Sasquatch Country

Sasquatch Country

by

Thom Cantrall

            It was spring, though one could not have proven it by the weather this day.  The sun had not made an appearance and actually showed little intention to do so.  It was not snowing but it was on the edge of it in this far north land.

We were there, just the two of us, to investigate an anomaly my friend Lori had discovered at her far North Cascades research area.  She had inherited this area from her father who has passed on.  As a youngster, she spent many hours and many days in this land of her father.  He was avid in his pursuit of knowledge of our large friends… a trait that passed down to his daughter.

The week prior, I had talked to Lori in depth concerning this anomaly and was determined to get there to see what it was all about.  She told me that she was getting communications from from underground in one area and was in a quandary as to how to proceed.  Further questioning revealed that she felt she was getting answers to questions she asked in the form of knocks under two great fir trees that grew side by side and were quite large.  She said that the replies would the entire tree vibrate sufficiently to be felt easily by placing her had on the bole of the tree.

I knew that this was a region of granite and, as such, it was quite possible there were voids of considerable size in the area.  Even areas as large as livable caves occurred in granite formations.  While not as prone to caves as limestone, they nonetheless occurred all over these mountains.

When working as an engineer I had experience with the use of ground penetrating radar to determine what lay below the surface in a particular area, and it was my goal to locate such a unit and to a subsurface survey in the vicinity of those two large firs trees.  To effect this, I started contacting rental companies from my home in eastern Washington to Seattle and north to Mount Vernon and Burlington.  Nowhere was such a unit to be found.  Most had no idea what I was even talking about and those that did had no clue as to how to find one.  A few offered me leads as to who might have such a unit, primarily those who specialized in engineering supply rentals.  Unfortunately, all such leads failed to produce the desired result and I arrived on site without the equipment I wished to use, but with a great hope that I could find an alternative to discover the strata below.

On arriving on site, Lori and I spent hours investigating the area even to the point of doing a video record of our efforts.  We were rewarded with very fine responses to oral questions we asked of whatever was providing us the impetus to do this work.  Lori kept this two hour video on her Youtube channel for quite some time.  There were very definite audio records captured on that file.  Often, the subject would rattle the giant trees with what I discerned to be physical rapping on the root system of the great trees.  My forestry degree helped me to understand the physiology and morphology of the trees in question and my engineering experience allowed me to formulate certain theories as to what was happening here.

I returned to this site on multiple occasions to continue our investigations and was never discouraged by lack of response from our subject.  Never once did he fail to respond to us.  Some days were less active than others.  Quite often the still, calm days were the most active with those days of wilder weather being the least active.

I can offer not definitive answer to this phenomenon.  I only know we have heard and recorded sound emanations from beneath the two large twin fir trees that were the subject of our scrutiny.  On subsequent visits, I did, finally, find what could well be the entrance to an underground network.  I did not enter this entrance, I merely cataloged  that it existed and surmised that it  was used by our resident.  I have never shown this entrance to any of those who accompanied us to this area, and there have been several to do so.  It is not to anyone’s advantage that they should know this and it could be very detrimental to the subjects.

In the early summer of 2012, I was informed that the team from Extreme Expeditions was going to be on hand to investigate this area.  Lori had invited them to attend the area and she then invited me to join them in camp for the first week of September 2012.  To make this happen, I arranged with my daughter, Ronda, to travel with me on the Friday prior to Labor Day.  We left home early and traveled via Wenatchee and the towns of Twisp and Winthrop across the North Cascades Highway to the junction of the Cascade River and the Skagit River were we left the highway and pointed our way back into the mountains in the direction of the North Cascades National Park, stopping before we actually reached that position.

Ronda and I were the first to arrive at our campsite and had an approximate twenty minute wait before the Englander team arrived.  On our initial arrival in camp, Ronda and I  walked around to check formations and to see what was there… to my amazement, I found the most beautiful stick structure in one corner of our camp, very near the bank that leads to the river.  I took several pictures of it and left in intact for the others to see on their arrival.

It was the work of just a few minutes for camp to be set up after the arrival of the team.  Immediately, the team went about the tasks necessary to accomplish the ends they had in mind for this outing.  For me, it was nothing more than a matter of enjoying the mountains for a few days.  I planned to stay thru the holiday weekend and return home on the following Monday.  I was pleasantly surprised by the crew that comprised the team.  I heard of other expeditions they had been on around the world.  Dave took a good deal of time to tell me of his sighting of Orang Pendak while in the jungles of southeast Asia.  Jackie told me of her trip into the Congo to spend time with the Mountain Gorillas of Dian Fossey fame.  All in all, it was a very pleasant weekend.  The team climbed the mountains, hiked the old roads and trails and in all ways did what they could to have an encounter with our Sasquatch friends.  When they hung a game camera in camp, I smiled inwardly but said nothing of the futility of what they were trying to do.

I left camp about midday on Monday, wanting to be home before the traffic wore me down too much.  The drive was uneventful though, had I been traveling west over Interstate 90, towards Seattle instead of east, away from the city, it would have been otherwise.  At one point the westbound traffic was at a dead standstill for many, many miles.  I-90 hand been changed from a highway to a parking lot for all intents and purposes.

I arrived home in great good shape and enjoyed a quiet evening and a good night’s sleep only to be awakened very early Tuesday morning by a phone call from the team I’d left in the North Cascades… “Thom, you have GOT to get back over here as soon as possible… you will not believe what has happened…”  When I questioned them about it, they refused to talk about it on an open link cell phone.  They had traveled from camp into the nearest town to attain service to reach me and didn’t want to discuss it further and all attempts to change this were useless.

I finally arrange to drive the seven hundred and fifty mile round trip on Friday when Ronda could be with me again.  I knew that to attempt it again, alone, without resting would have been a gesture in futility at best and dangerous and life threatening at worst.

Ronda and I arrived back in camp on the assigned day in the late morning with great anticipation.  It would not do for me do more than greet the team before seeing what I was anticipating so anxiously for so many miles.  “What brought me back over here?” I asked Adam directly.  “What has happened here?”

Adam looked at Simon.. Jackie looked and Dave.. Lori, Adam and Sandy all looked at me and grinned slightly… “We had a visitor Monday night…”

“Yes?” I asked.  “And how do we know this?  What kind of evidence did he leave behind?”

Sandy had the chip from the game camera and he loaded it into the laptop and he then brought up the images for me.

While this was happening, Lori explained that she was too restricted in her tent and asked Adam to move her bedroll to the area immediately next to the fire pit and adjacent to the picnic table installed there by the Forest Service.  In the night she had the need to visit the facilities and asked Adam to escort her to the outhouse and back so she would not have to make the trip alone.  After accomplishing those items she needed to complete, she returned to her bedroll and crawled deeply into it.  Adam had moved his bed adjacent to Lori’s so they were firmly ensconced on the ground immediately between the table and the fire pit.

First, I saw images of Adam and Lori as they had left their beds and exited from the view of the camera.  There were multiple, sequential frames exposed that clearly showed them leave and return to their beds.  It was clearly evident that the camera was working properly and recording moving images as designed.  At this point, I was somewhat puzzled as to where this scenario was going when Sandy, the technical expert on the team, said, “Now, look at this…”

What I saw next was exquisite… there were two frames showing… the first showed a white colored creature kneeling down at the end of the two sleeper’s beds!  He was huge.  Analysis showed him to be at least seven feet and possibly over eight feet tall.  The second frame showed the same being, still kneeling, but in a more vertical posture with his head erect.  In this second frame his exhalation was clearly visible in the cold, night air.  I looked at these two frames in amazement and asked about the frames showing him moving into the position and those that showed him leaving… and was told there were none!  Somehow, this big guy eluded detection by the camera on his way in and again on his way out!

Why he allowed the two frames that were recorded, I have absolutely NO IDEA… I could not even begin to hazard a guess.  For some perverse, sasquatch generated reason, there are two very good frames with absolutely NOTHING before or after.

The next task was to set about analyzing the figure in the photograph.  Since his position is irrefutable and not subject to misunderstanding or misinterpretation our task was minor.  Further, the Forest Service picnic table is not moveable.  It is rigidly installed in position.  It is measurable and  constant.  It is not difficult to arrive at some conclusions.

First, Dave, the largest person in camp before my arrival was placed in precisely the same place as the subject occupied in the frames.  A photograph was then taken from the same position as the tree mounted camera and the images compared.  The contrast is telling.