We were finally able to get out on June 23^rd. We arrived late afternoon and we were able to get a decent camping location. It didn’t take long and our camp was set up.

While we still had good light and before dinner we wanted to check around the area for sign and clues. The only prints we found were from humans, deer, elk and small wild life. That night we had hot dogs and chips for dinner. We were rusty on our vocals that night and need to get back into the swing of it. We did hear movement around us and the typical forest sounds but nothing that would say we had the visitor we wanted. The movement could have been anything.

We brought cereal, muffins and bagels for our three breakfasts and whatever someone felt like eating that morning is how it went. Mornings are too hard to coordinate for food because of everyone waking up at different times. That day we hiked up the road about a mile or more past all the snow drifts that prevented us from driving up.

Our goal was to drop off the road higher up and look for sign and if lucky enough find some prints. We still have a pool going that will go to the person who finds the first print that can be casted. Well we made it down to the creek which we were going to follow back up to the road. We turned to follow it up and Amanda twisted her ankle and was having a difficult time putting weight on it. After she recovered a bit we started up but I soon realized that was not going to work. I has scouted around earlier this morning and knew there was a logging road that the creek went over and widened out giving us a chance to cross it there. The run off was so high the creek was too dangerous to cross every where I could see. I told the group and we turned around and started following the creek downstream. The road was about 40 yards away. The creek looked passable here. We all got arm in arm and started across. There was only one place it got close to our knees.

The trek back to camp was not that bad. I did tell everyone it was a really long hike back to camp but it was actually a short hike. Dinner that night was Dutch oven potatoes and BBQ Chicken. Night fell but my options were limited because of Amanda’s ankle so we drove to a location above camp and parked. We pulled out our camping chairs and sat on the road. We did vocals and such and waited. Amanda was using the parabolic ear and thought she heard something moving along the hill above us. When I listed to the recording later I didn’t hear anything because the white noise from the winter run off was too loud to clearly hear anything. Nothing was happening and we had been here a while so we made our way back to camp. We did wander out of camp a few times to do vocals just to try and bring them here. Nothing happened that night that would lead us to believe we had any visitors.

Saturday morning after breakfast Jake, Ethan and myself headed out of camp for a hike up the mountain. Once again we were looking for sign. We found deer, elk and moose tracks making their way up the mountain. That was one of the big draw backs to the conditions we were in. Most of the snow was gone where we were at. Because the roads were cut out of the mountainside they were ideal for making drifts. So we were stuck at lower elevations the animals were not. My concern is that everything was moving higher than our location trying to get closer to their summer grounds. Plus the higher and closer to the snow line is where the new tender plant growth is. It is not to say that is what they were doing that was just one of my thoughts. We did find some very large canine prints in the middle of the woods that were larger and wider than a typical coyote print. We eventually hit a road and followed it down and made our way back to camp. After the hike Jake went out away from camp to use the restroom. Our location for this was far enough away that if someone yelled from camp you could not hear them because you were over a hill and closer to the creek run off. So everyone was suppose to take bear spray with them. When Jake camp back he said that a piece of wood appeared to be thrown at him and landed next to him. I was telling everyone we need to practice our vocals for tonight. I then went out to do my business. I went over the hill and shortly after being there I heard a really good vocalization. I thought that someone did one back at camp. After returning to camp I wanted to know who did the vocal because it was really good. No one did… hmmmm? It was a short vocal and was not the type I would classify as a howl. It was a head scratcher. That night we had Macaroni and Cheese with cut up hot dogs in it. I made the mistake of putting the noodles in the water before they boiled so it was almost like having Mac and Cheese pudding with chunks. Very starchy. My bad! My kids made sure to give me a hard time about it. That night we were able to drive higher because someone had driven through the snow earlier in the day making it passable. I drove up to a higher point where the snow stopped us and then turned around and went downhill to where I could pull off and park on the uphill side of the road. We set up our chairs, Jake and I on the uphill side with our backs to the hill, Ethan and Luke had their backs against my tailgate and Amanda stuck herself out by herself across the road with her back to the downhill side of the road. We did knocks and vocals and had been there a while. The only thing we had heard was movement. Then we thought we heard some whistles here and there. During some of the whistles we thought we heard a click. Now all of this was coming from the downhill side of the road. Amanda then says she just go hit with something in the back of the head and it bounced off of her and hit her chair. I went and looked and couldn’t find anything stuck between her and the chair. I went back and sat down. We had been there a while more and Jake leaned over to me and whispered he was getting creeped out and felt like something was out there. Not even a minute after that Amanda got out of her chair and came over and stood next to me and she was saying that she felt something was down there moving and she was getting creeped out. I told them I felt nothing. I asked them if they wanted to leave and Amanda said “no” because she said something cool might happen. So we stayed a while more. I forgot to mention that some time ago Luke went into the cab of the truck and was now fast asleep. After a while we decided to pack it up and leave. We turned on our red head lamp and just then Jake say he see something in the trees on the downhill side. The rest of us looked and saw nothing. He said it was a large dark figure and had glowing red eyes from our head lamps. Whenever you hit the eyes of an animal with your red head lamps their eyes will reflect the red back. The better the animal sees in the dark the brighter the reflection. Last year I freak my family out when we say red eye shine and I advanced on them. Jake said the eyes were very bright and there was a tall dark figure. When we panned our lights back to look where he saw the eye, the eyes were gone. He did not have his lamp on, the reflection came from one of our lamps when we were putting the chairs away so our lamp did not stay in one place. He was very freaked out and shaking a bit. We all got in the truck and started to drive out. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a flicker of red in my break lights. Could have been a bug flashing through my lights in the distance. Further down the road the road became smoother. I was going slow enough hoping that if something wanted to follow us they would be able to. I stuck my head out the window and though I heard a rhythmic thumping noise from behind my truck up the road just out of sight of the lights from my truck. I brought my head back in the truck for a second and then stuck it out again when I heard the noise again. I sounded like something running with a real heavy foot fall up the road behind my truck. So I tapped on my brakes to slow down a bit and then stuck my head out again but heard nothing that time. Once we got back to camp we did hear twigs break when we went out to use the restroom and also while sitting around camp. After getting in our tents that night both tents did hear movement around that had not occurred any other night.

So this trip was a blast. I wish someone else had seen what Jake had seen. I like to have more than one person witness the same event. Whatever he saw freaked him out pretty good and he said it was very tall and large.