A listener writes “I bought my first house in 2010, and was only able thanks to the first time home buyers credit.
My GF at the time moved in with me to the new house, and her family was from Alaska and visited and stayed frequently, most so her mom who stayed for at least a few months. Her sisters husband owned a commercial fishing vessel up in Alaska that fished for mainly salmon so we was off work for many months of the year, I think fall to spring or something. So when I got the house they came down in early fall and I showed them around the town and we took them out camping. Luckily for me the wilderness was literally just a few minutes away, down 15th st, down Sherman Ave and out and up through Fernan Lake and boom in 20 minutes your up in full wilderness with nothing but mountains in sight.
We camped on the little north fork of the Coeur d Alene river, a place Ive been to many many times. They brought along their 2 year old daughter, I brought my Aussie and Gfs wiener dog. Baby got tucked in and asleep and we are sitting by the fire. It was I believe the weekend before rifle season opened up, so there was literally no one around for a long ways. All of a sudden, a rock rolls by my chair and bounces off the fire pit. And then another, then lands next to it and bounces off. We were all like wtf is this. First thought, some seriously dumb person if Fing with us. So Ryan and myself get up, take flash lights and pull our pistols out and say something to the point of “youd better show yourself and say something before you get shot because your scaring everyone”. No response. We walk all around, up and down the creek bed, listen for sounds and nothing. Next day we get home and Ryan tells me about him and his dad are up hunting on some island near prince of whales and they both scope an upright walking hairy man on the next ridge over. My thought didn’t go to bigfoot during that time, but after I heard that I was curious and far more intrigued.
Fast forward a year. ‘Finding bigfoot’ came out, watched, lame silly. But was still curious. My gf and I went up to McGhee to go camping, it was September 2011. It was hot still during the date, the bugs were insane that year, the air was full of buzzing during the day. McGhee is a ways to go so its not usually that busy and it was a Thursday night so there was yet again no one around for at minimum 2 miles because we had full choice of places to choose from. Within 30 minutes of setting up camp, we both hear a distinctive ‘whoop’, like exactly what youd expect from a monkey of some kind from down by the creek. It was louder then any owl could be but I wouldn’t say had infrasound. We both looked at each other like what the hell was that. So later in the night, well past dark so get some liquid courage and decided to mess around. I brought two bikes, a mountain bike and a beach cruiser I built myself, not a good choice come to find out. So we bike down the road past the natural spring and walk about 20 ft up a little valley right off the gravel road. Note I only have a hand held florescent light, not even a flash light, dumb. So after watching finding bigfoot, we decide to do some whoops and calls and she can do a mad metal scream. No response. We search around for a stick to knock. Strangely hard to find a stick that will hold up to a knock against a tree. We find one, I hit a little pine twice, 3rd time it breaks and we are lighting up the ground to find it because it was big enough even if it broke its still be big enough to use again. But just as I was holding the light towards the ground, we heard this crash crash crash, then splash and the sound of rocks and water being ran over by a train then crash crash through the woods and we are both like holy shit run, we were both wearing flip flops of course so we were not advantaged trying to get down this steep hill down to the road to our bikes. By the time we made it down, the crashing was so loud and then stopped, like it was right on the other side of the road.
All you could see was moonlight against the gravel road. I was on the beach cruiser and her on the mountain bike, I yelled to her to go as fast as you can to the camp and grab and load the shot gun Ill be right behind you. I remember even at the time feeling silly for being so scared but not being able to control that feeling. So there I was, one hand holding the light, peddling as fast as I could and look back and see this just huge outline standing in the road. It was so big that I was talking myself out of what I was seeing was bigfoot. It was clear sky and bright moon again gravel road. I made it back to camp and she was there ready with the shotgun. We sat back to back by the fire for at least 2 hours waiting to see if it would come. It didn’t and nothing else happened. I talked myself out of what I saw because of the size of what I saw for at least a year. Then I learned just how big they get, 4ft wide shoulders 10 plus ft tall. And then I thought, damn, It was what I thought. Bears don’t charge you from 100 yards, moose wouldn’t stop and stare at you if it did charge you, and neither of them walk on two feet which is clearly was we heard running through the creek.
I hunt every year since, and somehow bigfoot never crosses my mind while im out hunting, I suppose my experience wasn’t that bad compared to some. I haven’t had anything happen since at all.”
David R
Great story! Thanks for sharing it!