>> Editor's Note:

(The newsletter is a little late this month - sorry about that. My mom's appendix burst and I've been helping her through the medical crisis and recovery. She's recovering nicely, thank heaven.)

The rains have returned and the smell of water is everywhere. I walk in the woods, hearing drops tapping on fallen leaves like impatient fingers. Soft earth squishes under my hiking boots, but I leave no footprints.

Western Oregon forest substrate is not ideal for tracking. Fir duff and fallen leaves, moss, ferns, and other undergrowth cover the forest floor profusely, leaving little bare earth. Road embankments, jeep roads, plowed fields and the occasional creekbed sandbar are the only likely places to find a good, clear track. Unless, of course, it snows.

Let's imagine for a moment that a Sasquatch takes a nature stroll down a tertiary BLM road. You know, one of those remote, muddy, left-over-from-a-logging-operation-and-now-the-domain-of-hunters-and-ATV-enthusiast type roads. Let's assume Sassy walks down this road Wednesday evening, around 11:30 p.m. She's a 7' tall, 500 lb. female and leaves 100 yards worth of BEAUTIFULLY CLEAR five-toed barefoot tracks with a stride of nearly four feet before she turns east and heads into the timber.

Beginning around this time of year, it rains in the lower elevations almost daily.

Saturday morning, in the pre-dawn hours, the first vehicle in a week drives down this lonely road. Two hunters climb out of the pickup, ready for their day. Their tires have obliterated most of the line of tracks, but it doesn't matter. The heavy rains of the last two days have already reduced the prints to faint impressions in the mud. These men have no idea that an enormous, solid, hairy REALITY passed this way two days ago and it won't even cross their minds. Their flashlight beams pass over what's left of the huge tracks in the mud. The men take no notice - they are too intent on following the fresh deer tracks. It looks like a buck... and a nice sized one at that.

Autumn Williams
Oregonbigfoot.com
Your comments are always welcome.

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FIG. 1 Photo by Rene Dahinden, Bluff Creek, CA

Years ago, before the days of digital cameras and email, I received an excited call from a witness claiming they'd discovered fresh bigfoot tracks on their property. They lived three hours' drive away. I jumped in the car and headed out with my camera and tape measure and plaster, only to arrive and find that there were some interesting divots in the ground that weren't quite... erm... "tracks". Eight hours and several gallons of gas later, I found I'd learned a valuable lesson.

Nowdays, I often receive emails from readers who claim to have found and photographed "bigfoot tracks". However, upon opening the attached photo of the "track", it appears that what they have found is a questionable impression. Often, there is nothing in the photograph to represent scale, so I have no idea how large the track is... and there is only a single photograph.

As a researcher with a limited amount of time and funding, I'm often forced to make a judgement call on whether to followup immediately on a "track find"- especially if it entails a drive of several hours. There are certain criteria I use to judge the validity of a find. If I can instruct witnesses how to properly identify and document their find prior to contacting a researcher, it makes it more likely that we'll follow up on only those finds which warrant it, and less likely that compelling evidence will be lost to the elements.

First and foremost, a "track" is a clear imprint of a foot with well-defined toes (see Fig. 1). An "impression" is a divot in the ground which appears to be foot-shaped (see Fig. 2). Depending upon the terrain, there may be a line of tracks or impressions (known as a trackway), or there may only be one.

A single, seemingly foot-shaped impression isn't much cause for excitement... unless, of course, the impression just happens to be the right size and shape to belong to the foot of a creature which was seen standing in that very spot the night before. At that point, casting the impression might be worthwhile. A line of several impressions may be more compelling, depending upon several factors, including length, width, depth, the stride between impressions, and the area in which they are found. We discovered a line of impressions heading up a road embankment in the Gowdyville area of Cottage Grove, OR several years ago (see Fig. 3). These impressions were in an area of suspected Bigfoot activity (there had been numerous sighting and sound reports over the years), they were 14" long and 5" wide with a stride of 3.5 feet (see Fig. 4). These combined factors made this find intriguing enough to document.

All of the above factors are important, especially stride. Other large creatures, like elk or bear, can step within their own footsteps and leave deceptively elongated impressions. The lack of a substantial stride in a line of impressions is a dead giveaway that some other creature may be responsible for them.

With even a single track, on the other hand, enough detail is present to make the source undeniable (unless of course the source is a hoaxer). Clear, detailed tracks are fairly rare in any case, but even more so in the western part of Oregon, due to the lack of exposed earth.

So what do you do if you find tracks or impressions? We'll explore this topic in next month's newsletter, so stay tuned. :)

Artwork by Matthew F. Good