Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “Had something happen a few weeks back and curious to get your feedback. Not super interested in coming on your show as I just can’t say for certain what I encountered.

May 26th of this year my wife (Nicole)and I went on a hike in Southern Oregon near Applegate Lake. The hike was to take us past the worlds first Bigfoot trap. While I love Sasquatch Chronicles and the idea of Sasquatch I am also a person that is skeptical of things until I have a reason not to be. We set off for what was planned to be a 5-6 mile hike around 10:30 AM.

Plan was to stop at the Bigfoot Trap about 3/4 of a mile in and then continue on a few miles and come back. We hit the trail and immediately Nicole commented that it felt creepy. While the pine forest was alive with birds and squirrels the trail had numerous trees across the path as well as major spider webs as well. It was obvious that the Bigfoot trap was not a major attraction on this lightly used trail. We made it to the Bigfoot Trap with no issues and while it was covered in graffiti it was still pretty cool to check out. From there we started to carry on down the path which followed a small seasonal creek.

As we approached a bend in the trail we heard a large tree snap coming from the direction we were heading. We stopped in our tracks and looked at each other. While it bothered me, I reassured Nicole that it was just a falling tree. As we began to move forward the forest had become noticeably silent. As we approached the far end of the bend we heard something large moving in a thicket of brush and trees on our right on the other side of the creek across a small ravine. We froze as whatever was in the thicket seemed to be moving closer. As I waited for a deer or maybe a black bear to come bounding out the trees in the stand of brush started shaking. And when I say shaking I don’t mean something intentionally grabbing and moving them it was more of whatever was in the brush was so large it was causing these 4-6 saplings to sway. My wife was frozen in fear and wanted to leave immediately. This is out of character for her as I often worry that she is way too confident and secure in every situation. I myself was mesmerized by the loud cracking of branches and rustling of the brush. The movement lasted maybe 10-15 seconds, then silence. I grabbed a softball size rock and stared in the direction of the movement waiting for something to happen. Then I see something that I can only explain as something that didn’t check any of the boxes as something that I could identify. This creature crawled out of the left of the thicket on all fours towards a patch of blackberry bushes and high grass. It moved fast and very low to the ground with a head that stayed level with its back and did not have a tail. This animal was orangutan colored orange/red with thick hair/fur 3 to 5 inches long and moved like a crocodile missing its tail. Body length was 5 to 6 feet long and approximately 3 foot wide. Once it hit the blackberry thicket you could see that it stopped and the overwhelming sense that it was watching us took over.

After a very brief conversation we decided to immediately head back to the car. Nicole was near tears as I tried to rationalize what we just encountered. We would move forward about 100 yards at a time and stop and listen for anything at all. At one point Nicole said she heard something running behind us but this could have just been adrenaline. We continued on then within a 2 minute span we had two deer run past us away from whatever we encountered. As the second deer ran past we heard what first could have been woodpeckers knocking on trees but it was way too hollow sounding and the way one seemed to immediately follow the other. It was 3 knocks followed by an immediate two coming from our right and approximately 40 degrees distance between them. The sound really sounded like a “tongue click” that humans can do but a lot deeper and louder. We pushed through the rest of the hike back without incident. As we talked about it Nicole admitted that she may have blacked out as she does not recall seeing anything. She just knows she has zero desire to ever do that hike again and want to believe it was a bear.

Wes, I don’t know what I saw. I have talked to multiple hunters and they swear black bears in the area are black or a very dark brown. I don’t believe it was a cougar as they would stay silent and invisible at most times. I believe whatever it was had to be a predator and it didn’t check boxes for a cougar or black bear.”