YEAR: 2001

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: November

DATE: 5th and 6th

STATE: Colorado

COUNTY: Teller County

LOCATION DETAILS: It was off Gold Camp Rd., two miles east of the watershed road.

NEAREST TOWN: Victor, Colorado

NEAREST ROAD: Gold Camp Road

OBSERVED: In November 2001, I was guiding for a husband and wife team and was also accompanied by my own wife during a elk hunt. That morning we had located a herd of elk in some remote country and had stalked to their location to find that it was only cows. Since we had bull tag only we did not pursue but instead went out on the point of a mountain to glass for any potential bulls. As our party was sitting and glassing I called periodically hoping for a response from a bull. To my surprise (all of our surprise) we heard a low guttural moan. At first I thought it to be a bull bedded down but the second time I realized that it was no bull at all and could not possibly be a bear. I immediately went toward the noise to confirm what ever had made it and found no animals, no elk, deer, bear, etc.

Shortly after hearing and investigating the sound I moved the party up the mountain to a aspen grove where I knew mid-day bulls would visit to eat. Shortly after positioning the hunters my wife and I took a position higher up the mountain to get a better view and for calling. After sitting in the grove for less than an hour we heard logs being hit together. Not like two bulls fighting but more like someone taking a sizeable log and hitting against another. The end of the day came and we returned to the camp and the hunt was over.

That night two inches of snow fell and I went back to the same location and found a dead cow elk with only her chest cavity being open and from what I could tell having most of her internal organs. I am of course no expert in zoology or cryptolgy [sic] but from my best guess and knowing what I have seen from the past I think that my hunting party and I disturbed a bigfoot while hunting that morning.

I did find tracks but due to the sun melt the tracks were very large with no distinguishable marks. This took place only 8 to 10 miles from the previous sightings.

ALSO NOTICED: It took me awhile after hearing the first vocalization to grasp what I was hearing.

OTHER WITNESSES: My wife and I and two other hunters. We where listening and looking with binoculars for elk.

OTHER STORIES: Only the two other incidents that occured 3 years prior, but 8 to 10 miles away. [See Report 819, under Teller County: Sightings by hunting guide in Pike National Forest ]

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Early morning, sunny day, with good light. Cold mid 30's with frost on the ground.

ENVIRONMENT: Mountainous, with open grasses with dark pine timber and aspen. Near Skagway Reservior, 10 miles south of Pikes Peak.

Follow-up investigation report:

Witness is an accomplished big game guide who had two encounters in 1997 and 1998, but has since moved away from Colorado. Witness is also a special forces veteran and recurve bow hunter, which requires him to get extremely close to prey. He said he'd set up his clients on a hillside and had approached a herd of cow elk when they heard the vocalization.

"I heard this low ""RRRRRRR." At first I thought it might be a bull laid down. Then we heard it again. I decided to put on a stalk, thinking maybe we could get close. When we got close, it did it again going away from us. But there was no sign of an elk.''

He said the knocking noises they heard later were definitely not dueling elk.

"We were there less than hour, situated in aspen, and my wife and I kind of got on a high point to oversee them and see where any elk might come from. All of a sudden we heard this "WHACK" three or four times. It was definitely not elk horns against tree. By this time, the rut was done with. It was time for them to get fat on for winter. They they just don't fight
at that time of year.

""It was like someone picking up a stick and hitting a tree several times in succession. It was really loud. It almost sounded like a tree top falling out of a tree. That's when it dawned on me, something's weird here. So immediately my wife and I went down to where they were at and we went ahead moved out of the area and hunted a different area.''

The next day, he discovered the carcass.

"What I was trying to do was find this big bull we'd worked all year long. I was going into get photos, and went a little further north than we were the day before. In the next drainage bottom a cow elk was laying down there. There were lots of ravens but none of them were on the carcass. The only thing I saw was the front of it. The chest area had been split open, there was no bullet wounds, arrows, anything like that. I didn't think to check and see if her neck was broken.

"She was on her side, her back legs more apart than her front.
The carcass was fresh, I'm guessing two days, max. The ravens hadn't even started yet. There was like a hole, 8 to 10 inches in length, running the width of chest, and 4 '' wide. This was rough. It wasn't done by a knife. Between deer and elk I must have dressed out 1,000 carcasses. This looked like something reached with both hands and ripped it apart. I couldn't help thinking if someone had shot it, why wouldn't they go ahead and dress it out?"

He added that he found unusual tracks, which he took to be of a biped. The tracks were indistinct, but the stride was long.

"They weren't elk tracks, weren't bear tracks, they were too damn long to be people tracks. I couldnt step in the tracks, stride too great. But there were no distinguishable toe marks.''