YEAR: 2011

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: September

DATE: 23

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Pierce County

LOCATION DETAILS: You can find our exact campsite if you go in-between The Loggers Rodeo and Glacier Middle School. You should pass a Military Base on your left. Keep straight. Park your car behind the left of the bridge. Go across the bridge and keep straight onto the paved cement trail. At the very end, you'll see another trail on your right. Follow it until you reach a small orange stream. Cross the stream that leads to the river. Follow the exposed river bed all the way to the end, (going "right" after you exit the orange stream.) Toward the end you'll reach a flat sandy area. On your right, there will be another small trail that goes off into the trees. That's our campsite, you'll know if you see a fire pit surrounded by 3 logs.

NEAREST TOWN: Buckley

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 410

OBSERVED: I can't exactly say it was a BF encounter, none of us but 1, saw something and 2 out of 4 people heard "the noises." I will explain my story and let you decide. Thank you.

September 23, 2011, Myself and a group of friends decided to go camping late one night near the, White River. We took about a 40min walk to get to our campsite.(it was a little after 11pm.) 5min after we arrived, we heard an Elk Mating call from across the river and thought it was pretty cool, didn't think much of it. About 30min in, after we get the fire going, we heard another unexplainable "yelp" sound that echoed off. It was only one time, from a distance, possibly 1/2 of a mile or less out. We all looked at each other as if one of us could explain what it was but we couldn't and again, didn't think much of it.

About a few hours later after roasting marshmellows and havin a good time, we decide it's time to hit the hay, one guy, the only one of us who drank too much, was already passed out. (There was 4 of us!) My best friend and I crawled into the tent and the 4th guy decided to stay outside for a little longer. After 2min or so he called out to us, "I keep hearing something over by the river, like it's really close to us." He then grabbed the cheap flashlight from our tent and pointed it in the direction he heard the sound and then, "Oh my god, I see something by the river, I can't make it out but it looks big."

(we've camped at this location before and nothing unusual has ever happened.)

Now, I aint dumb, I felt like he was just trying to scare us becuz he likes to do that when we're out camping and he has before but he's never made any pranks like this, he looked pretty white in the face, eyes where all wide like he was really scared. After he was done observing, he climbed into the tent with us and decided to call it a night but every so often he'd peek his head out to check and kept talkin about what he saw. It was scaring me a little.

2-3 hours probably passed and both 2 guys where out cold, me and my best friend were still awake, we were too shook up about what he saw. Then out of no-where, we heard this LOUD KNOCK on a tree, right next to our campsite, close to were our fire was. Scared the living hell out of us. We kept very quite and still, didn't speak a word! After a long while passed we didn't hear anything unusual and my friend was drifting off to sleep. I was too scared. I think I stayed up for another hour and that's when I got the living daylights scared outta me!

Just outside our tent, I could hear something walking closer to us, like something with 2 feet. Sticks were cracking and I could hear lite footsteps on the ground. Like it was trying to be quite not to wake us. I heard it brush the tent a little. I was paralized with fear. My best friend was laying next to me. I woke her up, going insane with the noise. I didn't speak a word to her, just looked at her and feeling fear and she knew something was wrong. Within 10 seconds after waking her, the crunching of the sticks started again and the lite footsteps followed. We woke up the guy who complained of seeing something. He peeked his head outside the tent and saw nothing, (it was also very dark, you wouldn't of been able to make out things 4 feet from you.) About 10min later, we all layed quite and remained a alert. Then, the snapping of sticks came back but it started going away from us until eventually, we didn't hear it anymore.

When dawn approched I finally felt safe to sleep, We woke around 11am and i started to investigate. I looked around the tent and on the ground. Didn't see anything unusual, no footprints, I didn't really have a lot of time to investigate becuz everyone wanted to leave. I also wanted to try and mimic the crunching sound I heard, (I'm not very good at analizing things either, broken sticks would seem natural to me.) I walked out toward the river bank were our guy friend said he saw something, didn't see any footprints, if something was there, it would of left behind a track in the mud.

Our tent was set up over hard ground and low brush.

If you think this could of been a possible BF encounter or something else. Let me know! I don't think I'll be camping out there again.

ALSO NOTICED: First time we camped there, we noticed a pile of rocks that where stacked up. I later removed the rocks to help make a toilet.

OTHER WITNESSES: My best friend and 2 men

OTHER STORIES: My grandparents told me this story many years ago. They were camping in the forest near the white river, inside their RV. Summer night, they were both sound asleepp when they where awoken by something screaming into their open window, it grabbed my grandma by her leg. It let go after a while and ran off into the forest. I don't know where it exactly it happened at, they didn't say. My grandparents haven't camped in the forest ever since. They stay at RV parks now.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Incident Occured between 11pm-4am. Cloudy skys, lite rainfall. Very Dark.

ENVIRONMENT: Forest Area

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor:

I was able to talk to this witness over the phone. I asked her to recount the experience she had while camping with her friends. They were camping in a forested area the White River. She told me essentially the same as she wrote it in the report. The behavior she describes is very much as would be expected from a curious sasquatch that was checking out a bunch of young adults having a good time and camping out. It is similar to what we have experienced on our own expeditions. It was quite upsetting to the witness to re-live the experience as she described what happened.

During our interview, the witness clarified some questions that I had from reading her report. She helped me to understand exactly where she and her friends were camping and how to find the location.

On 11/5/11 Several of us went in the late afternoon to investigate the site. We were able to locate two camp sites where the witness could have been. They are only about 50 feet apart, so either one could have been it, although I believe that the closer site was more similar to what she described. The place is well used by the local kids, and there is camping trash all over the area. It looks like they all party there.

We searched the area of the camp sites for any evidence. We found none. This does not mean that the witness' account is a fabrication, because there have been many other people there since the encounter. We stayed until it started to get dark and cold, and then slowly started walking back down the river bank towards the trail leading out of the area. One of our party said that she heard some “whoop” sounds from across the river. We stopped and looked across the river. Another of us tried a couple of her very loud whistles, but I did not hear any response. After walking a bit further, a large rock impacted the river bank with a thud behind us. We looked around but could not find the exact rock as we were on a field of rocks of similar size. However, it would take a large and athletic person to throw a rock that big, and there were no other people nearby. Our feeling was that the rock was thrown across the river, which would be at least a throw of 150 feet. Hearing and seeing nothing, we left the area. It was dark and very cold by the time we reached our vehicles.

There are some interesting things to note about this area. I get reports from the Auburn valley along the Green River and White River. The White River provides an easy travel route from the slopes of Mt. Rainier and the forests surrounding it, all the way down to the Auburn Valley. It would be simple for a sasquatch to travel along the river from the Auburn valley all the way to the Cascades. The fact that we heard whoops and had a rock thrown at us is evidence of a sasquatch being there. I believe that this witness experienced a real sasquatch visitation to her camp site.

About BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor:

Scott Taylor is a retired aerospace manager. He lives in Mason County, Washington. He had his first bigfoot encounter in October 2005 where he was stalked and later heard vocalizations.

Scott has attended official BFRO Expeditions in the Washington Cascades in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. He also attended 2007 Central Oregon Cascades and 2007 Utah. He now organizes BFRO expeditions in Washington and has participated in bigfoot conferences over the past 17 years.

Scott will be leading a Washington BFRO expedition in 2025 (July 17-20) which is open to non-members. For more details and registration information for that trip click here.