Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “Despite having unusual occurrences from a much younger age, my experience occurred in 1986 in an area called Grizzly Creek Canyon near Glenwood Springs, when I was 17 years old. This is an area that my family had backpacked to for generations.

My grandfather and his brother discovered it somehow, and when my dad was old enough, they would bring him. He in turn would take his younger teenage brother and his brothers-in-law when he was a young adult and eventually began taking us after he was married and had children. Let me start by saying that I hated this place. It had a very creepy vibe and I always felt uncomfortable like I was being watched and intruding. I remember once telling my sister that the energy of the place was if you had to walk on eggshells or risk pissing off mother nature and face her wrath. Now that I am an adult, I understand this feeling is a very strong sense of dread, but I didn’t know how to vocalize it at the time. We camped and backpacked in several locations of Colorado and this place was the only one I truly loathed going to.

The area is strictly a backpacking area, no vehicles can access the canyon floor, and it is a rigorous hike. You access the area by a long wandering drive up past timberline and then begin the decent to the bottom of the canyon, so the hike in is way easier than the hike out. The reason I mention this is because my dad always got some kind of weird man pride about beating his companions out of the canyon on the hike home because it was so hard. Without exception, nearly every time we backpacked there, we would find abandoned campsites. My dad would always chortle when he saw these abandoned sites because he believed the campers weren’t strong enough to make it out and chose to leave their gear behind to lighten the load. I always thought this was odd for such a remote area as we have never seen another living soul on all of the trips we went, and backpacking equipment is expensive, so it would seem like a last resort to leave your gear, just because the hike out is rigorous. And the abandoned sites weren’t just abandoned, they were destroyed. Tents shredded and ripped apart, clothes and coats tossed everywhere, backpacks, and backpack cook stoves mangled, twisted, bent and tossed into the tops of trees. Super weird, and my dad’s explanation for it was always animals. I agree a bear could destroy a tent and possibly a backpack and stove, but would it carry it up into a tree? His explanation for that was always the same-porcupines. We would “clean” the sites by burning the flammable leftovers and carrying out and disposing of the nonflammable items

I need to take a moment to describe the terrain we are in. As I mentioned, the canyon hike starts above timberline, and we were on the north side. The forest on this side is primarily aspen, when you cross the creek (which we never did) the woods are incredibly dense pine, spruce, fir etc, mingled with choke cherry and other high altitude shrub vegetation. The canyon floor is primarily high mountain meadow and grass with sporadic groves of aspen and pine. The trees by the creek were primarily ponderosa pine on both sides of the creek. We usually chose to camp right next to the creek or in one of the groves farther from the water.

The day we had our encounter was our first day on the trip, on this occasion it was my whole family so myself 17, my two sisters 15 and 13, my young brother 7, both parents and two dogs. The minute I hit the tree line the sense of dread was stronger than usual and almost overwhelming. I glanced at my sister, and she just nodded, and I could tell she felt it too. We found our favorite site and set up camp. On this trip there was minimal debris left behind, mostly clothes, which we burned. The whole day I still felt uneasy as if I were being watched or intruding. We decided to take a hike down the canyon. After several hours of hiking came to a large clearing of flat rock that jutted out over a fishing hole in the creek. The entire area of this clearing was littered w/clothing some very old that appeared to be from the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s. Some of the clothes were in the trees and some were piled around the rock area. It was very creepy, and the place smelled bad. I felt the strongest urge to get the hell out of there, and I asked my dad what the hell this place was and he floated the idea that it was a homeless camp (which did not make me feel any better) but no homeless person would survive there and if so why throw your clothing into the tops of these trees? After several minutes of me and my sister begging him, he agreed to leave. We made it back to camp and my dad sent me and my sister to the creek to get water. While we were getting water the dread and fear nearly overwhelmed me because I could feel it coming from in front of me from the conifer side of the canyon and you couldn’t see more than 6-10 inches into the woods. I asked her about it too and she agreed, and she said something I will never forget. She said, “As I look into the woods across the creek I wouldn’t be surprised to see a big angry ape staring back at me.” We made it back to our campsite and other than feeling uneasy the rest of the day was uneventful, until it wasn’t.

It was night and we were sitting around the campfire talking. And then all hell broke loose at once. A foul smell came into the camp, I remember saying “Oh my god what is that smell?” But before I could finish that sentence the dogs went crazy, barking and growling staring past our campfire behind the tent. My dad yelling for my mom to get the gun was holding the dogs back by their scruff and they were pulling so hard that they were actually standing on their hind legs. Then whatever it was vocalized at us-LOUD and it was not very far away, just outside the light of our campfire. I felt the vibrations in my body as this thing yelled at us. It was an undulating garbled deep throated yell as it vocalized 2 or 3 times, each time the sound started slow and then built in intensity. I spent my life trying to describe what I heard, and it was impossible to duplicate. I finally read Ron Mooreheads book about 5 years ago and he included his recordings and sure enough there it was. The same garbled angry sound you play in your introduction. To this day I have to skip your intro because when I hear that clip I still have physiological responses to it. Then as quick as it came the smell dissipated, the dogs calmed down, and we didn’t hear another sound. I do remember diving into the tent and then crying when I realized the tent was not going to protect me from whatever made that sound. The sound was unlike anything I have ever heard, and it was not an elk, bear, or mountain lion.

I have more stories too from my dad and my grandfather about strange things that happened to them throughout the years if you are interested in hearing them, but I assume this email is already probably longer than you wanted to read! I also have some weird things that would happen to us in another area that we would “civilize” camp on the back side of Pikes Peak, and most recently about 2 years ago I was rock hounding in a crystal mine in Arkansas and had that same dreadful sense of presence and ran across some footprints that I took photos of if you would like to see those.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.”