1963 Bluff Creek, CA

Date Location Length Width (ball) Width (heel) Step length (average)

1963

Bluff Creek, CA
15 in
6.5 in
5 in
40 in

Footprints were found on Bluff Creek sandbar a few hundred hards up from the Notice Creek bridge. Photographs were taken and at least one casting was made by Al Hodgson of Willow Creek, CA.

 

Being very familiar with this immediate area, I have to wonder where exactly Bluff Creek sandbar was. I do know it was washed out in the massive 1964 flood and no longer exists.

 

There is a photograph in John Green’s books of this line of footprints in the sand before one was cast. They have been sprinkled with white powder to increase the contrast between the dark sand and the print in the black and white photograph. Alongside the prints is a pair of tin snips for scale. While I do not have a digital copy of the prints in the ground (and they are presumably copyrighted anyways), I do have a photograph of the actual tin snips in the picture.

The cast pictured below is a copy sold at the Willow Creek Museum. It is several generations removed from the original, which is housed in the excellent Willow Creek/China Flats Museum.