I was hiking southbound on the Appalachian Trail from Snickers Gap toward Ashby Gap in
late October.
That's shoulder season.
We fall cold creek water and nights that start earlier than you'd like.
I'd aimed for rod hollow shelter because it sits just far enough off the white blazes
to feel quiet, and because the roller coasters ups sure do give your legs a hard workout.
I just needed a roof and the three-sided windbreak for the night, and rod hollow shelter fit
the bill.
I reached the spur trail near dusk.
The last of the sunlight was fading, and the woods around me had already gone of steel
blue color.
Rod hollow appeared only when I was almost on top of it.
The shelter is made of thick planks making three sides to it with a stone firing in the
front.
Not another soul was there when I arrived.
I did exactly what I always do.
I get my water first.
There was a nearby stream, and I went down and filtered up two liters of water.
Then I gathered up a couple small arm loads of dead and down limbs, making sure to get
the non-smokey pieces.
Dinner that night was a boil in the bag, freeze-dried meal, and a couple cups of instant coffee.
I ate, sitting with my feet out towards the coals.
The wind was light that evening.
When the light was almost gone outside, I packed all the smellable things, the food, the
trash, even my toothpaste.
All of it got packed into a dry bag.
I tied my clean cord, and walked the spur a little further past the shelter up to the
bare pole that was tucked behind a screen of saplings.
It was out of sight for my shelter.
Exactly as most are at the older sites, I could barely make out the pole in the last
of the ambient light as I finished tying it up.
The bag went up cleanly.
I checked the knot twice, and I walked back in the dark, my headlamp on low so I could see.
I banked the fire to a saucer of good coals, rolled out my pad and bag in the shelter,
and put out my necessities.
That would be my bear spray where my hand would naturally fall, even in the darkness.
Made sure I had my whistle on a lanyard around my neck, and a small headlamp that I tucked
into a shirt pocket so I didn't fumble for it at night.
I left my hatchet over in the corner.
To me, that was a tool, not a backup plan.
I got in my bag, zipped up, and got ready for sleep.
The trickle of the creek far in the distance gave off a kind of white noise that helped
me drift off fast.
But then I was awakened.
It took a second because I didn't know what had woke me up.
But I knew less than a second later when I heard the metal rattlesound in the darkness.
It was faint, but I knew what it was.
It was the chain tapping against the metal pole somewhere behind the saplings.
That would be my bag on the bear pole.
My eyes opened to blackness.
The fire had gone down to ash and coals.
I pomed the headlamp on, but I kept it on low.
In woods like these late at night, high lumens, they don't buy you much in the way of real
sight.
It just becomes a white wall, tin paces out from you.
The metal clinking came again.
This time it was a little bit of a different pitch and a little faster, like the tension
on the chain had been changed.
Then there was a pause, and I heard nothing.
So I'm telling myself, probably a raccoon that somehow managed to climb the pole and was
trying to get to my bag.
Then I thought, maybe it's a bear, but that didn't feel right either.
Not that I could see it.
The pole was way out of sight around a slight bend in the saplings, and I wasn't going
to go investigate.
I was content to let it go.
I lay there quiet in the dark and listened.
The chain stopped clinking, and after a few minutes I almost drifted off again.
Then suddenly I heard the metal rattling again, clinking and banging furiously, close together
and sound, like something was getting frustrated.
Then I heard a few light clanks as if something had just let go of the chain, and it was beginning
to settle back into place.
Well, I thought, I hope they're done with it and move on.
I closed my eyes again, waiting to fall back to sleep, only to pop them open to pure darkness
just a few seconds later.
It was unmistakable.
Footsteps coming directly towards the shelter area.
I picked up the two-footed rhythm in the steps, and that made me sit upright.
I thought, maybe this was some trail tramp, as I called them, there are homeless people
that live out there along the trail.
And they pretty much survived by stealing from camping hikers.
I didn't have more time to really process what was happening, or I would have had a list
of things that made that, not the likely choice.
But I was groggy, tired, exhausted, it was dark, and I was just going with what I heard,
which was a two-footed footstep.
I followed the sound of the steps in the darkness.
They stayed out far enough that I couldn't see them, that I heard them circling off to the
side of the shelter.
Then they came to the corner of the front, where the shelter opening opened wide.
I rotated the safety quietly on the bear spray, then turned the can to face the opening.
If anyone or anything tried to come in, I wanted that blisteringly spicy deterrent between
me and them.
Just beyond the shelter opening, the fire had been burned down to low coals that threw
very little light, just a few feet from it, and it was low to the ground and hard to see.
I kept my eyes fixed at the corner where I heard the footstep stop.
If anything stepped around the corner of the shelter, I should be able to see it from
the low coal light.
I pombed the headlamp on again, and I held it off to my left and down so I could see
out the front of the shelter, but it was ready if I needed to light someone up.
I was expecting a person.
The shape of a person.
But what edged around the corner was a wall of darkness bigger than I expected.
For a half second I guessed a large bear was standing there on its hind legs.
But why would it do that?
Well, truth is, I hadn't thought that far.
I raised the headlamp and I shined it at the shelter entrance on that side.
Holy smokes!
I caught a glimpse of dark peltzer fur, the darkened outline of an arm, and a shoulder
and just the flash of eyes.
I can't say I really saw the face as a whole.
It was all too fast for that.
But I know the flash of eyes I saw were front and forward set on the face.
Now set on the sides, like most animals in the woods.
As soon as the light hit it, it pulled back around the side of the shelter.
I had to blink twice to make sure I was awake, and I was...
What I saw was something that wasn't supposed to be there.
It wasn't supposed to be anywhere as far as I was concerned.
There was a flash of wondering if someone was pranking me.
But instantly I knew they weren't.
What I had seen was far too real and far too solid for anyone to be playing with me.
I held my breath for a few seconds, waiting to see what was going to happen.
If anything, it stood there quietly, and I could just grab a hint of what I think was a
leg and a foot that stuck out beyond the corner of the shelter, and it was low lit from the
coals and the low light of my headlamp pointed downward.
I wasn't imagining it, and I wasn't dreaming.
Something very large was standing just outside the entrance to the shelter.
As if to confirm it, I heard it breathe.
And there was a strange thank-click with the breathing.
I don't know if it was teeth or tongue.
It made that noise several times in a row quickly, maybe six or seven times, more than just
three or four I know.
Was it trying to communicate with me?
But I know more than thought that than I had the chilling thought that maybe it wasn't
me, it was communicating with, maybe there was more than one of them out there.
Easy, I said to it quietly.
For some reason I was treating this similar to a bear.
I truly didn't know what else to do.
I knew darn well I was probably looking at a Sasquatch out there, and all I had was bear
spray, and I wasn't too sure that it wouldn't just piss it off if I sprayed it, so I did
not want to use it.
I lifted the headlamp up slowly.
I could just see an edge of the hair at the corner at the opening.
Yep, still there.
"Hey, you," I said loudly.
I waited a second.
No response, no movement.
Then I yelled, "Get out of here."
I was going with the bear route and trying to make noise to make it go away.
I already had the safety off the spray, and I had it held out, ready.
But it didn't do anything that a bear might do.
It was waiting, and so was I.
When the edge of hair pulled back, and the sounds of retreating footsteps made me breathe,
a sigh of relief, I heard the footsteps retreat past the clearing.
I was shaken a bit, I'm not going to lie about being all big and brave.
You run up against the Sasquatch at night, alone, when you're not out there prepared and
looking for one?
Well, I don't think anyone is really as big and brave as they will try to make themselves
sound.
I waited a few minutes, then I went out to the fire just a few feet from the opening of
the shelter.
Of course, after I checked outside the shelter opening carefully.
I hadn't collected a lot in the way of limbs for the fire, just what I had anticipated needing
for the night.
But there were a few handfuls of older pieces that people had left there from before.
I grabbed those and tossed them on the fire.
It didn't bring up the light a lot, but it was better than not doing it.
I waited inside the shelter, knowing there was no way I was going back to sleep that night,
and I made a promise that I would always gather more wood than I needed for my fires at
night from then on.
I would have given my entire savings account at that moment for a stack of wood by the fire.
It may have been a half an hour when a rock suddenly landed in the leaf litter, maybe
15 feet right of the shelter opening.
This wasn't some hard throw.
It landed with some arc to it, kind of more of a plop against the ground.
A minute later, another plop down from the left on the left.
Stones from the creek by the rounded look and feel of them when I picked them up in the
morning light.
So I got one rock from the left and one from the right.
Did that mean there was more than one of them out there?
Or was it able to cover that distance in the moment between the rocks being thrown?
Was it giving me some kind of message?
Before the rocks I had been sitting there, my mind going a hundred miles a minute.
What did I know about Sasquatch?
Well, the answer was, practically nothing.
Just what I'd seen through the years on different television programs, all of which I dismissed.
When the rocks were thrown, I really didn't know if that was a danger sign or something else.
I was a little panicked, so I lifted the whistle on my neck, and you're to my lips.
Three blasts can bring help if there's anyone around to hear it.
So I gave the whistle just one quick blast.
My goal was to scare it off.
I wasn't calling for help exactly.
You just use a whistle like that near any wildlife out there, and they usually scatter.
I've seen a black bear be startled by a whistle and run away.
No one's tested it yet, and no one's mentioned it scientifically in some documentary.
I'm here to let you know, a whistle does not make a Sasquatch run off.
I hit the whistle, and then my ears rang for a second or two afterward.
Then I heard it, a low rolling growl from beyond the trees.
Now without speaking, fluent Sasquatch, I was pretty sure that it was telling me, it didn't
like that.
Don't do it again, buddy.
I was certain it could see me there in the shelter, even in the semi-darkness.
The hair on my scalp was moving and dancing.
I kept my hands visible and still.
I had the bear spray forward, safety rotated.
I did not wave my headlamp looking around.
I didn't want to do anything that it might perceive as a challenge.
I'd already messed up with the whistle.
And who knows what it might think was really a challenge?
But whatever it might be, that thing out there already believed it had the home-field advantage.
And quite frankly, it did.
I heard far off steps again in the chain clanking softly at the bear pole.
This was more of a tap, like it just walked by and gave it a tug.
Then absolute silence.
Maybe another hour went by and the adrenaline had now faded, and I was just about to fall
asleep sitting up.
And that's when I heard the footsteps coming close again.
They were coming from behind the shelter now and up along the side wall.
So I knew those things understand line of sight.
It didn't want me seeing it, that was clear.
I felt like it was curious or it wanted something, but I had no food with me, and it knew where
the food was.
So why was it coming back to me?
Maybe I was supposed to be its food source.
It sure was clumsy about gathering things that it called food.
It could have pulled me out of that shelter at any time with no problem and very little
fight on my behalf.
So what was it waiting for?
And it was waiting.
Just on the other side of the wall as a matter of fact.
And weirdly, I suddenly began to smell hot and fresh feces.
It reaked and filled up the whole shelter.
I was actually gagging and pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose.
I knew it wasn't me that had done that.
What was that?
Was that some kind of weird power flex?
Then I heard footsteps walking away again.
By now the fire outside was all ash, no coal and no light was being given.
It was about two hours from blue light dawn.
And dawn couldn't come soon enough for me.
Over the next hour I saw it several times.
Just glimpses in the darkness or what the edge of my head and the light held low and shining
out from the shelter could light up.
I never got a perfect view at that time.
I never saw the face.
Well, not till later.
At that time all I got was shadows.
A curve of a hip here is it walked just out of the reach of the light.
See the shadow of a hand swinging against the thigh as it walked.
And it was a hand, not a paw that I saw, a hand with fingers blunt and wide.
Twice I got eye reflection just at the edge of the opening that blinked out and moved
away quickly when my lamp light grazed it.
It would pace, stop, huff, and then circle my perimeter.
It was getting impatient.
But it knew dawn was close and that meant it would lose its home field advantage, though
I'm not sure that I would agree with that.
Every so often it would test the entrance of the shelter again, like it was waiting for
me to let my guard down or to fall asleep.
Something in the persistence of its actions leads me to think it was there for something
more than just mere curiosity.
I realized that as I sat there in the shelter and my blood ran cold.
The best view that I had of it was when it came to stand on the side of the fire area
very near the shelter opening.
It was no more light from the calls by then.
I held my head lamp out and raised it just enough to get some light glow up on the chest.
I saw the hair, the thick chest, big arms and huge muscles.
I raised my light slowly a little more until I reached the face.
I had maybe a half second to see it before it turned away with a loud huff.
Then it began to walk in a wide arc away from the shelter before turning and coming straight
back.
It looked like it was making an angry bee-line straight for me.
Yes, I did. I panicked again.
I blew the whistle, three hard, sharp blasts.
I wanted to stop it from coming closer.
I was still relying on this whistle to turn it away.
While it didn't go away, it did stop abruptly.
It suddenly went down into a deep squat and it sat there watching me.
The eyes reflected red in the light.
It growled and huffed.
Even after a few moments it stood up quickly.
I thought it was really coming for me then.
I held up the bear spray.
I was almost ready to hit the blast of spray.
Then it suddenly jerked off to the right and turned its back on me and walked deep into
the trees, leaves crunching all the way.
Its steps were spaced wider now as it walked away faster as if it had decided that it was
done talking to me.
Now what was left of the night went slow.
I stayed in the middle of the shelter.
Instinct wanted me to go to one of the far back corners, but I needed to see.
In the middle, not far from the opening, that's where I got the best field division, not
that I could see much in the dark.
I kept the spray in my lap and my lamp off except for small checks around the shelter when
I thought I heard something.
The first hint that Dawn was there was not the light but a change in bird behavior.
One sparrow, then two, then several more.
Then the light lifted by just a shade, then another, and another.
And soon enough the tree tops were visible against a dark blue Dawn sky.
As it got light enough, I could see farther and farther around the shelter.
I stepped to the lip of the platform and I took in the scene.
What I couldn't see at night was clear at Dawn.
The ground in front of and all around the shelter had been seriously worked over.
Many more scuffs in the dirt than when I got there.
Prince though, none of them were clear in the hard dirt, but the shape of the heel here
and some toes somewhere else, while there was no doubt.
There were quite a few prince that I took to behold.
They weren't clear though.
I didn't carry a measuring tape.
Why would I need one?
But I did use my boot, which is a men's twelve size, and I used my hand.
The longer prince were half again the length of my boot and brought her through the four-foot
than my palm by a width.
Five tow marks registered on a few of those prints.
There were no claws, just thick rounded tips.
And an arch from the heel toward mid-foot that looked nothing like a bear's double register.
The stride between alternating impressions stretched beyond any easy lunge I could make.
And the pile of messy running poo that was at the side of the shelter?
Well, yes, it was there.
I guess I had smelled it so long all night.
It wasn't smelling to me much anymore.
At the bear pole my bag hung untouched.
The chain held.
The knot held.
The bag had held.
But the pole?
Well, it looked a little off-can't.
Maybe it was my imagination, but it looked like something had been pulling on it pretty heavily.
I did a quick look for more prince and maybe some hair or some other evidence.
Though what I would have done with any of it, I didn't know.
I couldn't make a cast.
None of the photos that I took were showing the prince.
Everything just looks like plain old dirt, even when I got home and enhanced them and blew
them up.
Now I didn't look around too long because I wasn't sure the Sasquatch was really gone, and
I really didn't want any trophies from the night.
Back at the shelter, I erased my presence as I always did.
Cold ashes scattered, platform well brushed, and all the trash sealed up tight.
In the guest register I only wrote "Quiet night.
Chain rattled.
Hang your food smart.
Something wants it."
I thought that would help any future hikers bar more than some spooky camp-fired tale about
a Sasquatch harassing me all night.
I hiked out quickly under a bright blue sky.
I did not feel at ease until I was more than a mile down the trail.
About mid-morning I met two northbounders filling their bottles.
The older one in Katov's sleeves asked where I'd overnighted.
I hesitatingly said Rod Hollow.
He gave me a long, cool look than he nodded.
I understood what he meant and I didn't press.
All he said was, "I don't sleep at that shelter.
I set my tin up way past there."
He looked at me and then he said, "There's a lot of animal activity there, at least a few
times I stayed.
So I don't stay there anymore."
They know there's food around there.
He gave me the same cold dead pan stare just waiting to see what I would say.
I knew he had been careful with his tone and his words, but I knew what he meant.
And he knew I did.
I looked at him with the same dead pan stare and I said, "Yeah."
Then I paused deciding what to say if anything.
"Yeah," I said.
"Yeah, there was something hanging around last night, all right."
That's all I said.
And we let it go.
I am always asked if I really do believe that was a Sasquatch.
Yes, I do.
I trust in the behavior and the actions of my visitor that night.
It was large, hairy, bipedal, and extremely persistent.
That is not human behavior.
A human pranking you once a result.
They want you to react.
They want you to laugh or they start laughing.
They don't keep it up all night for hours.
And a bear?
Well a bear wouldn't have circled all night the way it did.
A bear will just take what it wants, fight you for it, or move on.
So yes, I do believe it was a Sasquatch.
You tell me what else it could have been.
And it doesn't matter even if you do try to tell me what you think it might have been.
I was the one there.
You weren't.
I know what came creeping around that night.
You didn't see it.
I don't sleep in shelters along the trail anymore.
I will sleep in the vicinity of a shelter, but not too close to the shelter.
And I have never been bothered since.
Even when I stayed near Rod Hollow again.
I still carry bear spray.
I still hang my food away and high.
But I never sleep as deeply out on the trail as I once used to.
I know that when I'm out there on the trail, I'm on the trail with Sasquatch.
So I mind my pees and queues as my mama always said.
I advise you to do the same, because I do promise you whether you know it or not.
You're on the trail with Sasquatch too.