Wild Escape Guides

(Don’t worry she doesn’t believe in you either)

When I first set out camping in northwest California, I wasn’t looking for Bigfoot. But I ended up finding her, in stories told then and now, and between consciousness – deep in a forest. 

They named her Patty. (That’s my name too, so naturally, I instantly liked her). I suppose she might have been Joe or Steve if it weren’t for the boob flash. Patty became famous when she, gracefully, yet assertively, walked across creek bottom cobble, her tall muscular humanoid physique glistening onto light sensitive celluloid. Its 1967, right here, in the mountains of this camping guide. Film frame 352 winks, Patty looks back over her departing shoulder – Boom – an iconic image is born. 

Here, in NW California, where the image was captured, the icon [and its legend] are larger-than-life. 

It’s easy to see why Patty would like the Klamath Mountains. These woods are thickly forested from river bottom to steep pointy mountain top, with underbrush foliage dense and hideable. Mainly roadless, the miles and miles are for the wild ones, visited only by the occasional backpacker. This is sacred land to the native neighbors. One deep inhale brings recognition that the air here and all that breathe it are permeated with deep spiritual belonging. 

Long before the legendary (and controversial) film footage settled a picture in our minds, oral accounts of large hairy bi-ped forest creatures stretched across time here. Wood apes and wild hairy woodsmen pop up in gold miner yarns and logging camp tales. Stories told with a forest bogeyman flare, seasoning generations of imaginations. 

Take for example the huge human-like foot prints found (not far from the film site) by a road builder ten years prior to Patty’s film debut. Ecstatic about the discovery, the road builder sent a photo to an area newspaper, where it was published with the caption “-it’s called Bigfoot”. The name stuck. Sasquatch lives in the Pacific North West – these woods are the home of Bigfoot. 

The wild man of the woods now had an image and a name. The creature craze caught fire. The footprints and sensational film footage generated from the same forested area sparked an explosion of sightings and “evidence” in the area for the next 20 years. (It’s interesting to note that at the time the USFS was building roads and logging forests farther into the otherwise wild region than ever before; the industrialized activity would be contentious for years to follow.) 

The 1967 film footage and the road builder footprint discovery have long since been debunked as pranks (disputably by many). An act which diluted credibility of physical Bigfoot evidence. Today, in the age of dominant and detrimental human activity, the idea of a huge mammal surviving and doing so undetected, is a hard sell. Despite all this, the region of this camping guide has steady reports of “sightings” (mainly in the form of unidentified vocalizations) – ranking these remote woods the highest in the state for Bigfoot activity.  

In all my wanderings, I’ve never seen Bigfoot or found evidence. But legends are powerful, this one is never far away. There was that one moonless night in a damp May. Nestled in my tent, the spicy perfume of humus saturating the air. I leaned into the deep sleep that comes from the enveloping silence of forests, only it was sluggish to arrive. My night fitful, my mind aware of a “feeling” I couldn’t shake.  Sometime during the wee hours, heavy, yet muffled, foot fall came out of the inky night. For hours I had been imagining dipping a pen into that dark and pulling out drawings of the creatures who lurked within. So, when the large animal “presence” with soft footsteps circled my tent, with no tell-tale huffing like a bear, immediately the iconic image flashed in my mind – Bigfoot! The creature didn’t linger just my racing heart. For a flash I considered unzipping the nylon and snapping on a light. But, a bit of mystery is nice and I let the being walk on. 

The next night over the dying embers of a campfire, hypnotized by the orange glow, pondering, a thought rises with the smoke; Bigfoot bridges a gap between modern man and the wild untamed earth. The primal animal in your human core understands this (whether you believe or not). Truth or fiction, she is an image you see when you need too…an animal guide, a teacher, reflecting the embodiment of the emotion you associate with it, fear, amazement, surprise. 

Yes, Bigfoot lives here. Be open to the mystery, let her find you.