and hold on to control it. If they were strong and wanted to, it would be a simple matter to snap the lower leg bones of both back legs with a quick twist, rendering the deer unable to walk. I have very many times stalked to within less than 6 feet of bedded deer. One of my largest mule deer, a 7×8 buck, I shot in its bed from a distance of 2 yards, while it was sound asleep. I had to get that close because of the vegetation protecting its vitals and the angle of the shot needed. I shot my arrow down into its vitals while pretty much standing over it. If I can get that close, a sasquatch can certainly stalk to within grabbing distance too I would think.
Sasquatch may hunt cooperatively with each other at times too. In the winter of 1993 a rancher living near San Antonio Peak in northern New Mexico reported watched two sasquatch hunting a herd of elk cooperatively. The elk were grazing in an open sage area adjacent to the forest edge near the ranchers house. The rancher noticed a sasquatch stalking up on the herd and another sasquatch on the opposite side of the herd waiting unmoving. The rancher had time to grab his binoculars and watched the show from his house. Both sasquatch, according to the rancher, were bulkier in size than the elk they were attempting to catch. As the stalking sasquatch approached the herd, it bolted toward the hiding sasquatch, but they failed in catching one of the elk and eventually both moved off into the woods. This event occurred within a week or so, and in the same general area where officer Joe Taylor Jr. recorded two sets of absolutely huge sasquatch tracks, which may lend credibility to the ranchers story. The tracks recorded by Taylor were 19 inches and 21 inches long respectively and traveling together side by side. Taylor is currently the elected sheriff of Conejos County Colorado, so maybe he will get some more reports from locals in the future of sasquatch activity down there. I would sure like to see a sasquatch that leaves 21 inch long tracks, at a distance however. Might be pretty scary to be close to that size of predator. People are evidently not on the menu, which is good. The largest set of sasquatch tracks that I have personally investigated were 19 inches long (on the Eagle River) and the pressed depth of the tracks indicated about the same weight per square inch of foot bottom as occurs in bare footed human tracks. This meant that to make the natural depth of impression, the animal itself had to weigh in the neighborhood of 900 pounds. The tracks were very obviously naturally pressed into the soil and not scraped or drawn into the soil. It took alot of weight to get that large of a footprint pressed into the ground. The shod human tracks in the same soil were not as deeply impressed simply because shoes spread our weight out quite substantially. If you walk on soft soil or sand with your shoes on, you will leave tracks nearly half as deep as you leave when walking barefoot on the same soil. Bears also carry about the same weight per square inch of footpad as humans, or a bit less when in lean condition or more in fattened autumn condition. Some coastal grizzly boars get very heavy prior to winter, when they weigh over 1000 pounds. Sasquatch probably don’t go through drastic seasonal weight changes as they don’t seem to hole up in winter, but stay active. Winter might even be the easiest hunting or scavaging time for them, just as it is for wolves and cougars. Good thing, as they likely need more meat to fuel them to keep their bodies warm in the cold winter weather. At any rate, sasquatch are built large and bulky and probably handle cold weather quite well simply because of their apparent huge body mass. Sasquatch must be a holdover from the cold pliestocene, when it might have done quite well in North America. I actually think that sasquatch do not tolerate heat well at all, preferring the coldest areas in summer in the rocky mountains, which is up near timberline. Nearly all summer sightings of sasquatch in Colorado are along the spine of the continental divide, within a couple thousand feet or less of timberline. Many summer sightings are right at timberline in fact. Elk like it there too of course. It would also not surprise me if sasquatch sometimes cool off in summer by soaking themselves in a stream or isolated mountain lakes and ponds. Collecting hair samples from the soil at the water edges of isolated mountain pond edges might reveal some samples that are “unidentifiable” as to species if done enough. Who knows?
Date: 16-Jan-05
I emailed you Matt
Date: 10-Jun-05
More tracks were found in January in snow near Crags Campground northwest of Pikes Peak, heading southeast at the time. Again about 22 or more inch feet and a 5 foot plus stride again. Looks like the same tracks found two years ago in January up north of there about 30 miles. January must be a good time to look for tracks in that general area. Wish I had a logging copter and a good pilot to follow the tracks to the source. Sure can’t catch up on foot.
Date: 18-Feb-06
The whole reason I ever posted this thread is so that I can do exactly what you think I should do. Get a helicopter and solve the mystery. However, it costs alot more than one would think to rent a copter and pilot for mountain flying. One needs a large copter that is less effected by errant mountain downdrafts and such. Mountain flying in a copter is dangerous stuff, especially in an affordable size copter.
What I need from fellow bowhunters is just let me know where you find sasquatch tracks in Colorado. The more I know about the creature, the better my chances when I do decide to spend those big bucks to implement a plan of attack. I’m still having trouble even believing that such a creature could exist, in spite of the evidence I have looked at pretty closely. So if such a creature does not exist, I sure don’t want to spend money pursuing such nonsense.
Thanks
