Context and Barefoot Impressions

Submitted by Galahad

In 2006 I attended the BFRO Cascade expedition. I had heard stories about this location. KJ and a few other investigators had found some barefoot impressions the previous year in late October just before the first snow. The impressions were considered, by some, not to be sasquatch because they did not meet the size requirements. They fell well with in the range of human. KJ found a trackway and followed it for over a mile before it walked into a rocky outcropping and lost the trail. The foot prints were small about 9″, but the stride length was enormous, 43″, for the size of foot. The stride had the tight rope, mechanic. They also had the appearance of walking not running. It walked through rocky, muddy terrain. It was found late October, after the lake level had been dropped for the season. The lake level is kept high for summer and lowered during the fall after labor day.

This trackway was found during the BFRO 2007 expedition. The stride length varies between 38 -40 inches. One stride appeared to be longer than the other. The tracks give no indication of running. Notice the tightrope stride.

These stories from 2005 piqued my interest and so I was looking and found barefoot impressions. So I was determined to come back and look for more after the summer tourist season was over. Come back I did. I taught myself how to cast using hydrocal. The soil is perfect and will yield dermal ridge patterns in certain situations. I found hundreds of impressions. One trackway had a 10″foot with a 43″ stride. In the September – October months I must have went there 6 times casting about 6 or more impressions each time. I was told by many that I was probably wasting my time if I thought I was casting sasquatch footprints. That notion did not dissuade me. I just kept casting. I was learning a methodology. If someday I come across the undeniably big footprint I am ready to cast it. So if for that reason only it has not been a waste of time.

PT is about 6 feet tall with a much larger foot than the impressions we were casting. I asked him to take a normal stride and then try to match the stride of the impressions. They are marked with survey flags. You will note that his normal stride length does not come close. His attempt to match the stride length even falls short. Look at his mechanics when he attempts to match the stride. He is way out of his comfort zone.

It wasn’t until my last visit to the location October 2007 that KJ and I stumbled on to a trackway that was most puzzling. There appeared to be two tracklines one footprint measured 12″-10-1/2″ in length. The other was about 8-1/2″. They were walking side by side. The larger impression seemed to be keeping a slower pace for the smaller trackline. The footprints had the tell tale tight rope mechanic type stride. The odd notation was the flexibility of the feet. I found the variation from one full stride repetition to the next. The right foot measured 12″ in the next right foot impression it only measured 10-1/2″. That was due to the severe curve, not an arch, to the foot. The foot bent in the middle all the way through the foot. It was an AH HA moment. The left foot exhibited an unusual sliding motion that was consistent. It was very unusual in it’s own way. This particular trackline got me looking for a specific mechanic.

This year in 2008 I was able to find the same mechanic. Is it the midtarsal break? I don’t know. I now have focused my attention on finding tracks that exhibit this anomaly. Humans can exhibit something similar but our push off is different.

Finally I took my boots off and walked a parallel line to some interesting tracks. I needed to have a baseline for my impression. Interestingly enough there are some differences. Compare the depth and articulation.