1982, Jefferson County, Washington
I was hunting late Elk (doe) up in the Olympic National Forest in late Oct or early Nov. I was hunting alone on an old logging road I’d picked because it went into the mountains the farthest. Due to my job (ARMY), I arrived late, just before sundown just as a couple were hauling up the last piece of an elk doe his wife had shot that morning. He was still cussing her because she watched it cross the road in front of her and waited until it got to the bottom of the ravine before shooting it. Well they left and I spent the night in my truck.
All night it snowed lightly, which is great for tracking. I was parked at the end of NFR 2433, I arose before dawn and just stayed in the back of the truck, I had a clear view down the road for about half a mile. I hadn’t seen anything all AM when suddenly I saw what I thought was another hunter step out into the open on a curve in the road about 1000′ away. He/it looked at me, walked to the edge of the road overlooking a 500′ drop to the valley floor & it just froze there, it looked like it was scanning for game. All I could see besides its outline was its head occasionally scanning.
What struck me odd about him at first was no sign of a rifle, he was all black, and very big, even at the distance we were apart. There being know one else around I figured he’d walk over to me & BS for a while, but he just stood there motionless for a couple of hours! I was starting to creep me out the more I watched him, because I started noticing little things like I could see no signs of a weapon, no bright orange hunting colors or anything that I could differentiate as clothing. I consider it inappropriate to point a high powered rifle w/scope at someone, so I never scoped it out.
As there was nothing else to see, I watched him for several hours, and seemingly he never moved! Finally he took one giant step over the edge going down into the canyon. Its this move that caught my eye, I figured he was going to just sit on a boulder down there. At this time I still thought it was another hunter. I figured what the hell, I’ll offer him a cup of coffee so I walked slowly down there. When I got to where he went over the edge, there was nothing there. That is when the hair stood up on the back of my neck & I started looking for tracks. The corner he had been was in the sun & all the snow had melted, but only a few yards away, to the south the road was still in the shade, NOT ONE SINGLE TRACK!! That meant it could only have come out of the deep woods as there was still an unbroken blanket of snow further down the road. The only way he could have got there was down the mountain. And that meant it wasn’t a man.
This really creeped me out, I very cautiously crept back to my truck & left the area. Never went back.
I now know what I saw was a Squatch, not a man. I wonder to this day if the smell of the slaughtered elk doe from the day before may have attracted him.