I will return on Sunday for the member show. Tonight, I am releasing Sunday’s Show. Paul Graves joins us to discuss the trackway that was found near Sunnyslope, WA a few weeks ago. Paul will be sharing what he found during his investigation, and there is more to the story… Paul will also be sharing with us other encounters he has investigated and some of the audio he has captured.
Paul writes, “I live in eastern Washington state and have been researching Sasquatch since 1988. On Monday, February 13th, 2017 I answered an early morning knock on my front door. It was Roy Bianchi, an acquaintance I had met a few years back through the construction trade (I own a concrete business).
He was excited and said he wanted to show me something. He produced his cell phone and showed me photos of tracks he found on Friday, February 10th behind a new subdivision built on former orchard land. Roy is also a lifelong outdoorsman, and he had never seen tracks like these before. Upon first glance at the photos, I knew I had to go see the trackway. Previously, on Thursday, February 9th, roughly 8 inches of snow had fallen. The next morning, Roy and a coworker had to plow the construction area and discovered the trackway. The tracks were most likely made at night during the snowstorm, because when they were discovered, they were partially filled in with snow. After a third coworker examined the tracks, he suggested they should get hold of me (I am well known in this town as a sasquatch researcher).
When I arrived on site there were five people already present, including the home builder, my research colleague Josh Lawrence, and a reporter for the Wenatchee World newspaper. With the exception of the reporter, each and every one of us are hunters and trackers with many years of experience, and we were all equally baffled by these prints. There was nearly 2 feet of snow on the ground, with a thin crust of ice on top that made walking very difficult. I am a trained tracker and spend a lot of time in the winter on snowshoes, and there was no indication of an animal bounding or hopping, nor animal tracks present inside of the prints.
The trackway was perfectly linear, not out of line by a centimeter for over a mile. I noted the step length was immense (varying from 4’ to 6’ 2″), with no drag marks, nor kicked snow. There was evidence of bipedalism (left foot/right foot), clear heel strikes, and the front of the tracks were fairly straight across the toe box area. Close examination showed a footprint in both outline and contour. The small amount of snow that had filled up the tracks perfectly replicated the bottom of the tracks, showing the curve of the foot, and the push-off caused by a mid-tarsal break (mid-foot flexibility). I tried blowing and removing some of the snow to get a better indication of the size and compression of the track—initial measurements showed 20 inches in length and 10 inches in width.
By making an estimate based on snowmelt, time and temperature, the tracks were originally 15–16 inches long and 7 1/2 to 8 inches wide. The tracks were visually classic Sasquatch prints. We back-tracked the prints coming out of an orchard to the south, but lost them because of damage from heavy snowmobile tracks going up and down the orchard rows from tree pruning activity. The prints came out of that orchard, and over to three trees (that may have been used as cover), then continued through the field. There have continually been many deer in this field throughout winter. We tracked the prints around the back of the last house under construction, and then into another orchard. When the tracks led up to trees with low branches, the step length shortened considerably, and when clear, longer step lengths again. The tracks went through a second orchard, then crossed a road going north.
Continuing on, the trackway then passed between two farm houses, and crossed a large irrigation canal. Afterwards, they went directly into an evergreen tree line for another 1/8 mile to where they were lost momentarily. We then noticed snow missing from the trees at this point—leading us to wonder if the track-maker had passed intentionally close to the tree trunks to drop snow over its own tracks. We circled out and reacquired the trackway going back east into yet another orchard. We tracked them through this orchard, crossed a farm road and came upon a small 4 to 5-foot embankment with just a little bit of grass and dirt sticking out of the snow (right in line with the tracks).
There, it left a footprint in the exposed dirt that clearly showed toes. We shot video footage, took photos, and recorded all measurements of the print. It is extremely difficult to cast on a steep surface; but I have a considerable amount of experience in track casting to draw upon. I stopped by the home construction site and obtained some wood scraps to build a form for a cast with some “20 minute” concrete patch mud. The result was a good quality cast that shows the gripping action of the toes. The big toe landed on a pad of grass, and thus did not sink in as much as the next three in moist dirt.
We continued on tracking from there and followed the prints along the lip of a ravine thick with brush that passes between, and divides, two orchards on either side. At one point, the tracks went down into it the thickest section of the ravine, making them nearly impossible to follow. The tracks made a circle deep into the ravine, then looped back up and out, going east into an adjacent orchard. There was a leap of about nine feet from the last print coming out of the ravine and into the orchard.
We followed until we were confronted by the land owner, who was running a pruning crew (with tractor tire marks up and down every row). This is where we lost the tracks temporarily going east. They were rediscovered further east going through a home owner’s backyard. On Friday, February 17th, I was contacted by a retired couple who read the story on the trackway published in the Wenatchee World newspaper.
The couple resided just east of the trackway and said they had some very odd tracks going through their backyard, and wanted to know if I would examine them. I arrived at their property—only 1/2 mile from the end of the original trackway—and met the couple—Rodger and his wife. Though the property is not fenced, there are large hedgerows lining both sides from front to back. Rodger mentioned that every winter there are many deer in his backyard. We walked out onto the back deck and looked down to see the same tracks we had been investigating all week. There was a well-worn trail of deer tracks coming from the road and down one side into the backyard—this is where the first print appeared (the track-maker had walked up the deer trail from the road into the backyard).
The first print was pointed south and the next step is 13 feet from heel to heel. This print has a strange indentation adjacent to it. The step length then changes from that print to the next four, all at 6 feet 2 inches, perfectly inline with no drag marks. The sixth print was 10 feet heel to heel, the seventh print 9 feet 8 inches heel to heel. Rodger, the homeowner, noted that underneath the house deck is a motion sensing security light, and it was where the 10 foot step lengths were.
The tracks continued on from the last one sideways/sidestepping to the edge of a three foot masonry retaining wall. The tracks then pointed east and leapt the other side of the wall. The prints were then side by side pointing back to the north with a strange drag mark in the middle. This is where the tracks were lost. They were pointed right at the large hedgerow that went back to the road. Whatever left the prints must have used the dense hedgerow as cover, and without leaving tracks. I looked in every yard and the front and sides of the hedgerow and there were no tracks. Another odd observation was a small set of domestic cat prints that came out from under the deck and within a few feet of the mystery prints.
At their closest approach, the cat tracks simply disappeared. This second trackway proved to be exactly the same prints as the original trackway from earlier in the investigation. I also filmed this whole trackway. For some background information, this area of Wenatchee, Washington is separated from the main part of town by the Wenatchee River, and is on the shoulder of Birch Mountain. There are a number of reports of people seeing a Sasquatch in this area over many years. I have also interviewed a long-time orchard owner who has heard odd screams and growls over the course of 20 years in this area. Until recently, there were few homes in this area; mostly orchards and farms. There are ravines and canyons running up into the mountains all throughout the area, which leads right into the Cascade Mountains.
As people who know me can attest, I am not trying to prove Sasquatch, but merely investigated this trackway with thanks to Roy and the others. The clues that were evident are truly baffling, most of the specifics happen to be known Sasquatch traits that have been document on other trackways. After working on this investigation for 5 days and going through all possible explanations, I am left with the near certainty this is an actual Sasquatch trackway. I give this subject the respect it deserves, for when you have a personal encounter like I have in the past (and as many other people have), it forces you look to at the world differently. There is without doubt something real behind this, too many good people have had encounters to say otherwise.”
See Paul’s Full Article Here
