WEBVTT

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I was seventeen years old in nineteen
sixty nine when my brother asked me if

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I'd like to join him on a
three day hike up in the back country

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of Yosemite National Park. He had
just come home from Vietnam. Even though

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I had camped out many times with
my family, I had never been on

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a hike for that long before,
so I said yes. The first day,

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we followed a steep path that dropped
a thousand feet to the river.

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It was about the end of April, which is early spring in the high

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country, and Yosemite is a big
place. We didn't see anyone else throughout

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the entire trip as we traveled over
hill and dale in the beautiful Sierra Nevada

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Mountains. The first night, we
camped near a babbling stream. After lunch

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the next day, we walked through
a sunny alpine meadow covered in light green,

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knee high spring grasses and flowers.
The meadow was situated in a valley

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surrounded by tall wooded hills, and
it was a spectacular sight. And then

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we entered an aspen forest dappled with
sunlight. There we noticed the faint smell

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of a skump. It was weak
enough that We figured the skump must have

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left some time ago, so we
kept on walking further into the grove,

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we came across a newly built windowless
ranger shed constructed of thick corrugated steel.

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All the necessary tools and equipment to
repair trails in the back country were kept

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there so the forest strangers wouldn't have
to haul them back and forth. We

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knew this because the front and one
side were torn off, with the heavy

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metal corrugated panels scattered all over the
nearby woods. We stood there gawking at

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it for several minutes, trying to
figure out how this could have happened.

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My brother said it must have been
a big bear, freshly awake from its

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winter hibernation that did it. But
on closer inspection, there were neither claw

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marks nor teeth marks on any of
the eight foot long panels. Some of

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them were curled into themselves like a
sea, and others were thrown up to

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thirty feet away. It was as
if someone tall had peeled the sheets off

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like peeling a banana and tossed them
aside. Nothing inside the shed was disturbed.

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Whatever peeled away the panels had no
interest in the contents The bears in

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California are mostly small brown bears like
on our state flag. A doubt a

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bear like that could have reached high
enough on the shed to grab the top

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of a panel and rip it away. It was unnerving to consider what might

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have been able to do that kind
of damage. Let's get out of here

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and put a few miles between us
and this place before we stopped for the

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night. My brother said, I
was more than happy to comply. Neither

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of us had ever heard the word
sasquatch or bigfoot at the time. My

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brother was carrying a small hunting knife, but that was it. We had

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no guns and no bear spray.
A small, steady breeze kicked up in

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the late afternoon that stayed with us
all night. When we got there,

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we were too tired from our long
hike to build a fire, so we

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had supper of salami and cheese on
bread with a sigh of fruit, and

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then we hung our food pack up
in the tree and went to bed,

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and the wind gently swayed our tent
for the whole night. The sun had

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not quite set behind the tall trees
when we fell asleep. Some time later,

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something woke me up. I had
been dreaming that I was having a

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conversation with someone who reminded me of
Little Abner. I know I'm dating myself

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now, so I should explain that
Little Abner was a comic strip character in

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the Sun Comics when I was growing
up. He was a big, dark

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haired man with muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm not entirely sure the person in

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my dream was human, or that
it was even a dream. In any

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case, we talked for a short
time, and then something completely woke me

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up. Instantly, I realized something
heavy just outside the tent was hitting the

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ground next to my head, and
I could feel the vibration of the impacts.

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I laid there, frozen in fear
as it, whatever it was,

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took a long inhaling sniff only twelve
inches from my head. There was no

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doubt that it had taken in my
scent right through the thin material of our

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pup tent. Too afraid to move, I listened intently to see if it

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would move to my brother's side of
the tent and sniff there. Instead,

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it grabbed the tent pole by our
heads and started shaking violently. Wake up,

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Wake up, I screamed, and
as soon as I began to speak.

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The shaking stop so my brother didn't
see it. He accused me of

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having a nightmare induced by the sight
of that shit, and told me to

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go back to sleep, and then
he rolled over with his back to both

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me and the tent pole. Again, something grabbed the pole and shook it

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violently for three seconds. There's something
outside shaking the tent, I said,

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It's just the wind, he answered
angrily, Please go back to sleep.

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My brother is more than just a
brother. He and I are great friends.

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Never before nor since had he ever
spoken so gruffly to me. That

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was as much a shock as the
tent shaking. I was between a rock

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and a hard place, and I
was sweating bullets from the fear of what

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was outside, and thoroughly crushed by
my brother's reaction. Well, I laid

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there and fought back the panic and
frustration, and listened for anything that might

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be moving around outside the tent.
The gentle breeze covered all the subtle noises,

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and finally, either from shock or
exhaustion, I fell asleep. At

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daybreak. We got up. There
were no signs of anything having been around

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the tent, so we took down
the pack and had some water. We

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decided we walk a couple of miles
of then stop and eat breakfast. My

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brother was like a mountain goat,
and I had twisted my ankle on the

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first day, so I was constantly
lagging seventy five feet behind him. But

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as we walked along, I began
to have a dialogue in my head,

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as if someone were interviewing me in
a sort of a get acquainted, friendly

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talking manner. It was as if
someone else was asking the questions and I

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was answering them. We were still
in that high valley, so there were

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no trees on either side of our
trail. Clearly there was no one around

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me, but the conversation continued in
my head for a mile or so.

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I felt a presence, so I
kept glancing around to see if anyone was

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there, But no one was there, and still the questions kept popping into

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my head and I kept answering them, and then suddenly it stopped. It

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was as if the interview was over. And when it was over, I

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felt a little silly for having thought
about myself and my life as if someone

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were there listening to me. It
was a bright, sunlit day, but

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I was alone. Why would I
go on and on about my life and

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my family like that. I've only
recently learned about mine to speak, and

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knew nothing of it at the time, and it was a very strange feeling.

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Well, at that point I decided
to enjoy the walk, and eventually

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we were back at the Big Trees
again. There we came across a log

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jammer around a deep pool blocking our
way. The trees were about three feet

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in diameter. My brother went around
to the riot, where it was real

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swampy, and I chose to go
to the left and jump from log to

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log while keeping my feet as dry
as possible. Well, one log turned

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out to be a bad choice.
The far end was anchored on the bank,

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but the end closest to me was
under the log that I had been

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standing on, and I soon learned
it was just floating in the water,

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and as soon as I jumped down
on it, it began to sink.

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The crystal clear pool was about eight
to ten feet deep, and as I

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jumped, I heard run in my
mind. With a burst of speed,

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I made it to the other end
of the twenty five foot log before it

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sank too deep and dumped me in
the icy snow. Melt. It was

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the easiest run I had ever experienced. It felt like I was feather light,

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even with a pack. It was
almost like someone was pushing me while

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lifting up the pack to take the
weight off me. The log was sinking

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fast, but I seemed to be
flying over it. I managed to get

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across with only one wet foot.
Even as I was running, though,

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I couldn't help but think, what
is happening to me? At the other

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end, my brother was blanched white
as he fumbled to get his pack off.

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He thought he was going to have
to dive in and help me out.

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At seventeen, it hadn't occurred to
me just how dangerous the route I

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had taken was, and that maneuver
in particular was very dangerous. If I

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had fallen in with the backpack,
the water absorbed by the sleeping bag alone

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could have been enough to drag me
under. This probably all sounds ridiculous to

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anyone listening, but it is how
I remember it. Something weird happened on

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that log. There's no way anyone
could have been behind me. No one

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was there but my brother, and
he was in front of me. Even

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if someone had been there, their
weight would have caused the log to sink

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even more. The explanation I have
come up with is absurd, to say

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the least. Many thoughts have run
through my mind. Was an invisible,

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hovering sisquatch pushing me along and holding
up my backpack? Or was something helping

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a human to save a life.
It's definitely one for the book of the

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Weird. Now I know I'm probably
making a mountain out of a mole hill.

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I wouldn't blame you if you laughed
at my story. I'm laughing right

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along with you. The only reason
I think sisquatch is because of the destroyed

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ranger shed and the smell of the
skunk just before we found it. And

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I suppose it could have been any
benevolent spirit who saved me, but something

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did. As unbelievable as it sounds, it is exactly what happened. Nothing

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else of any significance happened on that
trip. We never spoke of it again,

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and I forgot all about it.
In recent years, I've listened to

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a lot of bigfoot stories on YouTube. It wasn't until recently, though,

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when another person mentioned being sniffed through
their tent, that all that came back

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to me having something large sniff you
through a tent is incredibly unsettling. Perhaps

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that's what caused me to repress the
memory until now. I never saw a

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side squatch, nor do I know
what the interviewing thing was. I'm just

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glad that whatever or whoever it was
was there to save my life when I

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needed it on that law and God
bless them for that