Oregonbigfoot.com file# 01497

REPORT OVERVIEW

Date: October , 1968-69
unknown county, CA
Nearest town:
Nearest road:
Conditions: clear, chilly
Time: early morning
Location: It needs to be left alone until I go back.

REPORT DETAIL

Description of event:

From a primitive campground by an old dirt road off of one of the highways dropping into Nevada, three friends and I started walking south into a huge canyon with steep walls to the right of us and flat sage high desert to our left. We had been on that steep walled ridge the day before looking down at the fingers below that we were going to hunt.

We followed an old fence line that ran perpendicular to the fingered ridges that came off of the lower part of that huge steep wall basically a ridge that ran north to south. I took the second fingered ridge and started toward the wall. I was walking a deer trail that was hugging the right side of that finger. Below me was a small stream with tulle and tall green grasses.

As I walked I gained elevation- the sides of that finger was getting steeper. When I came around and outcropping of rock and soil I noticed the left side of the hill was dug out. It was maybe 14 feet high by maybe 20 feet long by maybe 6 feet deep as I remember it. I noticed droppings on the floor of the cave to my right as I stood facing it. I remember a faint smell of something musky but it wasn’t strong. It made me think of my girlfriend and how this would be the perfect place to put a sleeping bag if she was with me.

As I stood there I thought it interesting and wondered about Indians or cavemen and how cool it would be to come back and dig around in it. There were no signs of campfires or smoke build up on the roof though. I remember saying to myself that I probably wouldn’t have found anything like arrowheads or such there. That cave did have a commanding view of the surrounding area and stream below. Also I could see the whole side of the first fingered ridge, and to the right of that way down and out, the faint white color of my car. I thought to myself, if I was going to have a gunfight with someone, this would be the place for it to be.

Took a drink of water from my canteen and again started walking on that trail. It was taking me to the beginning of the finger and closer to the walled ridge. That ridge in front of me had to be almost vertical and rose hundreds of feet. I remember thinking that there was no escape for the prize buck that I was going to shoot.

The side wall of the ridge that I was on was steeper then I had thought and I noticed as I walked that there was green vegetation above me and more outcroppings. I remember looking ahead and seeing an outcropping of rock over the trail and that I was going to walk under it. Well I did and as soon as I did I stopped and froze.

I remember thinking that there must be a deer close by and I brought my rifle up to my shoulder. I started walking very slowing toward what looked like a meadow behind some brush and low lying trees about 50 years in front of me. At that point the fingered ridge was beginning to flatting out. I noticed that it was quiet, very quiet. That should have been a clue.

I got to the brush and trees and was getting ready to go into that green meadow. All of a sudden, every hair on my back and neck was standing. Something was watching me. And the more I realized that something was watching me the more frightened I became- this was not a feeling I’ve had before or since. (I now bow hunt for Elk by myself every year had have been for the last fifteen years. I walk into an area at 4:00 a.m. and walk out at 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. Even with sounds as I’m walking into or out of an area, that I can’t identify, don’t scare me like that.) That feeling was intense.

I got down on my knees and started scoping all around me. Nothing. Fighting the urge to just run back, and with my rifle up to my shoulder, I started backing down and away from the meadow. By this time I was stressing. My heart was pumping in my throat. I remember thinking to myself that everything was alright and I had to calm down. So I started walking, without turning around, down past the trail I was originally on and started following a smaller trail that went through some chest high grasses and crossed the stream at the bottom of this small canyon. I remember trying to be normal and knelt down to drink some water. I noticed that for a trail that crosses a stream and grass that were flattened there were no deer droppings nor deer tracks. It hit me that this was not the place to be.

I panicked and quickly walked up the side of the first fingered ridge that used to be off to the right and now I was on. This side was more open and I crossed a trail that I got on and started walking back out of the canyon to the fence. All of a sudden in a blink of an eye I realized that I wasn’t scared. My hair, my heart beats were back to normal. I sat on a small rock looking across the stream below. The cave, the out cropping on the trail, the meadow on my right, and place were I had crossed the stream--and thought of what in the hell had just taken place. It seemed that whatever happened started after I past the outcropping and stopped on the other side of the stream on that rock that I sat on. I sat there for at least an hour to see if the feeling would come back. I was out in the open and wanted to see if I could get the feeling that someone was watching me again. Nothing.

When I got back to camp I found out that none of the other guys had walked into and toward the “wall” very far and had returned to camp early. I told them about my experience- one of the guys laughed and handed me a beer.

This is the first time that I have written about this. And, although I have told this story a couple of times before when chattering around a campfire, I can tell by the faces that they don’t understand. I can truly say that that event took an emotional toll me.

The reason that I am writing this is that after all these years I found the area again on a topo program on my computer. As I look at the map of the area I realize just how out of the way this place was. Now I’m planning to go back. I’ve thought about this place all this time. Kind of like I need to finish something I started. This time I want to be prepared to take some pictures and some samples of what ever I find.

Source: oregonbigfoot.com
record updated:0000-00-00 00:00:00