Tonight I will be speaking to Mark. Over the last 30 years Mark has had two sightings of the creature. Mark is from Nebraska and moved to Colorado. He spent most of his life as a hunter. One of the encounters that Mark had was with a smaller creature.
Mark writes “It was in the fall of about 1995 when I just really needed to get away from it all. My best solution was to hop on the Harley and take a trip up to Canada and back. I did not have any special plans set in mind, only to just head north through Yellowstone National Park and then up through Glacier National Park and across the border into Canada.
At that time, I had a 1979 FLH 80 Classic which is a fully dressed bagger with traditional Harley fairing, saddle bags and trunk. She was tan and cream in color and a very beautiful motorcycle. The engine was an 80 cubic inch Shovel Head and she sat very low, so the center of gravity was great and she really handled quite nicely.
Back in those days there were no cell phones with Google Maps and all the fancy stuff we have today so I headed north on my Harley with a tent, a sleeping bag, a tarp and my leathers. Along with all that I also packed my Smith and Wesson 44 Magnum Revolver, of course.
Yes, I had to check the gun in at the Canadian border and pick it up on my way back out but that was okay with me. Good thing I did too, because about an hour in front of me were a couple guys on big Hondas with trailers who tried to smuggle their pistols into Canada and they got caught. The officer told me that they lost their guns, their bikes, their trailers and everything on board. I am very glad I played by the law that day!
The trip up was rather uneventful. It basically amounted to drive all day, find a place to pull over and camp, then drive the rest of the next day and keep going. Just take in the road and all the scenery.
At some point along the road heading north away from Yellowstone, nature called and I pulled over to the side to take a leak. I wish now I had made notes and wrote down details because I do not know exactly where it was that I had this encounter.
I know I was heading north and I am fairly certain that I may have left the United States on Highway 95 North out of the top tip of Idaho or on Highway 93 North out of Montana. I suppose if I spent a few weeks driving all the roads from Yellowstone up through those two routes north I would probably be able to find the very spot where I encountered a very young Sasquatch.
In either case, the highway was good and there were tall trees lining the highway on both sides. This particular stretch of highway cut directly through dark timber forest and it seemed to be that way for many miles as I recall.
As I was heading north through Idaho I actually pulled over at a large graveled area on the west side of the highway, which was across the other lane to my left. I remember the spot remarkably well if I ever come across it again. As I pulled off the highway and on to the gravel I parked my bike pointing north and got off to stretch the legs a bit.
Right there behind me, where the gravel ended and the forest began, was a bit of a rise and a dirt bank before you enter into the forest. So I headed over that direction expecting to find some cover in the trees to do my business.
As I approached the dirt bank I noticed a well-worn trail going up the bank and into the woods. “Ah, this has been used as a designated pissing spot for a long time” I thought to myself as I hiked up the ten-foot or so embankment. The foot trail was beat down so I expected to find some trash up at the top but when I arrived, Holy Cow it was loaded with crap, and I do mean Crap!
This area was not only a designated pissing spot but it was also a pooping area as well. A pooping area for humans, that is. Well, I could have just taken a leak right there and been done with it but I was on vacation and I wanted to enjoy this a little. So, I decided to walk a bit farther back into the forest to get away from the remains of dead diapers, toilet paper, water bottles, condoms and all the rest.
While walking back into the forest heading directly south and exactly paralleling the highway, I noticed how deep and dark the trees were in this part of the state. Within 40 or 50 yards, it was as though I had been hiking in deep, dark wilderness for 20 or 30 miles. I surmised that about the only thing in this area was the highway that cut through the forest and that was about it.
Man, was I wrong! After about 40 or 50 yards or so I was well removed from the stench of human waste as the fresh fragrance of pine forest now surrounded me, but just then a different scent hit me and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had come across this smell before in the high mountains of southwestern Colorado.
It was like walking into a wall of animal musk with the potency of a skunk. Only it was not a skunk, no not at all. Nor was it the smell of dead, rotting flesh as so many witnesses describe with Sasquatch encounters. No, this was the smell of a very, very heavy musk, a heavy musk that I have smelled in the deep woods about four or five times before.
I never knew what the smell was in the past. I assumed it must have been some bull elk in the rut wallowing in a swamp or something. Or possibly that of an old bear of some sort but none of those logical explanations really fit the bill either. With all the elk I have skun, none of them had any sort of smell like this. This was different from any other smell in nature. Very different.
At that moment, as I walked into the haze of musk, I sniffed and inhaled the air. My nostrils flared and my sinuses cleared as the distinct, yet indistinguishable odor entered my brain. I just stood there, sniffing, looking and waiting. I knew something was out there but I didn’t know what.
For a long time, perhaps a few minutes, I sampled the air. It smelled good to me. I actually enjoyed the horrible odor. Why?…… Because I was a trapper back in Nebraska, and as a trapper I worked with all sorts of pungent concoctions to lure in animals in to my set.
I used everything from mulberry syrup and honey to bobcat chunks to skunk essence, fox piss and everything else you can imagine including chopped up carp placed in glass jars set out in the sun or buried in the dirt for a year or two.
Yes, I was very familiar with all sorts of smells and odors which were strange and repulsive to others around me. Some people, upon sniffing one of my jars of lure, would actually start to dry heave from the smell. As for me however, I liked it! I loved the smell and flavor of the contents inside. I liked it and so did the animals I trapped.
This, however was very, very different. It was not fox or skunk or coyote or human or dog or horse or anything else I have ever known to exist. This was a very special musky odor all to itself. One thing was for sure, I was not taking another step deeper into that forest.
At that point, I decided to just inhale, listen and observe…… all while I was taking a piss, of course. So that is exactly what I did. I began to relieve myself, just like all the animals do, but with caution.
As my urine hit the forest floor I could hear the volume of the small waterfall increase as it began to form a small puddle in front of me. I never looked down but kept my gaze to the forest in front of me and to my right, which was away from the highway and the most likely place a predator may be lurking.
Nearing the end of my stream of urine flow, I was looking directly forward when my peripheral vision picked up some movement to my left. Since this was the direction to the highway I did not expect a critter to be in that location because as I walked into the forest I paralleled the highway and I was only about 20 to 30 yards or so from the road bank itself.
Before looking in the direction of the movement, I casually shook-off my John Henry, reeled in my equipment and then quickly and directly snapped my head to the side toward the area of the movement which my peripheral vision had picked up.
There before me, peeking over a large log with terrified eyes, wide-open like black cue balls, was a tiny, little monkey!
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