YEAR: 1977

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: December

DATE: 29

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Snohomish County

LOCATION DETAILS: 2 miles from the beginning of 3 Fingers Mtn. road and about a mile from where the road ends there.

NEAREST TOWN: Granite Falls

NEAREST ROAD: Mt. Loop Hwy.

OBSERVED: Mr. Becker said on the 29th he had taken his kids sledding up on Green Mt. He drives a GMC 4-wheel drive TK, so they decided to take the Green Mtn. Rd. up toward 3 Fingers Mtn. After driving for a few miles they stopped and tied the sled on the back of the TK. Several times the sled would tip over and they would stop while his son put it back on the road. When Mr. Becker asked him to put it in the middle he said there was a pile of droppings there. Mr. Becker took a look and noticed that the droppings were from a wild animal, but did not think anything of it until later. They began pulling the sled up the road again.

On the next stop they noticed a trail of large footprints going up the bank. They went over for a closer look and discovered that they were just like human's bare footprints with 5 toes. It suddenly came to Mr. Becker that this could be the legendary 'bigfoot' that he had read about on several occasions.

He kept the kids back so as not to disturb the tracks. He then put his foot in one of the tracks for comparison. He had on a pair of heavy snow boots and there was an inch difference on each side and 2 or 3 inches at the front and back. He spread his legs out next to the tracks to compare the stride. He said he practically had to do the splits to match the stride: which would be about 4 to 5 feet between steps. A couple of prints were pushed all the way to the ground under the snow. With his weight, even jumping up and down, he could not sink half that far. He thought of the pile of droppings and figured it could have come from what ever made the tracks. He thought the tracks were from 1 to 2 days old at the most.

It was getting late in the afternoon and starting to drizzle so he decided to take the kids home and come back another day and get some pictures and possibly follow the tracks to see where they led.

After thinking about it the next day he decided to call the Sheriff's office and report it. This is where Jerry Phillips comes in... he worked with the Sheriff.

OTHER WITNESSES: Dan, Jerry and Dan's kids.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Snow, but warming up with slight rain drizzle.

ENVIRONMENT: Forest service road, forested.

A & G References: Pg. 96, C2

Follow-up investigation report:

From the files of Richard Noll, Jerry's report comments:

SNO-PAC Dispatch Center received a call from Dan Becker at 2130 hrs. on 12/30/77 regarding large, bare, foot prints that he discovered in the snow on Green Mountain. The supervisor referred him to me and gave him my home phone number. I arrived home late that night so I called him back the next morning.

I made arrangements with Mr. Becker to meet me in Granite Falls the next day. Our plan was to drive to the location, get some measurements and hopefully a sample of the droppings he had found.

Jan. 1, 1978

I drove to Granite Falls and met Mr. Becker at 0700 hrs. I transferred my gear to his 4-wheel drive PU and we proceeded up to the Green Mountain area.

We drove on snow covered roads for an hour and took several wrong turns. Mr. Becker finally found the right one and located the tracks again.

At this spot the road widens and overlooks the valley about 400 feet below. Even from the pickup the tracks were quite visible and well defined. The first thing I did was shoot the trail of tracks and the area with super 8-movie film. It had snowed about 2 inches since Mr. Becker had discovered the tracks. Brushing the snow out, I found that the tracks were firmly frozen in the first layer of snow. The track showed clearly the heel, arch, the ball of the foot and 5 toes. The track was 4 inches across the heel, 6 inches across the ball and 14 inches long. Following this set of tracks up the road the step varied from 4 to 5 feet. About a block up the road I discovered another set of tracks joining the first. These measured 5 inches across the heel, 6.5 inches across the ball and were 17 inches long. Apparently the bigger one had been walking up the road in one of the ruts made by vehicle tires and were obliterated when a vehicle passed. The larger track had a six to seven foot step at times.

I followed the tracks up the road another 50 yards where they ended. At this point it looked like they had climbed a steep bank on the right side of the road and went uphill in heavy timber and brush.

I then backtracked to see where they had come onto the road. I walked down the road from where they began and found them again about 50 yards away. I followed them another 25 yards where they went back to the road and were lost in the tire ruts again.

From what I could tell they came up onto the road from one of the spots where there was no snow and walked up the middle of the road until they came to a creek. At this point the smaller one walked up the right side of the creek to an outcropping of rock, leaving 10 prints in the snow. It then made a 10-foot jump to the side of the creek and left 5 prints there. It then must have walked back to the road in the creek because there were no return tracks in the snow.

The larger one's tracks led off the road to the left and led to a spot overlooking the valley below. You could see where it stood, tracks side by side and probably surveying the valley below. It then turned and took two steps to a place 10 feet away and stood, tracks side by side again pointing in the opposite direction uphill towards the tree line. The tracks then led back to the road. A few feet farther, the smaller one came back to the side of the road and continued on it with 5-foot steps.

I photographed the prints with 126 instamatic and even attempted to make a cast of one of the prints. I used Hydra-Cal and surprisingly the cast turned out pretty good for being taken in the snow.

I find Mr. Becker to be a credible person and because of the trouble he had finding the location again I doubt that he tried to perpetrate a hoax.

Of course the possibility of a hoax always exists, but due to the evidence and measurements and the clarity of the tracks, I would definitely say 2 sasquatch passed through the area within the past five days.

The droppings in the area appear to be coyote, but a sample was taken to be checked out.