Oregonbigfoot.com file# 00503

REPORT OVERVIEW

Date: july 10, 1999
Coconino county, AZ
Nearest town: Strawberry
Nearest road: Forest road
Conditions: Calm
Time:
Location:

REPORT DETAIL

Description of event: Upon scouting both ends of the canyon, and seeing bear tracks and bear sign everywhere, we selected a large fairly flat rock about 20 feet out in the water on witch to camp. It was just big enough for a tent, two chairs, and a small table.(about 9 by 15) Spent most of the day fishing, and consuming a few canned spirits. It was unusual that year, because somehow the fish had managed to spawn in a non-spawning lake. There were huge clouds of baby trout schooling together. Christian called them his" babies" and was feeding them cheese and steak scraps. That evening, we settled back with some cedar fired steaks, and a few more canned spirits. I tend to have a snoring problem that is perhaps brought on by overindulgence. I suppose that's why my side of the tent was so noise y. That's what made Christian wide awake when he heard the first noise. "John, wake up!" yelled Christian. When I awoke, the first thing I noticed, is that Christian had thrown anything he could find in the tent at me in and attempt to quiet my snoring. Boots, shoes, socks, camping gear, kleenex, empty beer cans and other items were strewn about the tent. "Why did you throw all this s__t at me?" I said. "To stop your snoring, but that's not a problem anymore listen to that !" he answered. And there it was. It started softly out of the back canyon, and then kind of rolled through the trees and across the water gaining pitch and volume as it came. Much as you would wince at someone scraping nails on a chalk board, is how I could best describe the effect of the shrill. It made the hair on my legs stand up! This went on for sometime. Christian said that it was a banshee, I was more along the lines of a bigfoot type monster run amuck. " A banshee has four inch long nails, a shrill screeching voice, and travels at great speeds through the tree tops. They can rip you to shreds in and instant!"said Christian. I was beginning to believe the part about traveling through the tree tops at great speeds, because it was getting allot closer and closer. " I would have guessed whatever that thing is, the first noises must have come from at least five miles back canyon. Now it's on the ridge above us!" I yelled to Christian. That .40 cal. Ruger felt good in my hand, but was of little comfort thinking bullets would have no effect on Christian's supernatural banshee. "Hear that?" we both whispered. "Yah, I don't hear anything." I said I think I would rather have had the shrill continue. It would have been better knowing the location of this thing. Then I remembered we were after all, 20 feet from the ridge out in the middle of the water. "Can banshees swim?" I asked. Funny, earlier that evening we were working on a song. Christian had brought his hand held recorder. We could have taped all that noise and replayed it later. It must have been the stress of the totally unexpected. That incident must have been a couple of years ago. Maybe about the time Gapodoco had his experience there. I've probably done 20 trips to Blue Ridge since then. It's been mostly quite as of late. Except for the trip I took back there just after the ice out in March. I may have mentioned in and earlier post where I camped on that trip. I went to the very end of the water turning right from the landing down the canyon. Everything was a mixture of mud and ice. The best I could do was to set camp on a wet gravel and sand bar. That night, I heard what at first sounded like someone pounding on a drum or hollow log. Then it would get quite. Then the pounding would start again. The closest campers were at least 6 or 7 miles away on the other side of Blue Ridge. I had talked with them earlier in the day. They were going to set camp on a place I now call Blair Witch Ridge.(Elissa talks of this place in and earlier story) I think I may have dozed off for awhile, only to wake up to what sounded like boulders rolling down the mountain behind my camp. "That's it!" I said. I was up out of the tent in a flash. The first flashlight I picked up wouldn't light. I reached into the large backpack fumbling in the dark, looking for another flashlight when the second round of materials came rolling down the mountain . As it turns out, I would have had to take the canoe around the next bend in the dark to see what the ruckus was all about. I had waited up another half hour or so, and convinced myself that whoever was up to the nonsense had satisfied themselves and left. After a hearty breakfast, I loaded up the days provisions and gear, and headed out. Much to my surprise, around the next bend where all the commotion had been the night before, I found tree sections floating in the water when I had expected to see boulders. They were all about a foot long and about fifteen inches in diameter. It would take you five minutes to saw through something like that with a good camp saw, or even longer with a hatchet. "Somebody must have been making firewood last night. That's what I heard?" Upon closer inspection of the wood, I could see that this wood had been broken by force and some of appeared to have been twisted apart. The wood was still fairly green. "You would have to be like Hercules to do this to a tree." I said to myself. Wood was kind-a scarce at the gravel bar camp. So I picked it out of the water, and set it on the shore to dry. Later that evening when I was picking up the stack of wood, I looked up on the ridge and said "Thanks Blue Ridge Banshee." I look forward to Elissa's story about Wolf Boy on The Verde . This is good stuff. I know, I was there. Johny Johnson

Source: oregonbigfoot.com
record updated:2003-12-07 00:00:00