B. M.

My first encounter was simple. I was hiking on a trail with my family. We were on our way out but still had about 15 minutes before we reaching the edge of the woods. It was early evening and beginning to get dark. My kids were ahead of my wife and I having a good time when I began to hear footsteps. I stopped to make sure I wasn’t hearing things. When I stopped the footsteps stopped. When I started they started again. This back and forth went on for a few minutes when my wife came to me and asked, do you hear the footsteps. I said yes but couldn’t figure out where they were coming from. The area around the trail is wooded but not densely. Despite the a good field of view I was not able to see anything, only hear it. I tried for around 10 minutes to located the source of the footsteps, but never could. It was getting darker so I decided the best course was to continue going. I encouraged the kids to pick up the pace through a friendly challenge to see who to get to the end of the trail first.

I have gone back several times alone hoping for another experience but have not been successful yet.

B. M.

My second possible encounter took place in Colorado at Bear lake in the Rocky Mountain National Park during Christmas break. I was there with my family late at night. The park closed hours earlier and it was now around eleven at night. My girls were over near the edge of the tree line when a loud growl sent them running and screaming. We went back with flashlights but never found anything, though we stopped at the tree line.

I know this could have been something other than sasquatch, but when I run down the list it’s hard to come up with an alternative. It’s twenty degrees in the middle of winter, with feet of snow. The bears are hibernating. The only other large predator would be a cougar, but this was way too deep and did not sound like a cat. The only other predators in the park are smaller like lynx, coyote, bobcat, fox, wolverine. These are too small to make the noise heard. We never saw, smelled or heard anything else. The screaming and yelling would have scared off the dead, so if it ran off we never would have heard it.