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Oregonbigfoot.com Photo Research Journal
July 7, 2000
Josephine County, OR
Oregon
Caves Follow-Up
Bob
and I went to follow up on the Dr. Johnson Oregon Caves
Sighting report of 07/02/00. We camped the first night,
uneventfully, on NFD019 off Grayback Creek Rd. The second
night, we moved camp up the mountain and behind the Caves
off 070. Beautiful, remote campsite!
During
the night we saw what appeared to be one set of eyes higher
in the trees than "Bucky", the male deer who insisted
upon coming within arm's reach all night and the following
morning. In the middle of the night we heard one loud "THUMP"
followed up a rolling/crashing through the brush; it sounded
as if someone had thrown a large rock that had then rolled
through the underbrush. We also had an Osprey flying through
camp the following morning.
On
Sunday morning we went to the Caves and hiked the first
trail up from the caves. We found several impressions above
the acutal foottrail which measured 14"X5". Brad
smelled "something dead" further back on the trail
so I followed him back to the area and I smelled it as well,
but we found nothing to explain it. At Big Tree Trail Bob
and I continued our hike up the trail 1.5 miles to the sighting
location. The area was exremely dark and was near a small
stream. We heard the same "whoa, whoa, whoa" sound
described by Matthew Johnson (Bob and I have heard that
once before, near Fall Creek Reservoir, while following
up on a sound/stalking report). It was NOT the sound of
a bullfrog, or that of a grouse. We hiked the remainder
of the trail, felt a bit "spooked", and heard
the same sound on the way back. I could not seem to pinpoint
the sound, though I did carefully go off the trail a bit
and try to locate it. I found some large impressions, and
the ranger had told us that they had found a "track",
but wouldn't tell us where since he was worried about damage
to the vegetation.
However,
what many inexperienced or over-enthusiastic searchers refer
to as "tracks" are often indistinct impressions
without toe marks and, as such, cannot legitimately be categorized
as Bigfoot tracks. What we found at Oregon Caves were impressions,
and were inconclusive. The sound we heard was interesting,
and we are still searching for an everyday explanation for
it.
Do
you have information which might be helpful to us? Please
drop
us a line!
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