# Oregon Bigfoot Encounters That Escalated for Years | Oakridge | Archives

An episode of [Bigfoot Society](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1453429066), 11 May 2026, 1 h 32 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pdrl.fm/3e8f48/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71657761/bfs_1107_i_sat_there_with_my_knife_ready_archives_final.mp3

Originally released as Episode 509 on 08/27/24. Deep in Oregon’s wild backcountry, one experienced outdoorsman began noticing a pattern he could no longer ignore. What started as uneasy feelings in remote forests turned into years of intense encounters involving rushed campsites, rocks thrown near tents, strange voices in the dark, massive tracks, and a towering figure seen at close range. From Oakridge to Diamond Peak Wilderness to the Three Sisters region, this episode follows a firsthand witness whose time in the woods gave him a perspective few people will ever have. Serious, grounded, and unforgettable, this is one of the most compelling Oregon encounter episodes yet. 🗣️ Share Your Story Had a Bigfoot encounter or strange experience? Send it to bigfootsociety@gmail.com – your story might be featured on the show! 🎥 Watch & Subscribe on YouTube 🔴 Subscribe here → Bigfoot Society YouTube 💬 Leave a comment & let us know your thoughts! 📞 Leave a voicemail with your story → Speakpipe (Use multiple voicemails if needed) 👥 Share this episode → Watch & Share 🎧 More episodes → Podcast Playlist 🌲 Recommended: New Jersey Bigfoot Encounters 💥 Support the Show & Get Perks ✅ Join the community on Supercast – Become a Member ✅ Listen ad-free & early on YouTube – Join Here 📱 Let’s Connect • Instagram: @bigfootsociety • Twitter: @bigfoot_society • TikTok: @bigfoot.society 🧰 Tools & Partners I Use (Affiliate Links) These help support the show at no extra cost to you: • Beam (Better Sleep): Try Beam • Wildgrain (Better Bread): Join Here • Seed (Probiotics): Get Seed • Medi-Share (Healthcare): Learn More • LMNT (Electrolytes) Free Sample Pack with your first purchase! : Get LMNT • Organic and non-GMO groceries delivered for less http://thrv.me/uarEhS 🎙️ Podcasting Tools: • Repurpose.io: Try It • Descript: Sign Up • Streamyard: Start Recording • Riverside.fm: Try Riverside 🎧 My Audio Interface: View on Amazon ☕ Buy Me a Coffee – Support Here 🛍️ Grab Some Merch – Shop on Etsy 📬 Mailing Address: Bigfoot Society 125 E 1st St. #233 Earlham, IA 50072

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: You're listening to bigfla Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron. In
[0:03] Speaker 1: this show, we go beyond the campfire stories to bring
[0:05] Speaker 1: you first hand encounters from people who say they've seen
[0:08] Speaker 1: something impossible. From backwoods trails and remote mountain haulers to
[0:12] Speaker 1: quiet farms and crowded highways. The stories come from everywhere,
[0:16] Speaker 1: and each one leaves us with more questions than answers.
[0:20] Speaker 1: These are the voices of the people who've lived it.
[0:24] Speaker 1: So settle in because today you'll hear another account that
[0:27] Speaker 1: just might change the way you see the woods forever.
[0:30] Speaker 2: So stay with us.
[0:31] Speaker 1: The following interview is an archival interview recorded back in
[0:35] Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, So any health stuff that's talked about,
[0:40] Speaker 1: don't worry, guys. Things are good now, all right. Enjoy
[0:44] Speaker 1: The following remote interview happens in the region around Oakridge, Oregon,
[0:49] Speaker 1: at a cabin out in the woods. That being said,
[0:54] Speaker 1: the audio might be a bit different than what you're
[0:57] Speaker 1: used to, but enjoy as this is the first time
[1:00] Speaker 1: this individual has shared this information. There may be hot mics,
[1:08] Speaker 1: mike issues, and other things that you notice in the background,
[1:13] Speaker 1: but don't let that stop your enjoyment of this, and
[1:16] Speaker 1: again thank you to Kevin for coming on the podcast.
[1:21] Speaker 1: Enjoy and we're okay with Kevin first name only. Okay,
[1:30] Speaker 1: I'm going to start with it. Kevin introduced me to
[1:34] Speaker 1: his property, which is pretty far up in the woods. Kevin,
[1:39] Speaker 1: thank you for inviting me out to your picnic table
[1:41] Speaker 1: at your property. Is very nice out here. Your dog
[1:44] Speaker 1: is running around. We've been tossing the ball too. He's
[1:48] Speaker 1: pretty good at running around getting that. But do you
[1:50] Speaker 1: mind Is there anything you can share about the area
[1:52] Speaker 1: that we're in, just for the listeners to get a
[1:54] Speaker 1: visual of what we're looking at.
[1:55] Speaker 3: Yeah. Sure. Where we live here in Oregon, it's nestled
[1:59] Speaker 3: in the west side of the Cascade Slopes and it
[2:03] Speaker 3: has a lot of Native American history and a lot
[2:06] Speaker 3: of settler history related to the Oregon Trail and different
[2:12] Speaker 3: routes that we're trying to be discovered for easier access
[2:15] Speaker 3: because everyone was heading to the Lamot Valley, which is
[2:17] Speaker 3: where Eugene sits and all the bigger cities in Oregon.
[2:20] Speaker 3: So basically in western Oregon, once you get out of
[2:22] Speaker 3: the valley areas, you end up with all small world
[2:26] Speaker 3: towns that might be ten fifteen to twenty miles apart
[2:29] Speaker 3: and probably averaging anywhere from a thousand people maybe to
[2:35] Speaker 3: three thousand or five thousand people. So a lot of small,
[2:37] Speaker 3: spread out towns dispersed in a really large forest system.
[2:41] Speaker 3: And so where we're at here, this is the Blama
[2:45] Speaker 3: National Forest, one of the largest national forests in the
[2:49] Speaker 3: United States. I mean, there's just a huge amount of
[2:54] Speaker 3: roads and different ecosystems, you know. I mean you go
[2:59] Speaker 3: from one thousand feet in elevation all the way up
[3:03] Speaker 3: to ten thousand, three hundred and fifty eight feet at
[3:06] Speaker 3: the top of South Sister Mountains, which is the pinnacle
[3:10] Speaker 3: of Wilama National Force. And that's bordered on the eastern
[3:13] Speaker 3: side by the Hush National Forest over their eastern Oregon
[3:16] Speaker 3: in Bend area. But anyways, really lush area, really pretty area.
[3:20] Speaker 3: And I spent decades out here, me and my wife,
[3:24] Speaker 3: backpacking and exploring and really just just finding places away
[3:31] Speaker 3: from people. And before I had children, my oldest daughter's nine,
[3:36] Speaker 3: we always went camping. That's what we did. I worked
[3:39] Speaker 3: fifty sixty hour weeks at shops in Eugene, and at
[3:43] Speaker 3: the end of the work week, we'd have our packs
[3:45] Speaker 3: packed and I'd cram them in the back of my
[3:47] Speaker 3: ninety four jeep Cherokee, and we would oftentimes leave Friday
[3:52] Speaker 3: night and drive for an hour and a half two
[3:54] Speaker 3: hours to get up into the National Force and then
[3:57] Speaker 3: hike into campsites just to spend as much time as
[3:59] Speaker 3: we could out out in the woods. We both really
[4:01] Speaker 3: enjoyed it, and it decompressed us. For me, growing up
[4:04] Speaker 3: rurally in rural communities, on farms, on ranches. I spent
[4:09] Speaker 3: most of my adolescents growing up in eastern Oregon outside
[4:12] Speaker 3: of Pendleton on the Indian Humuntil Indian Reservation out there,
[4:15] Speaker 3: and I worked for all the ranchers that were had
[4:19] Speaker 3: big ranches and big farms nestled up against the slopes
[4:21] Speaker 3: of the Blue Mountains out there, and just a beautiful area.
[4:24] Speaker 3: And for me, I came from Florida. I moved up
[4:26] Speaker 3: here when I was eleven from southwest Florida, just south
[4:29] Speaker 3: of Fort Myers, and even down there my family we
[4:33] Speaker 3: lived out pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.
[4:35] Speaker 3: We were the typical southern swamp kids. I don't know
[4:39] Speaker 3: most of time, I probably was barefoot and shirtless, and
[4:42] Speaker 3: when I was my boy's age now, which there are seven,
[4:45] Speaker 3: me and my younger brother, we'd take the john boat
[4:47] Speaker 3: out and we'd go hunt alligators and bring back little
[4:50] Speaker 3: three foot four foot alligators and just spent our days exploring.
[4:53] Speaker 3: And the funny thing is, now that I've gotten more
[4:55] Speaker 3: familiar with miss Bigfoot phenomenon and had experiences myself, think
[5:00] Speaker 3: about how remote I lived in Florida and my mom
[5:02] Speaker 3: and dad got divorced at an early age show There's
[5:04] Speaker 3: two different houses that we spent our time at, and
[5:05] Speaker 3: my dad lived out and out in the middle of
[5:07] Speaker 3: the big swamps. There's no houses around us for six
[5:10] Speaker 3: or seven miles. And I never experienced anything in Florida,
[5:14] Speaker 3: you know. And I know people say that there's a
[5:16] Speaker 3: lot of activity on there, and I believe them.
[5:17] Speaker 4: I believe them. I think that.
[5:20] Speaker 3: There's a lot of people that have these experiences and
[5:24] Speaker 3: they just don't automatically go to Bigfoot as the first explanation,
[5:28] Speaker 3: which in my case for the experiences that I had,
[5:33] Speaker 3: while most of these happened. Most of these happened, and
[5:37] Speaker 3: I didn't even realize what was really behind it until
[5:43] Speaker 3: years later, even decades later, on some of these and
[5:47] Speaker 3: when you start thinking and putting it together and being like, ah,
[5:49] Speaker 3: that explains what happened. And it was one that Finding
[5:52] Speaker 3: Bigfoot show kicked off, and there's a lot of fans
[5:55] Speaker 3: of that show, and we discussed my opinions on it,
[5:59] Speaker 3: and I think it really mainstreamed the Bigfoot thing absolutely.
[6:03] Speaker 4: You know, really brought it out there.
[6:04] Speaker 3: But it was more entertainment and hooting and hollering and
[6:07] Speaker 3: these microscopic noises that you hear in your TV you know,
[6:11] Speaker 3: when the show's debut and they're like, here, that's a Sasquatch.
[6:14] Speaker 3: It's a hard bill to sell, you know to people
[6:16] Speaker 3: that never had experiences. But what I really did get
[6:19] Speaker 3: out of that show was listening to people share their encounters.
[6:22] Speaker 3: And after listening to several of the very first episodes
[6:28] Speaker 3: of Finding Bigfoot, me and my wife both looked at
[6:31] Speaker 3: each other and we're like, we started recounting all these
[6:34] Speaker 3: experiences we had and we really like that explains exactly
[6:37] Speaker 3: what we had happened. Yeah, with that all, I'll just
[6:39] Speaker 3: jump into some of the experiences that I've had and
[6:44] Speaker 3: I'll give as much detail as I can to paint
[6:46] Speaker 3: the picture. And unless you for people, I've never been
[6:50] Speaker 3: to the Pacific Northwest, you spent the last few days
[6:53] Speaker 3: running around here, really just dipping your toes into the
[6:56] Speaker 3: vastness that's out here. This is a rugged place. Nature
[7:00] Speaker 3: rules out here for the most part. I mean you
[7:02] Speaker 3: look at right now. I mean we're surrounded by wildfires,
[7:04] Speaker 3: you know, and that's that's normal. I have my camper
[7:06] Speaker 3: pack right now. I have all my important stuff in there,
[7:10] Speaker 3: ready to go in case we have to leave. I've
[7:11] Speaker 3: had to evacuate the last five years, and so it's
[7:14] Speaker 3: just one of those things you prepare for. Reminds me
[7:15] Speaker 3: of being in Florida prepared for hurricanes, you know. So,
[7:18] Speaker 3: I mean nature's nature is still rules out here, and
[7:21] Speaker 3: a lot of these places are. Even though there's roads
[7:23] Speaker 3: going everywhere in this Lamba National Forest, there's just so
[7:26] Speaker 3: much uncharted land. There's two thousand plus miles worth of
[7:30] Speaker 3: road in this National Forest. You could spend decades trying
[7:34] Speaker 3: to drive these roads. And I'm friends with a lot
[7:35] Speaker 3: of third generation loggers up here, and even these guys
[7:39] Speaker 3: haven't explored all the roads out here. It's just incredible
[7:42] Speaker 3: how much room there is. I ran a backpacking business
[7:47] Speaker 3: where I take people out on paid hikes and everything,
[7:49] Speaker 3: and after getting really involved with backpacking myself and spending
[7:53] Speaker 3: spending months outside literally every year, sleeping in the stars,
[7:57] Speaker 3: finding the most remote corners of the Western Oregon Cascade
[8:01] Speaker 3: Slope wilderness areas, and just spending weeks out in these
[8:05] Speaker 3: quiet spots. We really got to know the area well.
[8:07] Speaker 3: And my experiences with bigfoot really only started happening when
[8:13] Speaker 3: I moved to Western Oregon, and once I made the
[8:16] Speaker 3: realization of what was going on, like I said, sometimes
[8:19] Speaker 3: ten years later plus on some of these experiences, it
[8:22] Speaker 3: was kind of exciting and made me a little bit apprehensive,
[8:26] Speaker 3: especially now that I have children, and so all my
[8:28] Speaker 3: kids but you know, I have to seven year old
[8:31] Speaker 3: boys that are twins, and I have a nine year
[8:32] Speaker 3: old daughter, and we camp all the time. We go
[8:35] Speaker 3: super remote. My camp trailer set up for boon Dog camping.
[8:39] Speaker 3: We never go to campgrounds. We go thirty forty miles
[8:41] Speaker 3: out and we'll stay there for as long as we
[8:43] Speaker 3: can usually when we go camping, so usually it's three days,
[8:45] Speaker 3: five days or whatever. So my kids know my stories,
[8:49] Speaker 3: and I told my kids all my experiences more as
[8:52] Speaker 3: a cautionary tale. I don't know if I don't think
[8:55] Speaker 3: these things necessarily want to be your friends. I think
[8:57] Speaker 3: they're out there. I don't think I don't think that
[8:59] Speaker 3: they are prone to violence and disappearing you or murdering you.
[9:04] Speaker 3: But with anything, especially large animals, and especially intelligent large animals,
[9:08] Speaker 3: you gotta consider that's a possibility. And I think it's
[9:11] Speaker 3: naive to go into the situation and think that all
[9:14] Speaker 3: these things are your friends and they're just gonna going
[9:17] Speaker 3: to do these things where they're knocking on wood and
[9:19] Speaker 3: throwing rocks and charging your tent and stuff. Look at
[9:21] Speaker 3: Timothy Treadwell and the bears.
[9:23] Speaker 4: We talked about that.
[9:24] Speaker 3: He spent decades with these bears, you know, and then
[9:27] Speaker 3: moved out there and I don't know how many years
[9:28] Speaker 3: he spent up there and Laska with those bears and
[9:30] Speaker 3: finally came across the wrong bear and ate him and
[9:34] Speaker 3: his girlfriend right there on camera. Pretty horrific. And I
[9:36] Speaker 3: think that that could be the case with these animals too.
[9:38] Speaker 3: And I think the more intelligent a creature is, the
[9:41] Speaker 3: more likely you are to have personalities, and the more
[9:43] Speaker 3: likely you are just come across a poor, an angry sasquatch.
[9:49] Speaker 3: So anyways, my kids know about it. It's really just
[9:52] Speaker 3: let them know that they're out there. We deal with
[9:53] Speaker 3: cougar and bear all the time up here, and wolves
[9:55] Speaker 3: and everything. That's not an issue. I just don't want them.
[9:58] Speaker 3: If my kid ever went missing missing, the last thing
[10:00] Speaker 3: I won't want to want to worry about is my
[10:02] Speaker 3: mind would go to well, crap, like maybe a bigfoot
[10:05] Speaker 3: got them, you know. So anyways, with that, I'll start
[10:09] Speaker 3: some of my stories here, some thinking back to my encounters,
[10:13] Speaker 3: and I listed them out here, and I got approximate
[10:16] Speaker 3: due and I think for the most part, I'm just
[10:17] Speaker 3: gonna I got them listed in the chronological order they happen.
[10:20] Speaker 3: I don't know if I'm going to really mention the
[10:22] Speaker 3: actual years of these happen. I'll give you the baseline
[10:24] Speaker 3: unless you want me to throw it out there.
[10:26] Speaker 1: If that's nothing that if you don't mind that, that
[10:29] Speaker 1: might help.
[10:29] Speaker 4: Sure.
[10:30] Speaker 3: Like I said, all these experiences that I've had, except
[10:34] Speaker 3: for later ones twenty fourteen on, we had these encounters
[10:39] Speaker 3: and bigfoot wasn't on my radar. I mean, I've always
[10:41] Speaker 3: heard the stories grown up here, but I've hunted. I
[10:43] Speaker 3: hunted a bunch you know, deer, elk, and lots of
[10:47] Speaker 3: bird hunting, and so I've heard stories about bigfoots, But
[10:52] Speaker 3: through most of these encounters, it wasn't like I'm being
[10:56] Speaker 3: accosted by a bigfoot. It was just kind of on
[10:59] Speaker 3: a nerd situation and being around wild animals, I don't
[11:02] Speaker 3: spooke easy. I've been around plenty of cougars and bears.
[11:06] Speaker 3: I've been followed for a day with mountain lions, hiking
[11:08] Speaker 3: up them through wilderness, and it's really just not an issue.
[11:11] Speaker 3: You learn how to act around them, and you know
[11:13] Speaker 3: they're there, so you never want to freak out, and
[11:16] Speaker 3: you never want to freak out and run. And so
[11:19] Speaker 3: with that being said, you know, so I moved to
[11:21] Speaker 3: Eugene area from Pendleton when I was nineteen, and my
[11:26] Speaker 3: wife went to University of Oregon and she was studying there.
[11:30] Speaker 3: I was a farm boy out in Pendleton, eastern Oregon
[11:33] Speaker 3: on the Until Indian Reservation, and after living in small
[11:36] Speaker 3: towns my entire life and rural communities, my wife invited
[11:39] Speaker 3: me to be a roommate with her and her other
[11:42] Speaker 3: classmates over in Eugene.
[11:44] Speaker 4: We were friends. I went to school with my wife.
[11:45] Speaker 3: Her dad was my math teacher in high school, actually,
[11:48] Speaker 3: you know, And so I moved in with her at
[11:51] Speaker 3: Tux Village in Eugene, and when I got to Eugene,
[11:54] Speaker 3: about two hundred thousand ish population in that area there,
[11:58] Speaker 3: because Eugene is Springfielder right next week each other. Second
[12:01] Speaker 3: largest metropolitan area in Oregon. Small for some of the
[12:03] Speaker 3: East Coast stuff, but when I got here, it was
[12:06] Speaker 3: exciting moving into a bigger city.
[12:08] Speaker 4: I've never been in a big city.
[12:09] Speaker 3: What Eugene might be considered small city for most people,
[12:11] Speaker 3: but for me, it felt like a big city and
[12:13] Speaker 3: it was exciting. So I spent we spent our first
[12:17] Speaker 3: ten years, eight or nine years in Eugene every day
[12:22] Speaker 3: just exploring everything we could. Started with the city and
[12:23] Speaker 3: I explored all the parks and it was fun walking
[12:25] Speaker 3: through the downtown areas with big buildings and everything was
[12:28] Speaker 3: so busy in the hustle and bustle of it. And
[12:32] Speaker 3: we started exploring outside of the city limits more and
[12:35] Speaker 3: got in a lane county and we ended up in
[12:36] Speaker 3: the mountains, and that's when I really got into backpacking
[12:39] Speaker 3: over here. So in two thousand and eight we were
[12:41] Speaker 3: well on our way to pretty much backpacking every chance
[12:45] Speaker 3: we got. We just me and my wife. We went
[12:47] Speaker 3: back back wintertime. It didn't matter. We went rain storms, snowstorms.
[12:50] Speaker 3: So in two thousand and eight I got invited to
[12:52] Speaker 3: go to Thanksgiving up and out story organ. My mom
[12:57] Speaker 3: actually lives up in Warrington out there, which is sits
[12:59] Speaker 3: more west of Astoria, I mean, a couple miles away
[13:03] Speaker 3: from the beach, really pretty area. Probably most people recognize
[13:06] Speaker 3: it because of the Meglar Bridge at Big Green Bridge
[13:08] Speaker 3: that spans the Columbia River.
[13:09] Speaker 4: There.
[13:09] Speaker 3: That area's got a lot of history, a lot of
[13:11] Speaker 3: old history. And so we drove to Astoria. I was
[13:17] Speaker 3: in my wife's ninety six hont A cord and we
[13:21] Speaker 3: got to the house where my mom lived, and my
[13:23] Speaker 3: brother and my sister were there and they had kids.
[13:26] Speaker 3: They had taken all the spare rooms in the house,
[13:29] Speaker 3: and so we brought a tent just a case, which
[13:32] Speaker 3: weren't we were actually looking forward to camp in. Anyways,
[13:34] Speaker 3: we figured we would end up pitching our tent somewhere.
[13:36] Speaker 3: My mom offered for us to pitch our tent in
[13:39] Speaker 3: her yard, but we, like I said, we like to
[13:41] Speaker 3: seek out those quieter places, and so me and my
[13:43] Speaker 3: wife we decided to go find a little spot off
[13:47] Speaker 3: of one of the main highways out there a mile
[13:49] Speaker 3: or two off and just pitch a tent for a
[13:51] Speaker 3: night or two and that's where we would stay. So
[13:53] Speaker 3: we got up to Astoria, met with a family and
[13:56] Speaker 3: it was later afternoon, hung out with them for a
[13:58] Speaker 3: few hours. And in November the sun sets quite a
[14:03] Speaker 3: bit earlier up here. Are you just starting to get
[14:04] Speaker 3: into shorter days, winters coming and everything like that. And
[14:08] Speaker 3: this is before cell phones and the communions. Having a
[14:11] Speaker 3: phone you could just shake and get a flashlight on
[14:13] Speaker 3: and stuff like that. So one thing I realized I
[14:15] Speaker 3: forgot was my flashlights. And so we swung by the
[14:18] Speaker 3: fred Myers in Warrington and on our way to go
[14:21] Speaker 3: find a campsite, and I picked up a Coleman lantern
[14:24] Speaker 3: propane lantern, and I'd never set one up. I was
[14:26] Speaker 3: in boy Scouts, grown up and stuff, but they always
[14:29] Speaker 3: had the mantles on them, and so I never had
[14:31] Speaker 3: time myself un soil. We grabbed a lantern, grabbed one
[14:34] Speaker 3: of those one pound propane canisters and threw it in
[14:38] Speaker 3: the trunk with our camping gear, and we headed off
[14:41] Speaker 3: to go find a spot to camp for a couple
[14:43] Speaker 3: of days. We drove through Astoria, so overheading east now
[14:47] Speaker 3: on Highway thirty, heading towards Sevenson and Rainier and all
[14:52] Speaker 3: those little places that are right along the Columbia River there.
[14:55] Speaker 4: And we drove twelve to fourteen miles east.
[14:59] Speaker 3: Out of our story. And once you get out of
[15:00] Speaker 3: a story, it turns into just logging country. A house
[15:04] Speaker 3: here and there, sprinkled amongst the forest and everything, but
[15:07] Speaker 3: pretty open, with a lot of little side roads that
[15:09] Speaker 3: come off of it. So fourteen ish miles or so
[15:12] Speaker 3: out of Astoria, we find a little road to the right.
[15:15] Speaker 3: And I have tried to remember the name of that road,
[15:18] Speaker 3: but I just I can't remember the exact name of it.
[15:23] Speaker 3: And I've looked on the maps, and I found the
[15:24] Speaker 3: general area. I couldn't pinpoint the road. But we found
[15:27] Speaker 3: this little road, and it's getting dusk, you know, the
[15:30] Speaker 3: sun has got maybe an hour worth of light left
[15:33] Speaker 3: in it. And we find this little road, come off
[15:35] Speaker 3: of it off of Highway thirty. Go a couple miles
[15:38] Speaker 3: up this road and find this little four by four
[15:41] Speaker 3: track some of the locals must wheel their trucks on
[15:44] Speaker 3: and stuff like that drops sharply off this little gravel
[15:46] Speaker 3: road that we turned onto.
[15:47] Speaker 4: So I pulled the car around.
[15:48] Speaker 3: Figure in there's going to be a wide spot, a
[15:50] Speaker 3: camp spot somewhere in there. So pulled the car off
[15:53] Speaker 3: the side of the road, grabbed our tents, and I
[15:55] Speaker 3: didn't bring our backpack, so we were just carrying stuff
[15:57] Speaker 3: under arms, you know.
[15:58] Speaker 4: And so my wife had the ten.
[16:00] Speaker 3: I had had some gallon jugs of water, the lantern
[16:04] Speaker 3: still in the box, still in the box, and everything,
[16:06] Speaker 3: and we hiked down this little trail and it comes
[16:09] Speaker 3: to a little a t junction. You come down and
[16:12] Speaker 3: then there's a junction and we went straight and it
[16:14] Speaker 3: ended up in these big maple trees and there was
[16:16] Speaker 3: a campsite under there. In fact, actually there was a
[16:19] Speaker 3: whole campsite set up, and there there was multiple tents,
[16:23] Speaker 3: picnic tables, camp chairs, and on the picnic table it
[16:26] Speaker 3: had stuff set up what you see here. It had
[16:28] Speaker 3: people's plates and there was some food, chips and stuff
[16:32] Speaker 3: and bags. We got in there and everything was covered
[16:34] Speaker 3: in leaves because it's full time, so the trees are
[16:36] Speaker 3: dropping their leaves, and it didn't look like anyone had
[16:38] Speaker 3: been in that camp for weeks. I mean, there was
[16:41] Speaker 3: a good covering of leaves over everything, and it was
[16:44] Speaker 3: kind of bizarre, you know.
[16:45] Speaker 2: And.
[16:48] Speaker 3: We looked at the situation. We thought it was odd,
[16:50] Speaker 3: and we're like, who knows what the deal is? And
[16:52] Speaker 3: so we just went back to that junction on that
[16:55] Speaker 3: little four by four road, and then we took the
[16:56] Speaker 3: other leg that came off of it.
[16:58] Speaker 4: There.
[16:58] Speaker 3: At that point in time, I've been carrying these bottles
[17:00] Speaker 3: with gallon jugs, so I set them down in the
[17:02] Speaker 3: middle of that little t shape junction.
[17:04] Speaker 4: I'm like, well, let's just walk down.
[17:05] Speaker 3: Here's see if we can't find a spot to put
[17:08] Speaker 3: our little two person tent. And we walk two hundred
[17:11] Speaker 3: feet down that road. And this road is surrounded by
[17:14] Speaker 3: brushhuts six or seven feet tall, scotch broom, himalay and blackberries,
[17:19] Speaker 3: a lot of scrub pretty typical two areas.
[17:20] Speaker 4: That had been logged over a bunch of times. It just
[17:22] Speaker 4: turns into a brushing mask.
[17:24] Speaker 3: You couldn't walk through this stuff if you wanted to,
[17:27] Speaker 3: you know, While walking down the trail, there was just
[17:29] Speaker 3: a big enough spot, probably not much bigger than the
[17:31] Speaker 3: footprint that this picnic table takes up.
[17:34] Speaker 4: Clear it off the side of the road.
[17:35] Speaker 3: There where some of some of the bushes that have
[17:37] Speaker 3: gotten knocked down and we set the tent up there,
[17:39] Speaker 3: and it's getting fairly dark now, and I'm like, I'm
[17:41] Speaker 3: gonna get that lantern set up. So I unbox it
[17:43] Speaker 3: out there and get the thing put together. I put
[17:47] Speaker 3: the mantles on, and I didn't burn the mantles, and
[17:49] Speaker 3: I didn't know you had to light the mantles and
[17:51] Speaker 3: burn them in, so I just assembled it, put the
[17:53] Speaker 3: propane canister on there, and lit it. The propane lantern
[17:57] Speaker 3: lit up for about five seconds and it started burning
[18:01] Speaker 3: the mantles down from the top, so it turned to ash,
[18:02] Speaker 3: and now you have this heavy weight of the unburned mantle,
[18:05] Speaker 3: and I just watched us both of those socks just disappeared,
[18:08] Speaker 3: and what a little light we had disappeared at that
[18:10] Speaker 3: point in time. And so at this point in time,
[18:12] Speaker 3: it's it's dusk to the point to where you can
[18:14] Speaker 3: still see, but it's getting dark, like you couldn't read
[18:16] Speaker 3: a book getting that dark. And so I told my wife,
[18:19] Speaker 3: I'm like, we're just gonna have to camp without the
[18:21] Speaker 3: lights tonight.
[18:21] Speaker 4: It's not a big deal.
[18:22] Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'm gonna I told my wife, I'm like,
[18:24] Speaker 3: I'm gonna head back to that junction and pick up
[18:26] Speaker 3: our water jugs that I left there, and she said okay.
[18:30] Speaker 3: She started setting up our sleep bags and stuff in
[18:33] Speaker 3: the tent. So I headed back and I had my
[18:34] Speaker 3: little dog with me, Nori, and she backpacked with such
[18:37] Speaker 3: a good dog in the willness, super quiet, super calm dog.
[18:40] Speaker 4: So we head back to get the.
[18:43] Speaker 3: Water jugs and we're walking and Norri's falling right behind
[18:46] Speaker 3: me like she always says she never runs in front
[18:48] Speaker 3: of us. Broke her that for hiking on trails. And
[18:51] Speaker 3: I'm getting closer to do these to these water jugs
[18:53] Speaker 3: at this junction, and I can see them up ahead,
[18:55] Speaker 3: sixty seventy feet up ahead, and as they get closer,
[18:58] Speaker 3: my dog she kind of she kind of puffs up
[19:00] Speaker 3: her scuff or her scruff on the back of her neck.
[19:02] Speaker 3: I looked out at her, and she's been in the
[19:04] Speaker 3: wilderness tons and round bears and cooars, and she's not
[19:06] Speaker 3: a very reactive dog, and she kind of growls, and
[19:09] Speaker 3: I thought it was odd and maybe that kind of
[19:11] Speaker 3: put me on alert, and so I said, oh, she
[19:13] Speaker 3: smells something. And so as I get closer to these
[19:16] Speaker 3: water bottles, these gallon jugs, the bushes the brush on
[19:21] Speaker 3: the other side. Right immediately ten feet behind where these
[19:24] Speaker 3: jugs are sitting, that whole shrub line just starts shaking,
[19:27] Speaker 3: I mean shaking so hard that leaves are falling off
[19:29] Speaker 3: of them. And Nori goes to run up there and
[19:33] Speaker 3: she's growling, and I called her back right away. She
[19:35] Speaker 3: made it five feet from me, and I called her back,
[19:37] Speaker 3: and I saw I'm sitting there looking at these jugs,
[19:39] Speaker 3: and the bush is still shaking a little bit, and
[19:42] Speaker 3: it stops, and I just decided I got this feeling
[19:45] Speaker 3: like I don't think we need water tonight, so I
[19:46] Speaker 3: just turned around. I left the jugs and made it
[19:49] Speaker 3: back to the tent. My wife asked me widing to
[19:53] Speaker 3: grab the rugs, and I'm like, I didn't want to
[19:54] Speaker 3: tell her what happened, because I mean, it just was
[19:58] Speaker 3: kind of an off putting feeling. I'm like, we'll just
[20:00] Speaker 3: get them in the morning, you know. I mean, we
[20:01] Speaker 3: had a little water bottle with us, so we stilled
[20:03] Speaker 3: some water. You know what, we'll scram in the morning.
[20:05] Speaker 3: I don't want I didn't want a home all the
[20:06] Speaker 3: way down here. We get in the tent now and
[20:07] Speaker 3: it's completely dark and we're setting up to go sleep,
[20:10] Speaker 3: we lay down, and within five minutes laying down, we
[20:14] Speaker 3: start hearing things moving through this thick brush. I mean
[20:17] Speaker 3: it started to hear it two hundred feet away and
[20:20] Speaker 3: stick snapping and wrestling, light wrestling here and there, and
[20:24] Speaker 3: you know, I'm like, oh, you know, there's a lot
[20:25] Speaker 3: of coyotes here, and there's bear and I guess cougars too.
[20:32] Speaker 3: You know, we usually don't hear the cats, and I
[20:35] Speaker 3: saw we hear this in my wife's like, goet, you
[20:36] Speaker 3: hear that. I'm my guess, probably some animals moving around
[20:38] Speaker 3: through here. And well, as we were talking about it,
[20:41] Speaker 3: the noises got louder, and it got to the point
[20:44] Speaker 3: to where it sounded like there were three or four
[20:49] Speaker 3: truck sized things running through this brush and they'd run
[20:52] Speaker 3: directly to our tent from multiple directions and they would
[20:57] Speaker 3: stop twenty feet away and then you just hear the
[21:00] Speaker 3: rush go crazy, you know, I mean as they ran
[21:02] Speaker 3: back away. And this went on for thirty to forty
[21:05] Speaker 3: five minutes, and they got so close. I mean, they
[21:07] Speaker 3: were right outside our tent and me and my wife
[21:09] Speaker 3: were laying there and just looking at each other and.
[21:13] Speaker 4: What do you think it is?
[21:14] Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm probably coyotes or something like that. And
[21:17] Speaker 3: it got pretty intense, it got pretty loud. It's to
[21:19] Speaker 3: that point to where if you've ever been intent and
[21:20] Speaker 3: you hear something out in the middle of the woods,
[21:22] Speaker 3: you get that, I'm just gonna lay here and not
[21:24] Speaker 3: move a deal. And so we just pretty much laid
[21:27] Speaker 3: there and listened to it. I was pretty nervous about it.
[21:30] Speaker 3: It was definitely aggressive. If animals are doing that tea
[21:33] Speaker 3: in the woods, it definitely brings their attention to it.
[21:35] Speaker 3: And this went on, and I mean it was pretty
[21:38] Speaker 3: nervous when these things would run through the bushes to us.
[21:43] Speaker 3: There was no going around brush, and they just ran
[21:45] Speaker 3: right through it like a truck. And after forty five
[21:48] Speaker 3: minutes the noises died down, and a couple hours later
[21:52] Speaker 3: we ended up falling asleep and I woke up in
[21:54] Speaker 3: the morning, beautiful morning, and got out of the tent
[21:57] Speaker 3: and went for a little walk. And there's this big
[22:00] Speaker 3: line lane path that leads all the way up to
[22:02] Speaker 3: the east side of the river and that connects up
[22:04] Speaker 3: to Rainier and I know you've done some stories about
[22:06] Speaker 3: rain Air up there, and it was just a really
[22:09] Speaker 3: odd experience, and this is this stuff that me and
[22:11] Speaker 3: my wife experience over the decades backpacking and hiking. And
[22:16] Speaker 3: like I said, it wasn't until the Finding Bigfoot show
[22:19] Speaker 3: came on that we really started putting together what happened.
[22:22] Speaker 4: And it was a mix.
[22:24] Speaker 3: It was actually exciting, like actually getting an answer for
[22:26] Speaker 3: what it was because it explained everything perfectly. Listen to
[22:28] Speaker 3: people's encounter stories on the East Coast. They were describing
[22:32] Speaker 3: the same stuff that we had happened, and the exact
[22:34] Speaker 3: same stuff, and I mean, there's just no coincidence of
[22:38] Speaker 3: what it could be. And so we put it together
[22:41] Speaker 3: what it was, and we started thinking about all these
[22:43] Speaker 3: experiences we've had in years past, and so I made
[22:45] Speaker 3: a little list of some of the stuff I had happened,
[22:48] Speaker 3: you know. And so, like I said, we backpacked every
[22:50] Speaker 3: chance we could get, and we did that pretty much
[22:52] Speaker 3: till we moved out here eleven years ago. And when
[22:55] Speaker 3: we moved in here, had a kid our first year
[22:57] Speaker 3: in here, and now I run a business and I
[23:00] Speaker 3: don't have as much time to do the backpacking that
[23:01] Speaker 3: I used to do. And two thousand and nine, I
[23:03] Speaker 3: still live in Eugene. And it was a weekend, so
[23:07] Speaker 3: we took our dogs I too at that time, Huey
[23:09] Speaker 3: and Nori, and we decided to head to the Coast
[23:12] Speaker 3: Range to just find a spot out of the way,
[23:15] Speaker 3: find a little swim and hole in one.
[23:16] Speaker 4: Of the creeks up there.
[23:16] Speaker 3: And this is the area is Wolf Mountain, which is
[23:19] Speaker 3: west of Benita, and the Coast Range is super rugged.
[23:23] Speaker 3: They don't have the big mountains that the Cascades have,
[23:25] Speaker 3: but you're either going up or down. You're either the
[23:27] Speaker 3: bottom of the valley or you're on top of it,
[23:28] Speaker 3: and that's how the roads go too. We end up
[23:31] Speaker 3: finding this section of land. It was actually Warehouser land
[23:35] Speaker 3: and they have a gate on it and they say
[23:36] Speaker 3: private property, no stress passing, it's more for hunters and stuff,
[23:39] Speaker 3: And so we, being younger and more rebellious, we bypass
[23:43] Speaker 3: the gate. We just went around it and we had
[23:45] Speaker 3: a lunch pack and we were going to find a
[23:47] Speaker 3: little creek it's in the Clay Creek area, and find
[23:49] Speaker 3: a little swimming hole and let the dogs play and
[23:51] Speaker 3: just spend the afternoon out there. And so we hike
[23:53] Speaker 3: in a couple of miles and end up in at
[23:56] Speaker 3: the bottom of this valley where there's a nice creek,
[23:58] Speaker 3: a little swim and hole, and a recent clearcut that
[24:01] Speaker 3: had been done maybe a year prior, you know, so
[24:04] Speaker 3: all the big trees were cut down. It was probably
[24:06] Speaker 3: a one hundred acre clearcut, and the clear cut went
[24:09] Speaker 3: straight up this really steep ridge, and I wanted to
[24:13] Speaker 3: get to the top of this ridge to see the view. Well,
[24:15] Speaker 3: this clearcut is flanked by very large trees, and so
[24:19] Speaker 3: when you take out these sections of these big trees,
[24:21] Speaker 3: it opens the forest up.
[24:22] Speaker 4: It's dark in the forest.
[24:24] Speaker 3: It was a bright sunny day, but you look into
[24:25] Speaker 3: the forest, you couldn't see more than twenty thirty feet
[24:27] Speaker 3: into it. I just got so dark in there, and
[24:29] Speaker 3: that contrast between the bright light and the dark forest,
[24:32] Speaker 3: it makes it impossible.
[24:32] Speaker 4: As hand.
[24:33] Speaker 3: While we're stump jumping climbing up this really steep hill
[24:36] Speaker 3: to get up to the top, and I make it
[24:38] Speaker 3: about three cours away up. My wife's a couple hundred
[24:40] Speaker 3: feet behind me. She always a slower hiker. And I
[24:43] Speaker 3: started getting this feeling, the same feeling I got when
[24:45] Speaker 3: I was camped outside of Astoria. There when I abandoned
[24:47] Speaker 3: the water jugs, I just got this feeling a little.
[24:51] Speaker 4: Uneasy that I was being watched.
[24:52] Speaker 3: I hadn't heard anything yet, and I put it aside
[24:55] Speaker 3: and just continued hiking up the trail. While I made
[24:59] Speaker 3: it another fifty feet up the steep slope, and you
[25:00] Speaker 3: got to weave through this mess of slash and stomp,
[25:03] Speaker 3: so it's hard hiking. And as I was making my
[25:05] Speaker 3: way up the hill, I hear I almost sounded like
[25:08] Speaker 3: a gun child, a dry chunk of tree, not even
[25:10] Speaker 3: a branch, getting snap crack, and it's in that big
[25:14] Speaker 3: force that's flanking us on either side. It's probably a
[25:16] Speaker 3: hundred yards to each edge of this, maybe one hundred
[25:18] Speaker 3: and fifty yards. And I'm like, oh, I've heard it.
[25:21] Speaker 3: Sounded like a bear moving through the woods. They' pretty clumsy,
[25:23] Speaker 3: they'll step on branches and stuff. I'm like, oh, there's
[25:24] Speaker 3: a bear up there. They don't worry me. I've hunted
[25:27] Speaker 3: them and been around them, and I'm not too worried
[25:28] Speaker 3: about the bears. And I'm like, that's what it was.
[25:31] Speaker 3: That's a feeling, not a guy. So I rode off
[25:32] Speaker 3: the sap. I continued up and stick started snapping and breaking.
[25:37] Speaker 3: A big tree, knocks, whack, on the side of trees,
[25:39] Speaker 3: and it was all to the right of me, and
[25:42] Speaker 3: like I said, you look into this force and it's
[25:44] Speaker 3: so dark, but I could see there was there was
[25:49] Speaker 3: almost like shadows moving back there. I could see that
[25:52] Speaker 3: there was something in there, and it made me really uneasy.
[25:55] Speaker 3: And at this point, I'm only fifty yards from the
[25:57] Speaker 3: top of the ridge that I want to get up
[25:59] Speaker 3: on to get my vantage point. I stopped there and
[26:03] Speaker 3: I got even more uneasy. And it's just one of
[26:08] Speaker 3: those situations. I always followed my gut when I'm in
[26:10] Speaker 3: the woods, I always have and I just felt really uneasy,
[26:13] Speaker 3: and it was a turnaround now kind of a thing,
[26:16] Speaker 3: and I didn't want to stand where I was standing,
[26:18] Speaker 3: and so I turned around and met back up with
[26:20] Speaker 3: my wife. She was a little bit lower down the hill,
[26:22] Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh, just get some so rough and
[26:23] Speaker 3: brushy up there probably wouldn't be much of you.
[26:25] Speaker 4: I'm like, let's just head back down.
[26:27] Speaker 3: And my wife had heard the commotion in the woods
[26:29] Speaker 3: Siel and I'm like, oh, I think there's a bear
[26:30] Speaker 3: up there. Anyways, I'm like, let's just head down to
[26:31] Speaker 3: the creek and enjoy ourself there. So we went back
[26:34] Speaker 3: down to the creek and spent the rest of the day,
[26:36] Speaker 3: probably three hundred yards away from where I was at
[26:38] Speaker 3: the top of that ridge, just enjoying herself. Nothing else
[26:41] Speaker 3: happened that day, but it was the first time that
[26:43] Speaker 3: I really started more paying attention to that, just that
[26:45] Speaker 3: really off putting turnaround. Now you know, your hair is
[26:48] Speaker 3: up on the back of your neck kind of deal.
[26:49] Speaker 3: And I had never experienced that hunting or anything, you know,
[26:52] Speaker 3: being around mountain lions and bears and stuff like that.
[26:55] Speaker 3: I mean, you're always on edge when you see them,
[26:57] Speaker 3: but it's not terrifying. And that was the borderline terrify.
[27:00] Speaker 3: So I spent a restaurant day there, no big deal,
[27:02] Speaker 3: but nothing else happened. And so the next experience I
[27:06] Speaker 3: had was actually later that year. So I was in
[27:10] Speaker 3: my early twenties and Eugene has a hippie influence and
[27:15] Speaker 3: I was getto that scene, and so I was. I
[27:19] Speaker 3: did small grows years prior to that, little closet grows
[27:23] Speaker 3: and stuff like that, and like most people did in Oregon,
[27:26] Speaker 3: pot was still highly illegal felony for any of it.
[27:30] Speaker 3: And my roommate that I was living with at the time,
[27:33] Speaker 3: we decided and that year to do a grow out
[27:38] Speaker 3: in the forest, and I'm like, we want to pick
[27:40] Speaker 3: a spot that's as remote as possible but has access
[27:45] Speaker 3: to where we can get to it and still be
[27:47] Speaker 3: able to hike in and not spend five hours hiking
[27:49] Speaker 3: into this place, you know, because I mean you have
[27:50] Speaker 3: to carry the plants up there. We grew from clones
[27:53] Speaker 3: before we planted them, so the plants were already two
[27:55] Speaker 3: feet tall before we put them in the ground and
[27:57] Speaker 3: threw in this group. So I think we had sixty
[27:59] Speaker 3: years many little plants, and it was an industrial operation.
[28:02] Speaker 3: It was just us kids messing around have fun. I
[28:05] Speaker 3: don't think we were going to make millions off of
[28:08] Speaker 3: this stuff, which it was never the case. So we
[28:10] Speaker 3: find this spot and Google Maps really was a new
[28:12] Speaker 3: thing than on, so it was pretty unbelievable to be
[28:15] Speaker 3: able to pull up on your computers. I think my
[28:18] Speaker 3: computer's still running Windows ninety eight or ninety five or
[28:21] Speaker 3: something like that at that time, pull up these maps
[28:22] Speaker 3: and be able to get these satellite overlays of these areas.
[28:26] Speaker 3: And that's what I used to pick the spot where
[28:28] Speaker 3: we end up growing this year. And I earmarked a
[28:31] Speaker 3: couple sites that were super remote. They were nestling up
[28:35] Speaker 3: into the west slopes of the Cascades. They weren't super
[28:38] Speaker 3: high elevation because you don't want to get too much
[28:39] Speaker 3: elevation because you need to get warmer weather in the fall.
[28:42] Speaker 3: If you get too high, you're going to froze out
[28:43] Speaker 3: before your plants finish, you know. And so we go
[28:46] Speaker 3: up there that early spring to scout spots to put
[28:51] Speaker 3: our plants on. So I go up with my wife
[28:53] Speaker 3: and my roommate Terry, and we go to check out
[28:56] Speaker 3: this first spot, and it's about three quarters of a
[28:58] Speaker 3: mile of a brushwhack off of these logging roads that
[29:02] Speaker 3: you drive for twelve or fourteen miles, and they're so brushy,
[29:04] Speaker 3: brushes dragging out inside of your vehicle while you're doing it,
[29:07] Speaker 3: you know. And so we get to the spot where
[29:09] Speaker 3: I marked it, and this is before GPS and everything,
[29:12] Speaker 3: so we always just navigate it with map and compass,
[29:15] Speaker 3: and the GPS units they had then were expensive and
[29:18] Speaker 3: fairly clunky, gray screen, none of that nice overlay, like
[29:21] Speaker 3: not having your tablet out in the woods like it
[29:23] Speaker 3: is now, you know. And so we hike into this
[29:26] Speaker 3: first spot that I had marked and three quarter mile
[29:30] Speaker 3: hike in kind of pick on our way through through
[29:32] Speaker 3: this forest area. They have been logged several times over.
[29:34] Speaker 3: Every time they log, they plant three trees for every
[29:36] Speaker 3: tree they cut. So that process, if you repeat it
[29:38] Speaker 3: over several times, you can imagine how dense the trees
[29:41] Speaker 3: get after they keep on replanning three to one on
[29:44] Speaker 3: the cutting, so that stuff's super dense. And I'm heading
[29:46] Speaker 3: for this open spot that I saw in satellite. It
[29:48] Speaker 3: was probably a half acre in between all this old
[29:51] Speaker 3: or this new reproud, which is what they call the
[29:53] Speaker 3: trees that they plan after they log, and we get
[29:57] Speaker 3: up into the spot finally atakes i don't know, forty
[29:59] Speaker 3: five minutes a bust and brush to get up there,
[30:01] Speaker 3: and it's actually a perfect spot to grow. I had
[30:03] Speaker 3: a little spring that popped up in the middle, really brushy,
[30:05] Speaker 3: some BlackBerry up in the middle of it that had
[30:07] Speaker 3: enough room to where we would get sunlight, enough sun
[30:11] Speaker 3: light to do what we want to do. As we
[30:13] Speaker 3: got into this clearing, I got that feeling again, same
[30:16] Speaker 3: feeling I got when I was over in a Wolf Mountain,
[30:18] Speaker 3: and the same feeling I got out outside of Astoria
[30:21] Speaker 3: that the really uneasy like you're being watched and really
[30:25] Speaker 3: just very uncomfortable, like you wouldn't want to you wouldn't
[30:28] Speaker 3: want to spend any mountain time up there with that feeling.
[30:30] Speaker 3: And so we scout around it and we brought a lunch.
[30:34] Speaker 3: We were planning eating a lunch out there, and I
[30:36] Speaker 3: was talking to Terry about the spot and was like, yeah,
[30:38] Speaker 3: I like the spot.
[30:40] Speaker 1: Big for society.
[30:41] Speaker 2: Who will be right back?
[30:42] Speaker 3: After these messages, I didn't say anything to my wife
[31:01] Speaker 3: or my buddy that was with me about how I
[31:02] Speaker 3: was feeling about the spot.
[31:03] Speaker 4: We decided not to eat our lunch air.
[31:05] Speaker 3: We spent maybe six or seven minutes in this place
[31:08] Speaker 3: before we decided to hike back to the rig. Well,
[31:10] Speaker 3: we made it back to the rig, and I asked
[31:13] Speaker 3: my buddy, I'm like, what do you think about this spot?
[31:16] Speaker 3: And he says, well, he's like, the spot's great, he said,
[31:20] Speaker 3: but I had a horrible feeling going in there, he said,
[31:23] Speaker 3: he said, it is super uncomfortable. My wife said the
[31:25] Speaker 3: same thing, and I told him told them how I
[31:29] Speaker 3: felt about it. I'm like, well, I had the same
[31:31] Speaker 3: thing happened. I was just very uncomfortable, and that walk
[31:33] Speaker 3: back out was worse than anything, just because it was
[31:36] Speaker 3: so thick.
[31:37] Speaker 4: You couldn't move faster through this stuff. You know.
[31:39] Speaker 3: We didn't hear anything or see anything on that trip,
[31:42] Speaker 3: but we decided not to grow at that spot. So
[31:44] Speaker 3: we got back in the rig, drove up the road
[31:46] Speaker 3: another four or five miles, so where these logging rows
[31:50] Speaker 3: really start petering out. And I had another spot marked
[31:52] Speaker 3: and we parked the car.
[31:55] Speaker 4: We do.
[31:56] Speaker 3: This spot's about a quarter mile off the road, and
[31:59] Speaker 3: so we bush a way to it. And this spot
[32:01] Speaker 3: is up on ridges and the hillsides between the ridge
[32:04] Speaker 3: and the valleys, and I mean they're probably fifty degree slopes,
[32:09] Speaker 3: really steep, so when you're climbing up this you're rabbing
[32:11] Speaker 3: trees and branches. And we're heading to this other open
[32:14] Speaker 3: spot that we thought might be a good place, right
[32:16] Speaker 3: next to a little creek. We get up there and
[32:18] Speaker 3: find that there's these little terraces where the hillside slumped
[32:21] Speaker 3: over the years, these little terrace spots that are pretty flat,
[32:24] Speaker 3: and that's the open spots that I was seeing on
[32:25] Speaker 3: the map, and there's about five or six of them.
[32:27] Speaker 3: They continue down the hill. The creek kind of followed them.
[32:30] Speaker 3: I mean it was a perfect spot. And I told
[32:31] Speaker 3: my buddy, I'm like, this is a spot and no
[32:33] Speaker 3: off putting feelings or anything like that on that earlier
[32:36] Speaker 3: hike we did in that day, we just no one
[32:38] Speaker 3: talked about it, and all the uneasiness seemed to disappear.
[32:41] Speaker 3: I'm like, Oh, this is gonna be the spot. So
[32:43] Speaker 3: the next week I organized a couple of my buddies
[32:46] Speaker 3: to help us get our supplies up there.
[32:48] Speaker 4: And.
[32:50] Speaker 3: We got all the stuff up there, all of our
[32:52] Speaker 3: plants and all of our supplies we're going to need
[32:55] Speaker 3: throughout the year. And our schedule was in the summertime.
[32:58] Speaker 3: Every other week on front we would leave Eugene at
[33:01] Speaker 3: about eleven o'clock and we'd drive up to this area,
[33:04] Speaker 3: which was in the Lane County Lynn County line up there.
[33:07] Speaker 3: So it took us about an hour to an hour
[33:10] Speaker 3: and twenty minutes to get up drive up to the spot,
[33:12] Speaker 3: and then it was another We always parked about a
[33:15] Speaker 3: mile and a half away from where the spot was,
[33:17] Speaker 3: even though it was only quarter mile off the road.
[33:19] Speaker 3: We don't want to park right below it once so
[33:20] Speaker 3: we would park and then do about a mile and
[33:22] Speaker 3: a half walk in. And so it's after midnight. And
[33:25] Speaker 3: the stipulation I had for doing this was one, we
[33:27] Speaker 3: never took any guns with us, you know it.
[33:29] Speaker 4: One I didn't want that to be part of it.
[33:31] Speaker 3: And two, like I said back in the day, you
[33:33] Speaker 3: got caught doing the stuff, that's just an extra felony
[33:36] Speaker 3: thrown on top of it. And so we would go
[33:38] Speaker 3: up and hike into the spot and we would do
[33:41] Speaker 3: our pruning and our watering and fertilizing and stuff like that,
[33:44] Speaker 3: and spend a few hours up and up in the
[33:47] Speaker 3: spot in the middle of the night doing it. We'd
[33:48] Speaker 3: usually come out about about four o'clock or so in
[33:51] Speaker 3: the morning back to the rig. So as we're doing
[33:54] Speaker 3: this through the summer, we started having some strange experiences
[33:57] Speaker 3: up there, and we heard the sound of car doors slamming,
[34:02] Speaker 3: just boom, and it only sounded like they were one
[34:05] Speaker 3: hundred feet away. But there's just no way, there's no
[34:07] Speaker 3: cars up there. We walked the roads to this spot,
[34:09] Speaker 3: and the spot's at the end of Denon Road, and
[34:11] Speaker 3: there's no roads within besides someone we came in on.
[34:13] Speaker 3: There's no roads within three quarters to a mile away
[34:17] Speaker 3: from there, and those roads are so brush anyways, no
[34:19] Speaker 3: one's gonna be out there in the middle of the night.
[34:20] Speaker 3: So we'd hear these car doors slam, and we would
[34:24] Speaker 3: hear what almost sounded like gunshots occasionally, but they weren't
[34:29] Speaker 3: a sharp I mean, it would just be a loud crack,
[34:33] Speaker 3: you know. I mean maybe you know, five hundred and
[34:35] Speaker 3: six hundred feet away. And I mean me and Terry
[34:37] Speaker 3: discussed it, and our rule was if we ever found
[34:40] Speaker 3: that anyone had gotten in there, we get found out,
[34:42] Speaker 3: you just abandon the site and you never come back.
[34:45] Speaker 3: And so we just dealt with that through the whole summer,
[34:49] Speaker 3: you know. And I mean the car door thing was
[34:50] Speaker 3: the weirdest. It just sounded like a newer car, not
[34:53] Speaker 3: like not like an eighty square body Chevy. I mean
[34:55] Speaker 3: like a newer car where the doors closed and there's
[34:57] Speaker 3: no rattle, and you get that loud who as it closes,
[35:00] Speaker 3: just tons of that. And my buddy Terry was joker rising,
[35:03] Speaker 3: he's maybe maybe it's haunted up here. And we always
[35:06] Speaker 3: had a chuckle about it, you know. And so later
[35:09] Speaker 3: in the year, in late September going on October, we
[35:13] Speaker 3: harvested at the as far into October as we can
[35:16] Speaker 3: get it before the frost kicked us out of there.
[35:18] Speaker 3: We started going every week and doing our late night prunings,
[35:21] Speaker 3: and it was our last weekend that we were going
[35:26] Speaker 3: up there to do our maintenance before we come back
[35:27] Speaker 3: and harvest our our little crops, which they the plants,
[35:32] Speaker 3: did not do good. They were tall, they were big plants,
[35:34] Speaker 3: ten feet tall, nine feet tall, but they were so
[35:36] Speaker 3: spindily growing in that clay soil, and we got we
[35:39] Speaker 3: got some stuff off of them, but it wasn't anything
[35:41] Speaker 3: you write home about until our inniverse season there. A
[35:46] Speaker 3: week before we decided to harvest, we go up to
[35:48] Speaker 3: do our normal deal, get them pruned up and cleaned up,
[35:50] Speaker 3: ready to go to take back and haul our bounty
[35:53] Speaker 3: back home. After a long summer of growing these things.
[35:57] Speaker 3: We were pretty excited about it, and so we get
[35:59] Speaker 3: up there and we do our pruning and all of
[36:02] Speaker 3: our stuff that we're doing. I'm up in the upper
[36:04] Speaker 3: plot carries in one of the lower plots down there,
[36:06] Speaker 3: and it's probably one hundred and fifty feet separated, I mean,
[36:09] Speaker 3: down this incredibly steep slope and once you come off
[36:11] Speaker 3: those terrace sections, you're going down to your side, footing
[36:13] Speaker 3: it on the hills and to get to the next
[36:15] Speaker 3: one while I'm stashing the stuff up at the very
[36:17] Speaker 3: top plot. Oh and I should mention I forgot to mention.
[36:20] Speaker 3: We had week a couple weeks prior to that, I
[36:23] Speaker 3: coming up there on the top plot and there's probably
[36:25] Speaker 3: twenty plants or so on the top plot, and three
[36:27] Speaker 3: or four of them had been ripped out of the
[36:29] Speaker 3: ground and thrown.
[36:31] Speaker 4: Up into the trees.
[36:32] Speaker 3: Really, you know, I mean fifteen twenty feet up in
[36:34] Speaker 3: the tree. There's this whole plant sitting there. And we
[36:35] Speaker 3: saw some elk sign and growing up on ranches. I
[36:38] Speaker 3: watched horses rab plants and shake them and throw them.
[36:41] Speaker 3: I was just like, we might have some elk in
[36:42] Speaker 3: here picking on this stuff. And we found it odd.
[36:46] Speaker 3: We actually discussed actually abandon in it because of that.
[36:48] Speaker 3: We're like, man, maybe someone's in here, maybe a hundred
[36:51] Speaker 3: found it, and maybe we should just call it quits
[36:53] Speaker 3: and not come back. And so anyways, our last week,
[36:56] Speaker 3: there I'm up there top plot, sashing my stuff underneath
[37:00] Speaker 3: this Douglas fir tree, the watering containers and stuff like that.
[37:03] Speaker 3: So it couldn't be spots. They use helicopters back then.
[37:05] Speaker 3: They were flying helicopters all over the place, and as
[37:07] Speaker 3: on stash and this the stuff the creeks to my
[37:11] Speaker 3: back here and there's a slight open area, probably about
[37:14] Speaker 3: to the edge of where it drops off right there,
[37:17] Speaker 3: and I see out of my perfield is really dark
[37:21] Speaker 3: black shadow just zoomed by.
[37:23] Speaker 4: I mean, no brush noise or anything like that. Just
[37:25] Speaker 4: caught my attention.
[37:26] Speaker 3: I looked over there, and I should also note that
[37:29] Speaker 3: I are flashlights that we used. We didn't use really
[37:32] Speaker 3: bright flashlights, you know, for obvious reasons, you know. So
[37:34] Speaker 3: I had LED headlamps just started coming out. I don't
[37:38] Speaker 3: know if you ever bought the first generation LED headlamps.
[37:41] Speaker 3: They were blue, bluish purplish colored, and you couldn't see.
[37:47] Speaker 3: You couldn't see ten feet on a nice night with
[37:49] Speaker 3: those things. It was enough light to work in. But
[37:51] Speaker 3: and plus that wavelength too, I mean, it just really
[37:54] Speaker 3: messed with your debt perception. You can't see. It drowns
[37:57] Speaker 3: out some of the colors and textures of things. So anyways,
[38:00] Speaker 3: I see this, the shadow move, and it gets my attention.
[38:04] Speaker 3: And so I sat there for a couple of minutes listening,
[38:06] Speaker 3: and I didn't hear anything, and so I was like, oh,
[38:07] Speaker 3: maybe it's and I'll moving through there really quick so much,
[38:10] Speaker 3: which I mean it would have made a lot of
[38:12] Speaker 3: noise if his nolk.
[38:12] Speaker 4: But that's the explanation. I came up with a time.
[38:14] Speaker 3: So packed the stuff up and put my backpack on,
[38:19] Speaker 3: clicked on my crappy ARII headlamp, and went down to
[38:24] Speaker 3: started heading down to Terry. And about the time I
[38:27] Speaker 3: started coming off that first plot to come down towards
[38:30] Speaker 3: where Terry was, I started hearing brush breaking. It started
[38:33] Speaker 3: about one hundred and fifty feet above me on the
[38:35] Speaker 3: hillside right where are that that shadow that dark figure
[38:39] Speaker 3: had ran to. And I would start walking and it
[38:42] Speaker 3: would start walking, and I mean at first it was pacing.
[38:45] Speaker 3: I was going at the same speed I was going by,
[38:47] Speaker 3: I mean in the thick brush moving so you hear yeah,
[38:50] Speaker 3: I mean just just like walking through thick brush, snapping, crackling.
[38:53] Speaker 3: It wasn't rushing at that point, and I would stop
[38:57] Speaker 3: and it would stop. As I got closer to Terry,
[39:00] Speaker 3: I'm on a lower plot, it started picking up. Every
[39:02] Speaker 3: time it started moving, it started getting faster and faster,
[39:04] Speaker 3: and so this thing started pretty much running to me.
[39:08] Speaker 4: And when I would stop.
[39:10] Speaker 3: A couple seconds later it would stop, but every time
[39:12] Speaker 3: it would get closer, and I got that feeling again.
[39:14] Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, man, Harry, are middle of the night.
[39:17] Speaker 3: A couple three inch three and a half inch pocket knives,
[39:20] Speaker 3: you know. And I make it down Terry. I'm like, hey,
[39:22] Speaker 3: I just want to let you know. When I was
[39:23] Speaker 3: up there top plot, I don't know if there's a
[39:25] Speaker 3: bear or nolk. I saw something move up there and
[39:28] Speaker 3: it was moving down the hill with me when I
[39:30] Speaker 3: was going, and Terry hadn't heard it at that point,
[39:32] Speaker 3: and he's like, well, okay, And I'm like, let's grab
[39:34] Speaker 3: our stuff and let's take the shortcut. Let's just go
[39:36] Speaker 3: straight down the steepest parts and let's just get onto
[39:39] Speaker 3: the road and get back to the car. So we
[39:41] Speaker 3: as soon as we started walking through that bottom plot,
[39:44] Speaker 3: this thing started running again. And Terry looks at me
[39:46] Speaker 3: and he says, what the hell is that. I'm like,
[39:48] Speaker 3: that's what I was talking about. I'm like, it'll be fine.
[39:50] Speaker 3: I'm like, do not freak out and run. I'm like,
[39:53] Speaker 3: if it's a bear or a cougar, I'm like, it
[39:55] Speaker 3: will chase you if you run.
[39:57] Speaker 4: I'm like, it'll be fine.
[39:59] Speaker 3: I dealt with animals in the woods before and I've
[40:01] Speaker 3: never had an issue.
[40:02] Speaker 4: I'm like, you just need to be cool about it.
[40:03] Speaker 3: And so we start moving down again, and this scene
[40:06] Speaker 3: starts running and every time, I mean it sounds like
[40:09] Speaker 3: a truck driving down this hill, just snapping, breaking trees,
[40:12] Speaker 3: like trees that were in there. We're a twenty year old,
[40:14] Speaker 3: fifteen year old reprod. So they're all about this big
[40:16] Speaker 3: round about six to eight inches, you know at the
[40:19] Speaker 3: base and Douglas fir they grow in pretty thick, and
[40:22] Speaker 3: these things are thick in there, you know, so you
[40:25] Speaker 3: can't see more usually, especially once you get off these plots,
[40:28] Speaker 3: you can't see more than five or six feet in
[40:30] Speaker 3: front of it. Before you have a tree on branches
[40:32] Speaker 3: and you can see the gaps in between there. We
[40:33] Speaker 3: start making it off this edge and this scene starts
[40:36] Speaker 3: coming and now it's within seventy five feetish of us,
[40:42] Speaker 3: and we start and stop multiple times, and I told Terry,
[40:44] Speaker 3: I'm like, take your knife out, and he takes out
[40:46] Speaker 3: his little pocket knife. I'm in front and I pulled
[40:48] Speaker 3: my pocket knife out and I'm like, I told Terry,
[40:51] Speaker 3: I'm like, if this animal comes down and starts attacking.
[40:55] Speaker 3: I'm like, you stab it until it stops attacking, and
[40:57] Speaker 3: I'll make sure I do the same for you. And
[40:59] Speaker 3: Terry looked look quite nervous. I'm like, but do not run.
[41:02] Speaker 3: And Terry's okay, you know. And so we stop and listen.
[41:06] Speaker 3: We don't hear anything. We start walking, and again this
[41:09] Speaker 3: thing starts coming and now it's coming. It's just coming
[41:11] Speaker 3: with a vengeance. And we stop and this time it
[41:13] Speaker 3: doesn't stop, and it's just coming. We're sitting there looking
[41:17] Speaker 3: up the hill. I mean, time seems to slow down
[41:19] Speaker 3: in those moments. It's just coming towards you, and you thinking
[41:21] Speaker 3: about all these movies you watch and everything about these
[41:24] Speaker 3: animals coming and grabbing. You have nowhere to go, nowhere
[41:26] Speaker 3: to run. You can't move over this train. The only
[41:28] Speaker 3: thing to do is stand there and just prepare. And
[41:31] Speaker 3: so I'm down and the ready when this thing's coming,
[41:33] Speaker 3: and it's coming, and my heart rate's sitting there pumping,
[41:37] Speaker 3: and it's a chilly night, so as I'm exhaling my
[41:39] Speaker 3: breath is it's a nice still night too. My breath
[41:42] Speaker 3: is just coming up, wrapping over my headlamps. I'm exhaling
[41:44] Speaker 3: to the side so I can see and get the
[41:46] Speaker 3: conversation from my breath out of my field of you.
[41:48] Speaker 3: And this thing is just running straight at us, and
[41:51] Speaker 3: I'm sure we're about to get attacked by whatever it is,
[41:55] Speaker 3: you know, And.
[41:55] Speaker 4: So I'm down ready.
[41:57] Speaker 3: It's brush snap and breaking closer, stop about ten feet
[42:01] Speaker 3: in front of me, directly in front of me, And
[42:03] Speaker 3: so I'm sitting there looking straight ahead, kind of slightly
[42:06] Speaker 3: hunched down, kind of in that batter's position, you know,
[42:11] Speaker 3: ready to go, and this thing stops and the noise stops,
[42:16] Speaker 3: and looking through the trees with this crappy headlamp in
[42:19] Speaker 3: between the Douglas fir branches or scaps, and I can
[42:22] Speaker 3: see this blackish fur and it's got a little bit
[42:28] Speaker 3: of a shine to it.
[42:29] Speaker 4: I'm looking and.
[42:30] Speaker 3: As I move my head lamp up, I see these
[42:34] Speaker 3: splotches of her. And I get to about eight feet
[42:37] Speaker 3: where I'm looking up, about eight feet tall, just ten
[42:40] Speaker 3: feet in front of me, and I can see black
[42:42] Speaker 3: fur still, and I can see these lighter patches, and
[42:47] Speaker 3: I think I was looking at his chest. So I
[42:49] Speaker 3: sat there with my knife ready. My buddy Cherry had
[42:52] Speaker 3: his hand on my shoulder behind me and just waiting
[42:56] Speaker 3: for this scene to come the rest of the way
[42:58] Speaker 3: and confront us. And we sat there for probably six
[43:03] Speaker 3: or seven seconds, just staring at it, and all of
[43:06] Speaker 3: a sudden, I hear it shuffle and it turned, and
[43:10] Speaker 3: when it turned, I saw this light flash come through
[43:14] Speaker 3: and I think what I saw was it's palm, and
[43:16] Speaker 3: it was about the size of a baseball mint, like
[43:19] Speaker 3: adults baseball mint. It's just this flash that went through
[43:23] Speaker 3: this crapy. My eye was really cussing that headlamp. All
[43:25] Speaker 3: I wanted to do was see. You just want to
[43:26] Speaker 3: You can't run, and you want to be able to see.
[43:28] Speaker 3: And this thing turned and you can hear it on
[43:31] Speaker 3: two legs taking these huge steps going down this really
[43:34] Speaker 3: steep slope, and I mean it disappeared out of earshot
[43:37] Speaker 3: within five seconds, just just disappeared.
[43:39] Speaker 4: And we sat there for.
[43:40] Speaker 3: Another minute and I told Terry, I'm like, let's head
[43:44] Speaker 3: back to the truck, you know, And so we hiked
[43:46] Speaker 3: out of there, headed back to the truck. And anyways,
[43:49] Speaker 3: we ended up going back the next week and finished
[43:52] Speaker 3: up our plants and stuff, and you know, I mean,
[43:55] Speaker 3: I didn't know what to think of it, and I
[43:58] Speaker 3: really never We chatted about a little bit on the
[44:01] Speaker 3: way back to town, but I just didn't know what
[44:03] Speaker 3: to think about it, and really didn't have a firm
[44:06] Speaker 3: place to put this experience, you know, And so time
[44:10] Speaker 3: goes by and it just was one of those odd experiences.
[44:15] Speaker 3: And then, like I said, once that show came on
[44:18] Speaker 3: TV Finding Bigfoot and stuff, I'm like, yeah, I was
[44:19] Speaker 3: a big foot stand in front of me. I saw
[44:21] Speaker 3: a bigfoot. And years later, actually a few years later,
[44:24] Speaker 3: Terry now lives in Idaho, and I went to buy
[44:27] Speaker 3: that camper over there because had a really good deal
[44:30] Speaker 3: during the pandemic, And so we drove over to Boise
[44:33] Speaker 3: and I hadn't seen Terry and seven or eight, and
[44:36] Speaker 3: I'll probably even longer that, maybe ten years. And so
[44:38] Speaker 3: we meet up with them in town while I'm waiting
[44:40] Speaker 3: for the paperworking done on the camp trailer, and it
[44:42] Speaker 3: was on my mind because now I knew I'd have
[44:44] Speaker 3: put all this stuff together, and I had a pretty
[44:45] Speaker 3: good idea about what was going on to us out there.
[44:47] Speaker 3: And I talked to Harry about him, like, hey, you
[44:49] Speaker 3: remember that grow we did out in Lane County line He's, oh, yeah,
[44:52] Speaker 3: I asked Terry, Mike, remember that thing that chased us
[44:55] Speaker 3: down the hill?
[44:56] Speaker 4: He say, oh, yeah, I remember that. I'm like, what
[44:58] Speaker 4: did you see?
[44:59] Speaker 3: Because I never asked Terry what he saw when he says,
[45:02] Speaker 3: I didn't see anything. I was behind you when nice hunch,
[45:06] Speaker 3: I'm like, you didn't see the things standing right in front.
[45:09] Speaker 4: Of us, And Terry's like, I didn't see it. I
[45:11] Speaker 4: was actually a little disappointed.
[45:12] Speaker 3: I'm like, man, and maybe it's a good thing you
[45:13] Speaker 3: didn't see it, because I'm Terry was pretty spooped and
[45:16] Speaker 3: walking back on that road, I mean, you know, I
[45:19] Speaker 3: mean I heard it run off and that uneasiness just
[45:22] Speaker 3: left just back in the woods again.
[45:24] Speaker 4: And but yeah, it was incredible.
[45:25] Speaker 3: And I don't know the whole door slamming thing and
[45:28] Speaker 3: stuff like that, like how they make the noise, but
[45:31] Speaker 3: it's so distinctive and I heard I've heard that many
[45:35] Speaker 3: times before in places where you wouldn't expect to hear it.
[45:38] Speaker 3: And I don't know if it's them smacking their chests
[45:40] Speaker 3: and making a big exhale, but it's pretty incredible sound mimicry.
[45:44] Speaker 3: I think these things mimic the sounds that they hear.
[45:48] Speaker 3: And I don't know why they do it. It it
[45:50] Speaker 3: seemed territorial obviously because I mean his running out there,
[45:52] Speaker 3: But why waited all summer with having these those noises
[45:55] Speaker 3: around us all summer?
[45:56] Speaker 4: I don't know. But made it out of.
[45:58] Speaker 3: There unscathed with another expert sperience, and so where am
[46:02] Speaker 3: I at here?
[46:02] Speaker 4: So I'm okay.
[46:04] Speaker 3: So the next year I kept on backpacking, and that
[46:07] Speaker 3: was the last year I grew. It's just it was
[46:09] Speaker 3: just too much work and I got busier with my career.
[46:12] Speaker 3: I'm a mechanic. I've been a mechanic for twenty five years,
[46:14] Speaker 3: and it's just the whole growing thing, especially once it
[46:17] Speaker 3: turned legal, Like I just didn't want any part of it. It
[46:20] Speaker 3: was fun to you as a kid. It wasn't a
[46:21] Speaker 3: commercial venture. It was just kids being kids. But anyways,
[46:23] Speaker 3: backpacking was my true passion and that kind of took
[46:25] Speaker 3: away from backpacking. So me and my wife was you
[46:27] Speaker 3: and my girlfriend. Then we found the spot in South
[46:31] Speaker 3: Sister or Three Sisters Wilderness. This is on the western
[46:33] Speaker 3: slopes of the mountains there and the Lama National Forest,
[46:37] Speaker 3: probably thirty five miles forty miles ast. Crowd fly from here,
[46:41] Speaker 3: just an absolutely gorgeous area. In my opinion, being around
[46:46] Speaker 3: the state and backpacking the whole state, it's some of
[46:49] Speaker 3: the prettiest hiking you can find. An Organ and Linton
[46:51] Speaker 3: Meadows in particular, it's this meadow system that comes off
[46:54] Speaker 3: the PCT, runs on the top side of it, and
[46:58] Speaker 3: this metal system drops for miles and miles below. So
[47:00] Speaker 3: you get these terrace lava flows that have huge meadows,
[47:02] Speaker 3: two hundred acre meadows, and they open up to South Sister,
[47:06] Speaker 3: this huge volcanic mountain that's got glaciers on it, and
[47:08] Speaker 3: South Sister has a lot of red rock and it's
[47:10] Speaker 3: just absolutely stunning. We actually end up getting married out there.
[47:14] Speaker 3: That's where my wife we did a wilderness wedding. You know,
[47:16] Speaker 3: I got my brother ordained and hiked in my in Lost.
[47:20] Speaker 3: You can only take twelve people in the wilderness. And
[47:21] Speaker 3: I was starting to get into guiding at this point
[47:23] Speaker 3: in time, so I was running some nonprofits as a
[47:26] Speaker 3: as a guide and taking a bunch of people out
[47:28] Speaker 3: and so I had tons of year for backpacking and
[47:31] Speaker 3: me and my wife decided we didn't want to We
[47:33] Speaker 3: didn't want a church wedding. But anyways, we chose the
[47:36] Speaker 3: spot because it's so pretty and it's off the beaten path.
[47:39] Speaker 3: A lot of people might day trip it if they're
[47:41] Speaker 3: out there backpacking, but it's thirteen miles to the nearest
[47:44] Speaker 3: trail head. Is hard hiking. So Aileen Lake was our
[47:48] Speaker 3: main destination.
[47:49] Speaker 4: So we go in.
[47:51] Speaker 3: It's about twenty ten and we always liked later season hikes,
[47:57] Speaker 3: so it was September, maybe a couple weeks into September,
[48:01] Speaker 3: and we picked that because one of the crowds are
[48:02] Speaker 3: less and the bugs leave. The mosquitos can be horrendous
[48:05] Speaker 3: out there all the way through August, and it's such
[48:08] Speaker 3: a pretty spot. It sucks if you got to spend
[48:09] Speaker 3: your time under mosquito netting. And so we hike in,
[48:12] Speaker 3: just me and my wife and spend all day hiking.
[48:16] Speaker 3: Is a hard hike. I mean, my packs were heavier
[48:19] Speaker 3: than they should have been. I was probably carrying seventy pounds.
[48:21] Speaker 3: My wife is probably carrying fifty five or sixty.
[48:23] Speaker 4: She's a trooper.
[48:24] Speaker 3: She could put miles on and it never complains about it.
[48:27] Speaker 3: And she I introduced her to backpacking, so she cut
[48:29] Speaker 3: her teeth with it with me, and it was just
[48:33] Speaker 3: it was such a great experience. So we hike in
[48:36] Speaker 3: to Lint Meadows, and it takes us all day to
[48:38] Speaker 3: get into there. By the time we get into Lint Meadows,
[48:41] Speaker 3: super dry year, we were running low in water. We
[48:43] Speaker 3: had been out of water for the last few miles,
[48:46] Speaker 3: and I knew there were springs down there and lint meadows,
[48:47] Speaker 3: So our plan was to just get into where the
[48:50] Speaker 3: meadows start and post up camp, find some water, and
[48:54] Speaker 3: then the next morning hike the rest of the mile
[48:56] Speaker 3: and a half two Island Lake, which is our destination.
[48:58] Speaker 3: We were going to spend about a week and half
[48:59] Speaker 3: out there. So we drop into the meadow and the
[49:03] Speaker 3: sun's got about an hour and a half worth left
[49:05] Speaker 3: a light on it. But it gets start quick up
[49:06] Speaker 3: there because everything's so up and down and we're in
[49:08] Speaker 3: this valley. You can be a couple hours away from
[49:10] Speaker 3: sunset and be in complete shade and darkness.
[49:13] Speaker 4: So we set up our We come into this.
[49:14] Speaker 3: Meadow and it's one of the larger meadows that are
[49:17] Speaker 3: up there, and you get out of the trees and
[49:19] Speaker 3: all of a sudden, the views open up and there's
[49:20] Speaker 3: a mountain, I mean, lit up by the setting sun
[49:22] Speaker 3: alpine glow, and it's just you know, you're gonna be
[49:25] Speaker 3: spending a week and half up there, and you have
[49:27] Speaker 3: nothing to do, and it's the best feeling, and we're tired,
[49:30] Speaker 3: we're thirsty. We find a little spring that's trickling right
[49:32] Speaker 3: by the trail as we enter the meadow, so we
[49:34] Speaker 3: set our tent up right where this meadow starts to
[49:38] Speaker 3: open up, and there's these little tree peninsula set that
[49:40] Speaker 3: open up into the meadow, so you get these little
[49:42] Speaker 3: kind of jets of trees that come out in between
[49:45] Speaker 3: the meadow. So we camped about fifty feet away from
[49:49] Speaker 3: the edge of this tree line right where you come
[49:51] Speaker 3: into the meadow where you first start to get to
[49:53] Speaker 3: the meadows, set our tent up, got water, feed the
[49:56] Speaker 3: dogs there they're dehydrated dog backpack packing food and made
[50:00] Speaker 3: our dinner and we're sitting in our camp chairs, shoes off,
[50:04] Speaker 3: just enjoying it. And we're looking across the metal on
[50:07] Speaker 3: the other side, and metal runs up this really steep hillside,
[50:11] Speaker 3: and as we're eating our dinner, this whole herd of deer.
[50:13] Speaker 3: I've never seen so many blacktaill deer out there, but
[50:17] Speaker 3: this whole herd of probably twelve deer just explode out
[50:22] Speaker 3: of the woods through the pass the trail that we
[50:24] Speaker 3: came in on, probably one hundred feet away from us,
[50:27] Speaker 3: and they are running full board and they run straight
[50:30] Speaker 3: up this hillside. I mean you'd have to use you know,
[50:32] Speaker 3: you'd have to use all fours to climb up that
[50:35] Speaker 3: that mountain side.
[50:36] Speaker 4: I mean it is steep. You can just see this.
[50:38] Speaker 4: They are just.
[50:38] Speaker 3: Running and I told my wife, I'm like, oh, something's
[50:41] Speaker 3: chasing those things. Mountains and mountain lions and bears are
[50:44] Speaker 3: really common up there, and so I'm like, well, probably
[50:47] Speaker 3: cat chasing them. And so we just sat there and
[50:49] Speaker 3: watched them run and we're like, oh, that's cool, like
[50:51] Speaker 3: really cool. And we finish our meal. Our dogs were done.
[50:54] Speaker 3: Who make them carry their gear? And humans can walk
[50:56] Speaker 3: way farther than dogs. You thirteen mile a day for
[50:59] Speaker 3: a dog. And heat, it was really hot. They were
[51:02] Speaker 3: ready for bed, so open up the tent, they go in,
[51:05] Speaker 3: they go to sleep. We finished cleaning up camp and
[51:08] Speaker 3: we get in our tent and we didn't see anyone
[51:11] Speaker 3: hiking in there. We didn't see anyone in the last
[51:14] Speaker 3: probably eight miles, so there's no one in the meadow system.
[51:17] Speaker 3: There's no sign of people in there. No noise, it
[51:19] Speaker 3: gets dark, starts getting dark, and we're laying in the
[51:22] Speaker 3: tent and we hear what sounds like someone split in firewood,
[51:27] Speaker 3: just as dry.
[51:27] Speaker 4: As firewood crack.
[51:29] Speaker 3: It was so loud, echoing off these huge metal walls,
[51:33] Speaker 3: and this meadows probably three quarters mile across.
[51:35] Speaker 4: You just hear it echoing.
[51:37] Speaker 3: And I knew that there's another camping area about about
[51:41] Speaker 3: a quarter mile up the trail, on this other tree,
[51:43] Speaker 3: this tree island that's in the middle of the meadow system.
[51:46] Speaker 3: There's really pretty spot to camp, so I assume people
[51:48] Speaker 3: were camping there. And this wood splitting went on for
[51:53] Speaker 3: forty five minutes or more. You know, loud, I mean
[51:56] Speaker 3: just loud eyes from marking to my wife. Man, I'm like,
[52:00] Speaker 3: almost sounds like gunshots. It's so loud. And it started
[52:02] Speaker 3: getting closer to us, to the point to where the
[52:06] Speaker 3: sounds of this what we thought was would be being
[52:08] Speaker 3: split was one hundred feet into the trees that we
[52:11] Speaker 3: are now camped next to. Like there are people camped
[52:14] Speaker 3: in there. So we hear that wood splitting crack right
[52:16] Speaker 3: in there, and it was odd, and I'm like, man,
[52:20] Speaker 3: we didn't see anyone in there, and we're right next
[52:22] Speaker 3: to where this happening. Now, I'm like, it doesn't really
[52:24] Speaker 3: make much sense that they're moving around splitting firewood, but
[52:27] Speaker 3: we chalked it up to people being out there camping,
[52:30] Speaker 3: and the wood splitting stopped after about forty five minutes
[52:34] Speaker 3: that noise anyways, and then we started hearing the sound
[52:39] Speaker 3: of on that ground up there being volcanic and made
[52:43] Speaker 3: with a lot of pomuses, a lot of air pockets
[52:44] Speaker 3: in the ground, and when you run on that stuff,
[52:47] Speaker 3: you get you can hear the foot footsteps, even humans
[52:50] Speaker 3: walking on and people walking on it. But it wasn't
[52:52] Speaker 3: footprints or footsteps. It was rocks being thrown towards our tent,
[52:57] Speaker 3: big rocks, football size, softball sized rocks.
[52:59] Speaker 4: Boom boom bom.
[53:00] Speaker 3: And these rocks got closer and closer, I mean to
[53:02] Speaker 3: the point to where they were hitting five feet away
[53:05] Speaker 3: from our tent. And I told my wife, I'm like,
[53:08] Speaker 3: you know what, I'm like, these are drunk out here camping.
[53:11] Speaker 3: I'm like, we come out here to get away from people,
[53:13] Speaker 3: and here we are we end up setting up right
[53:15] Speaker 3: next to someone. I'm like, you know, if this continues,
[53:17] Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm gonna go out there and talk to him.
[53:19] Speaker 3: My wife's, oh, don't go out there and get in
[53:22] Speaker 3: a fist fight. And middle of the forest, I'm like,
[53:23] Speaker 3: there's plenty of room for these people to go camping here.
[53:25] Speaker 3: They are camping right next to us and being drunks
[53:27] Speaker 3: throwing rocks at our tent. So discontinues, and it gets
[53:31] Speaker 3: closer to the tent and I'm like, I'm gonna go
[53:34] Speaker 3: out there and talk to him. So I started getting
[53:37] Speaker 3: up and my wife's just leave it to me. Well,
[53:39] Speaker 3: I'm like, if they hit our tent, I'm going out there.
[53:41] Speaker 3: And so we listen to this rock throw and go
[53:44] Speaker 3: on for thirty to forty five minutes. It's well dark
[53:47] Speaker 3: now and the rock throwing stops, and a few minutes
[53:53] Speaker 3: later we hear three or four things standing may twenty
[54:00] Speaker 3: five feet away from her tent, in between our tent
[54:02] Speaker 3: and the tree line. You can hear him talking, but
[54:05] Speaker 3: it's not a discernible language. It's super low. And the
[54:08] Speaker 3: best way I heard it described is if someone was
[54:12] Speaker 3: talking in a really deep voice and you played it backwards, WHOA,
[54:17] Speaker 3: You catch sections of it, and then it is so
[54:19] Speaker 3: low and frequency like parts of it would drop out
[54:21] Speaker 3: from what you can hear, and then you pick it
[54:22] Speaker 3: back up and you'd hear these things chattering back and
[54:26] Speaker 3: forth right outside her tent. And it probably only lasted
[54:29] Speaker 3: a couple of minutes, and then it was quiet the.
[54:33] Speaker 4: Rest of the night.
[54:34] Speaker 3: In the morning, we woke up early, so we wanted
[54:37] Speaker 3: to get up get Diling Lakes. So we were up
[54:38] Speaker 3: and out of the tent by six and I decided
[54:41] Speaker 3: to hike into that tree area where where the people were.
[54:44] Speaker 3: I thought people were camping, And there's no campsite in there.
[54:47] Speaker 3: There's no sign that anyone was ever camping in there.
[54:49] Speaker 3: But around our tent were quite a few large rocks.
[54:53] Speaker 4: That weren't there.
[54:53] Speaker 3: In the morning, you can see where they It hit
[54:55] Speaker 3: on the pumisey ground and skidded, and like I said,
[54:58] Speaker 3: it was I just assumed it was people, but there
[55:01] Speaker 3: was no people there. And so we packed up a
[55:04] Speaker 3: tent and hiked up the island lake and spent our
[55:06] Speaker 3: week or so time up there and join ourself. Never
[55:10] Speaker 3: had anything else happen up at Lint Meadows that whole trip.
[55:13] Speaker 3: Our first trip into Linton Meadows, by the way, we
[55:15] Speaker 3: hiked from the Cascade Lakes highwayside of it, so it
[55:18] Speaker 3: was a sixteen or seventeen mile hike. I ended up
[55:20] Speaker 3: taking a wrong turn and ended up adding a couple
[55:23] Speaker 3: miles to it, and our first hike in there just
[55:26] Speaker 3: the only other thing I've had happened. Our first time
[55:28] Speaker 3: up there, we went to Husband Lake. Made it in there.
[55:30] Speaker 3: We were whooped, The dogs were whooped, and they are
[55:32] Speaker 3: laying down in the shade every time we stopped, so
[55:33] Speaker 3: it was time to stop. Our goal is to get
[55:35] Speaker 3: Island Lake, and that was our first.
[55:36] Speaker 4: Time up there.
[55:37] Speaker 3: We camp on this huge out rock outcropping that overlooks
[55:41] Speaker 3: this lake, and as after we set up the tent,
[55:44] Speaker 3: this five point black tailed deer just comes out of
[55:47] Speaker 3: the bushes and it's within ten feet of our tent.
[55:51] Speaker 3: And I have my two dogs there and they're not
[55:53] Speaker 3: ground or barking, they're watching this year. It's just clopping around.
[55:56] Speaker 3: It was so close I could have reached out and
[55:58] Speaker 3: touched this animal. Made me a little uneasy about the
[56:01] Speaker 3: health of this animal. It's getting later in the year too,
[56:03] Speaker 3: so I possibly could have been rut and so I
[56:06] Speaker 3: told my wife and I just don't mess with it
[56:07] Speaker 3: and it'll go away. Hung around our tent, well into
[56:11] Speaker 3: the evening to the point to where.
[56:13] Speaker 4: The sun had dropped down.
[56:13] Speaker 3: In fact, actually I was laying in there and it
[56:15] Speaker 3: was sniffing the tent and it ended up laying down
[56:19] Speaker 3: right outside of our tent, feed away from us, laying down.
[56:23] Speaker 3: And I never put two and two together, but I
[56:25] Speaker 3: think what it was was that that deer had been
[56:28] Speaker 3: being chased and it was around us for safety.
[56:30] Speaker 4: And that's my.
[56:32] Speaker 3: Speculation on it. Anyways, really odd. Yeah, you could have
[56:35] Speaker 3: gotten that thing with a slingshot. Boy, I would have
[56:36] Speaker 3: been hunter streaming. He was a nice looking buck. It
[56:38] Speaker 3: was a beautiful buck. But yeah, So that was my
[56:41] Speaker 3: experiences in Litton Meadows there, and I spent a lot
[56:44] Speaker 3: of time in that area, a lot of time in
[56:47] Speaker 3: that area. In fact, actually years later me and my
[56:49] Speaker 3: buddy that I ended up starting the back hiking Guide
[56:51] Speaker 3: service with we bush whacked eight miles from Linton Meadows,
[56:56] Speaker 3: no trail route to get to or Linton Lake to
[56:59] Speaker 3: get to the Metal Section, and it's super rugged. I
[57:02] Speaker 3: mean you're going up steep hillsides that are just covered
[57:06] Speaker 3: in eight to ten foot rhododendron. And I remember on
[57:09] Speaker 3: my hike up there that I ended up coming across
[57:14] Speaker 3: tree structures in there, and just in the middle of
[57:16] Speaker 3: absolutely nowhere where no one hikes, you know. I mean
[57:19] Speaker 3: you might get a hiker through there once every ten years,
[57:21] Speaker 3: you know, someone like us. I was really pushing what
[57:24] Speaker 3: they wanted to do, a miserable hike up beautiful though
[57:26] Speaker 3: multiple tree structures up in their big trees piled up
[57:29] Speaker 3: on each other. And I always thought it was odd
[57:30] Speaker 3: at it was just do an. I mean, it wasn't treefall.
[57:32] Speaker 3: I mean someone had stacked it, you know, and I
[57:34] Speaker 3: just thought it was odd. And but that area up
[57:36] Speaker 3: there ended up burning later in a fire around twenty
[57:41] Speaker 3: fifteen or so. I think there's a big fire up there,
[57:42] Speaker 3: and it burnt through a lot of that stuff up there.
[57:45] Speaker 3: And I actually went took my family on a week
[57:47] Speaker 3: long backpacking trip up there the following year, or maybe
[57:50] Speaker 3: it's two years after that fired burn. Actually, my neighbor
[57:53] Speaker 3: has a little airplane, so I actually traded off some
[57:55] Speaker 3: work with him and he took me on a flight
[57:57] Speaker 3: so I could do reconnaissance to make sure it wasn't
[57:58] Speaker 3: We weren't just gonna be hiking through complete burn for
[58:00] Speaker 3: a week. And it's a beautiful area. But yeah, I
[58:02] Speaker 3: took my family up there and they really enjoyed it.
[58:05] Speaker 4: Half of them.
[58:06] Speaker 3: I had already been up there for my wedding that
[58:07] Speaker 3: we did up up with those lakes and yep, never
[58:11] Speaker 3: had anything else that happened up there.
[58:13] Speaker 4: And then.
[58:15] Speaker 3: Twenty eleven Dime Peak Wilderness. So that's just east of
[58:18] Speaker 3: us you out Hills Creek, and I don't know where
[58:21] Speaker 3: you've been around here, but I wouldn't be surprised if
[58:23] Speaker 3: you went out that direction because that's a great direction
[58:24] Speaker 3: to go. But east of Eugene or east of Oakridge
[58:28] Speaker 3: you run into Dime Peak Wilderness.
[58:30] Speaker 4: You know what I mean. It's a big mountain you
[58:31] Speaker 4: can see when you're driving up the highway. Oh okay,
[58:33] Speaker 4: I got it.
[58:34] Speaker 3: Yep, Snowpeak Captain everything, and there's a beautiful loop in there,
[58:37] Speaker 3: and I really like love backpacking in that area. So
[58:41] Speaker 3: we were It's my first time doing the Wilderness Loop
[58:45] Speaker 3: and it's about a thirty mile loop and we like
[58:47] Speaker 3: take about a week to do them. And so my wife,
[58:50] Speaker 3: me and my buddy Ryan from Pendleton that I went
[58:53] Speaker 3: to school with, we start out from Trapper Creek trailhead,
[58:54] Speaker 3: which is my chilter co resort there on Oda Lake,
[58:57] Speaker 3: and our second night we end up at Lake Well,
[59:00] Speaker 3: we me and my wife had just bought a brand
[59:03] Speaker 3: new Arii backpack intent I mean, it was the big
[59:06] Speaker 3: Agnes sl It was a six hundred dollars tent, really
[59:10] Speaker 3: nice piece of gear and only weighed two and a
[59:11] Speaker 3: half pounds. It was so nice to really get her
[59:13] Speaker 3: pack weight trimmed down, you know, so we could do
[59:14] Speaker 3: these bigger trips and not die doing them. And so
[59:17] Speaker 3: we set up at Marie Lake and there's one camp
[59:19] Speaker 3: spot it's at the front side of the lake. There
[59:22] Speaker 3: there's another one you got a bushback to on the
[59:24] Speaker 3: other side, but there's no one in the first spot, so.
[59:26] Speaker 4: We took it. No people around or anything like that.
[59:28] Speaker 3: We set up on the grassy area in between the
[59:32] Speaker 3: campsite that was in the woods, about one hundred fet
[59:34] Speaker 3: from the side of the lake. We were about fifty
[59:36] Speaker 3: feet closer to the lake, in the grassy area that
[59:38] Speaker 3: leads right to the lake's edge. And we did our thing,
[59:43] Speaker 3: went to sleep. I had my two dogs with me,
[59:45] Speaker 3: yuey Nori, and we wake up in the morning and
[59:48] Speaker 3: my wife's side of the tent, it's got a full
[59:50] Speaker 3: rain fly on it. It's a heavy duty tent for backpacking,
[59:53] Speaker 3: three and a half plus season tent.
[59:54] Speaker 4: It's stout. This thing can take some storms.
[59:55] Speaker 3: And we wake up and the rain fly is ripped
[59:59] Speaker 3: on her side, The zippers rip ripped out of the
[1:00:01] Speaker 3: seam on her side. The mesh body of the tent,
[1:00:04] Speaker 3: which is all mesh her zipper side, was ripped open,
[1:00:08] Speaker 3: destroyed the zipper, and there is urine on top of
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: this tent. And it's about probably close to five and
[1:00:13] Speaker 3: a half feet tall, the peak of the town just
[1:00:16] Speaker 3: about tons of the stinky urine on it. And I
[1:00:19] Speaker 3: was pretty pissed off. I'm a brand new tent just
[1:00:22] Speaker 3: got ripped up and shredded. And I don't know why
[1:00:25] Speaker 3: I didn't wake up. My dogs didn't alert us, My
[1:00:28] Speaker 3: wife didn't alert us, and she was on that side
[1:00:30] Speaker 3: of tent. I was actually just talking to her about
[1:00:31] Speaker 3: this the other night. I'm like, and we just didn't
[1:00:34] Speaker 3: know what to think about what happened with the tent,
[1:00:36] Speaker 3: so we taped it back together to make the trip work.
[1:00:39] Speaker 4: And the funny thing is where it was ripped.
[1:00:41] Speaker 3: Like, as my wife'side, I'm like, yeah, now that now
[1:00:43] Speaker 3: I did know what was going on. I'm like, I
[1:00:45] Speaker 3: could have had something reaching in over the tent on you.
[1:00:47] Speaker 3: I don't know why we didn't wake up. You know,
[1:00:49] Speaker 3: that's the only weird you know. I'm not much on
[1:00:51] Speaker 3: the wou side of the phenomenon, but that's unexplainable because
[1:00:54] Speaker 3: you're gonna hear that stuff that rips up nylon to
[1:00:56] Speaker 3: be able to rip it, I mean it's loud if
[1:00:58] Speaker 3: you rip it, it's super loud, man, at least.
[1:01:00] Speaker 4: For the dog still alert.
[1:01:01] Speaker 3: So luckily ari I had their return policy. We took
[1:01:04] Speaker 3: it back and got a brand new tent for free.
[1:01:07] Speaker 1: Big for SOCIETYHO will be right back after these messages.
[1:01:25] Speaker 3: So there's no loss on that. So that was a
[1:01:28] Speaker 3: dime peak Wilderness in two thousand. In twenty thirteen, we
[1:01:35] Speaker 3: moved up here and bought this property that we're on
[1:01:37] Speaker 3: right now. Moved from Oakridge or from Eugene up to here,
[1:01:40] Speaker 3: and it was so nice to get back out of
[1:01:41] Speaker 3: the city. Spending in a decade plus in Eugene was
[1:01:44] Speaker 3: all the city, all the need for the rest of
[1:01:46] Speaker 3: my life.
[1:01:46] Speaker 4: And so we got up here. I know this area well,
[1:01:48] Speaker 4: and we started.
[1:01:50] Speaker 3: As we were living up here, we explored it like
[1:01:52] Speaker 3: I did Eugene when I first got out here, and
[1:01:53] Speaker 3: now that I was living up here, I could just leave
[1:01:55] Speaker 3: out my back door and in fifteen minutes I could
[1:01:58] Speaker 3: be at wilderness Wilderness, Dgen.
[1:01:59] Speaker 4: It was so much to see and do.
[1:02:01] Speaker 3: So we decided to check out Huckleberry Lake, which is
[1:02:05] Speaker 3: just up the road from us. It's about eleven miles
[1:02:08] Speaker 3: from here, probably twelve miles, not very far. It takes
[1:02:10] Speaker 3: about twenty minutes or so to get up there, and
[1:02:12] Speaker 3: it's this little lake that isn't used a lot. So
[1:02:15] Speaker 3: we pull off at this trailhead, really brushy road, so
[1:02:18] Speaker 3: you're driving truck down. Everyone calls a cascade pin striping here.
[1:02:21] Speaker 3: Anyone that's out in the woods up here and drive.
[1:02:23] Speaker 3: You can tell by looking at the truck what they do,
[1:02:24] Speaker 3: because everyone's got the scrape mark from these branches dragging
[1:02:26] Speaker 3: down the side of their vehicle. So we find this
[1:02:28] Speaker 3: trailhead and this lake drops. This lake's in this bowl
[1:02:32] Speaker 3: that sits well below the road, and it's backed up
[1:02:34] Speaker 3: by this big thousand foot tall cliff that makes Huckleberry Mountain.
[1:02:37] Speaker 3: There's a fire lookout up on top of it, which
[1:02:39] Speaker 3: you can't see from the lake, but I had my
[1:02:43] Speaker 3: boys were probably about two years old at the time,
[1:02:47] Speaker 3: so we had them in backpack carriers. Abby was three
[1:02:50] Speaker 3: and a half or four, and I usually opened carry.
[1:02:55] Speaker 3: When I started hiking with my kids, I started just
[1:02:57] Speaker 3: bringing a gun just in case, not scared or about it.
[1:03:00] Speaker 3: And it just fell like it was a smart move
[1:03:02] Speaker 3: to make, especially where we went and the stuff we did.
[1:03:05] Speaker 3: And so we hiked down to this lake and come
[1:03:08] Speaker 3: up to it and it's really brushy. There's just a
[1:03:09] Speaker 3: big enough spot to get out of the brush to
[1:03:11] Speaker 3: see the lake when you first come down to it,
[1:03:12] Speaker 3: and there's this really faint fisherman's trail that goes around
[1:03:15] Speaker 3: the east side of the lake and it takes you
[1:03:17] Speaker 3: through this rhododendron thicket seven eight foot tall rhodendron thicket,
[1:03:21] Speaker 3: and you're stepping over logs and you get to the
[1:03:22] Speaker 3: outlet creek and you got to walk a log to
[1:03:25] Speaker 3: get over the outlet creek to this semi established camp
[1:03:28] Speaker 3: spot that's at the end of the lake and it's
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: up in these bigger trees the rhoddendron there, so there's
[1:03:33] Speaker 3: a spot to put a tent. We hung out there
[1:03:35] Speaker 3: and had lunch, the kids splashed around in the lake.
[1:03:38] Speaker 3: We spent probably an hour there and I started getting
[1:03:41] Speaker 3: that uneasy feeling again. And my wife, I know, she
[1:03:43] Speaker 3: was packing up stuff. I'm like, well, you ready to
[1:03:45] Speaker 3: get out of here, and she says yep. So we
[1:03:47] Speaker 3: put the boys back in the back of carriers. I
[1:03:49] Speaker 3: had one and my wife had the other boy on
[1:03:51] Speaker 3: her back, and my wife led the way out, so
[1:03:54] Speaker 3: I had Abbey in front of me. And as we're walking,
[1:03:57] Speaker 3: we cross that outlet creek and we get back into
[1:03:59] Speaker 3: the really thick road under and that feeling that I got,
[1:04:01] Speaker 3: like when I was scouting some of those gross sites
[1:04:04] Speaker 3: over there, it came back on just hit instantly. It
[1:04:07] Speaker 3: was like, oh man, I just want out of here.
[1:04:09] Speaker 3: I just want to get back to the truck and
[1:04:11] Speaker 3: get out of here. And it was so strong on
[1:04:14] Speaker 3: that trip that I Abby was about about twenty thirty
[1:04:17] Speaker 3: feet in front of me.
[1:04:18] Speaker 4: Up.
[1:04:18] Speaker 3: I told her to come back towards me, and I
[1:04:20] Speaker 3: actually unholstered my gun and took it off safe and
[1:04:21] Speaker 3: just kept it out there, ready on the side and
[1:04:24] Speaker 3: just waiting to see it. My wife was an eyesight
[1:04:27] Speaker 3: and we walked through there just a horrible feeling, absolutely
[1:04:30] Speaker 3: horrible feeling. I don't know if you've ever experienced that.
[1:04:33] Speaker 3: It's yeah, you know, it's just and you're in it too.
[1:04:35] Speaker 3: When you're out there, you can't You're not going to
[1:04:37] Speaker 3: run from it, so you just deal with it and
[1:04:39] Speaker 3: slowly move on.
[1:04:39] Speaker 4: But boy, is it uncomfortable.
[1:04:41] Speaker 3: My hair was up on the back of my neck
[1:04:43] Speaker 3: and I'm just sitting there there waiting for something to
[1:04:46] Speaker 3: come out. I'd stop every every minute or so and
[1:04:49] Speaker 3: just listen. I never heard anything, but the feeling got stronger,
[1:04:52] Speaker 3: ass the thicker.
[1:04:52] Speaker 4: The deep room made into those rhododendrons.
[1:04:54] Speaker 3: And we made it back to where the trail dropped
[1:04:55] Speaker 3: into the lake, and then you switched back up this
[1:04:57] Speaker 3: ridge back to the road, and we get up there,
[1:05:00] Speaker 3: load the kids up, load the backpacks up, and I
[1:05:02] Speaker 3: asked my wife, I'm like, what did you think of
[1:05:04] Speaker 3: that lake? You probably go backpack in. There's right out
[1:05:06] Speaker 3: our back door. And my wife says, I never want
[1:05:09] Speaker 3: to go back down there again. She said, I got
[1:05:11] Speaker 3: the worst feeling coming out of there, and that's when
[1:05:13] Speaker 3: I told her that I experienced the same thing. I'm like, yeah,
[1:05:16] Speaker 3: I actually unholstered my gun I had all fun safe
[1:05:18] Speaker 3: and called Abby back to me because it just felt
[1:05:21] Speaker 3: so imminent, so eminent. Yeah, it was unbelievable. I actually,
[1:05:25] Speaker 3: years later, actually teased the idea of going down there
[1:05:28] Speaker 3: with my buddy, which you met down there, because he's
[1:05:30] Speaker 3: had his experiences, and he's actually so frightened by his
[1:05:33] Speaker 3: experiences that he hasn't really gone camping since then, and
[1:05:36] Speaker 3: I never stopped camping. And the more I know about this,
[1:05:38] Speaker 3: a little bit more apprehensive I am about putting myselves
[1:05:41] Speaker 3: in these vulnerable situations. But we were actually going to
[1:05:45] Speaker 3: go up there and camp at that lake, just me
[1:05:46] Speaker 3: and him, just to understand this a little bit more.
[1:05:49] Speaker 3: I've had so many encounters with this, and now that
[1:05:52] Speaker 3: I'm starting to wake up to what was going on,
[1:05:54] Speaker 3: I wanted with some clarity to experience this and get
[1:05:58] Speaker 3: some more answers. And we end up having a mass
[1:06:00] Speaker 3: of fire Cedar Creek fire burnt through that year we
[1:06:02] Speaker 3: were going to go up there. I mean that couple
[1:06:03] Speaker 3: weeks later was when we were playing on camping and
[1:06:06] Speaker 3: the Cedar Creek fire burnt through in twenty twenty one,
[1:06:09] Speaker 3: and it just cooked all that area of Huckleberry burnt
[1:06:13] Speaker 3: and the lake around it burnt. I haven't been up
[1:06:15] Speaker 3: there since they they've had the road close off. I
[1:06:16] Speaker 3: think it's back open now, but I wouldn't imagine it
[1:06:20] Speaker 3: would be the same kind of place to go to.
[1:06:22] Speaker 3: Plus camping under burnt out trees that have been there
[1:06:24] Speaker 3: for a couple of years isn't the best decision to make. Yeah,
[1:06:26] Speaker 3: it's right out our back door, and the same right
[1:06:29] Speaker 3: out my back door. My property backs up to National Forest.
[1:06:32] Speaker 3: There's private lots around us, but we're this little tongue
[1:06:36] Speaker 3: of houses that are spread out all on big plots
[1:06:39] Speaker 3: of land like what we have. You know, I probably
[1:06:41] Speaker 3: have one of the smaller chunks land out here at
[1:06:42] Speaker 3: fourteen acres. You know, almost everyone else has, you know,
[1:06:45] Speaker 3: sixty two hundred acres. But outside of that, it's just
[1:06:49] Speaker 3: National Force. And when I first moved up here, the
[1:06:52] Speaker 3: logging that you saw coming up the road that hadn't happened.
[1:06:54] Speaker 3: So it was a continuous thick stretch of nice eighty
[1:06:57] Speaker 3: two hundred year old trees that have grown up here.
[1:07:00] Speaker 3: I mean, you're just driving the trees the whole way.
[1:07:01] Speaker 3: So I worked in Eugene at the time, and I
[1:07:04] Speaker 3: always did side jobs, so I'd take customer side jobs
[1:07:06] Speaker 3: in on chainsaws, generators or whatever, just to make some
[1:07:08] Speaker 3: money on the side. And when I get home, I
[1:07:11] Speaker 3: would go out to the shop up there, the Red Shop,
[1:07:14] Speaker 3: and I would work on these things. And sometimes I'd
[1:07:16] Speaker 3: be out there till midnight or later. And as I'm
[1:07:21] Speaker 3: working out there, I had this happen eight or nine times.
[1:07:24] Speaker 3: I'd be out there working middle the night and something
[1:07:27] Speaker 3: would come and hit the side of that shop so hard.
[1:07:30] Speaker 3: I mean it shook the whole shop. I mean the
[1:07:34] Speaker 3: whole shop would shake it hard enough to wear. It's
[1:07:36] Speaker 3: a two two story bar, and essentially, you know, hard
[1:07:39] Speaker 3: enough to wear. Dust would fall through the slats from
[1:07:41] Speaker 3: the upper story. Adia you know, I thought it was
[1:07:44] Speaker 3: an animal upstairs a couple times, so I went up
[1:07:45] Speaker 3: there with a pride bar, waiting to cleve a raccoon
[1:07:48] Speaker 3: or something.
[1:07:48] Speaker 4: But there was never anything up there.
[1:07:50] Speaker 3: And now I realize it was probably being harassed and
[1:07:54] Speaker 3: chased by these things.
[1:07:55] Speaker 4: But I got that feeling a couple of times up there.
[1:07:57] Speaker 3: When I shut it down and walk back to the
[1:07:58] Speaker 3: house late at night, I got that same kind of
[1:08:00] Speaker 3: creepy feeling that I get it that I've had at
[1:08:02] Speaker 3: Huckleberry Lake and other times, and once the logging kicked
[1:08:06] Speaker 3: in there the last six years or so, a lot
[1:08:08] Speaker 3: of that seemed to have gone away. But of course
[1:08:11] Speaker 3: I don't spend late nights out there doing anymore. You know,
[1:08:13] Speaker 3: I run my business from my property now, so I
[1:08:15] Speaker 3: mean I'm already doing forty fifty hour weeks out there,
[1:08:17] Speaker 3: so I'm not out there at eleven o'clock or twelve
[1:08:19] Speaker 3: o'clock a night anymore. But really interesting stuff, And at
[1:08:22] Speaker 3: that point in time, I was pretty well aware about
[1:08:24] Speaker 3: what was going on, and I felt pretty lucky to
[1:08:26] Speaker 3: have the stuff so close for a guy that's looking
[1:08:29] Speaker 3: for some answers and clarity on it, so I don't
[1:08:31] Speaker 3: have to go two hours away to find the answers
[1:08:33] Speaker 3: for the stuff that's happened to me. And recently here
[1:08:36] Speaker 3: in December of last year, I went up to kitsen Or,
[1:08:41] Speaker 3: a CT beach area and explored with the kids. And
[1:08:44] Speaker 3: there's a little bridge that goes across one of the
[1:08:46] Speaker 3: arms of the reservoirs. In the winter time, they drank
[1:08:48] Speaker 3: the reservoirs for flood control, and so what would normally
[1:08:52] Speaker 3: be underwater is just back down to mud banks. And
[1:08:55] Speaker 3: the river that used to feed the reservoir body and
[1:08:58] Speaker 3: I took the kids there after Christmas. It was a
[1:09:02] Speaker 3: few days after Christmas, so December twenty eighth, twenty ninth,
[1:09:06] Speaker 3: and it was a stormy, snowy day, but I wanted
[1:09:09] Speaker 3: to get out and do some exploring. So we went
[1:09:10] Speaker 3: down there and hike down to the river, parked on
[1:09:13] Speaker 3: top of the no cars, no people around us, And
[1:09:15] Speaker 3: while we're down there, we got almost sounded like gunshots,
[1:09:18] Speaker 3: these sharp cracks ringing out through the woods.
[1:09:22] Speaker 4: And I almost assumed that someone was up there shooting.
[1:09:24] Speaker 3: So the kids came running over to me, and we're
[1:09:26] Speaker 3: down lower elevation from with the noise is happening, and
[1:09:29] Speaker 3: I'm like that there might be someone over there, maybe
[1:09:31] Speaker 3: shooting their pistol or something like that, you know, So
[1:09:33] Speaker 3: we end up hiking out of there. I hiked across
[1:09:34] Speaker 3: the bridge. I was going to go talk to these
[1:09:36] Speaker 3: people about, you know, making sure that they were shooting
[1:09:39] Speaker 3: safe direction and stuff like that. And so we get
[1:09:41] Speaker 3: over there and there's no cars on the other side
[1:09:43] Speaker 3: of the bridge, and the only road going in there
[1:09:46] Speaker 3: is a really narrow paved road. There's no other roads
[1:09:49] Speaker 3: above it. And it wasn't thinking about it. It wasn't
[1:09:53] Speaker 3: someone up there shooting their gun. Because people are out
[1:09:55] Speaker 3: there shooting their pistols. I didn't sound like high powered rifle.
[1:09:57] Speaker 3: It was definitely a pistol. It sounded more like a pistol.
[1:10:00] Speaker 3: And when people are shooting their pistols still go.
[1:10:02] Speaker 4: Bang, you know what I mean. This is just like
[1:10:03] Speaker 4: crack crack.
[1:10:05] Speaker 3: And then to change directions where it's coming from in
[1:10:08] Speaker 3: another portion of the wood. But we loaded up on
[1:10:10] Speaker 3: the truck and we went a little further down the
[1:10:12] Speaker 3: road in this place called Kits and Hot Springs. It's
[1:10:14] Speaker 3: administrated and owned by BSA. Now it's a little chunk
[1:10:17] Speaker 3: of private land that's nestled in the National forest there.
[1:10:20] Speaker 3: They used to have old Hot Springs house there. I
[1:10:22] Speaker 3: don't know if you made your way up there, but
[1:10:24] Speaker 3: oh man, it's super cool, super cool place. This was
[1:10:28] Speaker 3: right after the ct Beach incident. And so we go
[1:10:31] Speaker 3: in there and I always wanted to explore it. And
[1:10:33] Speaker 3: they have the whole hot spring foundation for the lodge that
[1:10:36] Speaker 3: you used to have. They're still hot water coming up
[1:10:38] Speaker 3: through there, and really cool area. We hiked across this
[1:10:40] Speaker 3: little bridge and there's these three sided shelters that the
[1:10:43] Speaker 3: boy Scouts used to use for their summer jamboreezes and
[1:10:46] Speaker 3: stuff like that. And in the mud on these trails
[1:10:49] Speaker 3: and these roads that ran on the other side of there,
[1:10:51] Speaker 3: there were old footprints, big ones, sixteen seventeen inch footprints,
[1:10:56] Speaker 3: there were small footprints. They were all over the place
[1:10:58] Speaker 3: and there from fresh to once that you tell had
[1:11:00] Speaker 3: been up there for a few weeks. And I know
[1:11:02] Speaker 3: people have had run INDs and encounters up there before.
[1:11:06] Speaker 3: And I've never casted a track, and I would. I'm
[1:11:08] Speaker 3: planning on going back up there later in the year
[1:11:11] Speaker 3: and when things slow down, and I want to find
[1:11:13] Speaker 3: a good track to at a cast in my collection.
[1:11:15] Speaker 3: So I've had other stuff happened to me. I've had
[1:11:17] Speaker 3: the classic wood knocks and stuff like that happened. I've
[1:11:20] Speaker 3: never heard screams or yells. I've had buddies that have
[1:11:23] Speaker 3: and the guy that you met, but I never had
[1:11:25] Speaker 3: other than the murmuring that I heard at Lent Meadows.
[1:11:28] Speaker 3: That's the only audible noise I've ever heard from it.
[1:11:30] Speaker 3: And also I want to note something too, I never
[1:11:33] Speaker 3: have had the smell never.
[1:11:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, that's really interesting.
[1:11:38] Speaker 3: Yep, and people talk about it, and I have never
[1:11:41] Speaker 3: when I've had these run ins, I have never.
[1:11:44] Speaker 4: Smelled that smell that people described.
[1:11:46] Speaker 3: And maybe it was the way the wind was blowing,
[1:11:49] Speaker 3: but for me, in my situations that I ran into,
[1:11:53] Speaker 3: smell wasn't part of it.
[1:11:54] Speaker 4: It just wasn't.
[1:11:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a rundown of what I've experienced that since
[1:11:57] Speaker 3: two thousand and eight. And like I always tell some
[1:12:00] Speaker 3: of my friends that know my stories that I don't backpack,
[1:12:02] Speaker 3: they're always really curious about it. And I think about
[1:12:05] Speaker 3: how many nights I've spent out camping and the remote
[1:12:08] Speaker 3: spots that I've gone to, and you have to be
[1:12:11] Speaker 3: out there so much ninety nine point nine percent of
[1:12:14] Speaker 3: the time you're not gonna have anything happen. It's at
[1:12:17] Speaker 3: zero point one percent of the time that this stuff happens,
[1:12:20] Speaker 3: and it's such an odd ball event that you don't
[1:12:26] Speaker 3: really think much of it. People are always like, oh,
[1:12:28] Speaker 3: why don't you go out there and just see what
[1:12:29] Speaker 3: it is. You have to be in the situation to
[1:12:31] Speaker 3: understand it. You really have to be in there, and
[1:12:33] Speaker 3: it's just so close to what humans would sound like
[1:12:37] Speaker 3: that that's why I think it gets rid off more
[1:12:39] Speaker 3: than not as people just thinking they're hearing other people
[1:12:42] Speaker 3: out there, maybe more people would be surprised that may
[1:12:44] Speaker 3: not always be the case.
[1:12:45] Speaker 1: Kevin, thank you so much for sharing your years of
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: things that have happened all over the state, which just
[1:12:52] Speaker 1: is incredible. Do you have a few minutes if I
[1:12:54] Speaker 1: could ask you a few questions? Okay, And the Diamond
[1:12:57] Speaker 1: Peak Wilderness incident. We discussed that at the booth, but
[1:13:01] Speaker 1: it's really interesting to hear more details about it. There
[1:13:04] Speaker 1: was actually a lot of urine that was gathered at
[1:13:08] Speaker 1: the top of the tent.
[1:13:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, because when the fly got when the fly got
[1:13:12] Speaker 3: torn as a full covered rain fly that goes over
[1:13:15] Speaker 3: the main body of the tent as most modern backpack
[1:13:17] Speaker 3: intents look like this and has this hubsystem where the
[1:13:19] Speaker 3: poles cross over on top, so clay creates a flatter
[1:13:23] Speaker 3: spot on top. If the fly is not zipped up,
[1:13:25] Speaker 3: it loses that tension, so you get a little low
[1:13:27] Speaker 3: spot that kind of forms in the top when it's unzipped. Yeah,
[1:13:30] Speaker 3: and there was that yellowish urine that was up on
[1:13:34] Speaker 3: the top.
[1:13:35] Speaker 4: Side of it.
[1:13:35] Speaker 1: That's what I was going to ask if you remembered
[1:13:37] Speaker 1: any details being in a wilderness individual. You've probably are
[1:13:41] Speaker 1: aware of what kind of urine from different creatures in
[1:13:46] Speaker 1: the forest looks like. And so this was you said,
[1:13:49] Speaker 1: a yellowish color.
[1:13:50] Speaker 4: Yellowish is urine.
[1:13:51] Speaker 3: I'm the only animal I know of around here that
[1:13:54] Speaker 3: would could could possibly deposit something like that up there
[1:13:57] Speaker 3: would be would be male cougars, you know, and they spread,
[1:14:00] Speaker 3: they can spray pretty far. They can put their markings
[1:14:03] Speaker 3: five feet up on a tree and stuff like back
[1:14:04] Speaker 3: up to it and pretty gross future stuff. But this
[1:14:08] Speaker 3: wasn't katgurin smell like someone's been eating too much of
[1:14:10] Speaker 3: sparagus and drank a bunch of beer the night before,
[1:14:12] Speaker 3: you know. But yeah, it was pooled in the rain
[1:14:15] Speaker 3: plot that was down on the ground, but it's on
[1:14:16] Speaker 3: the side that was ripped out. When I tease my
[1:14:17] Speaker 3: wife about that, like you're there, are sleeping and imagine
[1:14:20] Speaker 3: you might have this big hand reaching I couldn't imagine
[1:14:23] Speaker 3: that it wouldn't have reached into the tent. I'm like,
[1:14:27] Speaker 3: pretty incredible. And I've always inderstating the idea of taking
[1:14:30] Speaker 3: a game camera with me when I'm going out backpack
[1:14:32] Speaker 3: and now, but I just I don't know if they
[1:14:34] Speaker 3: can detect it. I don't speculate too much on that,
[1:14:36] Speaker 3: but the fact that there's just very few game camera
[1:14:40] Speaker 3: pictures that are get to be credible enough to even
[1:14:42] Speaker 3: want to talk about, I think it would lessen your
[1:14:44] Speaker 3: chances of experiencing anything.
[1:14:46] Speaker 1: We had discussed Spirit Lake at the booth right. That's
[1:14:50] Speaker 1: come up with a few individuals, And I've talked to
[1:14:53] Speaker 1: people before I got here about a lot of different
[1:14:56] Speaker 1: encounters that have happened in that area. Were you the
[1:14:59] Speaker 1: individual that had talked about the sticks in Spirit Lake?
[1:15:03] Speaker 1: Have you heard about that?
[1:15:04] Speaker 3: I've heard people have had strange run ends up there.
[1:15:07] Speaker 3: I mean, he's the namesake of the lake, Spirit Lake,
[1:15:09] Speaker 3: Devil's Canyon, all these places. I guess Condesstate from the
[1:15:13] Speaker 3: Schnook jargon of the Indians that around here. But no,
[1:15:15] Speaker 3: I've camped up there quite a bit, very remote. That
[1:15:17] Speaker 3: part's all burnt up in the Cedar Creek. Now, that's
[1:15:20] Speaker 3: all a big burn scarf there.
[1:15:21] Speaker 4: No, I never I've camped up there plenty.
[1:15:24] Speaker 3: I haven't had any run ends up there, but I
[1:15:26] Speaker 3: will say the times that I've camped up there, it's
[1:15:29] Speaker 3: been with my group of backpacking buddies. We all drag
[1:15:31] Speaker 3: our campers up they have kids that are my age
[1:15:34] Speaker 3: and they'll be eighteen of us up there and going
[1:15:38] Speaker 3: in big groups and backpacking with big groups. There's just
[1:15:42] Speaker 3: too much noise, in my opinion, but only happens when
[1:15:44] Speaker 3: you're being quiet, and I think smaller groups maybe it's
[1:15:46] Speaker 3: more approachable.
[1:15:47] Speaker 4: But I could see it.
[1:15:48] Speaker 3: I mean, there's plenty of I've have locals that have
[1:15:50] Speaker 3: told me and about stuff that's gone on up there,
[1:15:52] Speaker 3: you know, And I know that area carries a lot
[1:15:54] Speaker 3: of that kind of those kind of stories.
[1:15:56] Speaker 1: And the specific thing I want to make sure that
[1:16:00] Speaker 1: I remember to put on recording is I had multiple
[1:16:03] Speaker 1: hunters say that they've been there in around dusk or nighttime.
[1:16:07] Speaker 1: All the sticks that are in the lake will go
[1:16:09] Speaker 1: to the center of the lake form a circle and
[1:16:11] Speaker 1: then start rotating in a circular fashion, which magnetic field
[1:16:17] Speaker 1: or just tie strangeness. It seems like a really interesting area.
[1:16:22] Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely.
[1:16:23] Speaker 3: I've hiked into Spirit Lake once. It was actually right
[1:16:25] Speaker 3: before the summer before Cedar Creek burnt it up there,
[1:16:29] Speaker 3: and I just wanted to.
[1:16:30] Speaker 4: Check it out. And it's beautiful lake.
[1:16:32] Speaker 3: The hike going in there and it's absolutely was absolutely gorgeous,
[1:16:35] Speaker 3: huge trees. But yeah, we got up there and there's
[1:16:37] Speaker 3: a big meadow on one end of it, and I
[1:16:40] Speaker 3: didn't see anything unusual. It is a beautiful lake, though,
[1:16:43] Speaker 3: absolutely beautiful.
[1:16:43] Speaker 4: I didn't.
[1:16:44] Speaker 3: I've been around a lot of these mountain lakes and
[1:16:45] Speaker 3: I don't. I can't say I've ever seen any weird
[1:16:48] Speaker 3: anomalies with sticks floating around and swirling in the middle
[1:16:51] Speaker 3: of a lake. But in come evening time, you get
[1:16:53] Speaker 3: these inflows and outflows of air that move through these
[1:16:56] Speaker 3: valley systems. You know, So during the daytime, as lowlands heat,
[1:17:00] Speaker 3: the wind moves up valley and as it cools, a
[1:17:02] Speaker 3: colder sinks back down and spirit lakes kind of in
[1:17:04] Speaker 3: this bowl. And so I mean, if you ever watch
[1:17:07] Speaker 3: the wind come in on these lakes, you can actually
[1:17:09] Speaker 3: almost see that.
[1:17:10] Speaker 4: You can actually see the ripples on the lakes.
[1:17:12] Speaker 3: It actually hits the lake from straight up on top
[1:17:14] Speaker 3: and billows out and around. If I saw something like that,
[1:17:17] Speaker 3: I would probably attribute it more to that. I'm not
[1:17:19] Speaker 3: saying that these guys didn't experience something so strange.
[1:17:22] Speaker 1: Kevin. This has been an incredible interview, and thank you
[1:17:25] Speaker 1: for your hospitality for allowing me to come out to
[1:17:27] Speaker 1: your beautiful home area.
[1:17:30] Speaker 2: The woods are literally.
[1:17:31] Speaker 1: Just on the side of your yard and it's like
[1:17:34] Speaker 1: everything is right here. And thank you so much for
[1:17:36] Speaker 1: your hospitality.
[1:17:37] Speaker 3: Oh no, no problem. Is a pleasure meeting you all
[1:17:39] Speaker 3: the way from Iowa too. So what do you think
[1:17:41] Speaker 3: you think you come back to Pacific Northwest for more
[1:17:44] Speaker 3: bigfoot adventures?
[1:17:46] Speaker 1: I think it is definitely just beginning, and I don't
[1:17:49] Speaker 1: think this is the last time that I will be
[1:17:52] Speaker 1: in Oakridge for sure.
[1:17:54] Speaker 4: I might have a couple questions for you on this side.
[1:17:56] Speaker 3: You being from Iowa, we talked about your experiences that
[1:18:00] Speaker 3: you experienced in your neck of the woods over there. Yeah,
[1:18:03] Speaker 3: how does it rate for your io and bigfooted experiences
[1:18:08] Speaker 3: compared to what you've experienced in the last few days
[1:18:11] Speaker 3: here in this area.
[1:18:13] Speaker 1: What I experienced just outside of Oakridge has blown everything
[1:18:19] Speaker 1: that I've ever experienced out of the water, because we
[1:18:21] Speaker 1: experienced things like growl slash screen vocalizations. Right next to
[1:18:26] Speaker 1: the meadow we were at, I found a track by
[1:18:30] Speaker 1: where a visual had been seen just a day before.
[1:18:33] Speaker 1: And then we wrap up there and he was able
[1:18:36] Speaker 1: to really analyze the area for about forty five minutes
[1:18:38] Speaker 1: to an hour and he found a solid set of
[1:18:42] Speaker 1: tracks and these are like splayed how you have. The
[1:18:46] Speaker 1: tracks were like really spread out like that. Like I
[1:18:48] Speaker 1: actually saw that in real life and I was like, oh,
[1:18:51] Speaker 1: this these can be legit.
[1:18:53] Speaker 2: Usually those tracks look like they're faked, but like it
[1:18:56] Speaker 2: was there.
[1:18:57] Speaker 1: I saw it. They were not casted the way that
[1:19:00] Speaker 1: it was. What it was stepping over would have made
[1:19:05] Speaker 1: it extremely hard to be casted. But there's no doubt
[1:19:08] Speaker 1: there was. Did I tell you about the apple the fruit? Okay,
[1:19:12] Speaker 1: so yeah, the apple and the orange and banana that
[1:19:13] Speaker 1: was left from the group the day before, and that
[1:19:17] Speaker 1: we went back and the apple was left there uneaten
[1:19:20] Speaker 1: and the orange was on the ground uneaten, but the
[1:19:22] Speaker 1: banana was on the ground and peeled and eaten and
[1:19:26] Speaker 1: just things like that. Never experienced stuff like that in Iowa.
[1:19:31] Speaker 1: I have had some things happen, but like, it is
[1:19:34] Speaker 1: a totally different world out here, and.
[1:19:37] Speaker 2: You do have to be really careful.
[1:19:38] Speaker 1: You go out there and there's no cell service, there's
[1:19:40] Speaker 1: huge predators. You get a flat or your car blows up,
[1:19:45] Speaker 1: you have to hike back to town at least twenty
[1:19:47] Speaker 1: miles and there's not many chances out here, for sure.
[1:19:50] Speaker 2: But it is beautiful.
[1:19:51] Speaker 4: Yep. They lots of people. I mean, you know.
[1:19:54] Speaker 3: The sneaky thing about this area is the access is
[1:19:58] Speaker 3: so so good. There's many points of access, and they
[1:20:01] Speaker 3: can take you so far out into the wilderness. A
[1:20:05] Speaker 3: lot of people don't realize how far out there they
[1:20:08] Speaker 3: really are. You have these roads that go forty fifty
[1:20:11] Speaker 3: miles sixty miles into these wilderness areas, and your cell
[1:20:17] Speaker 3: phone coverage drops as soon as you get off fifty eight.
[1:20:19] Speaker 3: You know, anywhere off fifty eight, we're out here. It's dropped.
[1:20:22] Speaker 3: And that's just kind of part of this area. But yeah,
[1:20:24] Speaker 3: that's the way I've always looked at it is. I
[1:20:26] Speaker 3: think it should be approached with caution. When I'm not
[1:20:29] Speaker 3: much on the bigfoot woo side of things, I've looked
[1:20:31] Speaker 3: a little bit into it, and from my experiences it.
[1:20:33] Speaker 4: Doesn't line up.
[1:20:35] Speaker 3: I think it's some kind of biological physical animal. It
[1:20:40] Speaker 3: seems that's the most logical starting point. I don't know
[1:20:43] Speaker 3: if you have any opinions on what you think it
[1:20:46] Speaker 3: is from a physical standpoint.
[1:20:49] Speaker 1: Relic commented, after experiencing something that could peel a banana
[1:20:55] Speaker 1: and eat it, it's definitely a physical creature. I think
[1:20:59] Speaker 1: physical creature that can do stuff that science has no
[1:21:02] Speaker 1: idea how to explain it. So some people say that's
[1:21:05] Speaker 1: a cop out, but I think that it's not too
[1:21:08] Speaker 1: bad of an explanation. That's what I'm thinking right now.
[1:21:10] Speaker 3: So yeah, that's been my take on it. So my
[1:21:14] Speaker 3: my word of caution is kind of Bigfoot's been mainstream
[1:21:17] Speaker 3: for quite a while and a lot of people out
[1:21:19] Speaker 3: there looking for it. My experience and run ins with
[1:21:22] Speaker 3: these things, last thing I would do is go out
[1:21:25] Speaker 3: there and start hooting and hollering and banging your chest.
[1:21:27] Speaker 3: I think one as little as we know about these
[1:21:31] Speaker 3: things and as intelligent as a I presume they are,
[1:21:36] Speaker 3: I think caution should be used, especially with small kids
[1:21:42] Speaker 3: and being a father of three and camping in remote spots,
[1:21:45] Speaker 3: and we still back back quite a bit. I think
[1:21:48] Speaker 3: it's really important to keep an eye on this stuff
[1:21:51] Speaker 3: and realize that this isn't a zoo. You're in a
[1:21:54] Speaker 3: super rugged wild area. If it isn't animals you have
[1:21:58] Speaker 3: to deal with. I mean, it's other natural fun. And
[1:22:00] Speaker 3: I'm like these wildfires that we're surrounded by wildfires, and
[1:22:02] Speaker 3: that's been the norm for quite a while up here,
[1:22:05] Speaker 3: and I'm not on the I don't subscribe to the
[1:22:07] Speaker 3: idea that these things want to be friendly and want
[1:22:10] Speaker 3: to be seen. I obviously if they want to do harm,
[1:22:13] Speaker 3: they have their chances with me, and they could have.
[1:22:15] Speaker 3: But the fact matter is it's a really thin line
[1:22:18] Speaker 3: from what I experienced to actually having physical altercations with them.
[1:22:24] Speaker 3: And I think if you do it enough, I think
[1:22:26] Speaker 3: you're going to come across it. Like even Ronnie and Dwayne,
[1:22:30] Speaker 3: those guys, they've been dealing, they've been experiencing this for decades,
[1:22:34] Speaker 3: and you see all uncomfortable they can get in those experiences.
[1:22:38] Speaker 4: That should show you.
[1:22:39] Speaker 3: So the people that are out there that think that
[1:22:41] Speaker 3: these things want to sit down and enjoy their campfire
[1:22:43] Speaker 3: with them, I think they need to understand that these
[1:22:45] Speaker 3: are wild animals. We know very little about them, and
[1:22:48] Speaker 3: they're unpredictable.
[1:22:51] Speaker 1: Absolutely, Kevin, thank you so much again for your invitation
[1:22:54] Speaker 1: to come out to your property and hopefully I'll be
[1:22:57] Speaker 1: able to continue conversation in the future.
[1:23:00] Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, thanks thanks for taking time out to interview me.
[1:23:03] Speaker 3: This is the first time I've made any official reportings
[1:23:07] Speaker 3: on it, so look forward to some of your podcasts
[1:23:11] Speaker 3: coming from this area, especially you know your earlier or
[1:23:16] Speaker 3: late last week stuff. I think that'd be really interesting.
[1:23:18] Speaker 3: I don't know how much you're gonna put out there.
[1:23:22] Speaker 1: The following audio shares what happened immediately after this interview
[1:23:26] Speaker 1: in Oakridge. We're in a bit of an issue. When
[1:23:31] Speaker 1: I went in the woods Thursday, I thought I got
[1:23:34] Speaker 1: horsefly boats, but I thought I got horsefly bites. They've
[1:23:39] Speaker 1: escalated into what the Wilderness Guide says. Wilderness Guide I
[1:23:45] Speaker 1: interviewed this morning for the podcast says I potentially have
[1:23:48] Speaker 1: staff infections in both of my legs. The one small
[1:23:52] Speaker 1: doctor's office in Oakridge has said I need to immediately
[1:23:55] Speaker 1: go out to urgent Care in Springfield, Oregon.
[1:23:58] Speaker 2: Supposed to be.
[1:23:59] Speaker 1: Flying out tomorrow, so Oakridge is going to have to,
[1:24:04] Speaker 1: unfortunately say goodbye. Two interviews are not going to happen,
[1:24:08] Speaker 1: the or the old This sucks. The old timers are
[1:24:12] Speaker 1: not going to happen unless I come back tonight. But
[1:24:15] Speaker 1: it all depends on what the urgent care says. Yeah,
[1:24:24] Speaker 1: so I made it up to Springfield, Oregon, went into
[1:24:27] Speaker 1: the urgent care per the advice of the Wilderness Guide.
[1:24:32] Speaker 1: Thankfully it was not staph infection. However, they have no
[1:24:36] Speaker 1: idea what's going on. They say it makes no sense.
[1:24:39] Speaker 1: It looks like something hit a log across my two legs.
[1:24:51] Speaker 1: They say, there's bruising. It looks like blood is leaking
[1:24:54] Speaker 1: out from inside.
[1:24:57] Speaker 2: I have no idea. They've did.
[1:24:58] Speaker 1: They did a few, did a full farage of blood testing,
[1:25:02] Speaker 1: which they'll be sending directly back to my doctor in
[1:25:04] Speaker 1: des Moin I'm not gonna lie and freaked. I've got
[1:25:09] Speaker 1: a fever, a little bit of a fever right now.
[1:25:11] Speaker 1: So he says for me to go on antibiotics right away,
[1:25:15] Speaker 1: even before the blood tests are back, just in case
[1:25:18] Speaker 1: there is some bacterial infection.
[1:25:21] Speaker 2: They're saying.
[1:25:24] Speaker 1: Some sort of cellulatus, one of the causes of which
[1:25:29] Speaker 1: on the paper can be high energy raised. I'm headed
[1:25:32] Speaker 1: back to Oakridge.
[1:25:38] Speaker 2: I got my.
[1:25:39] Speaker 1: Two hour interview this morning, but I've fortunately had to
[1:25:42] Speaker 1: cancel a few because of this this health mishap. But
[1:25:45] Speaker 1: we are headed back to Oakridge, back to the hotel,
[1:25:48] Speaker 1: and then I'll be flying out of Eugene tomorrow and
[1:25:52] Speaker 1: then going directly to my doctor. Okay, I'm going to
[1:25:55] Speaker 1: head back to Oakridge. As of time of recording, in
[1:25:59] Speaker 1: late August twenty twenty four, my legs have completely healed.
[1:26:04] Speaker 1: Both doctors in Oregon in Iowa are not quite sure
[1:26:07] Speaker 1: what caused that issue, but we are in a great
[1:26:13] Speaker 1: spot health wise right now.
[1:26:15] Speaker 2: No issues.
[1:26:16] Speaker 1: I'll tell you this, next time I got into the woods,
[1:26:19] Speaker 1: I will be wearing appropriate attire such as pants and
[1:26:22] Speaker 1: not shorts. Take care of yourselves out there, guys, and
[1:26:26] Speaker 1: we'll talk to you next time. Have you ever heard
[1:26:28] Speaker 1: all the accounts of bigfoot activity around Oakridge, Oregon, and
[1:26:32] Speaker 1: you think to yourself, man, I would love to get
[1:26:35] Speaker 1: out in those woods and experience it for myself. Well,
[1:26:38] Speaker 1: guess what this year you can. If this is interesting
[1:26:42] Speaker 1: to you, stay tuned because it's pretty cool. Sasquatch Summer
[1:26:47] Speaker 1: Fest is coming up July tenth through the eleventh, twenty
[1:26:51] Speaker 1: twenty six. It's going to be even better than the
[1:26:54] Speaker 1: previous year's reason number one, I'll be one of the speakers.
[1:26:59] Speaker 1: It's going to be wild. I'll probably I'll say this.
[1:27:04] Speaker 1: There may be stuff you haven't heard anywhere else, because
[1:27:08] Speaker 1: let's just say sometimes it's well, you just got to
[1:27:12] Speaker 1: be there. We'll leave it that. More about looking for
[1:27:15] Speaker 1: Bigfoot in the Oakridge Woods now check this out. You
[1:27:18] Speaker 1: may know Jason Kenzie from his documentary series Searching for Sasquatch. Well,
[1:27:25] Speaker 1: this year you can not only go to the festival,
[1:27:29] Speaker 1: but you can also sign up for a track deep
[1:27:37] Speaker 1: in the wild forest outside of Oakridge with Jason Kenzie
[1:27:41] Speaker 1: to the Bigfoot Spots to look for Bigfoot. There's only
[1:27:45] Speaker 1: eight spots to sign up for this, and yes, this
[1:27:49] Speaker 1: will also be filmed for the next chapter in his
[1:27:52] Speaker 1: documentary series, which is Searching for Sasquatch. This is a
[1:27:55] Speaker 1: once in a lifetime deal. It's just it's going to
[1:27:58] Speaker 1: be a wild, wild experience. To get a ticket, head
[1:28:03] Speaker 1: on over to Sasquatch Summerfest dot com and listeners can
[1:28:07] Speaker 1: use the code b sp like Bigfoot Society podcast in
[1:28:13] Speaker 1: order to get a two day pass for the price
[1:28:15] Speaker 1: of a one day pass. So thanks to Priscilla for
[1:28:21] Speaker 1: giving me that code so that you guys can can
[1:28:26] Speaker 1: get a little help with the costs there. Appreciate that, Priscilla.
[1:28:31] Speaker 1: I hope to see you at the booth in Oakridge
[1:28:35] Speaker 1: this year we can talk about your encounter. Was able
[1:28:38] Speaker 1: to talk to so many people last year and the
[1:28:40] Speaker 1: year before. It is an incredible time you're not going
[1:28:45] Speaker 1: to want to miss it, and I'll see you there.
[1:28:49] Speaker 1: Before we wrap this episode, I want to say something
[1:28:51] Speaker 1: directly to a very specific group of listeners. If you're
[1:28:54] Speaker 1: in the military, any branch or forces, and if you've
[1:28:58] Speaker 1: seen something that no one can expe Blaine, or if
[1:29:01] Speaker 1: you're a National park ranger or forestry worker who's been
[1:29:04] Speaker 1: told to stay quiet, or if you're a pilot who's
[1:29:07] Speaker 1: seen something strange down on the ground, or if you're
[1:29:10] Speaker 1: with the FBI a federal agency, or working intelligence and
[1:29:14] Speaker 1: you stumbled upon something you're not allowed to talk about.
[1:29:17] Speaker 1: And if you're a firefighter, paramedic, or search and rescue
[1:29:20] Speaker 1: responder who's heard screams or found tracks that didn't make sense.
[1:29:25] Speaker 1: If you're in the logging industry on a remote oil field,
[1:29:29] Speaker 1: or a trucker with government contracts and you've had something
[1:29:32] Speaker 1: happen that you've never told a soul. And if you're
[1:29:35] Speaker 1: a biologist, a wildlife specialist, or a field researcher under
[1:29:39] Speaker 1: contract who has found evidence you're not allowed to report.
[1:29:43] Speaker 1: If you're a pastor, a missionary, or someone on a
[1:29:45] Speaker 1: spiritual retreat and you saw something that shook your faith,
[1:29:50] Speaker 1: or if you work in the shadows, CIA, NSA or
[1:29:53] Speaker 1: anything with clearance, and you've seen what the public hasn't,
[1:29:58] Speaker 1: then I want to talk to you, even if it's anonymous.
[1:30:03] Speaker 1: You can reach me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com.
[1:30:07] Speaker 1: The world needs to hear what you've been forced to
[1:30:09] Speaker 1: carry alone, and you're not alone. You've got the story,
[1:30:16] Speaker 1: We've got the mic see you in the woods. Thank
[1:30:19] Speaker 1: you for listening to this episode of the Bigfoot Society podcast.
[1:30:22] Speaker 1: Every encounter we share reminds us that the world is
[1:30:25] Speaker 1: bigger and stranger than we think, and that the truth
[1:30:28] Speaker 1: is often hiding just beyond the tree line. If you
[1:30:31] Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the
[1:30:34] Speaker 1: channel on YouTube hit the bell so you don't miss
[1:30:36] Speaker 1: the next episode, and share this with a friend who's
[1:30:38] Speaker 1: into mysteries, monsters or the unexplained. And if you're listening
[1:30:42] Speaker 1: to us on Spotify or Apple Podcast, please follow the
[1:30:45] Speaker 1: show there and leave us a five star positive review
[1:30:48] Speaker 1: because all that helps more people discover the show. And remember,
[1:30:52] Speaker 1: if you or someone you know has had a Bigfoot sighting,
[1:30:55] Speaker 1: please I'd love to hear from you, so email me
[1:30:58] Speaker 1: at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com and let's start
[1:31:01] Speaker 1: the conversation. If you haven't gotten a chance yet, check
[1:31:04] Speaker 1: out our membership community over at www dot Bigfoot Society
[1:31:08] Speaker 1: podcast dot com and that's where you can hear tomorrow's
[1:31:11] Speaker 1: episode today early in ad free and members only episodes
[1:31:15] Speaker 1: every week. Also, it's a place to connect with other
[1:31:19] Speaker 1: people that are into the Bigfoot subject as much as
[1:31:21] Speaker 1: you are. Thanks again for following along with the Bigfoot
[1:31:24] Speaker 1: Society until next time. Keep your eyes open, trust your gut,
[1:31:27] Speaker 1: and never stop asking what else might be out there?
[1:31:30] Speaker 1: And see you in the woods.

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