Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I lived in North Everett at the time so if I timed it right, I could spend the day hiking and be home in time for happy hour. Somedays I would just explore logging roads looking for new places to shoot. I liked to train on my rotations to maintain proficiency, and public ranges have a lot of rules. The only place I could train properly was the Darington pit, but most of the time there were other people there. This was not always an issue, but I liked to avoid people because there were always questions, I did not want to answer. Back then I trained in full kit because you train like that fight. This was not fun time at the pit, this was about maintaining skillsets because my life and the lives of my teammates depended on that.

I had heard about a spot off of hwy 2, logging road 162 or maybe 62, I honestly cannot remember right now. I think it was around 1000 when I found the logging road, it was spring and the sun was out. As I drove up it another truck was headed toward me. There were three guys in the front seat and something about them made me uneasy. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was an intensity in their eyes, like they were stressed. They did not look like tweakers, but had a kind of hardness, and rushed past me. I did not get the impression that they were running from anything, but they were not wasting time either.

I drove on for maybe a mile, the road turning left then right and gaining in elevation. On my left was a steep incline that was heavily forested and on my right was a decent drop. I could tell by the height of the trees on the right side that I was pretty high up.

As I went around a curve to the right, I got a strong feeling that I was going to see something. I have seen plenty of black bears, by the pit in Darington and further north. So, I would not have been surprised, but this was such a strong feeling as if someone was telling me I was going to see something. It was like someone was talking in my head, I don’t understand it and even now it really bothers me.

I am good at listening to my intuition; I learned the value of that in the Army and in my civilian career as well. I knew if something felt off, it was. But this was different it was more than intuition, it was almost like an intrusion. I know it sounds crazy but that is the only way I can describe it. For some reason, I had a sense that I should blow my horn. I was alone driving up a logging road on a nice day, why would I blow my horn? But I did, then I did it again and I still do not know why. This will bother me for the rest of my days.

To my left, there was some heavy brush and after I blew the horn a second time, this thing burst out, It was on all fours and not quite running at me but an angle to get in front of me. It was big and had what I can only describe as ginger fur and a big human face. The skin was black, and its eyes were kind of yellow. It was biting the corner of its lip, like a kid in deep thought and after it glancing at me with its eyes for a second, and never once moving its head, it pursed its lips like it was about to whistle. I didn’t hear anything, but it was such a human thing to do, almost like it was playing a game.

It moved fast, but it seemed effortless like it was on a jog or something. Once it got in front of me it slowed down and proceeded up the road. I was in a Nissan Xterra, and it was still on all fours and its butt was higher than my hood. It was massive, its butt was so incredibly wide and the fur was long and shaggy, almost orange, like I said Ginger is the best way I can describe it.

I hit the brakes and watched It move, still on all fours into a position about 30 feet, in front of me where the road curved the left a bit. It sat down on the right side of the road with its back to the drop and its left side to me. I sat like a human, with its legs folded Indian style. I could not see much of its face because there was a small branch with some young leaves obscuring it. But it appeared to be chewing something, it looked to its right then straight ahead but never back at me.

I do not know how long I sat there before I reversed out, I never exited my vehicle. I also had a very strong feeling that there was another one higher up the incline to my left. I reversed out, did a J turn, and beat feet back to HWY 2. In my mind, it was a bear, but it didn’t look like a bear. I knew deep down that it was not a bear, but for some reason, that was all I could call it. When I got home that night I looked up grizzly bears and discovered that they are very rare in the Cascades and what I saw looked nothing like that. It was more like a super-sized orangutang, but that face….

When I rotated back to Baghdad, I described this to one of my colleagues. He was a guy who grew up hunting and fishing in North Carolina. I regretted it right away, he looked at me like I was speaking Elvish. Then he said something that bothered me for a long time: “bears don’t do that”

He was right, I have seen black bears wander into a road, but they never hung around; and no bear had a face like that.”