Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:1036 A Conversation With A Skeptical Hunter

Episode Date: March 3, 2024

Chris writes "It has been several years since I have been hunting. My last experience, while hunting with an Uncle, had taken my comfort and confidence away. I have lived in Oregon my entire life other than being born in Colorado on an army base and some travel. Both sides of my family are from Southern Oregon.  I was raised in the Portland area, due to parents separation when I was 2,  and lived there until my early twenties. Though I spent many years spending my time in nature, I didn't get into hunting until I moved down to Southern Oregon to live with my father in the late 90's , my early twenties. My Father is a disabled veteran after a couple tours in Vietnam. After the Vietnam conflict, he tried hunting with his father but couldn't stomach it anymore. He wanted me to have the experience so he introduced me to a couple of his local friends. They took me out a couple times and helped me with learning the area and strategies. Although I had heard many stories growing up and from a couple locals in the area, I was not prepared for what I would experience while in the woods… That is my basic story of what led up to my experiences in Southern Oregon and a couple more experiences. One later in the Tillamook NF on the Wilson River (2002) and the last experience in Central Oregon between Yamsay Mt. and Summer Lake (2015). I currently live in Bend and have since 2006. I am looking forward to getting back into the woods, just won't be doing anymore solo trips."

It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind and it either heard me or smelt me and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up and that shocked me. They don't make people that that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything moves like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language and they were chuntering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forward.

I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet that what I saw were bears. Why don't what he were putting? Jesus Christ, you bet. Can't get somebody out here. out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot nine. I don't know. Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right here. Uh-uh. This is Colonel Nathan R. Jessa, commanding officer Marine Ground Forces, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And you are listening to Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight.

Got a great show plan for you. We'll be chatting with Chris. And Chris is a hunter from Oregon and he's very skeptical of Bigfoot or used to be anyway and I really wanted to have Chris on the show because I have this conversation probably two, three times a week with different hunters who they'll come forward. They don't want to come forward publicly but they'll go, hey, I saw this bear out there and it was a weird looking bear and as they're describing it, it sounds more like a gorilla than a bear or they'll go, hey, I ran into this homeless guy and what they're seeing is nothing, nothing adds up for being a human being

without a home in the forest. Their arms are too long, the person is too big. So I invited Chris to come on and kind of share some of these experiences so you can kind of walk through this journey with him over the last 30 years and kind of what led up to him

stopping hunting altogether. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. And I'll see the members back on Sunday. But tonight, let's jump into it.

I want to welcome Chris to the show. Chris, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, Wes. Yeah, Chris, I'm really happy to have you on. and, you know, you live in the area of Oregon where I used to live, and Oregon's beautiful, except for Portland. Sorry, beautiful. But if you would, take me back to this very first incident because you're pretty skeptical of Bigfoot, and I really want to walk through these different events throughout your life, but if you would, kind of take me to the very first time,

something strange happened while you were out there hunting. Yeah, so my really, I guess my first kind of experience happened back in 1998. I moved down to Southern Oregon to live with my dad, get to know him a little bit better. And I didn't, I hadn't been into hunting. I'd been into nature most of my life hiking and fishing and stuff, but kind of my family background, a lot of hunters. So my dad thought it'd be a good idea if I learned how to hunt. But he wasn't really into hunting anymore after a couple of tours in Vietnam decided it wasn't really his cup of tea anymore. So he introduced me to a couple friends, and they kind of took me out and showed me some areas and got to learn some stuff about hunting.

And my really first thing that happened, my brother came down to visit me from Portland area, beautiful place, as you mentioned. and he wasn't really that in tune with the outdoors. But the funny thing is, is he had this fascination with Sasquatch, or Bigfoot. And myself, I've heard stories and, you know, watched many different shows and just kind of pretty much a skeptic. So I just kind of entertained him. I said, yeah, well, why don't you come down?

We'll go camping. I'm going to go hunting, but you can do whatever you want, just tag along and you can look for what you're looking for. And so we had gone out on pretty much about a four-day backpacking trip up in the Applegate down in southern Oregon. And after about three nights, hadn't really seen much, and it was getting cold. We decided we're going to head back to town and grab some more supplies and have a nice meal. and then head back out the next day and find a different spot. And after talking to a couple of my dad's friends, they mentioned a spot. We should probably go check out.

It was a road called Stargoltz Road heading up in the Applegate. So we drove out, found a nice place to park, and found a trail and hiked up this trail for a couple miles. Found a nice camp spot where we could set up our tent, about big enough for our dome tent and a fire ring. and kind of left our stuff there and then kind of hiked around for most of the day, scouting and looking for animals and sign. And strange, we didn't see anything out there. Didn't really hear anything, no sign, no nothing. But so after a long day of hiking, went back and got our camp set up, made a nice fire, cook some food, chatted, nice, clear, starry night. And eventually about 10 o'clock decided it was time to go to bed.

So we crawled in the tent, got in our sleeping bags. And I would say we were just about to doze off. It was probably, you know, we were tired. It was probably 15, 20 minutes later, just about to doze off. And the spot we were on the trail, it's kind of like a ridge trail. So it goes up on the right side off down kind of the east. It just kind of drops off into the woods. And to the west, it's kind of flat and goes up towards a tree long.

about 150 yards away, but all that in between our camp and the tree line is just low, brush, Manzanita. So we're falling to sleep, and I start, what I heard was something walking through the manzanita from the tree line. I could tell it was coming towards us, getting a little bit louder, a little bit louder as time went on. And I whispered to my brother. He heard that?

He was like, yeah, what is that? I said, I don't know. So we sat there for a few more seconds, and it was just getting closer and closer. And I'm thinking, it's a bear. It's coming to check us out. No big deal. Like, you know, I had my deer rifle, and we had a big spotlight, flashlight to see you with. And as it got closer, I thought, if this is a bear, this is a big bear.

Because the strides were so long, it was like, And the closer got, I was thinking, this is not a bear. This is something on two feet. Just the what I was hearing and the size of it, the stride it was making. It was like, this is not making sense in my head. And it got all the way up to us. And I told my brother, okay, I'm going to jump out with my rifle. I'm not comfortable.

And I'm going to scare whatever it is off. So I'm an unzipped a tent. And you jump out with the flashlight. I'm going to jump out with the rifle. And we'll just see what this is and deal with it. Right about that time, I heard something on the back side of our tent. So the opposite side of our door. And I just figured, okay, now's a good time as any.

We'll have the tent in between us. So we jumped out. He hit it with the flashlight. I'm pointing my rifle where the light's going. And there's nothing there. Not a thing. And we can see for 100 yards in every direction from where our 10 is at. And there's nothing there.

And the highest thing is probably, you know, three feet high, that brush confused me to heck. I had no idea what it just happened. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night. Yeah, I could understand why no one slept that night. I mean, it's so weird. You know, so you hear this thing coming in, you think it's a bear, which is a normal human reaction, at least from a hunter. You know, when bears come into camp, they're loud, they make a lot of noise, and they're kind of clumsy. And you guys are hearing this.

You jump out with the gun. Your brother jumps out with the spotlight, and you can see in 360 degrees around you, and there's nothing there. now after all these years, you know, almost 30 years ago, what do you make of that? The fact that you got out and there was nothing there? You know, at the time, and like I said, my brother, he's very into Bigfoot, very into Sasquatch. That's the, you know, halfway through hearing that thing coming towards us, he's like, hit the Sasquatch.

I'm like, no, it's a bear. Come on. Like, I'm like, it's got to be a bear. It can't be anything else. But when we jumped out and there's nothing there, it confused the crap out of me. Like, there's, I heard it like two seconds. It took us to get out of the tent. And it was right behind the tent right before we jumped out because I heard it.

And then there's nothing. Looking back now, from what I've heard, they can. can, if it was a Sasquatch, they can drop on their belly and be gone out of sight. And there was a trail. And, you know, if it crawled off on his belly down the trail, wouldn't have heard it. But we would have seen something. I'm pretty sure with that bright spotlight we had, scan in the area. And I, you know, I yelled, whatever, if you're a person or whatever you want, get the hell out of here.

and I fired a shot off after about a minute or two of scanning and not seeing anything, just thinking, okay, maybe if it's a bear, here's a gun, it won't mess with us, or whatever it is, and now it knows we have a weapon. So that made me feel a little bit better. But at the same time, yeah, we didn't get any sleep that night for sure. Yeah. So your brother believed in Bigfoot, but you weren't really into it. Were you, Chris?

No, no, not at all. And there was a couple of my dad's friends had told my brother some stories of some stuff, experiences they've had in that area. And I just kind of brushed it off. Like, you know, it could have been that maybe. Could it have been something else? Chances are it's something else. That's just kind of my rationality at the time.

Yeah. And I could understand the skepticism with regard to Sasquatch. I completely get it, Chris. And before we move on to the next weird incident, did anything else happen on this trip? No. We packed up our stuff the next morning and went back to town and didn't really talk much about it. I kind of reconnected with my brother a few years ago after the next morning. a decade or more and brought it up.

We had a big chuckle out of it, but we hadn't really talked about it since that, or before that. Yeah, well, I'm glad to hear you reconnecting with your brother after all of these years. If you would, tell me about the next incident. What kind of a timeframe are we talking about? Kind of what year did it happen? And what were you doing? And if you would, kind of walk me into what happened?

Yeah, so my next kind of incident was the next hunting season, the next year. It was 1999, early fall, rifle season. And one of my dad's buddies wanted to take me out hunting, so we jumped in his truck, and we were driving around the Applegate again. And there's a spot he wanted to go up to called Rangler Gap, which goes up towards the Pacific Crest Trail. You're getting pretty close to the California border. at this time. And so we just kind of slow drove up through this area, through some old logging

roads and fire roads, just kind of looking for any sign of deer and hadn't really seen anything this whole trip to we got up to this peak. And it's Wrangler Gap, and I think he called the other one Siskiu Gap, but I definitely found Rangler Gap on the map after looking at it again, just kind of remind myself of the area. And, you know, the Pacific. Big Crest Trail runs pretty much right across where we were. But we got up right up to this spot where there's just a big view over the hills and everything. And right when we came around the corner before we parked the truck, I look over to my right and there's a tree line and there's a gap between it probably about, oh, I would say 30 yard or so gap. It was fairly wide. But I saw

something walk through in that gap, upright figure, bipedal, dark, and thin, which I just just, it didn't, you know, seen it. I'm so, well, there goes a person. But then after another second, my second thought was, but we're out in the middle of nowhere. I didn't know the Pacific Crest Trail was there at the time until later. But I'm thinking, well, there's a person, they don't have anything with them. And that they seemed like very tall and like one shade. So it just caught me as odd. And then we got up to and parked the truck and got out and kind of walked around. And I headed straight over to that spot where I'd saw this person. And I'm thinking, wow, this is a pretty worn trail. I'm looking for boot tracks

or something. And I don't see anything. But then I'm looking at the distance between the trees where I'd saw this person, I thought, go. And I'm like, that took them like three steps to clear this gap. That didn't make sense to me. And then the heights that they were, I'm thinking this person had to be like eight feet tall from where I'd saw the height of them cross across those trees and looking at a few of the branches where I'd saw. And I didn't say anything to my dad's friend.

I was just puzzled. I didn't know if he had seen what I'd seen. He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. But yeah, it was just, it was odd. It is odd. And you probably said in the beginning, Chris, and I missed it. But how far away from you was this figure?

I would say we were probably about 50 to 60 yards away, if that. we were like we rounded a corner and I was just I'm I'm looking off to the right he's looking off to the left for deer or anything and I'm looking out to the right when we come around the corner and I'm looking right at this gap in the trees so it all happened pretty quick and yeah like I said we were probably maybe 60 yards away yeah it's still relatively close to you I mean you're watching this thing or what you think is a person and And, you know, it's impressive when you see someone who's like six, eight, but eight feet tall is, that's pretty tall. And, you know, I know your first thought is like, oh, that's a person, but.

That's the, you know, the first thing is, oh, there goes somebody. But then my second thought was, it visually, what I just saw didn't make sense. Yeah, I've been through this general area of where you're at. And I think Lus Stroud and I went to, he took me to Jacksonville. They got that big foot trap out there in the woods and it's kind of run down now. But you're kind of in this general area. Remind me again exactly where you're at. So this is in the Applegate, again, Applegate area down in Southern Oregon.

And it's a spot called Rangler Gap. Oh, okay. Yeah. where you guys were at. You're about south, west of Jacksonville, kind of where that bigfoot trap is. And there's a lot that goes on in that area. I mean, you guys really were kind of out in the middle of nowhere, very lonely country. So tell me, I understand it's very confusing when you see this figure. But at this point, I mean, what's going through your mind? I thought there's somebody like heading to a kid.

camp or something. But, you know, again, it's cold out. It's starting to snow. And there was a storm moving in from where this thing was coming from. The direction was coming from, there was a storm coming. So I thought, okay, someone's getting out of the storm headed to their camp or something because it's hunting season. Someone could have been camping up there. But then there's no roads other than the one we came in on. So where this person was heading and there was no other vehicles we saw. I was just confused. Like, what is this person

doing out here? Initially, and that's why I was trying to wrap my head around it, and it took me a while to come to the conclusion. That probably wasn't a person, and I didn't mention it to my dad's buddy I was with. I probably think I was nuts

or just laugh at me, you know, oh, whatever. Yeah, I get it. And hunters are stubborn, man. they're like some of the most stubborn people on the planet. And that's why I'm so glad to have you on the show because I've had this conversation. I can't even tell you how many times off the air. Hunters don't really want to, whenever they experience something like this, they want to steer away from Bigfoot.

And I kind of think it's because I'll have to give up hunting. But as you and I were talking prior to coming on the air, you were telling me about this rock-throwing incident. The next weird thing that happened to you, was it the rock throwing? No, the next incident is the same hunting season. Oh, tell me about it. Is this later? It is later in the season, yeah.

So the next one, this same year, a friend of mine I'd made down there, my dad introduced me to. We were pretty close in age. He grew up in the area. He knew every nook and cranny out there. And so we became pretty good friends. He wanted to take me out hunting. And at this point, I kind of realized it what time of year it was and went in the season because I'd gotten a new rifle.

I had a nice scope on it. It was a nice 30-a-6. I'm left-handed, so I got a left-handed bolt. And I was excited to get out with this guy, him to show me some new hunting grounds. So we headed out up a road called Cain Creek, which is down in Southern, Morgan, too, just kind of in between Gold Hill and Jacksonville. And his wife was going to drop us off in a spot and then pick us up about five miles down as the crow flies later in the day or in the evening whenever we got to her. So we headed out and his wife dropped us off.

We hiked in off the road and found a nice trail to get down in. covered a lot of ground. Initially, we jumped up a couple of does, didn't really see much. A few hours in, it got to be about noon. Lunchtime, we decided we're going to sit down, take a break, have a snack, and just relax before we continued on our way. So the spot, he took me to, he said it was an old homestead, and there's nothing there.

There's no sign of any buildings or anything. but you can tell there's a lot of cleared areas. But one spot was a big clearing, probably about five acres of nothing but grass and an apple tree in the middle. And all the deer trails came from about every direction around this clearing to this apple tree. So my buddy's like, well, I'm going to take a little nap. And I said, well, I'm going to go explore and get my rifle and scope up and just kind of view the area to see if I see anything. So I did that. I headed over to the edge of the clearing.

I didn't want to step into the clearing. I just wanted to stay on the edge kind of in the trees and just kind of look around. So I was doing that, just scanning the meadow with my scope, had my rifle up. And I'm just looking for any signs, any movement, anything. And I scan over to my right, kind of the area we'd come from up the hill a little bit. and I see this tall, dark figure drop, like just drop into the bushes, like it just collapsed. And I heard a couple of bushes wrestle, and then that was it. And I thought, oh, man, there's a big bear over there.

And I didn't have a bear tag. I didn't really want anything to do with bears. I just wanted to. I was just looking for some deer. So after a minute, I walked back over with my buddy and he was kind of nodded off. And I just ate my sandwich and relaxed for a little bit until he was ready to get up and go again. And we're walking out. And I kind of told him, man, let's skirt that area over there.

I think there's a big bear. Let's go this way more and kind of go around. So he did. And he's just laughing at me because I didn't want anything to do with the bear. but I think he might have had a bear tag, but he said, okay, we'll go. So, and we hunted on for, you know, after that, it was probably about one or two o'clock and finally moving on. It was starting to get dark by the time we were heading out and found the trail to go back to meet his wife. And we're walking down this trail, and it's another kind of ridge trail where we're coming down the ridge.

To our left, it kind of drops off down into a big bowl, and to the right. It's just really thick trees. And we're walking down. He's in front of me. It can kind of, yeah, it's not too dark where I can't see much, but he's probably, you know, 10 feet or so in front of me. We're just walking down. And all of a sudden I get hit with this wall of a smell.

And it hit me so hard. I just kind of, I stopped in my tracks. And I just said, what the hell is that? And my buddy turned around and he looked at me very seriously. He said, shut up and keep walking. And I did. I didn't know what the heck that was.

And we made it, you know, about half hour, 45 minutes later, met up with his wife and we got out of there. And it's the funniest thing. We never talked about that since. Never came up. And I just kind of chalked it off to, you know, maybe a bear. but it didn't, it didn't smell like an animal to me. But that was, that was that experience. And Chris, you kind of said something there in the beginning that really caught my attention.

You had seen this black figure like collapse. And that's exactly how I described these things getting down, well, one of them anyway, on how they got down on all fours. It's like it collapsed. If you'd have blinked, you would have missed it. Bears don't get down like that. You know, your friend's reaction. You guys are smelling this weird smell, which is something that gets reported a lot in people's encounters.

They'll describe this weird smell that just hits them like a wall. Kind of like how you described it, Chris. And your friend's reaction of like, keep quiet and let's get out of here, do you think he knew what it was? I think he knew exactly what it was. And he didn't want to talk about it. And to me, it's nothing I'd ever smelled before or since. I've been around animals. I've been around bears, cougars, deer, elk.

I mean, you name it out in the Pacific Northwest and seen just about every animal out there. But this, my first instinct was it was a person who hadn't bathed in a long time. that's like what I initially thought is like, man, there's some stinky dude out here. That it smelled like the worst B.O. I'd ever smelled. Yeah, I appreciate you clarifying what it smelled like. I was going to ask you about the smell, but you've pretty much answered it. And again, your friend's reaction of like, you know, normally when you're going down the trail and something like that happens, you'd think someone would be like, hey, do you smell that? You know, I smell it. You know, I smell it. You, you some

smelling this, but his reaction was like, let's get the hell out of here. Makes you wonder, did anything else happen during this hunting season? No, that was pretty much it for that season. And I'll tell you, I didn't really hunt after that for the longest time. That was pretty much it for me. I said, you know, there's enough weird stuff out there that I'm not going to hunt down here anymore. It just, it kind of lost its luster, so to speak, you know. Yeah, what kind of spute you, Chris, from going back out there? Was it just all these weird

events kind of piling up? I think it was the culmination of everything being out in the woods down in those areas. That, and then after hearing stories of, you know, some of my dad's friends and stuff that, you know, my brother, you know, he knew so much about this subject and want to tell me everything. So I started kind of thinking, you know, there may be something to this. And the experience I've had so far, maybe for now I'm just calling myself lucky and stay out of there for a while. After not hunting for a while, I stuck with fishing.

And I got into salmon and steelhead fishing a lot. And I'd go out to the coastal rivers, like outside of Tolomuk and some other places. And I was up on the Wilson River. This was around 2002. And I'd been fishing this area for years all up and down from the, you know, scouted the headwaters all the way down to the Tolomuk Bay. And I found a couple spots that I like to go where I knew around this time of year that salmon or still hood would be. spawn and they'd be up in these pools. And so I was camping out for the night with a friend.

And it got kind of late, you know, hanging out of the campfire, had a couple beers and decided we're going to go sit by the water and just relax. And I know sometimes the fish will move at night so you can hear them, you know, moving up river, flopping around and stuff when they get into some of these pools. So I just decided, you know, let's go up and relax and see if we hear anything. and just, you know, enjoy the night. After about half hour, we weren't, maybe half hour, we weren't even sitting on the riverbank that long.

And this giant splash, what now I know now was a big rock, just came from the other side of the river and probably about five feet in front of us, just splashed in front of us, scared the crap out of us. I jumped, but initially I was thinking, oh, it's just a fish, but then I realized that it actually hit the bottom, that sound it makes when a big rock hits a shallow water. And that creeped me out because I knew there was no roads, there's no trails in this area on the other side of the river in this spot. So chances are there's not somebody over there messing with us. I pulled out my sidearm and let off a shot and went, hiked back up to camp, and slept in my truck that night.

Yeah, you're kind of going from the frying pan into the fire. You know, you're trying to get away from these weird events that keep happening while you're hunting, and you decide to go fishing. But this area that you picked, Chris, is notorious for sightings. I know the area well, and I've had other fishermen having. encounters on that Wilson River. I know it's right there in the Tillamook area, and it dumps out, that Wilson River actually dumps out into Tillamook Bay. And, you know, when you think of the beach, you think of, maybe most people think of like Miami or, you know, someplace like that. But in the

Pacific Northwest, I mean, it's nothing but dense forest. And then it basically dumps you out to the beach. And that area, like I said, that area does have a lot of sightings. I've taken so. several personally. The rock, I know you didn't see it come in, but you heard that clucklunk. I mean, it must have been a big rock as it hit the bottom of the river. Do you think it was thrown pretty far away? It had, yeah. From the distance across the river to the other bank was probably, man, a good 30 yards, and then it goes up. So the bank goes up another probably 10 or 15 feet from the river, almost straight up, almost a cliff wall on that side.

And I don't remember hearing anything before that kind of tripped me out, too, until that rock just hit the water. And there was nobody on the side where we were. We were by ourselves. There was nobody close to us that I knew about, for sure. Yeah, and at this point, I don't know if you're still skeptical or not, Chris,

but this sort of behavior gets reported a lot. especially fishermen, they are the ones that generally get the rocks thrown at them. And you'll hear people go, you'll hear investigators and researchers go, well, that's playful behavior. I don't think that's playful behavior. I think that's get the hell out of here type behavior. And you see it when eyewitnesses pick up rocks and they start engaging with these sayings.

It becomes aggressive very, very quickly. But, you know, I know you're probably thinking at this point, it's a person. I don't see a person throwing a rocket another human being. I know it's the Pacific Northwest and we're all happy-go-lucky, but you might get shot doing something like that. Yeah, well, like I said, I had a sidearm on me at the time. I didn't want to shoot anybody, but I definitely wanted to let them know. So I let off a shot.

But at the same time, I'm thinking whatever through that had to be pretty dang strong because it was not a small rock. I mean, it made a big splash and to hit bottom in, you know, four, five feet of water, and to be able to hear it, that's saying something. Yeah, like I said, when you hear that cl clunk, you know, it's a big rock coming your way. And I don't blame me for being unnerved over the whole thing, especially not seeing what through it. The last incident I want to talk to you about happened in 2015.

So we're talking now 12, 13 years later. And in your email, you talked about how you went back to hunting. From your email, was this the incident that made you kind of stop hunting? And kind of where did this happen? Correct. Yeah. And that's more over here in central Oregon, which I, you know, I'm thinking Sasquatch in the high desert is the last place.

I'm thinking I'm going to have an experience like this. but yeah I guess after kind of looking at a broader scope of the area I was in it makes more sense yeah I understand your mindset now of going back hunting I mean you would think out there in the high desert you wouldn't run into anything like this but people do I mean even out there towards canita you know where it's a great place to gamble it's a great place to gamble it's a great place to go swimming. I've had encounters out there and there's nothing there. There is nothing out there except for Kenita. It's like a barren wasteland, but people do run into them out there. Tell me what happened. Yeah, so this was around 2015. And so I live in Central Oregon now.

And when I moved here after not hunting for so many years, rifle hunting, met up with the group of guys that I worked with. all bow hunted. So I got into bow hunting at that point. And after going out with them for a couple of years, and then I had an uncle of mine who, he grew up in southern Oregon. He had hunted Oregon his entire life. He was probably around 70 at the time. And we were talking about hunting and then you know he knew I bow hunted and he said well I there I go it'd be great it could be because it'd be great scouting for me because I'd want to hunt their rifle season so I'll take you out there you bow hunt and I'll just kind of scout while we're out there so I drove out to this area and it's pretty much right next to summer lake but up on if you

you look up Summer Lake on a map, there's a spot just to the west where you are pretty much up on a bridge top, or not a ridge, but more of a plateau up above the desert, because once you get to Summer Lake and east of that, you're pretty much out in desert. So this spot, he told me where to go and I met him out here, I met him out there at his camp. We were going to stay out there for about a week. Basically, he said, I'm going to drive you to an area and then you hunt all the way back to camp. We'll see if anything happens and then we'll do it again later in the day. So that was our morning.

Each day we did two hunts for about four days. And after the fourth day, I wasn't seeing much. I wasn't seeing a whole lot of sign of any animals. And so I was kind of, you know, I think four days is enough out here. him, you know, if nothing happens this morning, I'll probably pack up and head home to be with the family. And so he kind of agreed, yeah, there's not a lot going on. So he dropped me off this fourth morning, probably a couple miles away. And I just said, you know, I'll meet you back at camp.

And I had been using my phone kind of as a GPS location with an app to know where he dropped me off, where camp was. and I could look at it later and kind of trace my steps and look at the area. And this time I'd left my phone charging on my battery pack, so I didn't have that with me. But luckily, after being out there for a few days, kind of learned the landscape and directions and kind of knew how to get back to camp. So he dropped me off pretty early. It was just the sun was almost up. I kind of hung out for a little bit to get a little bit of light and just slowly started walking.

and hunting my way back to camp. And I was probably, by this time, I was probably about three quarters of the way back, so maybe a mile and a half or so after just walking through pretty dense brush and forest. And I came across this cow. But first I saw an ear with an ear tag on it laying on the ground. And I thought, wow, man, that poor cow.

wolves or something got to it and a little bit further I realized I'm finding other parts of it like it was just torn into pieces a leg here a leg over there I never found the head or I think there was there was a few pieces missing but it was just running into this was just kind of was odd to me like something literally tore this thing to pieces like ripped it apart I could tell Well, it wasn't that old, maybe, you know, happened a day or two ago, but it did not look too old. So I thought, okay, well, I've got to keep my eyes open a little better and keep a better watch around me. So after seeing that, I was moving back towards Canada, I made sure, you know, okay, I know the direction I'm going.

I'm just going to try and get out of here. And I made it another maybe 100 yards, came around some bushes to a little open. opening and heard a whoop. I thought, oh, there's a, maybe there's another hunter over here trying to let me know they're there. So I got up my little binoculars and took a couple more steps forward and another whoop. This time was just a little bit louder, maybe a little bit more intense. Like I could tell, like, I wasn't the same as the first one. And so I kind of stopped and felt the hair go up on the back of my neck.

Like, wait a second. Maybe this isn't a hunter. So I got my little binoculars up and started kind of skiing in the tree line and not seeing anything, put my binoculars down, took a couple more steps in that direction, and another whoop, even louder. And this time it felt to me like, okay, I got to get out of here. Like something's telling me I'm not welcome. And so I slowly turned and went back the direction I was initially going a while kind of put up my binoculars a little bit, tried to do another scan to see.

Because I'm thinking of where this sound came from. I'm thinking it's up in the tree. Like there's somebody in a tree stand or something just messing with me, like another hunter in a tree stand. And so after making a couple more steps in that direction, I stop and just turn another skein of my binoculars. And something dark, it didn't seem like it was real big, maybe like an average size person, but it something had moved from one tree to another up in the tree. And then I just turned and I didn't run, but I didn't run.

but I got out of there. And somehow made it back to camp and my uncles. He's got camp already half broken down. And I didn't say anything to him other than not a successful hunt. I didn't see anything. And yeah, let's pack up and get out of here, pretty much. Yeah, I'm trying to think of what other predator in Central Oregon that would rip apart a cow limb from limb, and I can't think of one, really, that would kill a cow that way.

And then you're hearing the whoops and you're kind of passing it off as like, oh, that must be another hunter. At what point did you stop and go, maybe this is Sasquatch? I think when I saw that figure move from one tree to another, and not on the ground, in the trees, like 20 feet up, something moved from tree to tree. And that told me, okay, well, it's obviously not a hunter in a tree stand because normally they're going to be strapped in or something. And I just, and from the tone changing with those literal whoops, it, you know, like I said, it made the hair stand up with my back and something was telling me you don't want to be here

right now. Something's telling you to go. And I'm, you know, and I'm going to be honest, Sasquatch still didn't cross my mind. I'm thinking, whatever, you know, whatever this is, I don't know, but I don't want to find out pretty much. Yeah, and this was, what, nine years ago, and you quit hunting after this? Yeah, I haven't hunted since then, no. And, you know, with hunting season coming up, I've got two kids that are five and ten now, and I feel like, you know, I can probably escape for a few days. And before this incident, I would go out by myself.

I would go for a weekend and just go park the rig and have a little pack and take off for a couple days and hunt and then head home. I didn't think anything of it. Now I won't be doing any more solo trips. Yeah, who could blame you? I mean, you're getting glimpses of them. And many hunters, if you ask them, has anything odd ever happened while you're out there? They'll tell you. and it's stuff like this is what they'll tell you.

I want to ask you this, Chris, and just being a hunter your whole life and being kind of an outdoorsman. With regard to Sasquatch, why do you think that no one's been able to really catch up with this thing yet? That's a great question. I wish I could tell you I could articulate some kind of good reasoning behind that. I am really not sure. From my experiences, for something to be there than not be there, man, I can't explain that. I've seen, you know, some, like talked about, some strange things that I can't explain. Can I tell you definitively that was the Sat-Squatch?

No, I wish I could. I wish, you know, I, well, maybe not. be face to face, obviously, but a much better look to say, okay, I can definitely tell you what I saw was this. I can't. I can tell you I've had some weird experiences, and I can tell you what it was not, but what it is, I'm not 100% sure. Yeah, I could understand the way you feel, especially after that very first encounter where you describe coming out of the tent, you have your gun, lights are ready, and you just heard this saying a few seconds before right behind your tent, you come out and there's nothing there. It's strange. I know you said you didn't really

know what Sasquatch is, but if someone kind of had to pin you down to, what do you think that these things are, what would you say? Yeah, from my experiences, and, you know, I've been listen to a lot of stories on your podcast. But from my experiences, it seems like a physical being of some sort that is out there in these woods. It obviously is, from what I can tell, it's very comfortable and very knowledgeable of his surroundings and can, you know, blend in or move where, like, we can't. So what it is, I'm not sure. Yeah, it's really hard to just say, really.

I mean, and we can only form our opinions based on our experiences. And, you know, you basically shared 17 years of your life, Chris. And hunters are my favorite people to talk to. Sometimes it's frustrating, like I said, they're stubborn and don't want to give up hunting, you know, or admit that this thing is out there. But some of the best encounters come from hunters. And again, 17 years of your life, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share what happened to you. I really enjoyed chatting with you, Chris.

Yeah, thanks for having me on, Wes. And if you don't mind, I'd like to say hi to my two kids, Torin and Ila, they will be listening. So time go to bed. Thanks, Wes. Thanks again, Chris. And that's it for tonight, everyone. and remember if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com.

And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.