Summer of the Sasquatch
This was my first video. My hours at the time gave me 4 days off in a row so I was out in the wild every chance I got. Since my first sighting, I was on a mission to gather evidence to substantiate my claim when my assignment ended where I had my sighting. I was gone for about a year only to return at the request of the hospital. Once I settled back in I started my pursuits always thinking of what exactly I saw, (it looked like an ape like man or man like ape) where it lived, how it survived and why hasn’t anyone captured one or find a body of one. The hikes were beautiful and long which gave me time to toss ideas around in my head and my attention turned to the terrain of the Sierra Nevada. I played the event of my sighting over and over in my head to help me understand what I was dealing with. It was then I started thinking about the long arms, what was the evolutionary advantage of long arms ? I stopped on the trail and looked up at the high granite landscape..….of course.
A couple of months later I picked up my first trackway (10 inch) in an area where few go. The tracks were too light to pick up anything ( I later learned how to). I studied them and pondered motivation and destination. I continued my hike now with heightened awareness of the area and its residents listening to what the forest community might be saying. I soon come upon a different trackway from an individual with a 14” foot. The track was old so no trackway could be found like the other. About another two months and I am in a different area in this range and start projecting (a formula created by observational information gathered) likely avenues of approach . I come upon an open area with a small lake drying up. I walk the waters edge and find a long deeply impressed trackway. They come from over a hill down to the waters edge and follow the shoreline. I am careful as to not disturb the essence of the trackway by walking on or through them. As I am looking at this trackway I see some very strange things. The tracks take on different shapes from step to step as they move along, some look human like then transition into more bear like all within the same trackway. When people talk about seeing shape shifters change, I wonder if they were talking about the trackway itself changing or watching a body transform from one form to another. These tracks show some things that are not possible for a human to do let alone the ratios and angle between hallux and 5th toe. I cast several and take them home for more scrutiny. I follow the trackway backwards looking from where they came from and come upon a area where a large tree is split apart as if something of great strength had literally got into the middle of a tree and used their arms and legs and pushed out in all directions enhancing the existing terrain making somewhat of a large bowl. The tree at its base had markings looking like the spots were pressure was applied to open up the tree, something a snow load would not show. I attempted several times to relocate this area with no success. It is quite the mystery of how it has eluded me despite my experience in the wilderness. That spot is in this video.
My landlord is also a coworker and most of our work consists of orthopedic trauma. While chatting with him one day I finally confess on what I had seen a year prior and show him some of my castings of my recent find. He is quite intrigued as to what he sees so I invite him to the spot planning to stay for a few days just to see what comes of it. We head up there and set up camp, Jim the Physician Assistant looks around and assesses the trackway. I can see the excitement and confusion of trying to absorb all he is witnessing. He later reveals to me that he had brought his son to this spot a couple of years prior and his son was very quite when they got there. That night Jim said after camp was set up his son went into the tent and did not come out until the next morning, it was not until later that his son told him that he had a creepy feeling that something was watching him while up there. We stay the night and fish the small lake that is filled with at least 120 trout by Jim’s calculations. The lake is small (80x20 8ft deep) and dwindling and all of the larger fish had eaten the smaller ones so all we are catching are fairly good sizes for this elevation. In no time we catch our fill and cook and clean them. We first cook bacon to fill the air with its scent and cook the fish in the bacon grease. We eat our fill and put out some on nearby boulders in hopes of bringing activity to our area always being alert for the likelihood of bears coming to visit us in the night. Throughout the night we heard nothing and in the morning we checked the boulder with fish on it, nothing had molested it which I found counterintuitive. We continued to assess the tracks document, take photos and media along with casting many of the tracks. We also head out to the surrounding areas and find nothing of interest.
Most of the pictures in this video are of this area that I compiled in a file for later use in creating this video. Well, I sat on this file procrastinating the making of this video since this was my first time doing so and the burning desire to head into the mountains every chance I got. I continued to monitor this trackway site and taking my limit of fish every time I went up until I could no longer see the lake under all of the snow. The winter months came along and I started cross country skiing again, something I had not done since I learned how to do it while training as a Marine at the Mountain Warfare Training School outside of Bridgeport California. I developed fluid in my knee and had to go see a Dr. to have them drain it, he pulled about 120 ml of fluid from my knee which would explain why it was so painful. I had to go back again for another drainage a couple of days later and was off of work for about a week with activity restrictions, I am homebound. It did not take long for boredom to set in so I decided to try putting this video together. Not only was using this software new to me but the whole concept of creating a video was new. To top it all of I was having problems with the software where it would erase a good portion of video I just edited, extremely frustrating. I was eventually able to put it together and later was interviewed by the local paper and TV station. Once the snow had cleared enough to be able to get to the spot I checked the lake and found not one fish in this tiny lake, no tracks, fish debris nothing, there just all gone. Once I went public with my sighting other medical professionals approached me with their stories but that is another story. Enjoy the video.