Speaker 1: It was late in the year and I was a
Speaker 1: sixteen year old son of a coal miner and an
Speaker 1: avid deer hunter. My father showed me an old wagon
Speaker 1: trail that cuts around the top of the mountain, leading
Speaker 1: up a couple of miles to an old farmhouse where
Speaker 1: the deer hunting was likely to be good. To get
Speaker 1: up there, even on my four wheeler, i'd had to
Speaker 1: clear the road of small trees. There wasn't much left
Speaker 1: of the old farmhouse beyond its stone chimney and foundation,
Speaker 1: but I worked hard to clear a path out behind
Speaker 1: where three or four apple trees stood in a field,
Speaker 1: along with a few other small trees. Back behind that field,
Speaker 1: I'd found a really nice deer trail, so I hung
Speaker 1: my tree stand there and I left. Deer season was
Speaker 1: still a week away. A week later, I was excited
Speaker 1: to make the two hour trip up to the old
Speaker 1: farmhouse on my four wheeler because of all the good
Speaker 1: sign I'd seen when I was up there before. It
Speaker 1: was a foggy morning, the kind of heavy fog that
Speaker 1: soaks in your clothes. It was so dense I had
Speaker 1: to turn my headlights off to see. Once I got
Speaker 1: up there, I left my four wheeler at the farmhouse,
Speaker 1: and I began my track out to the deer stand
Speaker 1: to begin the day. I was halfway to the stand
Speaker 1: when I heard something walking in the woodline that ran
Speaker 1: down the edge of the field. That fog was really
Speaker 1: setting the kind of slasher movie atmosphere that would put
Speaker 1: anybody on edge. My vision was extremely limited, so I
Speaker 1: took a few more steps and then I stopped. Whatever
Speaker 1: it was took about three or four more steps. I
Speaker 1: really didn't know what to think about that, so I
Speaker 1: just moved on. Forty yards from my stand. I stopped again.
Speaker 1: I heard four or five more footsteps before it stopped. Two.
Speaker 1: Between the dense fog and my dim flashlight, I couldn't
Speaker 1: see much, but I could definitely hear it. I knew
Speaker 1: something was out there, so I quickly climbed up into
Speaker 1: my deerstand, and not a minute too soon, I could
Speaker 1: hear footsteps coming directly at me. As I climbed up
Speaker 1: the tree, I was thirty feet off the ground when
Speaker 1: I heard it directly below. I felt the thud against
Speaker 1: the tree, followed by another that made me think it
Speaker 1: was going to climb up after me. I was trying
Speaker 1: to get my flashlight out of my pocket and I
Speaker 1: was fumbling with it when I dropped it, leaving me
Speaker 1: blind and vulnerable to the foggy darkness. Now I could
Speaker 1: hear this thing walking around and around my tree, and
Speaker 1: I was sure at any moment it was going to
Speaker 1: climb up the tree to where I was. So I
Speaker 1: got my boat positioned and I was ready to do battle.
Speaker 1: My heart was pounding. I had no idea what was
Speaker 1: down there or when it was going to come up
Speaker 1: to see me. I was poised for action and holding
Speaker 1: my breath when the sun broke the horizon, tracing the
Speaker 1: line between land and sky and a familiar pink color.
Speaker 1: Whatever was at the foot of my tree turned then
Speaker 1: and walked down in a hollow somewhere off to my left.
Speaker 1: I managed to stay in the tree and hunt all day,
Speaker 1: but my mind kept going back to the thing that
Speaker 1: I had encountered in the pre dawn. I didn't see
Speaker 1: any deer that day, and I stayed until dark, you know,
Speaker 1: about the time deer start coming out. I finally had
Speaker 1: to accept that there would be no deer that day,
Speaker 1: and I got my gear ready for the climb down.
Speaker 1: Climbing down, I was eight feet above the ground, and
Speaker 1: I heard twigs snapping. Something was coming from the hollow
Speaker 1: behind me. Now, while I was still trying to identify
Speaker 1: that sound, I saw a large black silhouette run pass
Speaker 1: from my right. For a second, I thought it was
Speaker 1: coming directly at me, but it wasn't. It was running
Speaker 1: straight at the twig snapping thing from the hollow behind me.
Speaker 1: They collided like a couple of Titanic football linebackers, slamming
Speaker 1: their bodies against each other and exhaling furious roars as
Speaker 1: they did so. I couldn't see anything in the dark,
Speaker 1: but I could hear as an awful fight ensued. They
Speaker 1: were screaming and growling as they threw each other over
Speaker 1: the ground, thumping and shaking the earth. Electric tension filled
Speaker 1: the air as they regained their footing and charged at
Speaker 1: each other again and again, knocking the wind from each other,
Speaker 1: slapping at and hitting each other, and then wrestling each
Speaker 1: other to the ground again. My harness kept me from
Speaker 1: turning around and seeing anything, so all I could do
Speaker 1: was listen as the two combatants carried their fight down
Speaker 1: into the hollow. I seized the opportunity and grabbed my
Speaker 1: tree stand threw it on my back and walked as
Speaker 1: fast as I could back to my four wheeler. On
Speaker 1: my way back, I began to hear the twig snapping again,
Speaker 1: like someone was stomping, but I didn't look back. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if the fight was over and the victor
Speaker 1: was coming to claim his prize, or if this was
Speaker 1: another one altogether. I just knew I needed to get
Speaker 1: to my four wheeler and get out of there. It
Speaker 1: only took a second to get it fired up, and
Speaker 1: I flew down the trail wide open, never looking back.
Speaker 1: This is my story. I'm an outdoorsman. I've camped on
Speaker 1: that mountain all my life. I'm forty six years old now,
Speaker 1: and I know there's something on that mountain. I hope
Speaker 1: your listeners will find this story interesting. This is an
Speaker 1: email from Crag and here's what he writes. I've included
Speaker 1: an encounter that both my son and I had back
Speaker 1: sometime on Vancouver Island. I've always been a lover of
Speaker 1: the back country, spending every possible moment in the forest.
Speaker 1: This passion is the same in my son. Vancouver Island
Speaker 1: was so different back then from our home in Langford,
Speaker 1: just outside of Victoria. We could escape into the forest
Speaker 1: in minutes. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, all indications of
Speaker 1: humanity became distant for us. That was paradise. Virtually any
Speaker 1: free time we had we were off exploring the amazing wilderness.
Speaker 1: A beautiful weekend was forecast during the spring of two
Speaker 1: thousand and five. On Friday, I closed down the job
Speaker 1: site early, much to the thrill of my guys, and
Speaker 1: headed home. Just afternoon. My son Alex had our pathfinder
Speaker 1: packed for another weekend in the backcountry. Some extra excitement
Speaker 1: for him was that there were no sisters coming this weekend.
Speaker 1: They had recently discovered boys and parties. This was great
Speaker 1: for them, but the start of my gray hair. No
Speaker 1: sisters meant what he called real camping. No showers were required,
Speaker 1: sleeping bags on the ground, and staring at the stars.
Speaker 1: It was perfect. We took a slow trip up the island,
Speaker 1: stopping for ice cream on the way. We made it
Speaker 1: past Campbell River somewhere before we decided it was time
Speaker 1: to head into the backcountry. A no entry gate appeared
Speaker 1: and we squeezed the pathfinder around it and headed down
Speaker 1: an old logging road. These were the best roads to travel.
Speaker 1: We headed west for a couple of hours bumping and
Speaker 1: crawling along the old road that had almost been completely
Speaker 1: taken over by mother nature. Two hours before dark, we
Speaker 1: came upon a little clearing beside a small creek and
Speaker 1: it was perfect. That was home for the night. It
Speaker 1: was hot dogs and burghers that night. We told tall
Speaker 1: tales well into the night while roasting marshmallows by our
Speaker 1: little fire, and later we crawled into our sleeping bags.
Speaker 1: Around eleven, I drifted off to sleep, looking at the
Speaker 1: sky full of stars and listening to my boy breathing.
Speaker 1: Life couldn't have been better. We slept well that night
Speaker 1: to a symphony of a forest combined with the background
Speaker 1: of a babbling creek. We woke early on Saturday morning.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure when, and I didn't care. It didn't matter.
Speaker 1: It was cool and crisp. The morning dew was on
Speaker 1: our face. There was a slight fog in the air.
Speaker 1: The sun still had not crept above the trees in
Speaker 1: the east. My son's excitement for the day ahead quickly
Speaker 1: brought my Saturday morning burnout body back to life. Kids,
Speaker 1: happiness and excitement can be contagious. It wasn't long before
Speaker 1: the bacon and eggs were in the pan over the fire.
Speaker 1: We even added potatoes and onions to round out the meal.
Speaker 1: After we cleaned up and packed our gear away, we
Speaker 1: decided some walking was a must. We explored the area
Speaker 1: for a couple of hours, coming across an old, long
Speaker 1: forgotten railway trestle. It was overgrown with trees brushing grass.
Speaker 1: It was tiring, almost fifty feet in the air, and
Speaker 1: it came to an abrupt end. It appeared that the
Speaker 1: bridge construction had stopped midway. There was no falling section below,
Speaker 1: it just stopped. It was a bit haunting, I think,
Speaker 1: and my son said, I guess they ran out of money.
Speaker 1: I think you're right, son. After getting back to our campsite,
Speaker 1: we did another walk around to make sure that we
Speaker 1: hadn't forgot something or left any indication that we had
Speaker 1: been there, nothing other than footprints, and we were delighted
Speaker 1: to see we had a medium sized bear visit while
Speaker 1: we were away. It was too bad that we missed it.
Speaker 1: We continued on down the island. We hadn't explored that
Speaker 1: area before, and we just maintained a western compass heading
Speaker 1: that was good enough for us. Lots of cool places
Speaker 1: to see. There were huge trees and quiet meadows. We
Speaker 1: saw elk and black bear and deer. We ran up
Speaker 1: on the remains of what must have been an old homestead.
Speaker 1: There was a fieldstone foundation and a fireplace. There were
Speaker 1: remnants of rotted old logs and rough song lumber. It
Speaker 1: was almost completely lost to mother nature. It was a
Speaker 1: typical Vancouver Island adventure. The sun started to sink in
Speaker 1: the western sky and we found ourselves creeping along a
Speaker 1: trail not quite big enough for our little pathfinder, more
Speaker 1: of a large game trail actually. The saplings and brush
Speaker 1: being bent over by our bumper and sprang back to
Speaker 1: life after our passing. The trail seemed to go on forever.
Speaker 1: It must go somewhere, we decided, so we battled on. Besides,
Speaker 1: there was nowhere to turn around many areas with steep
Speaker 1: drop offs. We broke from the dense brush into a
Speaker 1: small clearing and straight ahead. The clearing ended at the
Speaker 1: shores of a large lake. By the landmarks that we
Speaker 1: could see, I think we were at Lake Kawakan. The
Speaker 1: water was calm and flat, and the late day sun
Speaker 1: glinted off the water. Here and there the clearing was
Speaker 1: surrounded by brush. On three sides. A few feet up
Speaker 1: the bank there was old growth fir trees that towered
Speaker 1: into the air. They are nature's skyscrapers. The tranquil atmosphere
Speaker 1: could mollify the hard soul. We turned the pathfinder around
Speaker 1: so it was pointing back up the path. That's anal
Speaker 1: I know, but it has saved us on numerous occasions.
Speaker 1: We quickly set up camp and we prepped for the evening.
Speaker 1: My boy, he found some shotgun nine millimeter and forty
Speaker 1: five shells laying around that, along with an overgrown fire ring,
Speaker 1: told us that we weren't the first ones to enjoy
Speaker 1: this view, but maybe we were the first to get
Speaker 1: there that year. It was another great dinner over the fire,
Speaker 1: A couple of steaks and some potatoes and onions cooked
Speaker 1: in foil with lots of butter, topped off with a
Speaker 1: couple of cans of coke for Alex and a seven
Speaker 1: up for me. We were overstuffed and a walk was
Speaker 1: in order. Alex had seen another path about a mile
Speaker 1: back up the trail that headed into the trees. We
Speaker 1: had our destinations set. I did have my spidy senses
Speaker 1: acting up since we got there. A close bear or
Speaker 1: a cougar. I thought that was no problem, nothing we
Speaker 1: hadn't dealt with before. So I took my knife in
Speaker 1: a can of bear spray. I hung them off my belt,
Speaker 1: and we headed out. Alex had a superpower, as do
Speaker 1: most kids his age. He could talk for hours NonStop
Speaker 1: without taking a breath. That evening was no exception. We
Speaker 1: made our way back up the path. We were laughing
Speaker 1: and joking and teasing each other as always. It was
Speaker 1: great fun. He was right. It was close to a
Speaker 1: kilometer and we came to a break in the brush
Speaker 1: off to our left, seeming to be more of a tunnel,
Speaker 1: and it was about six feet wide and seven feet tall.
Speaker 1: And I followed the boy in Hey, slow down, wait
Speaker 1: for me, I said. We traveled about fifty feet into
Speaker 1: this thick tunnel, and it was dark and it had
Speaker 1: an ominous feel to it. Alex, wait the hell up,
Speaker 1: I said. I ran forward to catching and I just
Speaker 1: about fell over him at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 1: He had stopped dead in his tracks. Looking up from him,
Speaker 1: I was treated with old growth firs right up to
Speaker 1: the shoreline. Tree trunks that were easily two to three
Speaker 1: feet around. The first branches were twenty feet up, and
Speaker 1: they twisted and entangled into the full canopy. Moss hung
Speaker 1: from the lower branches, swaying in the breeze. There were
Speaker 1: large ferns, some up to six feet tall, that spotted
Speaker 1: the ground amidst the occasional boulder or fallen tree. The
Speaker 1: same sparkling lake off in the background, and the round
Speaker 1: sun settling behind the trees. It was really peaceful. What
Speaker 1: the hell is that, he whispered, Watch your language, boy,
Speaker 1: I reprimanded him, putting my hand on his shoulder. Though
Speaker 1: I felt tension, his muscles seemed tight. He was shaking slightly.
Speaker 1: I followed his gaze down to towards the water, and
Speaker 1: no more than one hundred feet away, about halfway between
Speaker 1: us and the lake shore, was a dark figure standing
Speaker 1: out among the greens and browns of the forest. I
Speaker 1: thought it was an animal, but I wasn't sure. It
Speaker 1: wasn't moving, and it should have been. If it was
Speaker 1: an animal, it was watching the lake, and it was
Speaker 1: not concerned with us. It had to have heard us.
Speaker 1: This kid makes a lot of noise. It was about
Speaker 1: five feet tall and four feet wide. It didn't look
Speaker 1: like an animal, but if it was an animal, it
Speaker 1: appeared to be looking at the ground. I stared for
Speaker 1: a few seconds, trying to process what I was seeing,
Speaker 1: and I bent over and I whispered in Alex's ears,
Speaker 1: it's just a stump, son, Let's go on back. Now.
Speaker 1: That is not a stump, Dad, He said, that's a
Speaker 1: sasquatch on que. The stump began to rise, and rise
Speaker 1: and rise some more. Now it was nine or ten
Speaker 1: feet tall. This thing was huge. It had a massive
Speaker 1: barrel chest, long, thick arms, and legs bigger around than
Speaker 1: my waist. It was completely hair covered. I had spent
Speaker 1: most of my free time in the forest and had
Speaker 1: never come across anything like that before. To say I
Speaker 1: was terrified was an understatement. A chill ran right through
Speaker 1: my body and I began to tremble, and I was
Speaker 1: almost sure that I was about to lose my bowels.
Speaker 1: Coherent thought was completely gone. We both stood frozen in speechless.
Speaker 1: It began to swing its body around. It was in
Speaker 1: no rush. As it turned to look at us from
Speaker 1: this angle, I saw that I was wrong. It wasn't
Speaker 1: looking down. Its delts made its neck look nonexistent. It
Speaker 1: stared at us for what felt like an eternity, but
Speaker 1: was probably only a few seconds. My mind started bouncing
Speaker 1: back and forth, trying to figure out how to save
Speaker 1: my son and not get us both eaten. Even in
Speaker 1: the good physical condition I was in at the time,
Speaker 1: I knew that it would end me with a single
Speaker 1: swat of its giant arm. It finally made a noise
Speaker 1: that I can only describe as being the same as
Speaker 1: the raspberries that I would blow on my kid's stomachs.
Speaker 1: It turned back and paused, as if it was taking
Speaker 1: the lake in one final time. It turned to its
Speaker 1: right and slowly walked away, eventually disappearing into the denser forest.
Speaker 1: Alex was bouncing off the walls all the way back
Speaker 1: to camp Me. I couldn't say a word. I had
Speaker 1: seen the Patterson Gimmelin film, and I had watched the
Speaker 1: Legend of Boggy Creek at the theater when it came out.
Speaker 1: Never ever did I think these things were more than
Speaker 1: a Hollywood creation designed to sell movie. When we got back,
Speaker 1: I ducked around the truck and I vomited. It took
Speaker 1: me a few minutes to collect my composure. Coming back around,
Speaker 1: I discovered Alex had already stoked up the fire. It
Speaker 1: was a blaze. What are you doing? I said, We're
Speaker 1: getting out of here. A lengthy argument ensued. That fire,
Speaker 1: the now pitch blackness of the night, the dangerous terrain
Speaker 1: we encountered on our way in, and the fact that
Speaker 1: the thing did nothing aggressive towards us won over my decision.
Speaker 1: We slept in the truck, though, with the seats reclined,
Speaker 1: keys in the ignition, or maybe I should say the
Speaker 1: boy slept like a rock. I stared into the darkness,
Speaker 1: jumping at every noise the whole night. My knuckles were
Speaker 1: white from gripping my knife. Dawn finally came. I was
Speaker 1: tired and grumpy. I worked with Alex to clean the
Speaker 1: campsite and we loaded the back of the Pathfinder, picked
Speaker 1: our way along the path around the rocks and stumps,
Speaker 1: avoiding the drop offs, finding our way back to the
Speaker 1: main logging road, and in a few hours we were home,
Speaker 1: just north of Victoria. We quickly discovered that mentioning our
Speaker 1: encounter brought laughter and ridicule from others. Things were not
Speaker 1: the same back then as they are now. If you
Speaker 1: admitted to seeing one of these creatures, you were either
Speaker 1: on drugs, drunk, or crazy. Our lives changed that day, though,
Speaker 1: we went from non believers to knowers. I started on
Speaker 1: a major research program. I absorbed any info that I
Speaker 1: could get. I now see some previous strange happenings in
Speaker 1: the forest as possible encounters, cryptids and aliens. To me,
Speaker 1: none of these subjects were out of the question anymore.
Speaker 1: And rather than life and ridicule people, I listened with
Speaker 1: great interest to anything anyone had to say, no matter
Speaker 1: how far fetched the story was. And yes, some stories
Speaker 1: were the result of vivid imaginations. They were good stories, though,
Speaker 1: but often bits of one person's stories matched to another,
Speaker 1: and then another. It took me a few weeks to
Speaker 1: get back into the backcountry again. The passion for exploring
Speaker 1: has never eased. Though we now live in the backcountry
Speaker 1: of northern British Columbia. My son and I own a
Speaker 1: small piece of land far from town. Neighbors are few
Speaker 1: and far between, just the way we like it, and yes,
Speaker 1: we sometimes hear the now familiar howls and screams of
Speaker 1: the beast among the many other forest creatures. At night.
Speaker 1: My son came across a bone pile not far from here.
Speaker 1: Last year. Some of the local youth get all excited
Speaker 1: about a forest game they played called a Sasquatch tag.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to learning about that. The natives are
Speaker 1: always complaining about them peeking in the windows on the reservation.
Speaker 1: The general consensus up here is similar to most deep
Speaker 1: woods towns. They are here. Leave them alone, and they
Speaker 1: will leave you alone. And he signs off. Craig, Man,
Speaker 1: who what a great story. I mean, he got the
Speaker 1: experience Bigfoot with his son. And what's cool is I
Speaker 1: think he said his son was nine years old, was
Speaker 1: excited when he saw this thing. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think I would sit there and just watch it. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't coming at me or something, I would
Speaker 1: probably feel like his son. I mean would be I
Speaker 1: would feel like a little kid. I gotta see this thing.
Speaker 1: I gotta see it as long as it's visible. But
Speaker 1: I understand Craig was shook up because he had a
Speaker 1: son there with him and he didn't know exactly how
Speaker 1: this thing was going to go. But what a cool story, man,
Speaker 1: What a cool story. And Craig, you said that you
Speaker 1: may have some other incidents from where you live now
Speaker 1: that you might write at a later date. I would
Speaker 1: look forward to getting that because that sounds interesting. Either way.
Speaker 1: Is a great story and I really appreciate it, and
Speaker 1: thanks for doing such a good job right in it.
Speaker 1: I'm from the UK, I'm thirty eight years old, or
Speaker 1: I was at the time, and I'm just an average guy.
Speaker 1: I got into snowboarding back in the late nineties and
Speaker 1: I loved the mountains in the winter. I'd been to
Speaker 1: the European Alps many times and also a few times
Speaker 1: in Ferny, British Columbia. I wasn't an experienced outdoor man
Speaker 1: or anything, but I've always had a good sense of
Speaker 1: what is normal and I'm pretty observant. A best friend
Speaker 1: of mine and his girlfriend had recently moved to Aspen
Speaker 1: for work. I'll not use their real names here, and
Speaker 1: at the time they were working illegally. They invited me
Speaker 1: over to stay for a few weeks for a snowy break.
Speaker 1: It was a week before Thanksgiving in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: I landed and I hooked up with the couple let's
Speaker 1: just call them Ned and Margo, and I stayed at
Speaker 1: their house for a few weeks. I started to look
Speaker 1: at Aspen Mountain opening times and I realized the mountain
Speaker 1: was still closed. I had come out to snowboard, but
Speaker 1: I'd be waiting until it was nearly ready to go home.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, mate, Ned said, I have a contingency plan.
Speaker 1: He had recently bought a snowmobile and also a pickup
Speaker 1: truck for his work, so all was going to be okay.
Speaker 1: The first day out, we took the snowmobile up onto
Speaker 1: the Aspen Ski Area. We parked the truck at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the Midnight Mine Road and we used the
Speaker 1: snowmobile from there onwards. I think that's the route we took,
Speaker 1: looking at Google Earth while I'm writing this. Myself and
Speaker 1: Ned were the first to the top, and then we
Speaker 1: went back for Margo. The snow was deep and the
Speaker 1: mountain was empty. All three of us would use the
Speaker 1: snowmobile to hitch back up to the top after each run.
Speaker 1: What a stunt placed with no one around. The snow
Speaker 1: was above the tops of the shelters, so a good
Speaker 1: two meters deep to the top. After a great day
Speaker 1: of illegal writing, I know that now, but at the
Speaker 1: time I didn't realize it was such a serious offense.
Speaker 1: It was starting to get dark, so we set off
Speaker 1: back home. Ned would take me halfway down the backside
Speaker 1: of the mountain, and then turned around to go collect Margo,
Speaker 1: who was waiting at the top. I was dropped off
Speaker 1: with the light fading fast on a good straight stretch
Speaker 1: of track. It was a half a mile or so long,
Speaker 1: and I would ski the rest of the way. This
Speaker 1: was a steep run, and there were patches of trees
Speaker 1: down the valley on each side. The track came to
Speaker 1: a ninety degree right hand turn and down towards a
Speaker 1: patch of trees. I came to a turn and went
Speaker 1: on my heel edge to stop and observe where I
Speaker 1: was going, when in the distance I saw something on
Speaker 1: the track in front of me. At a distance of
Speaker 1: about a third of a mile, the light was almost
Speaker 1: gone now, but I could see something against the white
Speaker 1: of the snow covered path. At first I frozed, thinking
Speaker 1: it was a bear that was standing straight up, but
Speaker 1: quickly I realized that it wasn't moving like some awkward animal.
Speaker 1: Then I thought it was a big fellow with a
Speaker 1: Crombie jacket with the collars turned up. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know what a Crombie is in the States,
Speaker 1: but it's a black wooly jacket that comes to below
Speaker 1: your knees. It was made fashionab by the Skinheads and
Speaker 1: the criminals of the eighties. I think that due to
Speaker 1: the light and the distance, I started to doubt myself.
Speaker 1: It was hard to tell the height at this range,
Speaker 1: but it was moving pretty quickly, straight up the path
Speaker 1: and right at me. Suddenly I was afraid I was
Speaker 1: somewhere I had never been before. It was dark, I
Speaker 1: had no weapon or no communications. Taken me and ned
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes to get to the drop off spot,
Speaker 1: and he had turned around to collect Margo, so it
Speaker 1: was going to be a while before he got back.
Speaker 1: I started to freak out, but I also tried to
Speaker 1: keep calm, is not to draw attention to myself. Surely
Speaker 1: in this silence something would have heard me scraping my
Speaker 1: board and cussing down the track. To this point, I
Speaker 1: strained to see what the figure was, and I noticed
Speaker 1: the coat wasn't solid. As it started to get closer,
Speaker 1: I could see the background through it, or so I thought.
Speaker 1: The moonlight was shining on the figure's back, so it
Speaker 1: cast a shadow on its front part that I was
Speaker 1: looking at. I saw no eye shine, and I detected
Speaker 1: no odor. All I could think was I was going
Speaker 1: to die. This thing just kept walking straight at me
Speaker 1: as it bobbed up and down as it walked, and
Speaker 1: swung its arms all the way up the track. It
Speaker 1: was moving up to a set of trees to the
Speaker 1: right of its position, and then it made a forty
Speaker 1: five degree change of course and it walked off the
Speaker 1: path into the set of thinly planted trees, and it disappeared.
Speaker 1: No sound was made in this action. I stood there
Speaker 1: for what seemed like fifteen minutes but was probably more
Speaker 1: like thirty seconds before I dropped the snowboard onto the
Speaker 1: track and straight lined it passed where I saw the creature.
Speaker 1: I did not stop to look for footprints. I was
Speaker 1: only interested in getting out of there. Down the valley,
Speaker 1: I could now hear dogs barking. When I was a
Speaker 1: mile or so further down where the track was leveling off,
Speaker 1: and I stopped, I was still in a fight or
Speaker 1: flight mode. I removed my board and walked at a
Speaker 1: quick pace in the direction of the truck. A minute
Speaker 1: or so later, I heard the sound of the ring
Speaker 1: ding two stroke motor of the snowmobile. I've never been
Speaker 1: as happy to hear the sound of an engine like
Speaker 1: this before relief doesn't start to explain the feeling of
Speaker 1: safety that came over me. Are you okay? They said
Speaker 1: you look a bit piale mate. I didn't say anything
Speaker 1: because Ned is a practical guy and he takes no crap,
Speaker 1: but he will sure dish it out for a long
Speaker 1: wind up. I'll never go back country again without backup
Speaker 1: of other people, and I have no desire to go
Speaker 1: back to North America to snowboard again. This has played
Speaker 1: on my mind for all these years, and I'm kind
Speaker 1: of obsessed with the reports. I know there is some
Speaker 1: lack of detail in this story, but that's what happened
Speaker 1: and nothing more. A quick local holiday is more than
Speaker 1: enough for me these days. All the best, Paul, Paul,
Speaker 1: you got to come back to North America. Man, you
Speaker 1: got to get back on the slopes. The last time
Speaker 1: I went skin was out to Tahoe. I won't tell
Speaker 1: you about the trip, but it was a disaster. But
Speaker 1: every ski trip I've ever taken before that has just
Speaker 1: been a blind It's one of my favorite things in
Speaker 1: the world to do is to ski, and I love
Speaker 1: Breaking Ridge and Copper Mountain. I love Winter Park and
Speaker 1: all those parks out in Colorado, and I did try
Speaker 1: Tahoe once. Brother, you need to come back and get
Speaker 1: on those slopes and snowboard and just do it during
Speaker 1: the day, and do it legally during the ski season,
Speaker 1: and you'll have a great time because there's hundreds of
Speaker 1: people's on the slope and you won't have to worry
Speaker 1: about a bigfoot grab and you unless you sail off
Speaker 1: into the woods and get off in that real ten
Speaker 1: or twelve foot deep powder and you can't get out,
Speaker 1: maybe bigfoot will help you out. But I'm just rambling.
Speaker 1: I just I appreciate the story, Paul. It's great. And
Speaker 1: whenever I hear somebody, you know, stop doing something they
Speaker 1: love because of a bigfoot, I'm like, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: don't let them ruin your life. Come on back, So
Speaker 1: that that's on my mind, Paul. So I hope you
Speaker 1: I hope to see you here, and I hope to
Speaker 1: hear from you again. Brother. Thanks for a great story.