The following is my journal entry from my June 29, 2010 expedition. It was written upon my return from the trip.
Upon returning from my overnighter on the Skokomish River, I found an interesting email awaiting me. My friends over in the BFRO sent me a recent sighting report that they wanted me to look into. Apparently a woman saw a sasquatch run across the road outside of Molalla, OR just the previous Friday, June 18th. The email contained the witness contact information, so I gave her a ring and arranged to meet her a little later that same day.
The previous day’s efforts to obtain a footprint cast had been thwarted, so I was excited to have another opportunity to possibly obtain such a prize. It had only been three days, and this time the witness would be taking me to the exact location.
Upon returning from my overnighter on the Skokomish River, I found an interesting email awaiting me. My friends over at the BFRO sent me a recent sighting report that they wanted me to look into. Apparently a woman saw a sasquatch run across the road outside of Molalla, OR just the previous Friday, June 18th. The email contained the witness contact information, so I gave her a ring and arranged to meet her a little later that same day.
The previous day’s efforts to obtain a footprint cast had been unsuccessful, so I was excited to have another opportunity to possibly obtain such a prize. It had only been three days, and this time the witness would be taking me to the exact location. There was a reasonable hope for footprints.
Her story is that at about 12:30 pm she was turning a corner in the road when something big moving through the brush caught her eye up on the steep embankment on the south side of the road at a distance of approximately 100 yards. When she initially saw it, she could see something large and yellowish/brown moving towards her, parallel to the road. It stopped for a brief moment, and she did the same out of shock at the size of whatever this was she was looking at. Her car was brought nearly to a standstill.
.
She then saw the thing turn towards the road and run down the steep hill very quickly. As it ran the witness could clearly see two long arms swinging widely, and the thing was running on two legs. The creature disappeared from her sight temporarily behind some brush, and the witness moved her vehicle ahead to change the angle and get a better look at it.. She lost sight of the creature for only a few moments
When she came around the corner the sasquatch had already made it across the road and had disappeared from view. The witness sped up to try to close the distance so she could see it again. She caught sight of it as she nearly passed it. It was standing a short distance down the embankment on the north side of the road. She could see it from the middle of the back to the top of its head. Its left arm was touching a branch which it broke as it moved downhill past the tree it was growing from. This portion of her sighting was from a very short distance, perhaps 40 feet.
The embankments were muddy and steep, estimated to be at least a 50 degree slope. In several spots the soft ground gave way and slid out from under me as I stood on the hillside. I eventually located large, 15-inch impressions in a line leading down the hillside. As muddy as the hillside was, the impressions had little definition to them. Bewildered, I looked at my own tracks as I left them and noticed that even my boot prints were only vaguely defined and did not leave the impression of the treads in the ground. The witness and I located several more of these large impressions on both sides of the road.
She pointed out the branch that the creature broke as it passed downhill from where she saw it next to the road. It was fresh and appeared to be just a few days old.
From there, we went downhill towards the river, but found no other sign of its passing. It was a rough road to travel that turned up nothing but mud, deer bedding sites, and lots of pokey brambles that obstructed most paths.
A little more time was spent looking around for something interesting, but we turned up nothing. Before long we went our separate ways.
Update:
The witness had the opportunity to participate in an episode of Finding Bigfoot when we filmed in Molalla for the first season of the show. Ranae, of course, didn’t think she saw a sasquatch. Matt also had doubts for various reasons. I am completely sure she saw something that left 15-inch footprints down a muddy slope and in the leaf litter on the other side of the road. Matt and Ranae also said something about the broken branch not being believable, but I was on scene just a few days after the event and the broken branch seemed consistent with her story to me.
I believe the witness and found physical evidence to back up her story.