Bigfoot - Sasquatch Field Notes

June 3, 1999 - Thursday

Ray goes up with us

Old Bigfoot hands.
Ray Crowe w/brimmed hat, Cliff Olson w/ball cap.
Western slope of Granite Peaks 6/3/99

Roads: 224, 46, 63, 6310 (9 miles to fallen tree across road)

Beautiful late spring day. High overcast, breaking up later into scattered clouds.

Ray Crowe drove over from Hillsboro in his RV. His truck is still down. Trapper Steve picked him up down at the old Thriftway parking lot. Took Steve's truck from my place to Cliff Olson's. Then we switched to Cliff's Tahoe because of the seats. Very nice and quiet rig. We could talk.

Goals for the day:

1. Show Ray some of the areas we have searched. Ray is the Director of the Western Bigfoot Society.

2. Consider summer sites for I-R operated cameras.

The leaves were out much more than the last time we were up. No easy seeing now down off the roads.

Ray wanted to go to Indian Henry. I stayed out of that one. Cliff and Steve wanted to go to Granite Peaks and the Collawash River. We considered the road up to the plateau behind Mt. Mitchell, but decided it probably wasn't open yet. Besides, that is a day trip just in itself. Trapper Steve needed to be back by 5, so we had some time constraints.

Ray wanted to stay until dark and listen. That is the best plan and we don't do it. We also need to get some good recording equipment. Steve has his box and I have the little recorder with the external mike and that's it. Anyway, I didn't think that Ray knew how far up and back it was. It had been a couple of years since he had been up the Clackamas.

We had nice talk, nothing serious. No baiting or camera site to check, so there was no anticipation. Not much traffic, although we ran into vehicles at least once on all the roads. The logging had been effectively shut down by the environmentalists, at least for now, so no log trucks.

58 - Panoramic view of Collawash River drainage from west side of Granite Peaks 6-3-99
Click each panel for an enlarged picture

First, went up Granite Peaks road. At mile 9, a tree had fallen across the road right at the mile post (Actually they aren't posts, the vandals shoot those up, they are plastic boards put into the ground with a number on them. The vandals still shoot them to pieces.) We got out and walked about a ¼ mile plus up around the curve. Great view of the Collawash and Hot Fork drainages and the Dicky Peak area to the west. We tried the bucket call. Too many trees, no echo. Ray was impressed with our call, I think. Cliff hadn't heard it before. It made him laugh and laugh.

Ray Crowe and Steve Kiley with bucket call 6-3-99

We did more with the bucket. Cliff walked several hundred yards up the road into some trees. He said the way Steve pulled the cord was very interesting from in there. He got some good echoes in the trees too.

Forgot to mention, in the spring, the mountain roads are covered with fallen rocks. On our way up, there was a really big one that had fallen off the cliffs and we barely made it by it. We watched carefully as Cliff drove on the hill side and he cleared it by inches.

There were also an interesting part of spring in the mountains up there. That was the leavings of mouse trails under the snow. Up near the mile 9 marker, they had worn smooth paths on their under snow trails on the asphalt. There were also many feet of casting trails. Took some pictures.

There were some strange emerging plants coming out of the little seasonal stream bed. Tried to get some pics. but couldn't. I did take a panorama shot with the older auto-camera that Steve had loaned me. He didn't really care for the quality of the pictures that I was getting with the disposable cameras. Didn't blame him. Anyway, the panorama was of the Hot Fork, Dickey Peak and Collawash River basin before us.

A jacket was all we needed today. We must have been at least at 2500' up there. Great day!

Ray wanted to see the Collawash, I don't think he had ever been there, or the Indian Henry sites, so we headed for the Collawash due to the time factor.

On the way down, took side road downhill. No road marker. About mile 7 ¼. Looked like an old helicopter landing area, there for fire use? One big, one smaller. Bare of trees and brush and were mounded with crushed rock. Wonder if herbicide had been put under them.

Ate lunch. Cliff came really prepared. He brought boiled eggs, lemonade, etc.

I had an old Hershey chocolate bar in my bag from last winter. Offered it as desert. Was a little hard. Had been frozen several times. Everyone politely ate their share though.

Great view, if limited. Looked up at top edge of Granite Peaks? Not sure. To north of big landing sit, small basin; wet, skunk cabbage. Steve and Ray explored it. Heavy brush and alder. Stream led up hill to a higher basin. Good place to camp, I think.

Jumbled rock area. Bare. Covered with thick moss. Cliff and Ray said it was like the Thomas site. We explored it. No pits. Moss already starting to dry out.

Near the road was an old campsite. Steve identified it as a trapper's site from the type of wire holding up some tripod poles and a skinning table. I had no idea of what that small piece of plywood was for until he told us.

I had carefully looked over, earlier, next to the trapper's campsite, some big rocks piled on rotted logs. Why? Rocks very heavy and not from right nearby. Also a large rock had been placed on the camp's fire ring that would take at least two men to move. The other fire ring rocks were all man handle size. Ray pulled one rock off the rotten trees that weighed about 100# and it was one of the smaller ones.

Twenty two paces from the rocks on the rotten logs was a little natural rock shelter. There was a line of straight stones in it. Two large rocks that Ray said were not from the overhang were in the entrance. I found this first and got the others to come look. Intentionally, we went in two separate groups to look; Ray and me and then Cliff and Steve. Then we compared notes.

Either an Indian fireplace, or in my opinion, a small burial site. Some old burnt sticks were apparent. Broke one small one in two (pencil size). Old, blackened, no charcoal on stick. Good wood inside. Didn't bother anything in the heart of burial site at all. The overhang didn't show any smoke marks. We discussed as to whether we should report the site to the Forest Service. Undecided.

Drove to Steve site 1 & 2. I put on 357 and loaded the hardened bullets Steve had given me. Ray's eyes bugged out when I did that. I went up the steep hill, while they went to site 2 and looked over the cave below the road.

Hill area was dry. Found 2 old imprints. One was a step over a log like the ones we had found before and then there was the toe and ball marks of another step beyond it. Old. Moss drying. Not the ones we had found previous trips.

Heavy leaf cover. Limited visibility compared to the winter. Worked hard and almost got to the spur road before heading back down the hill to the road. Very beautiful up there.

Steve reported the cabbage was still not touched at site 2. Said it was hardening up nicely and should be like a rock by fall. They reported very heavy foliage along the river bank getting to the site.

Cliff, Steve and I (at my earlier suggestion) had been talking up hardened bullets, high power cartridge loads, big caliber weapons and other things like that for Ray's benefit. He didn't seem to like the idea of us carrying hard iron too well. He asked me: "What I thought I'd proved?" (By strapping on the revolver.) Just told him I was looking around and didn't want any surprises from blow down searching and the like. That calmed him down and we dropped the subject.

All day long, we talked about the Standard Sasquatch Area theory. The others just kind of picked up on some of my leads and took it along to ideas I hadn't thought about.

Ray thinks there might be several species, right in the Pacific Northwest of Sasquatch. He bases his opinions on different concepts than Coleman. My theory appears to supplement his, for what he was saying.

I was continually borrowing Ray's pen and notebook. I had left mine at home in the truck. That wasn't too nice, but he tolerated it. Cliff and Steve wondered what we were talking about that took so many notes. Between us, Ray and I were writing a lot today.

We had a good day. I think Ray really enjoyed it. We need a camp out.

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