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Several months ago, Bigfoot researcher Tate Hieronymus asked if I wanted to join an invite-only expedition through the wilderness of Bluff Creek/Six Rivers National Forest, famed site of the Patterson-Gimlin footage.
Tate had heard about me through my interview with his associate, Jeremiah Byron of the Bigfoot Society. The trip he was planning included several experienced wildlife explorers and Squatchers, so I eagerly accepted the invitation, which would happen in August.
The first leg would be a hike that would last for several days starting at the Bluff Creek Bridge, leading all the way to the film site. The second leg would be at a location called Twin Lakes, which was about a 45-minute drive up a mountain off the so-called “Bigfoot Highway” 96. The third part of the trip would be moving to a few new locations in the Six Rivers National Forest area. I decided to attend the Twin Lakes leg, since it would only be two days and night in the wild, and I could readily access it with my Prius… or so I thought. More on this ahead.
As the trip approached on the calendar, I have to admit to getting cold feet. I had a lot of “life” going on at the time, and still do. I was nervous about my car making it through the journey. And while I normally hike with my buddy Tom, I’d never met these people before.
Eventually I put these nagging thoughts behind and ended up on an adventure I’ll never regret, or forget. I met some really awesome people on the way.
I also experienced some things I can’t explain.
MONDAY 8/7 - Day 1 in the woods
I stayed overnight in Hoopa on Saturday, and met up with Tate and his friends John and Ron (Trailing Giants) in the parking lot of the local shopping center, next to the Tsewenaldin Inn. This was their first day back in civilization after several days exploring the Bluff Creek area. Apparently they only did the Bluff Creek hike for one day before deciding to move around to other locations. This didn’t totally surprise me as I’ve hiked both the film site, and along the creek starting at the bridge; it is very slow and difficult hiking, lacking any sort of formal trails.
John broke off since it was time to go home, and after they bought some supplies, I followed Tate and Ron on the 1.5-hour-long drive up Slate Creek Road through the mountains to get to Twin Lakes.
To give you an idea of how remote and wild this area is, it takes about an hour to get from Eureka to Willow Creek, which is already a very small and isolated mountain town. Another hour or so north along 96, then 45 minutes up a rough paved road (Slate Creek) to the logging roads and Twin Lakes area. Another quarter-mile or so down a rough dirt road to the campsite itself. I was relieved the road was paved and my Prius could ostensibly made it up there; otherwise I would’ve had to have bagged the whole trip. Everyone else of course had proper trucks that could handle off-roading.
Twin Lakes, a good 45 minute drive up a mountain road in Northern CA, and a haven for Sasquatch activity.
Once we got there, I set up my tent and we met up with the others, including:
Bluff Creek Project author Robert Lieterman and his son Patrick
A sweet and amiable but also very capable Squatcher, Terry and her son Stevie
The first day was super-chill, with the group catching up with one another’s adventures and me just getting to know everyone. Tate is a Jehovah’s witness and into music, Ron is a serious hiker and outdoorsperson, Terry is an ex-MP (military police) and police officer, and Robert teaches police detainment techniques and physical fitness at College of the Redwoods. All of these people had enough gear and experience to survive in the wild for several days—probably weeks—so I was in good company considering overnights in such remote locations are not my usual style (I typically drive far in for remote day hikes).
That night, Terry generously cooked spaghetti with meat sauce for the whole group, and it was delicious. Afterwards we talked Bigfoot around the fire, and Robert conducted an interview with Tate for his podcast at the edge of our lake, which was covered with lily pads. I was struck by the fact that no one seemed to want to hike, but rather just chill by the fire and trade stories and jabs (Tate and Robert have a particularly caustic but mutually affectionate and respectful dynamic). Eventually everyone turned in, Robert and Patrick heading back up the road to their tent, me in my tent with the group, and everyone else in their truck. So I was the only one in a tent in my group. And yes, that is foreshadowing for the next night, when things got weird.
From left to right: Ron, Robert, Patric, Terry, Tate
TUEsday 8/8 - Day 2 in the woods
The next morning, after Tate took his kayak in the pond (with a morning beer), he, Ron and I took a short hike to explore the second “Twin Lake”. I started walking along the shore of the pond, which had a bunch of fallen and rotting logs—apparently a great home for bees. The others were behind me when I felt a burning sensation behind my right ankle, like being jabbed with a hot needle. I peeled down my sock and found the bee writhing around in there just after stinging me. (I hate bees now).
The smaller of the two Twin Lakes and where I was unceremoniously stung by a bee on my ankle.
I remember cursing in pain and exploring a bit more before we headed back to the campsite. I tried to get someone to go on a long hike with me, but the group was mostly interested in staying close, collecting hair samples, checking nearby trail cams and the like.
Later in the day, Terry wandered off without telling us how long she’d be gone or where she was going. This was after saying the night before that she was no longer a big hiker. Her son Stevie went looking for her, and after over an hour, came back without finding her. By now she’d been gone for several hours, so we decided to break off and look for her going in opposite directions on the main road. Robert, his son Patrick and I would go north, while Tate, Ron and his blue heeler Bandit would go south.
As Robert, Patrick and I hiked north, my foot started to feel the burn from the bee sting. After a while, Robert asked Patrick to head back to camp to check if Terry had fallen asleep in her trailer without us knowing. Robert and I continued, eventually reaching a spot with cell service and a message to Robert than Terry was now back at camp after a very long walk. We were both relieved and felt like we could now enjoy ourselves.
Robert and I high up on a six-mile hike toward Cedar Camp. He is pointing toward what he believes to be the Marble Mountains—also one of my favorite areas to explore.
We decided to continue north toward Cedar Camp, down a stretch of road where he apparently guided Cliff and Bobo for a final episode of TV’s “Finding Bigfoot” (Robert was also a consultant and crew member on the Willow Creek film). We had a good chat about Justin Smeja, subject of the documentary Dead Bigfoot, and the mystery surrounding his alleged killing of not one, but two Bigfoot in 2010. Robert is an acquaintance of Justin and said the saga and the truths and possibly half-truths around it are still unfolding to this day. We also talked politics and with both of us leaning right, especially in recent years for me, I felt like I was talking to a kindred spirit. Robert is also a marital artist and someone I’d characterize as a master Sasquatcher, researcher, and outdoorsperson. After three miles north, and three more back to camp, we returned to camp to regroup with the others, and he interviewed me for his podcast by the edge of our lake campsite. In addition to being an all-around cool dude, turns out he’s also a very good interviewer.
s*it gets real - TUEsday 8/8 - NIGHT 2 in the woods
The sun started to set and the camp settled in to the same rhythms we’d established the night before—trading stories around the campfire, trading jabs (ok, mainly Tate and Robert), and enjoying each other’s company. I don’t remember exactly what started the strange “activity” I’m about to describe, but very suddenly the group of experienced Sqautchers got on high alert.
Before that, I let the group know my plan of waking up at 6 A.M. in the morning to pack and make my way back down the mountain and Marin County alone. I backed up my Prius a few feet and Terry graciously moved her trailer so I could go back up the dirt road to the main road before anyone else would be awake.
Of course, things would not quite go as planned.
At some point, Terry declared with complete certainty that “they’re here” and said it would be best to stay at camp. Tate wanted to get on the move to check out our surroundings. Both valid approaches, but in that moment, I agreed with Terry. If there were already checking us out, let them come to us. (it’s worth mentioning that Terry claims to have seen two Bigfoot in this area a few days before I arrived).
The orange sky quickly fell to darkness, and Tate and Ron set off to go north on the main road to see what they could see in the complete darkness (Tate was packing some heat). Terry went her own way. I decided to stay at camp and I believe Robert and Patrick remained as well (some details may be hazy, things were moving fast). When Tate and Ron returned, they heard a sharp wood knock, and Terry recorded one that I heard firsthand when she returned from her short walk in the dark and back to our camp. Everyone seemed convinced we were being watched. I hadn’t yet heard the wood knocks firsthand myself, but all the excitement and activity was putting me a bit on edge—in a good way I suppose. Isn’t this part of what we came for?
By now my memories of what happened start to become more clear. Maybe it’s because things were getting real, fast, or I was just paying more attention to what was going on.
high strangeness at night
Everyone here was a night owl. I usually get to bed around 10 or 11 P.M. Way past that time, probably around midnight, I told the group I was going to turn in even though everyone was still amped up. My first night here, I’d had a great night’s sleep with no incidents or weirdness whatsoever. All of that was about to change.
2 AM
I’m fast asleep and awakened by the sound of a medium-sized rock being tossed outside my tent, clear enough that the sound of it tumbling down a nearby embankment leading to the pond is still burned into my brain. I looked at my phone nearby and noted the time: about 2 AM. What the hell tosses a rock in the middle of the night?
I told myself I needed to ignore it and get back to sleep if I was going to start packing up around 6 A.M. Ten or fifteen minutes later, I heard another rock tossed. This “activity” or whatever you want to call it went on for the next several hours, to the point where the soft CLACK of every landing either woke me up or kept me in a purgatory of half-sleep.
I have a netted “roof” screen at the top of my tent, and the top sides. I would peek up every once in a while and of course saw nothing.
Then at 5 A.M., I hear something heavy—sounding like it was waking on two feet—shuffling around outside my tent. Now I was getting freaked out. My mind did not immediately leap to Bigfoot. Even as a believer, I’m an even-headed person, science-minded, and a skeptic first—Bigfoot-attributer second.
Somehow I managed to gather enough courage to peek up again. Nothing out there. I grabbed my flashlight and unzipped my tent to see what was going on. I was the only one in a tent on the edge of the woods with my car parked a few feet away. My stove was on the other side. I fully expected to round that corner and find a bear, maybe a cub… something heavy, the way it something like that sounds when shuffling along in the woods.
I flashed my light on the other side of the car and saw nothing. I swept my beam all around the trees and saw nothing. I didn’t hear anything running away. I looked around the camp and everyone else was fast asleep, including Tate in his Jeep several feet away.
At this point, I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to, but I rapped on Tate’s Jeep window. Sure enough, he was fast asleep in there with a movie playing on his Jeep’s little TV, so he wouldn’t have heard anything going on.
Eventually he stirred, and I told him what had been going on throughout the night. He suggested that I go sleep in my car. I grabbed my sleeping bag and did just that—I was entirely creeped out at this point. The walking sounds were the last straw. I barely got any sleep before the sun started to come up around 6 A.M. Rather than reveling in the activity, I was frustrated I hadn’t gotten any sleep and would be driving home in this fog. But even that part of the plan was not to be.
last morning at camp
The next morning I woke up at 6 A.M. as planned. Everyone else was still asleep, just like yesterday morning. I packed up my tent and my stove, getting ready to put everything into my car, when I noticed the front right tire was completely flat.
Fuck my life, I cursed to myself several times. My mind raced and some panic set in. How was I going to get this car down this mountain now? Getting it towed was not an option up here. the nearest cell service was at a known location several miles away, and a tow was at least two hours of drive time, let alone waiting for someone to answer the call.
I didn’t want to, but again I tapped on Tate’s Jeep window to wake him up (Sorry, buddy). I apologized for it being so early, but… I had a flat tire. Would he mind helping me trying to change it?
We used my Prius’s jack to get it up off the ground. I pried off the hubcap, and Tate started getting the lugs off. At some point, I hiked up to Robert’s spot up the dirt road, and he brought his multitude of tire-fixing supplies back to our camp. We deduced the flat happened the night before, when I backed up the car to prepare for getting out in the morning, and that it went flat due to a separation from the rim, versus it being a hole. So that led to the plan of pumping it full of air with Robert’s tire-shaped little air pump.
By the time we got the tire pressure up to 35 PSI or so, Robert’s little machine that could was literally smoking. I pointed this out and Robert turned it off, saying even though we were below the tire’s recommended pressure, it would be able to get over rocks and such better this way. I told them that if the tire managed to stay inflated, I could get off the mountain and at least get it checked in Eureka.
Later in the morning, the whole group was awake, and we all decided to go down the mountain together and back to civilization around 11:30 A.M.—after Ron gathered some hair samples from nearby. It was during this time, when everyone was packing and wrapping things up, that I told them about my experiences in the middle of the night, and that I’d gotten no sleep. When I told Robert about the foot shuffling in private, when he was bringing his gear to our camp, he just barely grinned, staring at the dirt road passing beneath us. I asked him why he was smiling and he said, “Because that happened to me and Patrick three nights ago.”
Back at the camp, I apologized to everyone for my stupid car being a liability on this trip, and thanked Tate and Robert profusely for saving my ass by removing, testing (in the pond), and inflating the tire. Everyone was super-cool and very supportive, encouraging me to celebrate and accept the experience vs. being confounded by what caused it. They also assured me that what happened to me with the flat had happened to all of them, assuaging my guilt for putting everyone through this crisis and easing my frustrations about being so late to set off for home.
We all rolled out around noon, getting back to the bottom (Highway 96) after about thirty minutes of downhill mountain driving. We all stopped at the bottom together to give my brakes a rest, since we could all smell them, and Robert pointed out that my front tire hubcaps were hot to the touch. From here, Tate and Ron would go to the Willow Creek China Flat Bigfoot Museum, and Terry and Stevie would get some much-needed rest and comfort at a nearby resort for the next few days and nights. We said our goodbyes and I told the group I’d shoot Tate a message when I got back to Willow Creek—still another 1.5 hours away.
I was incredibly relived to have reached town without my tire pressure light going on. So far, so good. I got a light lunch and iced coffee at the Osprey Cafe, just enjoying the quiet, shade, and checking up on my messages and texts.
Sitting there with a little time to reflect, I noticed that my bee-stung right foot was in a good deal of pain. I pulled my sock back and was shocked to see a few absolutely huge blistered all over the foot. (I’d post photos I took of this, but they are too gruesome and extreme to stomach).
I texted Tate and my wife the photos, and they both encouraged me to seek medical care immediately. I decided I’d have to stop at urgent care in Eureka on the way home, then get my tire checked and fixed if need be before I would drive five more hours south to home.
At Redwood Urgent Care, the somewhat stern but thorough doctor who examined me declared I was allergic to bee stings, the reaction can get worse over time, and that they could kill me (gulp). She prescribed me a bunch of meds and Epipens. As soon as I got out of there, my yellow tire pressure light went on. Fortunately Les Schwab was only a few minutes away, and I made it there. They told me there was a hole in the tire after all and patched in less than 30 minutes.*
*It’s worth mentioning this is the second time Les Schwab fixed a popped tire on my way down from the mountains. They didn’t even charge me. This post isn’t about plugging businesses, but I do believe in paying it forward and they are incredible, so please give them your business.
THE LONG DRIVE HOME
I was finally on the road back home, heading out of Eureka and down 101 South. I normally love the drive, but I was dogged by lack of sleep, my foot and ankle were twice their normal size, and I knew it was a miracle I was on the road at all, as opposed to still being stuck on the mountain. Everything worked out, and I had no regrets about the trip. But it was a rough last night and morning.
I thought back to the frustration I felt that morning after the night’s activity. I’d run through every possible scenario, but still had no logical explanation for what would toss rocks in the middle of the night. I’d ruled out bears, smaller animals or fellow campers for the walking around I heard the night before.
Since I hadn’t seen anything, of course I can’t say it was Bigfoot. I can’t make that leap. Still, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I tried to take some solace in the others’ advice to just accept the experience for what it was, and consider myself “fortunate” if it was indeed the Big Man checking out our camp.
That last rough night and morning aside, Bee stings, flat tires, and creepy activity won’t be enough to keep me out of the forests. I hope to see my group again and look forward to going back in someday. Next time, better prepared with a proper vehicle, an Epipen, and an always-open mind to the mysteries in our forests.