Bigfoot chases a couple out hiking in Washington State
| In 2014 in the state of Washington in the North Cascades National Park I was hiking shortly after the fourth of July holiday. Very near the crest of the Pacific Crest Trail and it was about seven-thirty in the early evening. My girlfriend was with me. We both are in our late twenties and both are in good physical shape. We had passed several hikers about an hour before. There was a minimal wind, maybe five miles and coming out of the west or southwest. Our car was to the east and as the hour was growing late we were in some haste to get back before dark. As such we had been going pretty hard and decided to stop and catch our breath. I was looking ahead at what we still had to traverse when my girlfriend poked me and I turned to follow her lead and saw back down the trail quite a ways was a really, big guy. He was too far away to be able to judge how tall the guy was exactly but when you look back down a trail and see someone coming and the very first thing that enters your mind is how tall the guy is; then you can reasonably assume your first instinct was probably not wrong. Though still too far back to judge, the man was coming up to a place in the trail that had a small tree of about ten feet in height if I remembered correct. When the guy reached that part of the trail I would better be able to guess the height. While waiting for him to reach that spot I noted that he covered ground quickly for not appearing to be moving at a fast pace. Quicker than i would have thought it would take, the man was at the spot where the tree stood that was about ten feet. I was astounded to see the man was nearly as tall as the tree. Maybe the lack of light was playing tricks with my vision or depth perception. But what I was seeing was something walking on two legs that was close to ten feet tall. I was beginning to be able to see it more clearly as it was gaining ground on us. The late evening sunset sent shadows reaching long dark fingers across the landscape, caressing and enveloping the land as they raced toward the darkened night which took its time coming from the other direction. The sunset still provided enough illumination that I could not see any outlines of color to distinguish what sort of clothing the man was wearing. He seemed to be a uniform shade from head to toe. We got up having had our break. We started on back down the trail towards our car but every once in a while i would turn back to see the extremely tall man was gaining on us and based on the distance we still had to travel, I was starting to think the tall man was going to catch up with us. We continued on but I couldn’t help shake this feeling that there was something wrong about the whole circumstance. First the guy was out hiking by himself. Although people do it all the time it is not a smart idea. I guessed considering the guy’s size that he didn’t have much to worry about. I turned back around to watch him as he gained ground on us. There was just something off but I couldn’t put it together. Then it hit me. The guy’s arms were too freakin’ long! Plus, and perhaps more distressing, was the fact that when I first saw the … thing, it was so far back that I could barely make out a shape. About all I could tell was that it was tall. By the time it reached the tree I was going to judge its height, I could see it well enough to make out that it didn’t seem to have on regular clothes. I mean normally you see a man you expect him to have on a pair of pants and a shirt, which are not of the same exact shade. I could not make out the outline of any shirt or pants. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. This was not an ordinary scenario and I suddenly felt very vulnerable. We had come through an area of meadows and a great view of the forest below. As we began to get into a more thick area of woods and I knew we were out of sight of what was coming behind us I whispered to my mate to run down the path for a ways because I wanted to get some ground on it before it came back into view. Both of us raced as far as we could before I felt like it would be back into view so I stopped her and we walked again. I kept looking back and was not disappointed. It was still there. Still coming after us. We had made some ground however. I stopped long enough to watch it to see if it was hurrying but it seemed to keep that same pace. As mentioned the pace was very deceiving. It didn’t appear to be in any hurry but its stride must have been what was fooling me. I had to start thinking in terms of it being twice as close as it was because it was probably taking strides which were twice as long as ours. The sun was now almost all the way below the crest of the trail and was not going to offer much in the way of illumination in a short while. The shadows had reached their peak across the valley. The wind picked up blowing at our backs, perhaps trying to usher us onward. There were no other hikers in sight. Now I thought I could smell the thing as well as see it. The wind had an ever-so-faint hint of something wild, something terribly musky and terribly wild. My girlfriend was almost hysterical but there was no time to stop and deal with it. As long as I could keep her moving it was the thing to do. I don’t know if it was doing it before and we were just too far away to hear it, or if it started doing it as it got close. In any case we began to hear the snapping of trees. The sound caught us and then raced past to create an echo which then seemed to branch off so it sounded like it was echoing at us from both sides. My girlfriend was sobbing, slipping and I could tell she wanted to go into sheer panic. I didn’t say anything, afraid my voice might give away my fear, so when she would slip I would help her get righted and gesture to keep moving. That foul odor was growing. I chanced a glance behind us and was not happy at all to not see it. Then it became visible as it had somehow disappeared for a few seconds. Perhaps it ducked behind one of the shadows which were quickly growing to be able to accommodate a creature of such size. I had recognized something was off which was why I was so adamant about that we keep moving. When we would hit a stretch where I couldn’t see the creature behind us it let us know it was still coming by throwing things in our direction but off to one side or the other. Perhaps trying to intimidate us into thinking it was attacking from the side instead of coming from behind. A particularly clever action to carry out during the times when I couldn’t see it because I didn’t know. Maybe it had covered that much ground that quickly and was attacking from the flank. I stopped long enough to dig a bottle out of my backpack and then we kept pushing forward. I was preparing for self-defense if it did outflank us. We both had bear spray of course. But I also carried a small container of lighter fluid that serves as a way to start campfires. I only use it when necessary. Now it was going to hopefully save our lives if the bear spray was ineffective. I could really have used my girlfriend being able to do more than panic-blubber but I had to be realistic. She probably wasn’t going to be any help if it came down to it. You have to understand the extreme anxiety we had reached. It was clearly obvious that what was coming after us, gaining ground, was not human. There was no reason to think it was not an extreme threat. The odor was becoming overwhelming. The shadows had overtaken so much that the times I could now see the creature it appeared as if it had red eyes that almost seemed to glow but it was probably the bit of light that still was exposing anything which was ten feet off the ground. The sunlight coming from behind it illuminated the creature’s top portion. It was only about two football fields distance behind us now. The forest was silent except for the sounds of that thing behind us breaking trees and it had grown close enough we could hear it breathing in and out. It never broke stride. Whenever we would round a corner and the creature would again be out of sight we would run as hard as we could. We would slow down to a brisk walk before the creature would come back into view. Our car was getting close enough that I started having hope we might make it after all. We were coming to a part in the trail which we could cut across going through the thicker part of the forest and pick the trail back up where it would take us straight to our car. It meant taking a bit of a risk of getting lost. The trail if we stayed on it, would go further down and split going in two different directions. One was a continuing of the trail and the other was where you could leave the trail and it basically took you back the way you came until you passed that spot and then it took you further until you reached a parking lot. It wasn’t a big shortcut and the creature might take the shortcut as well but it was the best chance we had. If only we could make it before the thing caught up with us. When we reached the spot where you could take the shortcut we went into the thick forest and even though it was near dark now I focused on keeping us in a straight line. The going was not easy but I hurried my girlfriend along by dragging her by the hand. We zigged and zagged in and around the forest trees. Back behind us I could hear the snapping of branches, possibly trees. The shortcut hadn’t fooled it. The thing was behind us. It was getting so dark I had to stop and fish a flashlight out of the backpack. We each took a drink from the canteen and then pressed onward through the thick forest. I knew the creature was making up time on us now. Its breathing was becoming more labored but it was also becoming louder which told me it was getting closer still. I thought I could see its eyes, glowing red, dancing in and out of view most likely due to the trees separating us. Finally we catapulted out of the thick forest onto the trail that led to our vehicle. Both of us broke into a run. Behind was the unmistakable snapping of trees and branches. Now I could hear it snarling between breaths. My girlfriend had stopped sobbing and was in a full-on sprint for her life. I was right behind. The creature probably just a football field behind us now. Every once in a while I would risk turning around and glancing behind us. I couldn’t tell if the creature was still keeping the same stride or if it was coming faster. I definitely could see its red eyes moving through the darkness, coming toward us in a very deliberate manner, snarling and growling. Finally we reached the parking lot, not slowing in the least until we had reached the car. I held onto my backpack out the window until we had put a couple of miles between us and that parking lot. I stopped when I thought we had enough distance it couldn’t catch us and opened up the back of the SUV to place my backpack inside. Just as I was closing the back door I heard something in the darkness behind us running. I didn’t hang around to hear if it was coming toward or away from us. I just bolted back into the driver’s seat and smashed that gas pedal down. The End | |