Speaker 1: I've always been interested in Bigfoot, probably because of where
Speaker 1: I grew up in Washington State in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: My mom had some close friends who had a son
Speaker 1: and daughter around the same age as me and my sister.
Speaker 1: We were all great friends and being hippies from the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, our parents were always having a party and
Speaker 1: we were kids with incredible freedom compared to these days.
Speaker 1: My mom's friend had a trailer on a small piece
Speaker 1: of property on Loomy Island, and we would all go
Speaker 1: there to relax and play. The trailer was just forty
Speaker 1: feet from the narrow road that circled the island and
Speaker 1: separated the property from the beach. Across the road from
Speaker 1: the trailer was a giant hedge that separated the road
Speaker 1: from the beach, and there was a break in the
Speaker 1: hedge where we could walk right onto the sand. With
Speaker 1: one dusky evening, the kids decided to play hide and
Speaker 1: seek on the beach, and it was my turn to
Speaker 1: count first, and I had to count all the way
Speaker 1: to one hundred, otherwise we would all count too fast
Speaker 1: and not give the other kids time to hide. There
Speaker 1: was a rowboat with one end propped up on a
Speaker 1: piece of driftwood that we chose to count under to
Speaker 1: ensure there was no cheating. Well, I got under there
Speaker 1: and I counted, and when I finished, I crawled out,
Speaker 1: surprised at how much darker it had gotten in such
Speaker 1: a short time. I felt alone, and I looked up
Speaker 1: and down the beach from where I was standing, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't see anyone. So I started toward the road.
Speaker 1: The beach sloped up to the hedge. When I was
Speaker 1: about fifty feet from the opening, I saw the silhouette
Speaker 1: of a human like figure with its shoulders and heads
Speaker 1: staring at me from over the hedge from the other side.
Speaker 1: I thought it was one of my friends. I see you,
Speaker 1: I yelled out, pointing at the silhouette, but there was
Speaker 1: no response, and this thing didn't move. Hey, I shouted again,
Speaker 1: I see you again. The figure didn't budge. A sudden,
Speaker 1: eerie realization swept over me that something wasn't quite right
Speaker 1: about this thing. I felt goosebumps cover every inch of
Speaker 1: my skin, and I felt my hair go straight as
Speaker 1: a wire. We just stood there, staring at each other
Speaker 1: for a few minutes while the sun was setting, and
Speaker 1: then it or he or she just turned away from
Speaker 1: me and strolled up the road. I stood there for
Speaker 1: a bit longer. I was a little freaked out and
Speaker 1: waiting for my legs to work again. I crept up
Speaker 1: the road to the opening in the hedge, and I
Speaker 1: peecked up the road to make sure the coast was clear.
Speaker 1: And I ran across the street and into the trailer
Speaker 1: as fast as my feet would take me. And when
Speaker 1: I got inside, all three kids were there, hanging out
Speaker 1: and having a good time. Well, they started laughing at me.
Speaker 1: They thought it was real funny that they had ditched me.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't smiling. Were you out there on the
Speaker 1: road just now, I asked them, No, they answered They
Speaker 1: told me that as soon as I started counting, they
Speaker 1: went straight back to the trailer. Real funny, guys, I said.
Speaker 1: I remember being in the car with my mom's boyfriend
Speaker 1: around those days, and he would tell me tales of
Speaker 1: Bigfoot being spotted on the island and swimming in the water. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I only heard about those stories after my
Speaker 1: encounter with that figure. If I had known it was
Speaker 1: a sasquatch looking at me over the hedge, I would
Speaker 1: have been traumatized. But here's where it gets even weirder.
Speaker 1: Because of my recent interest in the Bigfoot subject. I
Speaker 1: told my sister about that evening and what I had seen,
Speaker 1: and that's when she confessed. She told me that she
Speaker 1: and the other kids were on the beach looking for
Speaker 1: a place to hide when they noticed a figure looking
Speaker 1: at them over the hedge next to the road, and
Speaker 1: it was popping up and down, and it was trying
Speaker 1: to avoid being seen. They weren't playing a trick on
Speaker 1: me by ditching me and heading to the trailer. They
Speaker 1: were just trying to get away from that thing. It
Speaker 1: dawned on me that Bigfoot was probably watching me the
Speaker 1: whole time I was under that boat and counting. I
Speaker 1: try to think about what my grandpa would say if
Speaker 1: I had told him what happened that night, and knowing him,
Speaker 1: he would have told me Bigfoot wasn't trying to scare me.
Speaker 1: He was just trying to see if we still wore
Speaker 1: the same size shoes. Okay, I don't quite get that
Speaker 1: last sentence, But there's a part early in the story
Speaker 1: that I skipped over because I didn't think it had
Speaker 1: relevance to the story. So let me go back to
Speaker 1: the first paragraph and read that, and then her last
Speaker 1: sentence may make sense back to the very first sentence.
Speaker 1: I've always been interested in Bigfoot, probably because of where
Speaker 1: I grew up in Washington's Date, and when I was
Speaker 1: a teenager, my grandpa told me that the first thing
Speaker 1: Bigfoot would do if he came into the house was
Speaker 1: borrow my shoes. He was a funny man. And then
Speaker 1: the last sentence says Bigfoot wasn't trying to scare you.
Speaker 1: He was just trying to see if we still wore
Speaker 1: the same sized shoes. He must have been making fun
Speaker 1: of her. She must have big feet, that's all I
Speaker 1: can figure. I know I just ruined the story for everybody,
Speaker 1: But this is this you ask for, genuine cam Buckner.
Speaker 1: That's who I am. My mind just wanders, and sometimes
Speaker 1: I skip things that I don't think are important. They
Speaker 1: wind up being important, like this grandfather making fun of
Speaker 1: his granddaughter's big feet. Maybe she had big feet, maybe
Speaker 1: he called her Bigfoot. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the deal is. But I thought this was a
Speaker 1: good story. And when she first said there was a
Speaker 1: figure looking, let me go back and find it, because
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, maybe it was an alien. The way
Speaker 1: she was talking separated at dusk. Steve ass, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: getting close to it. So I started toward the road.
Speaker 1: The beach sloped up to the hedge, and when I
Speaker 1: was about fifty feet from the opening, I saw the
Speaker 1: silhouette of a human like figure with its shoulders and
Speaker 1: heads staring at me from over the edge on the
Speaker 1: other side. Okay, I have no idea why. I thought
Speaker 1: that may have been like an alien head sticking up.
Speaker 1: No reason too. There was nothing she wrote in the
Speaker 1: story that made me think that. And now that I've
Speaker 1: totally ruined this story for y'all, I'm gonna quit talking
Speaker 1: and go to another one. All right, here we go.
Speaker 1: All right, here's a bigfoot story. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: enjoy this. I liked it. It's kind of short. I
Speaker 1: want to be anonymous if you use this story. This
Speaker 1: occurred in the late nineteen seventies on our family property,
Speaker 1: which was eighty acres of land, was twenty miles south
Speaker 1: of the Oakey Finoke Swamp across the Saint Mary's River
Speaker 1: in Florida. At the time, my cousins and I lived
Speaker 1: on these eighty acres. We were all playing outside having
Speaker 1: a good time, when all of a sudden, we fell
Speaker 1: completely silent. Right in the sunshine. On the opposite side
Speaker 1: of the creek, we watched a creature walking toward the
Speaker 1: swamp on the back half of our family property. It
Speaker 1: had six inch long, reddish brown hair, and it was
Speaker 1: at least six feet tall. I put it out of
Speaker 1: my mind until I was ten years old, when the
Speaker 1: youngest of our group that day came by to visit
Speaker 1: and asked me if I remembered when we saw Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: The experience came flooding back to my mind right away,
Speaker 1: and since then I have asked all my cousins who
Speaker 1: were there that day, and they all remember it clearly.
Speaker 1: A few years ago on the property, my cousin's son
Speaker 1: was in that same area and he was hunting by
Speaker 1: himself when he came out of the woods on this
Speaker 1: four wheeler, white as a sheet, and he looked like
Speaker 1: he had seen something. And there was another time I
Speaker 1: was sitting outside on my patio having a cigarette one
Speaker 1: night when I got the feeling that someone was watching me,
Speaker 1: and just as I was feeling creeped out, a swampy
Speaker 1: stench hit my nose and I got up and went
Speaker 1: in the house right away, and since then I have
Speaker 1: not gone out at night by myself at all. I
Speaker 1: believe the creature we saw in the nineteen seventies was
Speaker 1: a young Bigfoot. I think they migrate during the winters,
Speaker 1: and I do believe they have always been here. Thanks
Speaker 1: Cam for all your stories in your channel. They creep
Speaker 1: me out, but I think people should know what's in
Speaker 1: the woods. Well, yeah, if they're in the woods, people
Speaker 1: ought to know. I told you that was a short story,
Speaker 1: but it was kind of a kind of a cute story.
Speaker 1: She's remembering way back in the seventies, I see. Does
Speaker 1: she say how whole she was now? No, but I'm
Speaker 1: guessing she was just a kid. So she's probably around
Speaker 1: my age and she's remembering back, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people do that. But this was a good bigfoot story.
Speaker 1: Thank you, ma'am. Thank you miss Anonymous for sending it all. Right,
Speaker 1: this is a really really short I mean, this thing
Speaker 1: doesn't happen one hundred and seventy words. I could probably
Speaker 1: just make a short out of it. One night, my
Speaker 1: boyfriend and I had just put my twins to bed.
Speaker 1: My other son, who was just two years old at
Speaker 1: the time was at his dad's for the week. We
Speaker 1: were settling into the evening when my boyfriend got up
Speaker 1: and he said he saw my son running around the house.
Speaker 1: I told you to go to bed, he yelled, while
Speaker 1: I was confused and reminded him that he was at
Speaker 1: his dad's house. Well then, who was that, my boyfriend asked,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I said. The next week, my son
Speaker 1: came home. We had just put all the kids to
Speaker 1: bed when once again my boyfriend saw my two year
Speaker 1: old running through the trailer and he yelled at him
Speaker 1: to go back to bed. And when I went to
Speaker 1: check on my son, I found him sound asleep. Well,
Speaker 1: my boyfriend was scared, and as for me, I'm used
Speaker 1: to the unknown. Whatever it was, it never did come
Speaker 1: back through that night. Oh that's cool. Maybe she's got
Speaker 1: a little ghost, little ghost child living in that trailer.
Speaker 1: Maybe you never know, but this was great. I read
Speaker 1: them all. I read them all if I can, if
Speaker 1: I can possibly read them, and there have been a
Speaker 1: few that I just could not make heads or tales
Speaker 1: out of. I read them all, whether they're exciting or not,
Speaker 1: because I think they're fun and I think they're important
Speaker 1: to the person who wrote them. So that's a little
Speaker 1: short one just for I probably shouldn't say her name,
Speaker 1: but if she hears this, she'll know I got this
Speaker 1: about two and a half years ago. And there it is.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to something else. Here is a
Speaker 1: bigfoot story that's a little longer than the first three
Speaker 1: I did in this podcast. Let's do it. In midst
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen eighty two, I decided to take a
Speaker 1: backpacking trip across the backcountry of northern Idaho to a
Speaker 1: hidden lake I knew of up there. The map I
Speaker 1: was using was ten years old. It showed logging roads
Speaker 1: and trails, but what I didn't know was that it
Speaker 1: was dangerously outdated and incorrect, not a time before Google
Speaker 1: Earth and modern navigation technology. A map and a compass
Speaker 1: were my only god. I followed the first logging road
Speaker 1: until it split. According to the map, I had reached
Speaker 1: my first waypoint, so I decided to stop and make
Speaker 1: camp for the night. I watched the sun drop over
Speaker 1: the horizon while drinking a cup of hot coffee. It
Speaker 1: left enough light to make out shapes, but not enough
Speaker 1: to see any detail, and I noticed a figure to
Speaker 1: my right that I dismissed as a burned out stump.
Speaker 1: But something was off about the stump, and I felt
Speaker 1: myself drawn back to it. It never move, it was
Speaker 1: in the same place, but deep inside me something felt wrong.
Speaker 1: I kept my eyes trained on it. Now. It was
Speaker 1: three feet across and strangely solitary. There was no head
Speaker 1: or neck shape, no arms, no legs, just a tall,
Speaker 1: broad figure that stood out in the dark. I was
Speaker 1: ten hours from nowhere, deep in the eye the whole wilderness,
Speaker 1: and the sun was far enough over the horizon that
Speaker 1: twilight was turning tonight. My hand slipped up and rested
Speaker 1: on the twenty two revolver I carried on my hip.
Speaker 1: It's a stump, I told myself. Or maybe it's a
Speaker 1: weird light phenomenon, like a weird shadow. It was ridiculous
Speaker 1: that I was having a staring contest with a burned
Speaker 1: out stump. Something to my left made a noise, and
Speaker 1: I instinctively turned to look at it. A deer had
Speaker 1: crossed the logging road, and I watched it for a
Speaker 1: few minutes, and it stopped and grazed on something, and
Speaker 1: then raised its head and jumped off into the woods,
Speaker 1: where it disappeared. I looked back over to the stump
Speaker 1: and it was gone. Rather than questioned the sanity of
Speaker 1: that concept, I told myself, well, at least it's gone,
Speaker 1: and I decided it was time to go to sleep.
Speaker 1: My fire was a little more than a few burning
Speaker 1: coals when I climbed into my sleeping bag and the
Speaker 1: tiny two man tent. The long hike and the fresh
Speaker 1: air had me sleeping soundly in minutes. I was startled
Speaker 1: awake when a loud crack of breaking tree branches split
Speaker 1: the night like a shot. It was close to the
Speaker 1: camp and it was too close, and adrenaline surged through
Speaker 1: my veins as one hand reached for my twenty two
Speaker 1: and the other grabbed my flashlight. Heavy footsteps approached from
Speaker 1: the left side, and another set was running up on
Speaker 1: my right, and this was followed by a loud knock.
Speaker 1: Whatever was out there, there were two two of them.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe some loggers were camped nearby and were
Speaker 1: coming over to mess with me. I'm armed and I'll
Speaker 1: shoot you, I yelled. As I unzipped the tent. I
Speaker 1: cocked the hammer so they could hear it, and made
Speaker 1: a loud, distinct sound in the silence that surrounded us.
Speaker 1: I listened hard for some sort of response or maybe
Speaker 1: a retreat, but I didn't hear a thing. Eventually, I
Speaker 1: zipped the tent closed again. I laid back down. After
Speaker 1: a few minutes, I heard heavy footsteps walking away from
Speaker 1: the camp. Must have been someone messing with me, trying
Speaker 1: to scare me off, I said to myself. Now, I
Speaker 1: relaxed enough to uncock the hammer on the revolver, and
Speaker 1: I sat down the flashlight, but I kept the gun
Speaker 1: in my hand. At some point I drifted back to sleep.
Speaker 1: The next morning, when I woke up, I was still
Speaker 1: holding onto the gun, and in the light of day,
Speaker 1: I searched the area around my tent for tracks, but
Speaker 1: I didn't find any. And then I looked over to
Speaker 1: where the stump had been standing the night before, and
Speaker 1: there was a pine tree there with the top snapped
Speaker 1: off of it, around ten feet off the ground. Well.
Speaker 1: I walked over and looked around, but I couldn't find
Speaker 1: the top anywhere, and it was fresh. It was a
Speaker 1: white break, and there was no tree top. Was this
Speaker 1: a warning not to follow the logging road north? I
Speaker 1: didn't know. I was headed east, away from trouble. And
Speaker 1: after breakfast, I broke camp and headed out with that
Speaker 1: very thought in mind. I was walking away from trouble.
Speaker 1: At noon, I headed dead end. I was running out
Speaker 1: of water, but according to the map, I should have
Speaker 1: crossed the stream hours ago, and according to the map again,
Speaker 1: I was only two hours from the next main road.
Speaker 1: I checked my compass and certain that I was on
Speaker 1: the correct heading, and I assured myself that I would
Speaker 1: cross the stream by dark. A few times as I hiked,
Speaker 1: I was sure I heard something walking alongside me to
Speaker 1: my right. It was keeping pace with me. It was
Speaker 1: an odd feeling. I felt like I was being watched,
Speaker 1: and I kept telling myself that it was a deer
Speaker 1: or an elk sneaking away from me. But after this
Speaker 1: kept up all afternoon, I found a low area and
Speaker 1: I climbed into it and lying on my back with
Speaker 1: my pistol on my chest, I waited, thinking that whatever
Speaker 1: it was might come and take a look. And for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes I watched and listened, and nothing showed up.
Speaker 1: By the time it got dark, I was down to
Speaker 1: walking game trails through the thick forest. I was still
Speaker 1: on top of a flat ridge, which made no sense.
Speaker 1: According to this map, I should have crossed two more
Speaker 1: logging roads by now. I'd kept an eye on my
Speaker 1: compass all day to make sure I was headed east,
Speaker 1: and at seven o'clock I stopped and made camp. Now
Speaker 1: used the last of the water. I had to make coffee,
Speaker 1: but I kept two cups for the next morning, and
Speaker 1: I cooked the can and chili, and I climbed into bed.
Speaker 1: Surely by tomorrow it would all make sense. At two am,
Speaker 1: I was suddenly awake, and I was lying there trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what woke me when I heard it.
Speaker 1: It was the heavy footsteps and they were coming into camp. Mentally,
Speaker 1: I was running through a list of animals that could
Speaker 1: walk like that. It had to be a bear. I thought.
Speaker 1: The moon was bright that night, and the shadow fell
Speaker 1: over the tent as something big walked by on two legs.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a bear, I told myself, A big bear. Now.
Speaker 1: I grabbed the twenty two in the flashlight before sliding
Speaker 1: down into my sleeping bag away from the door. The
Speaker 1: bear was standing five feet in front of the tent,
Speaker 1: and part of my brain was railing at me for
Speaker 1: making this trip alone, while the other part was thinking
Speaker 1: that my only chance at survival was to shine the
Speaker 1: flashlight in its eyes long enough to blind it so
Speaker 1: I could get a shot off a shot with the
Speaker 1: twenty two. My only hope was to kill a bear
Speaker 1: with a twenty two. Maybe I could get off a
Speaker 1: shot hit it in the hour or the ear. I
Speaker 1: remember breathing and watching the shadow and listening and praying,
Speaker 1: and it felt like it stood there for an hour.
Speaker 1: It was more likely just a few minutes. But then
Speaker 1: it walked away, and I can still hear those big,
Speaker 1: heavy footsteps walking through the underbrush. Thank God. It was
Speaker 1: the most afraid I have ever been in my life.
Speaker 1: I woke up a few hours later, not even sure
Speaker 1: when I fell back asleep to the sound of wood
Speaker 1: knocking again, and I thought that bear must be tearing
Speaker 1: a stump apart for grubs, and then I drifted back
Speaker 1: to sleep again. I woke again to light rain the
Speaker 1: next morning, and it allowed me to collect water off
Speaker 1: the tent, and then I quickly built a small fire
Speaker 1: so I could reheat my coffee, and I tore down
Speaker 1: my camp and then I headed out, and the rain
Speaker 1: broke as I came out of the woods on top
Speaker 1: of a ridge that allowed a view ten miles across
Speaker 1: the valley, and the rain stopped, and the sun burst
Speaker 1: through the clouds and a rainbow stretched across the sky.
Speaker 1: I've never been a religious person, but it was as
Speaker 1: if God said, look at this beautiful place. It was invigorating,
Speaker 1: and I suddenly felt better, as if I was going
Speaker 1: to survive this, and I began my descent down into
Speaker 1: the valley. I was one hundred and fifty feet down
Speaker 1: to a flat spot twenty feet wide, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: see beyond that, and the terrain was so thick that
Speaker 1: I quickly found myself skiing down the mountain in my
Speaker 1: hiking boots, and the weight of my backpack was directing
Speaker 1: my route to the point that I had visions of
Speaker 1: winding up on my back, heading down headfirst like a
Speaker 1: turtle on its back, and I got myself turned to
Speaker 1: prevent that, only to find my speed increasing well. I
Speaker 1: plowed through tree branches, hoping that they would at least
Speaker 1: slow me down, but they only broke against my onslaught
Speaker 1: and something sharp cut my face and I reached out
Speaker 1: to grab the branches, but they ripped through my hands
Speaker 1: and they cut my palms somehow. I was now falling
Speaker 1: back on my backpack and sliding down the hill like
Speaker 1: Fred Flintstone with my feet dug hard into the dirt well.
Speaker 1: I stopped inches before being thrown over the edge of
Speaker 1: a cliff, believe it or not, And somehow I managed
Speaker 1: to get myself onto my feet and I was shaking
Speaker 1: like a leaf, and I took stock of the situation.
Speaker 1: I was on the edge of the ridge and going
Speaker 1: back up was not an option, and going further down
Speaker 1: looked like more of what I had just gone through.
Speaker 1: So what do I do now? Fortunately there was a
Speaker 1: game trail that slowly descended into the valley. It did
Speaker 1: not solve my lack of water, but at the top
Speaker 1: I judged the valley to be two miles across. And
Speaker 1: now I was sore and exhausted from my impromptu ski trip.
Speaker 1: At least I thought whatever was following me would probably
Speaker 1: be deterred by my little fiasco. But no matter what,
Speaker 1: I had to find water as fast as I could.
Speaker 1: My thirst was the driving force I needed, and within
Speaker 1: an hour I broke out into an open meadow with
Speaker 1: a beaver dam and fresh water in front of me.
Speaker 1: Thank god, I boiled the water for my canteen, and
Speaker 1: I caught three small brook trout from my lunch. And
Speaker 1: then I assessed my situation. My body was soreed, my
Speaker 1: hands were hurt, and I was covered with cuts. But
Speaker 1: I was alive, and I had water, and I had
Speaker 1: fresh food. I was twenty three years old. I was
Speaker 1: in great shape. But I was so concerned about that
Speaker 1: bear that I walked a quarter of a mile downstream
Speaker 1: to get rid of the fish guts. I spent that
Speaker 1: afternoon exploring the little paradise stumbled into, and then I
Speaker 1: managed to catch two more brook trout for supper before
Speaker 1: deciding to call it a night. And once again, that
Speaker 1: son of a bitch bear was standing sixty yards away
Speaker 1: in the shadows. He was there like a statue, and
Speaker 1: he was standing upright in three foot tall grass. Just
Speaker 1: like the first night, there wasn't enough light to make
Speaker 1: out any detail. A deer crossed the field between us,
Speaker 1: grazing aimlessly, and I found myself wondering why it wasn't
Speaker 1: spooked by this bear. And again, like the first night,
Speaker 1: while I watched the deer, I fail to notice that
Speaker 1: the bear had vanished. Again that night, I searched my
Speaker 1: mind for bear encounter stories. I had never heard of
Speaker 1: being stalked for three days by a bear. I have
Speaker 1: to admit that it was an uneasy feeling. And then
Speaker 1: I remembered that there were two of them. That really
Speaker 1: didn't make much sense. I woke at three point fifteen
Speaker 1: am to the sound of a panicked animal charging my tent.
Speaker 1: Deer were snorting and running in all directions, some of
Speaker 1: them right at me, and I heard one jump over
Speaker 1: the tent and I watched as its foot caught the
Speaker 1: front pole, ripping the stake out of the ground, and
Speaker 1: the tent collapsed on my head. And feeling my own
Speaker 1: overwhelming panic building inside me, I zipped the front flap
Speaker 1: and I tried to climb out. For a split second,
Speaker 1: I saw a bear or a mountain lion or whatever
Speaker 1: predator the deer were running from, charging right at me,
Speaker 1: and I stuck the twenty two out the door and
Speaker 1: I shot into the air well. That little twenty two
Speaker 1: sounded like a cannon going off to me, and the
Speaker 1: shot echoed through the valley, sending the bear running across
Speaker 1: the stream and splashing and breaking willows on the opposite
Speaker 1: side as it did. What the hell had just happened.
Speaker 1: It was a nerve racking hour and a half until daylight,
Speaker 1: and I rebuilt the fire and started my coffee, and
Speaker 1: put on some clothes to protect myself against the cool
Speaker 1: mountain air, and I replaced the spence shell in my gun.
Speaker 1: Never in my life had I experienced something so intense. Well,
Speaker 1: I caught one more brook trout for breakfast, and I
Speaker 1: explored the area around the stream where the bear crossed it.
Speaker 1: There were eighteen inch long footprints in the mud. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a camera to take pictures, something I regret
Speaker 1: to this day. If not for that night, I could
Speaker 1: have spent a week in that little paradise. But given
Speaker 1: the events of the night, I decided it was best
Speaker 1: to get out of there, with the fear of the
Speaker 1: bear was still going to follow me. Filling my every thought,
Speaker 1: I climbed out of the valley and found a main
Speaker 1: logging road, and I figured that even if I only
Speaker 1: had one mile per hour, I would still reach the
Speaker 1: lake in three days. The distance to the lake was
Speaker 1: eighteen miles. I should have made it in two days,
Speaker 1: but this was day three and I still hadn't found it.
Speaker 1: About that time, a guy came driving up in an
Speaker 1: el Camino, and he had a load of firewood. I
Speaker 1: had never heard a vehicle or a chainsaw all morning,
Speaker 1: but there he was. I was only half a mile
Speaker 1: from where I had camped. I would have thought i'd
Speaker 1: have heard him. I stuck my thumb out and he stopped.
Speaker 1: I put my pack in the back and I climbed
Speaker 1: in and he stared at me for a minute before
Speaker 1: asking if I needed a hospital. Well, no, why, I said,
Speaker 1: a little confused by the question. What the hell happened
Speaker 1: to you? Man? Did a cougar attack you? He said,
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? I asked, have you seen
Speaker 1: your hands in your face? You look like you've been
Speaker 1: through a meat grinder. Well, I told him about my
Speaker 1: ski trip down the mountain. He laughed and tilted the
Speaker 1: rear mirror over so I could get a look at myself.
Speaker 1: Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital,
Speaker 1: he said, between the four days of beard growth and
Speaker 1: all the cuts and scratches, I looked horrible. He took
Speaker 1: me to his house, where I helped him stack firewood,
Speaker 1: and then he let me take a shower. I never
Speaker 1: mentioned the bear. His wife came home while I was
Speaker 1: in the shower, and she told me that it was
Speaker 1: a miracle that I had gotten out alive. Apparently the
Speaker 1: year before, two guys were hiking in the same place
Speaker 1: and they were never seen again. I wondered if they
Speaker 1: ran into the same creature that I did. Well, the
Speaker 1: man gave me a ride back to my cabin, where
Speaker 1: my friend was surprised to see me show up after
Speaker 1: only four days. I told him the map was way
Speaker 1: off and I just left it at that. We later
Speaker 1: found out that none of the locals trusted the maps
Speaker 1: of this area. The map maker had apparently never been
Speaker 1: out there. His information all came from loggers sitting in bars.
Speaker 1: It still didn't explain how I only managed to travel
Speaker 1: twelve miles in four days, but maybe that was for
Speaker 1: the best. If I had pressed on to the lake,
Speaker 1: I might have ended up like those other two guys,
Speaker 1: lost forever. Oh man, that's a good story. That's a
Speaker 1: Bigfoot story, and that's probably the main thing this audience
Speaker 1: will take away from it. But I was more interested
Speaker 1: in him getting lost and how he survived, and how
Speaker 1: he would find sources of food, sources of water, and
Speaker 1: he would just relax and he would be calm and
Speaker 1: he would eat, and then he would think out as
Speaker 1: plan and he would execute. That's what it takes to
Speaker 1: get through these situations. You can't panic, you can't give up.
Speaker 1: You just got to keep eating, keep drinking whatever you can,
Speaker 1: and keep moving. I don't know, maybe I'm a weirdo.
Speaker 1: I know that was a big in the story, but
Speaker 1: I just love the survival aspect of it. It was
Speaker 1: very cool. I've had this story for a long time.
Speaker 1: Just now getting to it, I thought it was wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thank you to the man who sent it. He wants
Speaker 1: to be anonymous. I hope he hears it. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. All Right, that's going to do it for
Speaker 1: this podcast. Thank you for joining me, Thanks for clicking
Speaker 1: on the video. Thanks for clicking on the podcast. If
Speaker 1: you're listening through the what If It's True Podcast on
Speaker 1: Apple or Spotify, I really appreciate you. Love doing these stories.
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoy hearing them. I'll see you guys on
Speaker 1: the next one. Talk to you soon. Thanks