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Sasquatch Field Notes Pacific Northwest Two retired people, one old pickup, a lot of plaster, and the Cascades and Olympics. Bigfoot has not turned up yet. We have. [ Who We Are | Our Outings 1997-99 | The Honest Scorecard | How to Cast a Footprint | Roy vs. Bev | Camp Stories ]

Who We Are Roy is 66, retired from thirty-one years at the mill, and has believed in Sasquatch since he was nine years old and heard something big walk past the family's tent on the Skagit. Bev is 64, retired from teaching fourth grade, and believes in Roy. We have been married forty-two years, and for the last three of them we have spent most weekends from May to October on logging roads in Washington State looking for a nine-foot ape that Bev is fairly sure isn't there. This is our page about it. Roy writes the outing notes and the plaster instructions, Bev writes the scorecard and the parts where Roy is wrong, and we both write the camp stories. We type it up on the computer our son gave us, which is a Gateway, and we have not broken it yet. Why do it? Roy says: because if there's a chance, somebody ought to be out there looking who isn't trying to sell anything. Bev says: because the woods are beautiful, the fishing is good, and after forty-two years you learn that if your husband is going to spend every weekend chasing a monster, you might as well pack the good sandwiches and come along. September 1999: Added the Labor Day weekend outing and updated the scorecard. Also Bev has added a column.

Our Outings, 1997 to 1999 (Roy's notes. Bev's remarks in parentheses.) We do not give exact spots. Partly that's because a good camping spot is a good camping spot, and partly because if anybody ever does find anything, the last thing that creature needs is forty guys with rifles and a video camera showing up. So: general areas, spur roads by our own names for them, and the dates. When Where (roughly) What happened Aug. 9-10, 1997 North Cascades, a spur off a Forest Service road we call the Washboard, up a creek drainage east of the highway First trip. Heard knocking sounds at dusk, two, then three. Roy very excited. (It was a woodpecker. Bev saw it. Roy says woodpeckers do not knock at dusk. The woodpecker was not consulted.) Oct. 4-5, 1997 Same drainage, farther up. First snow on the tops. Found a print in mud by the creek, 14 inches, five toes. Cast it (our first cast, see below, came out lumpy). Showed it to a fellow at the ranger station who was nice about it and said "bear, hind foot, and it slid." Roy keeps it on the mantel anyway. May 23-25, 1998 Olympic Peninsula, west side, a logging road we call Bev's Road because she found it on the map Rain for three days. Tent leaked. Nothing seen, nothing heard but rain. Found a boot. (Just one. Size 11. Roy wanted to cast it.) July 11-12, 1998 Central Cascades, east slope, a ridge road above a reservoir Smelled something terrible around 10 p.m. downwind of camp. Roy sat up till 2 with the flashlight. Morning: dead elk in the draw about 200 yards off, a week gone. (The smell was the elk. The elk was the smell.) Sept. 5-7, 1998 Back to the Washboard Found a line of prints in a sandbar, eleven of them, about 15 inches, stride we measured at 4 feet. Cast the two best. Best casts we've made. Looked at them at home for a month. Toes are all the same size, which Roy read is a bad sign. Also they went straight into the water and did not come out the other side. Verdict: we don't know. Bev says "somebody in fake feet." Roy says "who'd drive 40 miles of washboard to do that?" Bev says "we did." Oct. 17-18, 1998 Olympics, north side, a road up a river valley Rock came down the slope at 11 p.m. and hit the truck. Big one. Roy: "They throw rocks. It's documented." Bev: "So does gravity." We moved the truck. June 12-13, 1999 North Cascades, new drainage, a spur we now call Boot Hill Found ANOTHER boot. Different boot. Now we have a pair, sort of. Also a very good black bear print, cast it for practice. Roy did a "wood knock" with a stick at dusk and got an answer. Bev did a wood knock five minutes later and got the same answer. Bev thinks it's the echo. Roy thinks it's polite. July 31-Aug. 1, 1999 Central Cascades, west side, high up Cougar track. First we've seen. Bev photographed it (film is at the drugstore, will scan when our son shows us how). We both got very quiet and went back to the truck. Both agreed: a cougar is scarier than a Sasquatch, on account of it's real. (Roy says "on account of it's confirmed.") Sept. 4-6, 1999 Back to the sandbar on the Washboard, two years to the weekend Sandbar gone. River moved it in the spring. Roy stood there a good while. Nothing seen. Beautiful weekend. Caught four trout. Heard a call about 1 a.m., long and rising, that neither of us could put a name to. Bev, for the record, did not say "elk." Bev said "huh." Roy considers this the biggest find of the season.

The Honest Scorecard (Bev keeps this one. Roy is allowed to protest, in the last column.) Thing we found How many What it was Roy's protest Footprints cast 9 Bear (5), elk (1, we were new), unknown (2, the sandbar), one that was Roy's own boot from the day before "Two unknowns is two unknowns." Bears seen 6 Bears None Elk seen lots Elk (one deceased) None Boots found 2 Boots. Not a pair. "Something's taking boots." Bad smells 3 Dead elk, skunk, Roy's socks "The socks were downwind." Knocking sounds many Woodpeckers, falling branches, echo, other campers, Roy "Some of them answered." Rocks thrown at us 1 Rock. Slope. Gravity. "It hit the TRUCK." Calls heard we can't explain 1 Honestly don't know "Thank you." Trout caught 41 Delicious "Bev caught 30 of them. I was watching the treeline." Sasquatch 0 -- "Yet."

How to Cast a Footprint (Roy's Method) Whether it's a bear or a Bigfoot, a good cast is a good cast, and you can't tell what you've got until you get it home and look at it in decent light. Here's what we carry and how we do it. It took us about six bad casts to learn this, so you're welcome. In the truck: Plaster of Paris, a 25-pound bag, kept in a dry bucket with a lid. (The dental stone the serious folks use is stronger and picks up finer detail, but it's expensive and you have to order it. Plaster from the hardware store is fine for learning.) Two gallon jugs of water, separate from the drinking water. A mixing bucket, a big spoon, a stick. Strips of cardboard or an old plastic tub with the bottom cut out, for a dam. A tape measure and a notebook. Write down the length, width, and the distance to the next print BEFORE you pour. Once it's plaster, that information's gone. Hair spray (cheap kind). A light mist firms up loose sand or dust so the plaster doesn't wash out the detail. Don't get close, don't blast it. Newspaper and an old towel for carrying the cast home. The steps: Don't touch the print. Don't let anyone else touch the print. Take your measurements and, if you have a camera, take a picture with a ruler in it. Pick out any leaves or twigs that fell in AFTER the print was made. Leave anything that was pressed in by the foot; that's part of the record. If the ground is loose, mist it with the hair spray and give it a minute. Set up your dam around the print, about two inches out from the edge, pushed gently into the dirt. Mix the plaster. Add plaster to water, not water to plaster, sprinkling it in until it stops sinking and makes a little island, then stir. You want it like pancake batter, not soup. Work fast; you have a few minutes. Pour it from the side, not straight down onto the print, so it flows in and fills without punching a hole in the toes. Fill the print, then keep going till it's an inch thick over the whole dam. Scratch the date and place into the top while it's soft. Now wait. 30 minutes at least, 45 if it's cold or damp. This is the hard part. Have a sandwich. Do not poke it. Dig around the edges, get your fingers under it, and lift it straight up with the dirt still on. Don't pry from one side. Wrap it in newspaper with the dirt still on and leave it alone for a day or two at home. Plaster keeps curing. Then brush the dirt off with a soft paintbrush and a little water. Never scrub a fresh cast. What to look at when it's clean: Is the stride right for the size of the foot? Do the toes look like they pushed off, or are they all the same depth? Are there claw marks (bear) or not? Does the print get narrower at the heel? And the big one: would a person in fake feet, or a bear sliding in mud, make this? Be honest. Most of the time the answer is yes. That's not a reason to stop. That's just the answer most of the time.

Roy vs. Bev: Is Any of It Real? (We have this argument in the truck. Here it is, typed up, so we don't have to have it in the truck. We will anyway.) ROY: There are thousands of reports. Going back to the Indians, going back to the loggers in the 1920s. Not all of those people are lying and not all of them are drunk. BEV: There are thousands of reports of a lot of things, dear. People are very good at seeing what they want. I taught fourth grade. I know. ROY: The famous film. The one everybody has seen. You look at the way it walks, the way the arms swing. No man in a suit walks like that. BEV: I have seen it thirty times because you own it on tape. It's a very good film of something walking away from a camera. That is all I will say about it, and I will say it every time. ROY: The sandbar. Eleven prints, four-foot stride, straight into the river. Explain that. BEV: A tall man with fake feet who walked into the water so there'd be no way to check. Which is exactly what I'd do if I were pulling a prank. I'm not saying that's what it was. I'm saying I can't tell, and neither can you, and neither can the ranger, and that's the honest answer, and it's the one you don't like. ROY: There's a lot of country up there. Millions of acres nobody sets foot in from one year to the next. You know how many bears are in Washington that nobody's ever seen? BEV: And every one of them dies someday and a hunter or a hiker finds the bones. Forty years of people saying there's a nine-foot ape in the Cascades and not one bone, not one tooth, not one hit by a logging truck. That's the thing I can't get past. It's not that I don't want it. It's that I'd like a tooth. ROY: Then why do you keep coming? BEV: Because you keep going. And because the woods at one in the morning with the fire down to coals and you sitting there holding your breath is the happiest I've ever seen you, including our wedding, and I'm not missing that for a Saturday at home with the television. And because I heard that call on Labor Day too, Roy, and I don't know what it was either. ROY: That's the nicest thing you've said to me since 1957. BEV: It's still an elk until somebody shows me a tooth.

Camp Stories The Night of the Chipmunk (May 1998). Three days of rain on the Olympic side, everything wet, Roy in a mood. About midnight something starts scratching at the tent right by Roy's head. Slow. Deliberate. Roy freezes. Roy whispers "Bev. Bev. Don't move." Bev has been asleep and would like to stay that way. Roy gets the big flashlight ready and counts to three and rips the tent flap open and there is a chipmunk sitting on our cooler eating our trail mix, and it looks at him, and he looks at it, and it does not leave. Roy says that was the most contempt he has ever gotten from anything, and he worked at a mill for thirty-one years. The Fellow With the Equipment (July 1998). We met a young man on the ridge road with a van full of gear: a parabolic microphone, night-vision goggles, a thermal-something, a laptop computer, and a sticker on the bumper about the truth being out there. Very serious. He asked what our setup was and Roy showed him: a bucket of plaster, a flashlight, a tape measure, and a thermos. The young man was polite but you could see he thought we were amateurs. Which we are. We ran into him again at the bottom of the road the next afternoon; his van battery had died running all that equipment overnight, and Roy gave him a jump. He'd heard nothing. We'd heard nothing. We had trout. The Boot (June 1999). When we found the second boot, Roy sat down on a log and held it and said, very quietly, "Bev, what if he's collecting them." And Bev said, "Roy, what if hikers lose boots." And Roy said, "Both boots were on the LEFT side of the road." And Bev said nothing, because we had been driving down the road, and the left side is the only side we could see. He has since admitted this. It took until August. The Call (September 1999). This one's short because we don't have much to say about it. Labor Day weekend, the sandbar gone, fire down to coals, about one in the morning. From up the drainage, a long call, low and then rising and then held, maybe eight or ten seconds, then nothing. Not an owl. Not an elk bugle, and we've heard plenty, and it was early for that anyway. Not a coyote. Roy stood up so fast he knocked over the coffee. We waited till three. It didn't come again. In the morning we walked up that way and found nothing, no prints, no hair, no boot. It could have been a lot of things. We're going back in October. Bev is bringing the good sandwiches.

Visitors who have wandered in since May 1998: (more than have seen a Sasquatch, Bev points out) [email protected] If you've heard something you can't explain up in the Cascades, we'd like to hear about it. If you've got a tooth, Bev especially would like to hear about it. Last updated September 18, 1999. © 1998-1999 Roy and Bev Lindgren. Friends on GeoCities.us: Kevin's UFO Sighting Reports (Roy reads it; Bev reads The Roswell Reading Room) · Dayhikes with Dad · The Fly Fishing Journal (for the trout part) Back to the Area51 neighborhood