YEAR: 1999

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: June

DATE: June 1999

PROVINCE: British Columbia

COUNTRY: Canada

NEAREST TOWN: chilliwack

NEAREST ROAD: cultus lake rd

OBSERVED: I have always been a believer in sasquatch.however,I was never wanting to actually see one.(childhood fear).I watched a documentary when I was 10 yrs old and had bad dreams ever since.In one dream he cornered me in a cave and threw a big log in at me.This woke me thinking I was dead.Anyway my wife and I,and 2 kids,went camping at a provincial park near our home.It was the middle of june.One afternoon,my wife convinced me to go for a hike down one of the trails nearby.It was just after lunch.We walked down the road 100 ft and turned onto the trail that went straight into the bush behind the camp.About 200ft down the trail I was looking up a hill that was covered in ferns.not many trees for about 50 yds.the sun was shining on this hill.the trees were very tall so not much direct sunlight got through in most places.Camera still in the bag at this point.I noticed what looked like a big stump at the back of the sunlit area.All of a sudden it got up and started running away.Very quickly.It ran about 100 yds in my view,away from the direction of my campsite.I was able to see it foot when it came up to the back and it didnt look huge compared to the rest of him.I saw a long thigh come up level as it ran.It was very muscular in the back,I could see how the hair came to a v shape at the spine.The colour was like a grizzly bear.The last thing I heard was a big crack of a tree.I looked at my wife and said "lets go".I picked up the smallest boy and we all ran out to the road.My wife and kids saw nothing(were'nt looking).I saw a parks guy emptying garbage bins.I went to him and said"I just saw something big and brown in the bush".To my surprise he said quite calmly,"was it on 2 legs or 4 legs?".I responded"2".he said"OK,I'll tell the rangers".And that was it,didnt seem surprised or disbelieving.

ALSO NOTICED: I went back with the camera to find tracks and found a rotten log all torn up where I saw it first.soft ground,scratch marks where tracks would have been.I found deep tracks 15 inches long where it ran.I'm 6Ft 3 and had to jump between them.loud crack was a deadfall broken in middle.I stepped on it and it didnt move.Went back a year later in the fall with my father.tried a different trail closeby,noticed another ripped up log and several large stones at side of trail turned over.park was closed at the time.would have needed a machine to do that.My dad said he thought he could smell a horse sweating.I said "thats enough for me,I'm out a here"

OTHER WITNESSES: I was the only one who saw anything

OTHER STORIES: I reported this to John Greene this summer.He said that there was a reported sighting at silver lake camp shortly after that.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: midday sunny

ENVIRONMENT: second growth.mixed forest

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Kevin Withers:

The animal was crouching down by a rotten log when it was first seen. The witness doesn't know if it saw, heard, or smelled him and his family, but he feels that their presence was the reason it ran away.

The animal ran along the side of the hill, parallel to the trail they were on and in the direction they were going. He caught glimpses of it between the trees and bushes, and he noticed that its feet came up to its butt as it ran. It moved very quickly, faster than a human would, in the witness' opinion.

The witness did not see the animal's face. He did notice, however, that the hair around the bottom of its legs was thick and looked like bell bottom pants legs. The hair on its back was "Matted down and very neat, like it was brushed down into a 'V.'" It looked small when it was running but, as the witness said, "It was hard to tell from fifty yards away." The witness did not smell any odor.

The tracks it left were fourteen to fifteen inches long and five to six inches wide, with no toes visible. The distance between the tracks was estimated at six feet.

When the witness went back to the spot where he first saw the creature, he noticed a lot of random scratch marks on the ground. The marks looked as though they had been made with a stick; the witness speculates that they were made to erase tracks.

Silver Lake Camp is located approximately twenty miles southeast of this sighting.