Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

Thanks to Gord Olliver for sharing.  Some of the facts written below have come out since he was a guest of ours back in October 2014.

Again, thank you Gord.

Click here to listen to Gord’s encounter on Episode 57. He is the second guest.

My name is Gordon Olliver and I had no knowledge of Sasquatch save for in search of
man in a monkey suit film done!
disregarded it
never thought of it again, and rode for 21 years in the mountains without even thinking they were out there, and scaring bears away like I didn’t care! They didn’t even phase me.
I became a mountain biker-so little bit of a background here.

I was driving home from work one day on the highway, when a gentleman pulled in front of me and we had a serious car accident. Created a lifetime of back problems
but also forced me into physiotherapy. That started the mountain biking, because riding an exercise bike was not going to get me motivated. So that led me to start getting into racing. Which got me into training a lot for mtn marathons.
And these races were held a lot of high altitudes, so I had to train at high-altitude.
That got me out alone, because I could never get anyone to ride with me, and if I did, I stood around all day anyway.
Now this is important.
My first years I was freaked out about riding alone, but as I got more confident, I just rode like I was king of that mountain.
I never had an issue with anything.
BUT, the first time I went to the deep back country with some friends,
I was leading the charge up the mountain really deep back-country trail about 175Kms out of Calgary and climbs up to about 8000 feet elevation. I was with two friends-one I sort of knew well
and one I just met, Laurie and Dave.
So, after pissing Dave off by making him climb 3000 feet up the wrong Mountain and the nastiest trail I ever tried riding, he did get an extra downhill but he was dead, completely, by the time we got to this last climb.
So, I stood around for a long time on the top of the mountain and after I yahoooood a high pitch wooohoooo, my entire switchback greasy push up that 3000 foot mountain to the teeny little pass.
It was deep trees for a about two thirds of the trail, very steep exposed trail hard to ride just push up. (Always rode it down after that)
It was wet from previous snow that had fallen 10 days prior and there had not been a single track horse, trailer, quad vehicle, or mountain bike.
Just animal tracks here and there. Mostly deer, never saw a thing. Kinda do remember not hearing much noise of birds, but I can’t really say if it was silent. I was looking out for grizzly bears, making noise hoping not to meet any was our plan. We were the first humans there in at least two weeks.

Saw a real cool cabin, halfway through the second trail that we did. We stopped, signed the guestbook and noticed the shipping container type bin made of corrugated steel, with the corner of it ripped open, from the bottom side, to the middle of one of the small ends of it.  It had been pushed up sort of skyward about 4-5 ft, which had spilled out years of the metal garbage burned over a millennia.
All I thought was wow, that’s a pretty strong bear!!
So after I waited for about 20 minutes or so taking pictures and looking around,  Laurie and Dave finally showed up to the top, and as soon as Dave put his bike down, he picked it back up, because I smell a bear, let’s get out of here. So I was ready to go-I jumped on my bike and said we’re done let’s get out of here!  And then I started riding down the mountain. Laurie followed and Dave. I started to “Yahoo!” all the way down the mountain again I have a very high-pitched Yahoo!  It’s like a siren, and I used it a lot earlier when I wrote because I thought that would scare away the animals. So when I have to explain the way I ride-I never stop. If you see a tree that you have to climb over it with your hands and knees? I’ll ride over it. I’ve had people follow me taking pictures as I climb up the mountain, even on close trails…hikers who would usually scream at me on a bike because I’m not supposed to be there, cheering me on because they can’t believe that they’re seeing what I’m doing. I’m a champion marathon biker.
I have four medals in Bow80, Bowness Nationals and Canmore 24Hrs of Adrenaline.
I was one of the best technical riders in western Canada.
Climbing DH cross country trials exposed Cliff faces, blah blah blah.
And I don’t like to put my foot on the third. If I can ride over a mountain without having to touch it with nothing but my wheels? I’ve won the day, and if I can do it faster than any other MF on the trail…so be it.
So, when I slammed on the brakes halfway down that trail for no reason,
I just stopped in one section because there was a buzzing in my head for a second, and I remember hearing it right off my left, coming down at me, the low deep snarling cinderblock-grind sound.  Growling, that was swaying side to side, I can never explain why it made me turn and look away to the right of me instead, and it just turned into the sound of water flowing. Fake sounding water, similar to a video game would sound like (it’s only thing I could hear that sounded similar), and then a wave of warmth rushed over me, and I just blocked out everything for 15 yrs.
I only recall hearing that water and then a big splash behind me and then it got suddenly really cold.
And I remembered the growling!
I turned and now I’m looking at Laurie beside me looking at me saying “what the f*** are you doing??”
And I’ve got only mesh first layer on.
I had my jersey, wind jacket folded into my stuffed pack, and I was trying to pack the rain jacket, that would never even fit by itself into that first generation Camelback. I just pointed to the loft and screamed “Growling!”
There is something swaying and growling right there!!
And we all shut up & went silent, and it was dead quiet. There was nothing.
Not a peep.
And Dave looks at me says,
“f*** you, asshole.”
And he clenches his fist, and looks like he’s going to smack me ” for trying to freak me out! ”
And Laurie sort of puts his hand up at him & says I believe him!
He then looks at Dave and says, “cause I’ve never caught this guy on a downhill!”
And also he knew I’d never do that to anyone in the mountains.
So I also did something I’ll never understand,
I said “okay guys get me out, I said, I’ll catch up to you
and I stayed in that spot!
I had to clean the shit out of my shorts in the creek and I could never understand how it got there.
Everything just let loose.
I still can’t remember it all.
I was so sick feeling, I’m embarrassed, so I got dressed real quick.
I felt like shit, and I couldn’t understand why.
Wasn’t altitude sickness cause I was ready for that elevation, and I wouldn’t have caught them if Dave didn’t have issues-cramps hit him bad.
So, in a few moments we were together and rolled onto a sort of clearing with scattered big willow bushes all randomly spaced, widely apart and the trail was just fresh wet mud, not a single track on it except for this one massive footprint and it was fresh.
Laurie said woah! Look at that!
And I stepped in the mud beside it and pulled my foot away and it was just as fresh as mine but it was 3 1/2 inches or so bigger than mine and we all just said that’s a big bear! A very big f***ing bear and it was just here let’s get the f*** out of here!  Dave just rolls right through the footprint and says I don’t give a f*** if that thing kills me, my suffering is over! We laughed and followed him out we struggled back for the next 22 km over over and down Highwood pass.
I got home and told my kid holy crap, Corey what a day. We saw a bear tracks that were 3 inches bigger than my feet. My stepson Cory was 11 years old when I told him. Late September 2000.
He said holy cow that’s a big bear!!
Because Sasquatch never existed for me.
I only remember telling people about the growling A grizzly bear was swaying back-and-forth at me and you growling at me, guarding it’s kill?
Yeah right!
That was a grizzly bear?
Why did I stand there for 10 minutes and not get mauled?
I have come across a cougar, and I know what that sounds like in a tree, and I never heard that. I have heard cougars mating. Weeeeird!!
This was not that. In fact, Sasquatch never existed until Sasquatch Chronicles on the little tab on the YouTube under Stroud’s first Bigfoot episode when I heard Wes and Woody talk.
My gut hit the ground, and I started having a thump in my chest that I had that day.
While I was standing there, getting thumped by the growl.
It was just making me sick and I remember my heart hurting (felt like a five finger death Punch) but the growling turned into, water.
15 inch footprints and the swaying side to side.
Me undressing almost completely and packing my clothes, gloves, helmet, but yet that bear didn’t kill me? OoookaaY!
I never once remembered if it was silent that day.
I never knew anything about Bigfoot in my life.
That Patty? Monkey suit, and it was completely out of my mind forever. Until I heard the show.
Only recall one footprint, no claws.
Never smelled anything and completely disregarded the wall of a big metal container being torn open and pointing skyward. To me, Bigfoot didn’t exist.
If I was out there today, seeing all those signs, I’d be thinkin crap, we’re in a wrong place!
We rode 59 km climbed a boat 13,000 feet of elevation and rode over for mountain passes that day and all I remember was footprints 3 inches bigger than my feet and growling swaying at me with the sound of a grinding cinder block. No bears I have ever met smelled like that stinky stench of wet dog.  I have smelled that at least 150 times. I have ridden almost 150,000 km in the back-country about two thirds of that at least maybe more, alone, and I have smelled the stench of wet dog.
It was mostly in the mornings,  especially during that race when they were using the megaphone and playing music about half a kilometer away.
Also, late evenings. One time, we smelled it all day and I was with my girlfriend Valerie, who was two months pregnant but didn’t know it at the time.
I rode her bike up the mountain to where I’d leave mine. I then rode mine up, and ran down and grab hers again without letting her see me, because she was so scared. She kept saying something was stalking her just inside the fringe.

It was freaking her out and I kept telling her to just not worry because I was here and I was scaring it away by going “woo hoo!”
Wtf.??
On the way down the mountain, I was staying with her because she was still freaking right out, and something really big ran off into the bush.  I said it was a deer to myself and I turned around, but I was freaked out because it was getting pretty dark.
So, when she saw me riding back up to her, really fast she stopped and said what’s wrong and I looked up and said, “bear.”
Without even thinking.
And she was wiped.
I was feeling like shit, but I didn’t want her any more scared than she was.
It worked and she got so pissed off at me she rode out of there like a champ. But I will never forget when I told her this.  She actually said, you don’t remember me telling you about the growling at me, as I got down that one the corner with the big rocks?

I know exactly where she was talking about because that was about 100 feet above where I heard the thing rushing into the bush. I hadn’t talk to her in years!
But she remembers, and so do I, very well.
That horrible foul stink of dirty nasty wet dog just stayed with us all day long up the climb up Powderface Ridge.

The dream I had roughly January 5, I woke up choking in my sleep.
I remembered that black monster standing in front of me staring down at me in a brief memory.
It was pretty close about twenty ft.
It was black, not much hair of face, but dark eyes.
7 or so ft tall.
Wet muddy and not liking me.
Then, splash and it’s gone from my memory and my dream.
I’m just glad I didn’t have a full meal that night late. I was choking for about an hour with a burning throat.
I am now 100 Duralee percent convinced that I was hunted down that mountain after I called out to the animals.  Whether they were just checking the outer ambushing I’ll never know. I’m still standing here but I was folding up my clothes when my friends showed up and saved my little white ass!
I know I’m forever known as the Mist Creek stripper, and that crazy ass Mr. Sasquatch which I initially thought was a growling growling grizzly bear story, did get me better results back then, but that would be lying. I don’t like making shit up. So if anybody wants to come stay in the cabin? I might not be going…
I clearly remember a boxy looking Sasquatch in front of me at the same time as one growling beside me, and he was way bigger than the one in front of me, because it was coming down at me. I really remember that mountain went down from me on that side.
The trail was the missed creek trail off of Highwood pass in the sheep valley in Canon ascus and sheep country wilderness area which is private land.  There used to be a cool morning operation for one of the richest man in Alberta history. The owner of burns meats and they weren’t successful there. The area is spectacular backcountry the trail is very difficult to get to and by the time you’re there, you’re beaten to death.
We do a totally different ride now, and the floods of 2013 probably made the area so impossible to ride.

I fully intend to explore there this summer, and I haven’t been to the mountains since this memory came back.  It all came back when I was listening to the Sasquatch Chronicles and the signs that were so evident in front of me, but were telling me all these different things. If that was a bear, I am dead. I’m sorry, there’s absolutely no way a swaying grizzly bear is going to stand there and watch me undress. I’m still trying to convince myself that it’s true because I’m having a hard time. We doubt ourselves, but I know…I know, this happened. I will swear it in any court in this country.

Gordon Olliver
49 years old
gold medalist 2006 Bow80

Cheers!

Gordon Olliver