Alone on the Ridge: A Midnight Mystery in Washington’s Backcountry

<v Speaker 1>This would have been back in two thousand and eight.
<v Speaker 1>I was working in Washington outside of Walla, Walla, and
<v Speaker 1>it would have been in August. It's heading towards ball
<v Speaker 1>and archery season was coming up. I'm a Montana boy,
<v Speaker 1>so I grew up hunting. I grew up on a
<v Speaker 1>farming ranch kind of in the middle of nowhere. I
<v Speaker 1>was looking forward to getting out. It's the Blue mountains
<v Speaker 1>there in Washington, and I need to get out, and
<v Speaker 1>I need to do some pre season scouting. If you're
<v Speaker 1>not a hunter, scouting, it's just simply trying to locate
<v Speaker 1>the animals you hope to hunt. In Washington. This was
<v Speaker 1>going to be really important because the archery season was
<v Speaker 1>pretty short. I think it was the better part of
<v Speaker 1>like maybe a week ten days. And so I go
<v Speaker 1>to a map and kind of the way I round
<v Speaker 1>out on where I'm gonna hunt is I try to
<v Speaker 1>find places that are sort of inaccessible to the mainstream
<v Speaker 1>traffic flow of people. Typically that's where I have luck
<v Speaker 1>finding animals. They're going to be where humans aren't. So
<v Speaker 1>I found a spot. I of course got out of
<v Speaker 1>town late. I was working a job at that time.
<v Speaker 1>It was kind of a week on week off stretch.
<v Speaker 1>So I ended up driving up into the mountains and
<v Speaker 1>it was getting into the afternoon. I wasn't particularly thrilled
<v Speaker 1>about that, because I really wanted to be able to
<v Speaker 1>kind of drive the roads and find out where logging
<v Speaker 1>roads were gated, where they were open, and just kind
<v Speaker 1>of further refine that access question, where are people getting
<v Speaker 1>into and where can I get? As I was driving
<v Speaker 1>up there and watching the clock and the sunset, I
<v Speaker 1>just knew I didn't have time to really do that.
<v Speaker 1>I couldn't spend the time I needed to really investigate
<v Speaker 1>the roads. So I called an alternate in my head
<v Speaker 1>that that's fine. I'll just get up kind of in
<v Speaker 1>the general area I looked at on a map, and
<v Speaker 1>I'll stop and I'll just hide. Scouting isn't just seeing animals.
<v Speaker 1>You're looking for sign You're looking for feed, you're looking
<v Speaker 1>for water. You're looking for the habitat that's going to
<v Speaker 1>support your animals and hopefully signs thereof So I park
<v Speaker 1>on the side of this logging road, I just take
<v Speaker 1>off bushwhack and immediately I don't follow any trails. I
<v Speaker 1>just cut down this steep terrain and cross through this
<v Speaker 1>bottom and kind of start climbing up the other side.
<v Speaker 1>The whole time again I'm looking for all these signs
<v Speaker 1>of animals or no signs, and then I can rule
<v Speaker 1>this area out. It was a little bit shocking because
<v Speaker 1>the vegetation was so much more thick than what I'm
<v Speaker 1>used to from the Montana Mountains. Like it's this isn't
<v Speaker 1>coastal Washington, but it's obviously getting a lot more rainfall
<v Speaker 1>than I'm used to, So it's essentially green ferns and
<v Speaker 1>plants from about my calves down on about every step.
<v Speaker 1>But I'm still I'm not finding any game trails, and
<v Speaker 1>I'm losing light rather quick. I don't get to hype
<v Speaker 1>that far before I'm coming up the other ridge, and
<v Speaker 1>I'm running out of time, and I've got to set
<v Speaker 1>up camp for the night. And again this is just
<v Speaker 1>a solo trip. I'm packing pretty light. I've just got
<v Speaker 1>minimal food, water, very little light. You know, I'm just
<v Speaker 1>not playing to do much other than just look around,
<v Speaker 1>and so the most important thing at this stage is
<v Speaker 1>probably water and binoculars. So I get up on this ridge,
<v Speaker 1>I find a cleared off ridge where I can set
<v Speaker 1>up my tent. I don't have a whole lot of time,
<v Speaker 1>so I'm kind of in a rush to get this
<v Speaker 1>set up. But I still I get everything set and
<v Speaker 1>then I have a moment to eat a light snack
<v Speaker 1>for dinner. Been drinking a lot of water, you know,
<v Speaker 1>this whole time, just making sure I'm hydrated, making sure
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to have a good evening. And I see
<v Speaker 1>one dough come out. She actually comes out not far
<v Speaker 1>from where I had originally parked. When I look back across,
<v Speaker 1>and she kind of stepped out into the road that
<v Speaker 1>I drove on, and then to hang out very long,
<v Speaker 1>and she almost took off, almost startled, didn't want to
<v Speaker 1>be there, And I thought, oh, that's kind of funny,
<v Speaker 1>like obviously that road muscu some traffic and she's used
<v Speaker 1>to that. It's not what I'm there to hunt. I'm
<v Speaker 1>trying to find out, so it's not a big deal
<v Speaker 1>to me. Call it quits and I go to bed early.
<v Speaker 1>Ideas I got to get up early because animals are
<v Speaker 1>going to be most active first light. And last night
<v Speaker 1>I hit the bunk and I'm out. I'm sure I
<v Speaker 1>was in bed by probably ten o'clock at the latest.
<v Speaker 1>Fast forward boom. I just wake up at a start,
<v Speaker 1>like not cold sweat, but I need to just full
<v Speaker 1>wide away and my head is just pounding. The instant
<v Speaker 1>I wake up, I hear this weird animal call. I
<v Speaker 1>just I don't even have really the ability or capacity
<v Speaker 1>to focus on that, because my head is just like
<v Speaker 1>splitting apart. Like I have this pain I've never experienced before.
<v Speaker 1>I've never experienced it since It's just like this pulsing pain.
<v Speaker 1>It was like a throb that would build it like
<v Speaker 1>a pulse pain, pulse a little harder. It do that
<v Speaker 1>maybe three, four or five times. It just kind of
<v Speaker 1>each time was just more and more into The last
<v Speaker 1>one was just unbearable, and then it would reset, it'd
<v Speaker 1>start again. Get this straight. I'm on this ridgetop middle
<v Speaker 1>of the mountains. There's no one near me. I'm by myself,
<v Speaker 1>and my head is just splitting apart, and I have
<v Speaker 1>no idea why again there's this call going off, But
<v Speaker 1>I just I tell myself, like, you can't focus on that,
<v Speaker 1>you know, And I'm kind of I'm uncomfortable with it
<v Speaker 1>because I don't know what it is, but I know
<v Speaker 1>I don't have the capacity to focus on it. I
<v Speaker 1>got to solve me right now. I know I'm not dehydrated.
<v Speaker 1>I knew that I was very careful on my hydration.
<v Speaker 1>I mean I was overhydrated. I made sure I was
<v Speaker 1>drinking water. I made sure that I had my electrolytes.
<v Speaker 1>It's definitely not dehydration. And it's like, what else could
<v Speaker 1>it be? And I'm trying to stay calm. I'm trying
<v Speaker 1>to stay collect because I'm by myself. I've been in
<v Speaker 1>this position many times where I'm by myself in the woods.
<v Speaker 1>I've never had this sort of instance, but you know,
<v Speaker 1>things can happen and you've got to be prepared, and
<v Speaker 1>so I'm trying to figure it out if I I'm
<v Speaker 1>realizing that I feel like I'm short of breath, and
<v Speaker 1>I thought, okay, so that's something I really focus on
<v Speaker 1>some breathing techniques and I'm doing my best to you know,
<v Speaker 1>breathe out, breathe in, try to make sure I'm getting
<v Speaker 1>the right amount of oxygen into myself. And maybe that's
<v Speaker 1>what's causing this. And I'm having a little luck, but
<v Speaker 1>really not much like that. Pain is just still doing
<v Speaker 1>that pulsing build, pulsing build, then just snacks you and
<v Speaker 1>then starts over it, and finally it doesn't really get better.
<v Speaker 1>But I've gotten used to it enough to where I
<v Speaker 1>can acknowledge what it is. It's not something I'm used to,
<v Speaker 1>but I'm to a point where it's not going away,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm just trying to deal with it. And at
<v Speaker 1>that point I let my mind start to focus in
<v Speaker 1>on this animal just been calling this whole time. And
<v Speaker 1>when I say calling, you know, obviously animals make calls.
<v Speaker 1>Growing up how I did, I did a lot of
<v Speaker 1>animal calling. I got into pastor hunting when I was
<v Speaker 1>a young kid. I called my first coyote in when
<v Speaker 1>I was ten years old. When I got into big
<v Speaker 1>game hunting, especially archery, I got into elk calling. You know,
<v Speaker 1>if you're calling elk, you're calling coyote, you're calling dear.
<v Speaker 1>It's all about mimicking those calls. It's all about understanding
<v Speaker 1>their language. And the best advice, like I received when
<v Speaker 1>I was learning as a kid, is not just trying
<v Speaker 1>to mimic, but trying to put in the emotion of
<v Speaker 1>a call. That's so critical. And any of your listeners
<v Speaker 1>who are hunters and do good call like they understand
<v Speaker 1>that it's that emotion that really can sell an animal,
<v Speaker 1>Like if I really put a distress into a rabbit leat,
<v Speaker 1>that's going to sound so much more attractive to a
<v Speaker 1>kyote than if I'm just strictly trying to mimic the sound.
<v Speaker 1>I particularly like calling elk. There's nothing like it in
<v Speaker 1>the world. If you can get a bull elk to
<v Speaker 1>come in on the fight, it's next level. There's a
<v Speaker 1>lot of things with elk that apply to what I'm
<v Speaker 1>trying to figure out. That it's called that's is booming
<v Speaker 1>outside my tent. When I hear a bugle in the woods,
<v Speaker 1>or even if you're out working cattle, like you have
<v Speaker 1>an immediate idea of the animal you're dealing with, both
<v Speaker 1>his size and disposition based on his call. A younger,
<v Speaker 1>smaller bill, he's just incapable of those heavy bass notes
<v Speaker 1>in his bugle. Even domestic beef pals. You know, bulls,
<v Speaker 1>if you listen to them, the bigger bulls definitely have
<v Speaker 1>that bigger base. And you know, I think this is
<v Speaker 1>just attributed to their size. They've got that bigger vocal chamber,
<v Speaker 1>they have all that heavy muscle through their neck to
<v Speaker 1>reverberate the sound, and all that additional testosterone from being
<v Speaker 1>the bowl that's been around, and so when you hear
<v Speaker 1>a bugle, you have a pretty good idea what you're
<v Speaker 1>dealing with. One of the things that's real great with
<v Speaker 1>the elk bugle is that lead up right before he
<v Speaker 1>goes into his whistle. Is if he's on the fight,
<v Speaker 1>and I mean you, you've cut him off with your
<v Speaker 1>calls and you've got him to the point where he's
<v Speaker 1>just fighting. Man, Like I've had a rip rush up
<v Speaker 1>right in front of me, tear up dirt and they're
<v Speaker 1>just on the fight. At the start of their bugle,
<v Speaker 1>they'll do what's called we call it a growl. It's
<v Speaker 1>just this deep grumble and build up to that bugle.
<v Speaker 1>The growl is so cool. And when you first hear it,
<v Speaker 1>especially like as I did as a young mounts like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>that's awesome, I'm going to do that. And you know,
<v Speaker 1>I got on a couple of elk one time, a
<v Speaker 1>couple of younger bulls, and I'm like, I'm gonna I'm
<v Speaker 1>going to use this great knowledge, and you know, I
<v Speaker 1>threw out this nice growley bugle and it was like
<v Speaker 1>hitting him with a hot shot, like they couldn't get
<v Speaker 1>away from me fast enough, because I probably sounded like
<v Speaker 1>something that was going to just hit their butts and
<v Speaker 1>eat their lunch, like they that had no interest in
<v Speaker 1>me at that point, Whereas if you sound like a
<v Speaker 1>little weaker bowl that I've had, those satellites come in like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>here's somebody who can kick the crap out of them.
<v Speaker 1>So it's you got to have a passion in your call. Now.
<v Speaker 1>All that said, I'm just kind of giving you an
<v Speaker 1>idea of like, I'm pretty familiar with how these animals
<v Speaker 1>talk and their emotions, and that's really important and something
<v Speaker 1>I really enjoy it. And this call it's just sounding off,
<v Speaker 1>and I mean it is. You can set your watch
<v Speaker 1>to it. It's just repetitive, and it's starting off with
<v Speaker 1>this growl. It's just this throwady beat Day's growl, and
<v Speaker 1>then it's proceeding into these whoops, and it's doing three
<v Speaker 1>or four of them in a row, and then stop
<v Speaker 1>and then immediately growl, whoop, growl, whoop. When I finally
<v Speaker 1>focus in on this sound and I'm giving it by
<v Speaker 1>full attention, I realize a couple of things. One, this
<v Speaker 1>is no animal that I know of in the Northwest Woods,
<v Speaker 1>and I've hunted and killed everything that I can now grant.
<v Speaker 1>I've never got to kill a moose, sheep, or goat
<v Speaker 1>because I can't draw the permit. But I've talked with loose,
<v Speaker 1>I've called loose and played with them. I've called him elk.
<v Speaker 1>I've killed them. I've called in deer, I've killed them,
<v Speaker 1>i have called in kidanes. I know my animals. I've
<v Speaker 1>dealt with them, I've hunted, I've killed them. I'm not
<v Speaker 1>saying they can't make a sound. I've never heard that.
<v Speaker 1>This is not any of them, so I know it's
<v Speaker 1>nothing I don't and that's concerning. And I also know
<v Speaker 1>just in my head, just immediately it pops up that
<v Speaker 1>this is about a nine hundred pounds animal. And you
<v Speaker 1>could say, how do you know that, I'd say that
<v Speaker 1>comes a lot from working cattle as well as the elk,
<v Speaker 1>counting that just that size, like I said in earlier,
<v Speaker 1>that vocal chamber size that's required to get that big base.
<v Speaker 1>And if you want a visual of this, like go
<v Speaker 1>through a sporting good store and look at ELP bugles
<v Speaker 1>and you'll see kind of like these little pack bugles,
<v Speaker 1>but you'll see the bugles that they'll sell for like
<v Speaker 1>trying to mimic bigger elk. They're big bugles, right, they're
<v Speaker 1>big sound chambers, you know. I suppose that's why a
<v Speaker 1>tuba is bigger than a trumpet, right, It's got this
<v Speaker 1>bigger chamber to it. So I just kind of immediately
<v Speaker 1>recognize nothing of an animal I'm aware of, and a
<v Speaker 1>good nine hundred pounds or so, and this thing is
<v Speaker 1>just continually going on. I mean, it will not shut up.
<v Speaker 1>And now it's kind of helping out with the pain
<v Speaker 1>because now I'm focused in on this sound and I
<v Speaker 1>can't really give it out of my head because you
<v Speaker 1>won't shut up. And I'm laying there in just absolute misery,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm realizing I fought it for probably I think
<v Speaker 1>it's about forty minutes. This was a while back, but
<v Speaker 1>I remember laying there for a long time. I finally
<v Speaker 1>just realized, like, I am not sleeping tonight. This isn't
<v Speaker 1>gonna work. I'm not sure what my medical condition is,
<v Speaker 1>you know, maybe this is something more serious than I
<v Speaker 1>wanted to believe. Maybe it's some weird stroke. I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 1>So I finally come to terms with like I think
<v Speaker 1>I need to leave. Like I said, this is eight
<v Speaker 1>and I don't have a smartphone. I do have a
<v Speaker 1>garden GPS, and luckily it did have some kind of
<v Speaker 1>crude naps. At the time, we didn't think that. We
<v Speaker 1>thought it was pretty awesome, but compared to what we
<v Speaker 1>have now and you know, it's pretty creative. But I
<v Speaker 1>pull it up and I turn it on and I
<v Speaker 1>realized that I had crossed this deep draw where I'd
<v Speaker 1>parked on top, and there was a logging road that
<v Speaker 1>kind of circled around the edge of this kind of
<v Speaker 1>in a big bowl, and it was actually just above me,
<v Speaker 1>and I only had to hike up a little ways
<v Speaker 1>further and I'd catch this old logging room and I
<v Speaker 1>can actually hike that around back to where my truck is.
<v Speaker 1>So that was a huge relief because I just bushwaped.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't follow any trails or nothing. And the vegetation,
<v Speaker 1>for you minever, it was like it was so thick
<v Speaker 1>that I knew I was going to have a hard
<v Speaker 1>time going back because underneath all of that green growth
<v Speaker 1>that's up to you know, my means pretty much is
<v Speaker 1>a lot of deadfall, a lot of snags. Not something
<v Speaker 1>you want to do in the dark, and I just
<v Speaker 1>know that's not going to work. So I make up
<v Speaker 1>my mind that I'm going to hike up to this
<v Speaker 1>road and I'm going to walk this road back. Now.
<v Speaker 1>The only hesitation I have on this whole plan as
<v Speaker 1>if this road is going to lead me directly at
<v Speaker 1>this call, this still going on. You know, that was
<v Speaker 1>not something I really wanted to do, but I kind
<v Speaker 1>of just had to come to terms with, like, this
<v Speaker 1>is it. This is my only real option here. So
<v Speaker 1>I pack up real quick. Luckily, you know, I didn't
<v Speaker 1>bring much with me, so it wasn't hard to stuff
<v Speaker 1>everything in the pack. And I only have one little
<v Speaker 1>headlamp because I wasn't really planning on doing anything. Now.
<v Speaker 1>I did have a nineteen eleven forty five and it's
<v Speaker 1>not great for bears. I would never recommend it, but
<v Speaker 1>it's all I had at the time, and so I
<v Speaker 1>had it with me. It was a nicer model, had
<v Speaker 1>trenty and night sights, so the open site's actually glow
<v Speaker 1>in the dark. So just for such an occasion, right,
<v Speaker 1>I can actually see my sights in the dark. The
<v Speaker 1>way I was raised and brought up, like we never
<v Speaker 1>chamber around even when I'm hunting. A lot of people
<v Speaker 1>chamber around when you're hunting. I never do. I hunt
<v Speaker 1>with an empty bower, and when I see an animal,
<v Speaker 1>I load and I shoot. If you don't think that's possible,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I'm telling you it works. You just have
<v Speaker 1>to be mindful of what you're doing. But just how
<v Speaker 1>I was raised, but it's also when you're raised like that,
<v Speaker 1>it's natural and it's hard not to follow that. And
<v Speaker 1>so for me to conceal carry is always really challenging
<v Speaker 1>because you kind of need things loaded. I don't like
<v Speaker 1>a loaded gun when I'm hiking and walking unless I'm
<v Speaker 1>going to shoot something. But I was so unnerved by
<v Speaker 1>this event that I racked around in the chamber of
<v Speaker 1>this nineteen eleven and I gripped it in my hand,
<v Speaker 1>and I started hiking this road and I'm walking towards
<v Speaker 1>this call. So I've got this loaded pistol in my hand,
<v Speaker 1>which completely unlike me, Like I'm not enjoying this at all,
<v Speaker 1>Like I'm not comfortable doing that, but I just feel
<v Speaker 1>like I don't have a choice, and I'm walking towards
<v Speaker 1>this sound, this animal that just keeps calling. I started
<v Speaker 1>off my campus about six hundred yards from where this was.
<v Speaker 1>I went back and measured it all, and you know,
<v Speaker 1>I'm closing the distance, and I'm pretty much walking straight
<v Speaker 1>at it. And I get to about probably a little
<v Speaker 1>over halfway there. I'm probably closing close to two hundred
<v Speaker 1>yards from this sound, and I mean it is loud,
<v Speaker 1>it is big, and it is unnerving, and then it
<v Speaker 1>just cuts out complete silence. You know, as much as
<v Speaker 1>that should have been a relief, it really bothers me
<v Speaker 1>now even more because now I don't know where the
<v Speaker 1>hell it is. As I get there, the way, this
<v Speaker 1>road kind of loops under kind of hard to explain,
<v Speaker 1>but this dry cross like it kind of comes up
<v Speaker 1>into a bowl and this road cuts around me. Well,
<v Speaker 1>this call is coming from above the road as I'm walking,
<v Speaker 1>and I start to kind of walk through this curve
<v Speaker 1>in the road through the top of this bowl. This
<v Speaker 1>sound now would have been coming just from the timber
<v Speaker 1>above me, like we're talking maybe fifty hundred yards. Ah. Boy,
<v Speaker 1>I just it did not feel right. I felt like
<v Speaker 1>I was being watched. I had a lot of anxiety.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure some of it was just simply that call
<v Speaker 1>was so crazy, but I definitely did not feel right.
<v Speaker 1>So I'm walking and I'm gripping that forty five and
<v Speaker 1>my headlamp is not very bright, and I'm I can
<v Speaker 1>and I just feel like my like eyes are on me.
<v Speaker 1>Now I've I've got through the corner and I'm walking
<v Speaker 1>to my truck and now it's sourced my back and
<v Speaker 1>it was really hard not to keep trying to turn
<v Speaker 1>around and look and again, granted, this whole time, my
<v Speaker 1>head is still doing this throbbing, aching pain thing. It's
<v Speaker 1>just crazy. And I finally catch a glimpse of my truck,
<v Speaker 1>so I'm walking over to it. And the peak terror
<v Speaker 1>was when I had to like give up my guard
<v Speaker 1>to focus on getting into my truck with my back
<v Speaker 1>to this direction of where this call was, where all
<v Speaker 1>this feeling was. Boy, that was really unnerving, you know.
<v Speaker 1>I had I pretty much had to make myself a
<v Speaker 1>hard or some vulnerable just to get into my truck.
<v Speaker 1>I remember just like keep it together. I like rehearsing
<v Speaker 1>in my brain because I knew it was not going
<v Speaker 1>to be fun what to do, and I just kind
<v Speaker 1>of had it all mapped out exactly the quickest way
<v Speaker 1>into my truck, and so I do and I you know.
<v Speaker 1>I throw my pack I think, in the back and
<v Speaker 1>right into the truck as fast as I can, and
<v Speaker 1>luckily the F one fifty fire right up, and I
<v Speaker 1>take off the way this road was laid out, It
<v Speaker 1>wasn't very long, and I'm dropping altitude. I think I
<v Speaker 1>was camping only at like fifty five hundred elevation, because
<v Speaker 1>one of the ideas I had was maybe this was
<v Speaker 1>like altitude sickness, which it's hard for me to believe that.
<v Speaker 1>Like I said, I'm from Montana, I hundred eight thousand feet.
<v Speaker 1>I've never had any issues like this before, it never
<v Speaker 1>had since. But whatever make of it, I drop out
<v Speaker 1>of the mountains, getting lower and lower, and the headache resolves,
<v Speaker 1>the breathing resolves, and now I'm just completely stuck with
<v Speaker 1>just the memory of what the hell was that? Like
<v Speaker 1>any good country where I've got some elk diaphragm calls
<v Speaker 1>in my mid console, so I pull one out and
<v Speaker 1>I just start doing that call that I heard. I
<v Speaker 1>start mimicking it till I got it, and I'm just
<v Speaker 1>doing it again and again, like what could that be?
<v Speaker 1>I can't remember how long of a drive it is
<v Speaker 1>back to town. An hour and a half maybe or something.
<v Speaker 1>But like that whole drive, I'm just rehearsing this call
<v Speaker 1>again and again and a gigs. I'm like, I don't
<v Speaker 1>want to get it wrong. I don't want to forget it.
<v Speaker 1>It's freshing my brain, obviously, And so I get home
<v Speaker 1>and it's it's pretty late. I get on the computer.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think there that was anything as special as
<v Speaker 1>it is now, but I start googling, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>I got to listen to Washington bird sounds and that's
<v Speaker 1>probably on some autumn on Society whatever websites, and I'm listening,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, big shocker, but there's not really any
<v Speaker 1>birds over there in the eastern Washington that I haven't
<v Speaker 1>encountered in Montana. So I'm not finding any candidates that
<v Speaker 1>I can even imagine are responsible for this, even though
<v Speaker 1>you know, at this point, I just kind of know
<v Speaker 1>that's a pipe dream, but I'm trying to sell myself
<v Speaker 1>on it. You know, I just had this leg and
<v Speaker 1>suspicion in the back of my head, and finally I
<v Speaker 1>think I put it in Google, something like whooping sounds
<v Speaker 1>and blue mountains or something. You're in Washington. Sure enough,
<v Speaker 1>these websites come up and they're all about bigfoot. I
<v Speaker 1>saw a link to a sound file and it's about
<v Speaker 1>like a bigfoots and I clicked on that. I'm telling
<v Speaker 1>you my blood round. I mean, I sat there listening
<v Speaker 1>is moving sound that I just had a quarter.
<v Speaker 2>Mile from my tent, just loud, everything loud. Did I
<v Speaker 2>see anything?
<v Speaker 1>No? Can I say that that website had recorded bigfoot sounds? Well,
<v Speaker 1>I guess they're recording what they thought was bigfoot. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, but again I can tell you it's nothing.
<v Speaker 1>I know is probably eight nine pound animal to have
<v Speaker 1>a voice like that, You know. I did a lot
<v Speaker 1>of thinking about this after the fact. Of course, can't
<v Speaker 1>help but reflect on these things. And I went up
<v Speaker 1>that same spot probably a week later, actually hiked up
<v Speaker 1>to where I thought that sound was coming from. I
<v Speaker 1>couldn't find anything again that that vegetation is so thick
<v Speaker 1>in those woods. It's just it's so different, like you
<v Speaker 1>can't even see the dirt on the ground, so like,
<v Speaker 1>I couldn't tell tracks. Everything was so soft and a
<v Speaker 1>lot of shit just I don't know how long you
<v Speaker 1>could be able to find tracks, but it certainly I
<v Speaker 1>wasn't able to find anything at that point, and I
<v Speaker 1>can't again, not in that same spot, but probably a
<v Speaker 1>mile from there later, because I actually did find Elk
<v Speaker 1>not too far from there. But I thought about it
<v Speaker 1>a lot, and one of the things I come up
<v Speaker 1>with is one of my banes of existence is a
<v Speaker 1>terrible snor. I've been known to probably challenge at Chainsaw
<v Speaker 1>some nights. I think what happened was is I think
<v Speaker 1>I went to bed and I bet you I was
<v Speaker 1>snoring up a storm, and I think I pissed this
<v Speaker 1>thing off. I think he heard my snore as a challenge,
<v Speaker 1>because what I was hearing from him was a challenge.
<v Speaker 1>Call it a territorial challenge call. Like you'll hear that
<v Speaker 1>from the big bull Elk. You'll hear that from Mayo
<v Speaker 1>Kyo to him when they're saying this is my territory,
<v Speaker 1>They're going to do a challenge howl bart you know
<v Speaker 1>there there. It's aggressive, it's mean, and it's telling everyone
<v Speaker 1>else around this place is mine, Get the hell out.
<v Speaker 1>And I think that's what I was listening to. Is
<v Speaker 1>I think I was listening to a challenge call, and
<v Speaker 1>I bet you I sent him off with my snoring.
<v Speaker 1>I have never figured out what the sickness was. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know if that was you know, I've heard some
<v Speaker 1>talk of like infrasound. I don't think that could have
<v Speaker 1>been it. I really don't know. To this day, I
<v Speaker 1>don't have a good answer. I'd never experienced anything like it.
<v Speaker 1>But I'm pretty convinced that I ran into something that's
<v Speaker 1>not supposed to be out there, not what they claim
<v Speaker 1>is out there, and I think my store and set
<v Speaker 1>them off. It's one hundred percent changed my opinion of
<v Speaker 1>what's out there. I mean, I never disbelieved that there
<v Speaker 1>could be something, because I've been in the woods enough
<v Speaker 1>to know that there's all kinds of a room for
<v Speaker 1>things out there. But I know it's nothing that I'm
<v Speaker 1>aware of.