YEAR: 1985

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

STATE: California

COUNTY: Trinity County

LOCATION DETAILS: "Big Slide" swimming hole on the South Fork of the Trinity river.

NEAREST TOWN: Hyampom, California

OBSERVED: I was camping at a spot called Big Slide just outside of Hyampom, California in Trinity County.
There were at least five of us all sleeping on the beach of the South Fork of the Trinity river.
I woke up in the night, having heard something loud enough to make me sit up. It was a bright moon that night and I could see across the river to the other bank quite clearly. I saw a large creature on two legs shaking a tree. It was a huge pine tree, I remember looking to the top of the tree and registering that it was a BIG tree to be shaking with such force.
I tried to wake the friend to my right, no one else awoke. I had no doubt in my mind that I was seeing Bigfoot. Everyone there knew Trinity Co. was a stomping ground for them.
The river was running so I never heard any noise from it's mouth. It eventually stopped it's tree shaking and ran down the beach in an arc and off into the woods. I told myself that I would check it's footprints out in the morning. I went to sleep.
The next day I remembered it all like a dream coming back. I took my biggest friend over to the other side of the river and we found the tracks in the sand. We had him run into the sand from the forest and back out again, just as I had seen the Bigfoot do. He was a 6' man weighing at least 180 and his tracks shrank to about half the size of the prints that we had found in the sand.
We all agreed that it was odd. We all agreed that the prints were REAL and not from a bear or a man.

OTHER WITNESSES: There were five in our party. We were all asleep prior to the sighting. We all saw the tracks in the morning.

OTHER STORIES: I know a lot of the local folks have Bigfoot stories. I can't relate them all. I do have a friend who made a plaster casting of a print she found in her garden. She lives just outside of Hyampom, California.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Past midnight.
Warm summer night.
Clear.
Bright moon, perhaps full.

ENVIRONMENT: Forest ending at beach near large river. Large boulders and stretches of sand.

Follow-up investigation report:

I spoke with the witness at length and found her to be a very credible observer, and quite certain what she saw was not a bear. The witness was a counselor at the summer camp where this incident occurred, although at the time she and her adult friends were camping at another part of the ranch just off the water at a public beach. She and her friends were in sleeping bags with no tents or vehicles, having climbed down a hill to access the camping area. When the witness awoke and saw the creature, she was unable to wake any of her friends even after punching one with her fist. In describing the creature she noted that "It seemed very tall, slim in the middle with broad shoulders." The witness was not aware of any smell, nor did she hear any sounds emanating from the creature. The duration of the sighting was approximately two minutes total. The following morning the witness, along with an over 6' tall male friend, swam across the river to look for tracks along the sandy bank. The shore on the side of the river where the creature was spotted consisted of approximately 20' of sand that graduated into the tree line. They were able to locate prints in the moist sand in the exact place the witness had seen the creature run the night before. The male friend tried to duplicate the stride and size of the print with his own bare foot while running in a similar curved path. In comparing the two sets of tracks, the width across the ball of the friend's footprint was approximately 5" across, however the width of the print left from the creature was 7" - 8" across. The witness also noted that there were only four toes visible in the creature's track.