Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I am a retired fire chief. My friend Larry and I met in September 1990 in the Academy. We have been friends for 34 years. We are both retired. Larry and I started riding adventure motor cycles about 15 years ago. We have covered 10’s of thousands of back country remote miles in the western half of the US ( Pony express, continental divide, TransCom rail road bed, OR BDR, UT BDR, etc). In other words, really remote areas. Some of the places we have ridden are more than 100 miles from the nearest paved road.

The Incident
Larry would have the best intel on location and times. We were riding somewhere between Idaho and Montana on the continental divide. As there can be dusty conditions we typically separate about an 1/8 to a ¼ mile between us so the second rider does not have to eat the leader’s dust. We were riding a long uphill set of switchbacks, then descended down a similar bunch of switchbacks. As I crested the mountain and started to descend, I found Larry stopped, on the trail looking into the forest down a slope. Literally stopped, just looking into the trees. While we stop every 5-10 miles or so, this was not a place I’d expect to see Larry stopped waiting for me as there was nowhere to go but continue on this trail, (we normally stop if there is a fork or something to look at or confirm our route). When I pulled up to Larry he didn’t move or look at me, he just kept staring into the trees.

When I pulled up and asked what’s up? He said nothing, but he wasn’t looking at me and his answer was very monotone if that makes sense? I asked if everything was OK and he said all good, he thought he saw something, but he was ready to continue to ride so we continued on.

Later that night ( I don’t remember if we spike camped, or hit a campground as many of these trips sometimes run together). Anyway, I knew something was amiss and asked him what happened just passed the crest of the pass. As a side note, I believe we were still 30-40 miles from the nearest paved road. He said he “saw something”. Now let’s be clear, I want to believe in sasquatch so bad you have no idea, but I can’t get to 100% because there is nothing but circumstantial evidence, so I’m at 95%.

Larry said he saw “something”,,,,,WTF does that mean? Larry was born and raised in the High Sierra foothills of northern CA. And I have lived there for more than 35 years. In short, we have both seen deer, coyotes, black bears, cougars, racoons, etc. on our own property. In fact, I have a large bear that raids my garbage can near every Tuesday night for Wednesday trash pickup. So, we both know a bear as well as most of the animals in our vicinity. Here is what Larry told me that night. He said ” he came over the crest of the pass and was down on his throttle nearly coasting (very quiet on the motor), he came around a switchback and saw what he thought was an animal that crossed the road and went down the draw.

When asked, he said he didn’t know what he saw. This was really weird because normally when either of us see anything we wait and look for it or at the least share what we saw. This includes bears, (deer not so much, hell they eat my roses), bobcats, etc. meaning something that is not normally seen on our property’s. All he said was he “wasn’t sure”. He stated that he saw a leg. I asked if it was a bear, elk, etc. He said he wasn’t sure but it wasn’t any of those.

I finally jumped to the elephant in the room or tent, still not sure where we were that night and asked “DID YOU SEE A BIGFOOT”? His answer was emphatic, he said it wasn’t a bear, elk, or anything else, but he did say “IT WAS NOT A BIGFOOT!!!”. I asked so what did you see? He said he wasn’t sure, but knew for a fact that it was “NOT A BIGFOOT”!!! This was the end of the discussion for several years.

Fast Forward
Larry moved to Idaho and I moved to Oregon and we still ride. I’m 61 and Larry is soon to be 63. We meet up for a couple long rides each year (between 800 -1500 miles back country REMOTE trips). Post COVID we planned a two-week trip across ID, MT and CO, very remote back country. The trip was two weeks and about 1800 miles and about 1500 backcountry miles. Midway through the trip Larry started feeling ill with an inner ear issue. Not good on two wheels with difficult terrain. About 6 days into the trip, we stayed in a back country lodge. That night, I was very firm, Larry knows I have a bit of a fetish for sasquatch. This is nearly a direct quote from me “you need to come clean with me, what the fuck did you see on the continental divide, and don’t fuck with me!)” This was his reply to the best of my recollection. ” I came over the pass, and there was something standing midway on the trail. It stopped, and I stopped. We both looked at each other. We were about 30 feet away from each other. We looked at each other for a short time. Then it stepped down off the trail and disappeared into the trees. I was about 30-60 seconds behind Larry and didn’t see a thing. He did show me where “it” went but I saw nothing.

At the time he said he saw a leg, wasn’t a bear, wasn’t an elk or anything he has seen before. BUT he said “IT WASN’T A BIGFOOT”. Now a couple years later, I asked so what did you see. He stated, it was standing on the trail, and when he came around the corner it stopped, look directly at him and he looked directly at “it”. I knew what I was looking at but it didn’t register. I saw it’s face, body, everything. It was a squatch. He said it wasn’t the 8–9-foot beast everyone reports. He said it was shorter, about 6-7′. He saw the face, full body and hair (personally, I think he has details that he hasn’t even shared with me).”