Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I’ve had 2 strange experiences both of which were within the 5,500 acre Pawtuckaway State Park in Nottingham, New Hampshire. I was encouraged to share my story with the world only after stumbling upon 2 separate yet similar experiences by others in the same area years later.

First, it is important to know that I grew up on the land directly adjacent to Pawtuckaway and spent most of my childhood in that wilderness with family, friends, and dogs. My family had a very small farm with chickens, ducks, turkeys, and pigs. My dad and I cut and split firewood for heating in the winter. We owned snowmobiles, 4wheelers, and dirt bikes. We had trails all over our own 40+-acre property that lead directly to trails within Pawtuckaway as well as to many other networks of trails via old logging paths and stage coach roads. My family and I ice skated and fished on a pond near our property, my dad hunted deer. We raised apple trees and Christmas trees in separate clearings. We were always outside as a family, year-round. I am extremely familiar with the local flora, fauna, and landscapes. It is a very unique place.

So, in the summer days of my college years I’d stay at my parent’s house and work at Pawtuckaway State Park on the seasonal maintenance/landscaping crew. (There are 3 campgrounds and a lake within Pawtuckaway). Pawtuckaway is 5500 acres of preserved land with trails, a lake, a beach, 3 campground areas, rec areas, and 3 small mountains). The mountains and trails are on what’s referred to as the backside of the park or the reservation. In the summer, there are lots of visitors to the campground and beach. It was late summer 2005 when myself and a co-worker saw something we couldn’t explain. It was a rainy day late in the season, there weren’t many visitors around because the weather had been horrible and it was almost time to go back to school. I was driving the dump truck, Brent my co-worker (he was a hs student at the time) was in the passenger’s seat. We had finished the afternoon dump run down at the campgrounds and headed up the hill to the maintenance shop. There is one road in and one road out. Coming from within the park the road inclines and turns quite a bit as your heading “up” or out. We hadn’t seen many people (day use or campers) that day because of the reasons I described above (rain and downpours). As we were driving up and passing mountain pond on our right, up ahead about 200 yards where the road starts to bend, we both see something very big, very fast, and very dark glide across the road on 2 legs! It appeared to take 2-3 quick strides tops to get to the other side of the road and down a small embankment and out of sight.

As soon as I saw it, I yelled to Brent “did you see that?!?!?!” He confirmed and immediately admitted that he was scared. My adrenaline was pumping, I kept driving and pulled over next to where I thought this thing had crossed the road. I threw the truck in park and jumped out to take a look. I asked Brent to come with me, he refused and stayed in the truck, he was really shook up and admittedly scared, he wouldn’t move. So, I ran around the front of the truck and took a few steps down the embankment and all I could hear was the thrashing through the forest. I heard trees, logs, sticks snapping and cracking like the thing that was running was going full speed through whatever was in its way. I yelled out “hey!!!!” and just heard more of the same loud thumping and crashing. I stood there at the edge of the woods listening until I couldn’t hear it running away anymore. I got back in the truck and talked with Brent. We discussed what had just happened. Neither of us had an explanation or any idea what was going on, he was scared, I remember him asking me if we saw an alien?!?, I didn’t feel fear just extreme curiosity. We agreed that it couldn’t have been a bear, moose, deer, bobcat, etc. we ruled out every single large mammal in the area, because it was running on 2 legs. Not for a second did either of us think it was a human. It was raining, that would have been very odd behavior for a person, it was too big, it was all one color, and the direction in which it was running there is nothing (not even trails) just wilderness for miles. It didn’t make too much sense. Initially, I only told my dad and a few really close friends and that’s all. The years following this I kind of filed it away in my mind as a weird occurrence and didn’t give it too much thought until a later event which I’ll describe now…

So now it’s early spring 2011 probably late April-early may, I remember there was no snow on the ground. I was taking my new dog, a German Shepherd pup named Sally out for a hike on the backside of Pawtuckaway (this is where there are many miles of hiking trails and 3 mountains) with a few friends of mine. Over the years a few close friends and myself would hike and bushwhack all over the mountains. Most of the times we’d have at least 1 dog with us. It was early I think we had planned on meeting out there around 9-9:30 and I was early so I decided to head up the mountain with Sally before my friends got there. I remember being the only car there, no one else was out there that morning when Sally and I set off.

I was a really beautiful morning calm, no wind, seasonably warm and the air just had a fresh spring smell to it. I started up the trail, we got to a trail intersection where you take a left to head up the mountain. We got up maybe a few hundred yards when all of a sudden out of nowhere, below to the left a tree suddenly came crashing down with no warning. Simultaneously to the right I heard the strangest squealing/snorting/grunting/growling sound imaginable, I can’t even describe it, it was frightening and completely unrecognizable. It was almost like a pig mixed with a bear? If that makes anysense, it all happened so fast and as soon as the tree fell and it was followed by the same thrashing and thumping through the forest that I had heard a few years ago. I froze and Sally froze, I didn’t know whether to look down the hill to my left where the tree had fallen or up over the right where the strange sound and wild thrashing had come from. I was scared. I just remember standing there in the middle of trail frozen for a few mins not sure what to do.

Eventually I snapped out of it, grabbed a stick and headed back toward the car hoping my friends were there. I got to my car and waited a few mins before they arrived, when they got there I told them exactly what happened. Nobody thought it made any sense and neither did I. We got going and ended up hiking up the mountain that day. I kind of brushed this one off too but it wasn’t until I heard someone else’s account around the same time in the same area that I started feeling validated and putting it all together as a relevant occurrence. I read about a jogger who was on the same mountain with his 2 dogs in February and saw something big dark and very fast cut across the trail directly in front of him. He had no explanation. Then also in the same general time frame there was a teenager mountain biking on his property which was near pawtuckaway who had seen something big dark and fast hiding behind trees looking out at him as he was on his mountain bike. Both those stories can be found by searching ‘bigfoot or sasquatch in pawtuckaway’ or something similar to that.

I don’t really like hiking by myself that much anymore.”