Nineteen eighty four, when I was seventeen years old, my entire family and
I drove up to Kerne County, California to go off road camping for a
long weekend. We arrived at our destination and found a dirt road that went
off the highway into a ravine that was a beautiful shaded area, and it
was up against the Kern River. It was surrounded by lots of trees,
and there was a nice little creek that broke off from the main river,
and it flowed right in front of our camping spot, and then it curved
down the ravine the same way the main river was flowing. There were twenty
of us in five vehicles. We set up our tents and made lunch.
Afterwards, we cleaned up, and half the family went whitewater rafting, while
the other half went to find a local grocery store to replenish our food supply.
I stayed behind and decided to read a book under the shade of the
trees. The wind was blowing just enough to turn all the leaves into a
million little fans, making it very comfortable to sit and relax on a hot
day. After about an hour, I decided I should bathe while the family
was still gone. I gathered up my things and walked about thirty yards down
the little creek about twenty five eat down from the highway, to a nice
little pool that looked ideal for the job. There were a lot of trees
and bushes to conceal me from any passing motorists, and I quickly got into
the water and started washing. After a few minutes, I got the worst
feeling of dread I have ever felt in my life. The feeling of being
watched intently was so powerful I could barely breathe. I panned the surrounding trees
and bushes, but I didn't see anything. I got out of the water
and gathered up my things and walked the thirty yards back to the camp site.
I dressed inside my tent and then went back out to resume my position
in my chair with my book. But now it was hard to concentrate.
I couldn't stop a thinking of that earlier feeling of being watched, and because
of that, I was now listening to every sound around me. After an
hour and a half, everyone returned to camp. We barbecued our dinner and
then cleaned up our mess. The adults sat around the camp for our drinking
beers and wine coolers and telling scary stories. My boyfriend, who was Native
American, and I turned in around midnight. At two in the morning,
I was awakened by very heavy footfalls coming from the direction of the pool that
I had bathed in earlier. I sat up and started to shiver. Whatever
this was, it began rummaging around our campsite. I was frozen, barely
breathing and listening intently. After five minutes or so, this extremely large,
upright fur covered creature walked right by our tent. It was very bright.
It was a clear night. The moon and stars were like a million night
lights in the sky. As it walked past our tent, I could see
its shape clearly. It was massive. The tent turned completely black under its
shadow. Its head and upper body were huge, and I could tell it
was covered with hair. Its enormous arms swung with every stride, and its
breathing sounded like thunder and an oak barrel. I remained motionless as it walked
on by the tent and down the opposite way into the ravine. The next
morning, I asked my boyfriend and if he had heard or seen anything last
night, and of course he said he hadn't. He's very aware of these
creatures, but in his culture, you just leave them alone. After breakfast,
I decided to walk back down to the pool where I'd bathed the day
before. There was an area of bushes about forty feet further that was matted
down. It was not that way the day before. I walked over to
it and I could clearly see that something large had been sitting or lie in
that area. I remember thinking to myself, Wow, I just saw bigfoot
last night. The next thought was if it had walked out of the bushes
while I was in that pool, I could have been at lunch. We
camped there for another two days without any incident, for which I'm grateful I
was able to sleep in peace. I'm fifty two years old now and I
live in Los Angeles. There have been a lot of more sightings closer to
civilization here, such as in our local mountains and hills. Now I'll leave
those stories for other people to tell. Thank you for letting me share my
story. As a child growing up, every summer from the age of five,
my father and grandfather, older brother, and myself would drive from Chicago
to Sue Narrows, Ontario, staying at a resort. There were no roads
to the resort. We had to travel the last thirty minutes by boat.
My mother usually came up later with my three younger brothers. This place was
great. They pumped water out of the lake to a homemade water tower and
spigots were located here and there around the camp. The water was beautiful.
The resort was made up of a main lodge and ten or twelve cabins on
a five acre peninsula. A generator started around seven pm for lights. There
was no telephone and no overland route to town except over the ice. During
the winter. They would even cut ice each winter and keep it in the
ice house, buried in sawdust, keeping the ice for years. There were
five lakes and they were all connected, and there were boats in eight other
lakes to portage into for different species of fish walleye, smallmouth, Northern Pike,
musky, and Lake trout. Some lakes had all species of fish and
some were more specific. We poured stoffened too a lake called Hope Lake.
I remember there was a hermit living on an island in this lake, but
we never saw him. From early on one of the Oglalla Sioux guides we
hired would always tell us to watch out for the gorilla of Hope Lake.
Every time we fished with this guide, he gave us the same warning.
It was quite unnerving to me as a child, even into my teenage.
Years later, in years I got my first job. I bought a car
and a new fourteen foot Smokecraft small car topper boat and my own nine point
five horsepower Johnson outboard motor. This gave me freedom to venture off on my
own fishing, and I could stay as long as I wanted. On my
solo fishing trips, I would stop at midday on shore for lunch, and
I would do some swimming or exploring in the untouched forests of Aspen Beach and
pines. I'd let my imagination room, wondering if anybody had ever explored the
places that I was walking on. Portaging into Hope Lake alone for small mouth,
I always felt very uncomfortable or actually afraid. Once having drugged my boat
across and on the water, always felt more at ease, but never completely
comfortable. Something always bothered me. It was a great little lake, but
the years of warning by the guide stuck with me, and I eventually quit
going to Hope Lake by myself. Closer to the resort, and in the
evenings, I would go out after dinner just before dark to get in an
extra hour of fishing. I enjoyed the sounds of the loons and watching the
otters play. I didn't do this every day. Sometimes I would go with
my friends to hunt for muskie, but I loved the solitude of fishing my
spot in the evenings alone. One evening, after getting into my little spot,
I dropped my anchor and I cast a minnow and I began to relax.
I looked around, taking in the whole scene, and on a rock
island not far from me, I saw a deer laying on the island close
to the water. As I focused in, it was obvious this deer had
been mutilated. The head was attached with antlers visible, but the body had
been ravaged. The kill was fresh. I had fished this spot the two
previous evenings and the deer was not there. The kill had to have taken
place within the last twenty four hours. I stared at the macabre scene and
it occurred to me the loons were quiet. There were none of the usual
sounds I loved hearing during this time of day, other than the horde of
mosquitoes trying to drain me of blood. I had seen wildlife swimming in the
lake, deer, bear and other smaller creatures, but I never saw anything
alive on this small rock island. And all the years that I fished this
area, and I spent at least five of the seven days a week fishing
this spot. During the evenings, I heard my bobber slap the water.
I looked over and a big fish was running with the bait. But at
the same moment, the most dreadful feeling came over me. I felt like
something evil was in the area. There's no way that I can convey my
senses at this time or in words, but I never felt anything like that
in my eighteen years on Earth. I am sixty one this year, and
I've never felt it since. It overpowered my natural instinct to set the hook
on this big fish, so I didn't. I just let him run until
the spools snapped tight out of line, and with my pocket knife, I
cut the line. I dropped my rod in the boat, and I calmly
prepared to leave the area. Something was on that island, something evil,
and it meant business, and I was not going to push my luck.
There were two routes back to the lodge. One would take me thirty minutes.
The other would take an hour around a long peninsula where I normally dragged
my boat over to save a long ride. I was not getting out of
this boat, so I took the long route. The farther I got from
that island, the better I began to feel. Making the turn around the
end of the peninsula at full throttle, I saw a mated pair of loons
setting on the glass like water. I cut the engine and began drifting,
and I could hear them making the lonely call they do at the end of
the day. Darkness was coming fast, but the sound of those loons seemed
to calm me, and I began to feel normal again. I actually stopped
when I was far enough away from the island and made a few more casts.
A good pike raised to my bait once, but it never hit.
That just made the night normal even more. I made it back to camp
ate a good supper, and I had a restless night of sleep, but
I felt like I was safe. This event was forty four years years ago.
I've been back to the area many times and had several great weeks of
fishing on those beautiful lakes, but it's been years since my last trip.
I have even motored past that Rock Island a few times, but I never
stopped. I doubt I would enjoy fishing that spot again. I hope to
get back there someday. I hope when I see it again it has not
changed. The days were filled with fun and the nights were magical watching the
Aurora borealis and the millions of stars. It is my favorite place in the
world. But on that day, something was on that island and it was
watching me. It did not want me there, and I followed my instincts
and I left. I'm not in any way saying that it was sasquatch,
but I have a hunch that it may have been, but I may never
know. I grew up in the woods of northeast Alabama, hunting and fishing
like any good Southern boy. I started deer hunting when I was six.
I'm thirty eight now, so that makes thirty two years of hunting experience.
I've been all over the Southeastern States, plus I served fifteen years of active
duty. Through all of my experiences, I don't think I can recall ever
being scared in the woods, not even when the bullets were flying by me
when I was overseas. It happened so fast that I think instinct and training
takeover, and there just isn't time. It always hits me after the fact.
I've been a straight shooter, and I've never given much thought to bigfoot
or any of those types of beings. I always accepted that other people believed
and that I didn't until this happened to me. It was a cool winter
day on the dark side of dug Or Mountain where me and my dad were
bow hunting. It was one of my favorite spots to hunt. I could
always count on and sing and maybe even shooting one there. It was about
a two mile height through some really rugged country, but it was worth it.
As we walked in, my dad got to his tree first and I
walked another five hundred yards or so to my tree. I quickly settled in
for another typical day of honting. I saw some doze early on, and
I got excited, and then things got real. Remember how I said that
I've never been afraid of the woods that changed instantly. This day, I
was sitting in my tree when I heard something coming up behind me. I
know the woods and the animals that lived there. This was different and it
was really odd. And then it just stopped. Everything was silent. It
seemed like every critter for miles just hid. Okay, maybe it wasn't that
big of a deal. But then I heard it again and it was closer.
I knew something wasn't right. It sounded like a big, heavy set
man walking. It got closer still, and I was expecting it to be
the game warden. It was getting late in the day and it made no
sense why a grown man would be walking in from that direction. A man
would be heading towards the road. I was searching for any answer that would
make sense while I watched the area it was coming from. It walked between
me and my dad and then it stopped. It cut loose with a roar
so loud that it made my spine shiver. It felt like it lasted forever.
I got the idea that this thing didn't want us there. My heart
was pounding and I was experiencing real fear. My dad texted me, did
you hear that? And I replied, yes, it came from your direction.
He said it sounded like it came from mine, and that confirmed that
it was between us. Dad said just to hang tight and let it get
dark. Maybe it'll move on. I heard it stop, so I knew
if it moved, i'd hear it again, even see it. But it
was quiet, and I had the feeling it knew that I was there at
dark. Dad sent me a text saying climb down and had my way.
I climbed down and packed my gear, and I started making my way towards
my dad, knowing I was heading right towards this powerful thing. About halfway
to my dad, I started realizing when I stepped that it stepped, and
I stopped and it stopped. I shined my light, but I didn't see
anything. It was close, though, so close that I could hear it
breathing, and it was definitely something big and heavy. I made it to
my dad and right away I said, Dad, we're not alone. Something's
trailing me. His immediate response was, oh, you're losing it. Bear's
code. He's pretty much any animal in Alabama runs away from humans. I
told him that it was following me, and we started walking towards the truck,
and it continued to follow us. Dad did what I had done.
He motioned for us to stop, and whatever was following us stopped as well.
We started walking again, and then started walking with us. He shined
us flashlight, but he couldn't find it either, and I could see how
spooked he was. At this point. It matched us step first step all
the way out. We crossed the creek and it made a splash bigger than
both of us put together. It seemed to be getting bolder as we walked.
It got louder and made more racket. I held my flashlight in my
mouth, my bow in one hand, and my knife in the other.
I was fully expecting it to charge at any minute. All I could think
about was getting to the truck. An hour long hike away over rugged terrain
in the dark. Was something huge following us. At this point Dad told
me to take the lead, putting himself between me and this thing. We
kept pushing forward to the truck, and when we finally got there it felt
like we'd been hiking for hours. We didn't stop to pack our stuff.
We tossed it all in the bed and Dad cranked up the engine and got
us out of there. He drove us out faster than I've ever seen him
drive. I turned the cab light on and I looked over at him.
I've never seen that look on my dad's face before. It was somewhere between
scared and disbelief. I asked him if he ever saw it. He just
said, I don't want to talk about it. We haven't hunted there again.
Dad has never spoken openly about that night. Neither of us have ever
been back to that spot, and to this day, it still gives me
chills to think about it. I never hunt far from the truck now,
and I'm always on alert, just like I was back when I was in
the sandbox.