YEAR: 2003

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: April

DATE: 20

STATE: Wyoming

COUNTY: Lincoln County

LOCATION DETAILS:

NEAREST TOWN: Smoot, WY.

NEAREST ROAD: hwy 89

OBSERVED: Apr 20, 2003- A friend and I were carrying in supplies on foot to a bear bait site about 2 miles west of hwy 89. This area is restricted to foot or horseback only and is on the Idaho/Wyoming border. I had carried in the bait barrel and some bait items a week earlier, having noted some bear tracks in the snow along the creek the first week of April. We walked along the foottrail early morning and about a mile in came upon the fresh carcass of a muskrat right on the trail, which was about 30 feet up from the creek and along the bend of the mountain. We were both startled by the dead muskrat because it was just there with no evidence of a predator in sight. I suggested that it may have been dropped by an eagle, but honestly there had been no sightings of eagles on our walk. Another mile in and we began placing our bait in the barrel, having noted that the bait already there had not been disturbed by anything. We were preparing to leave the site when we heard the cracking of branches and looking in the direction of the noise,we watched a large piece of a tree tumbling down the mountainside towards us. About 400yds up on a ledge stood something bipedal, the color of a moose, leaning against the remains of a tree. I asked my friend "What is that?" He replied "must be a moose". And I answered "but it only has 2 feet!" He did not reply, but started walking back to the trail. I looked back at the animal which was 7-8ft tall as best as I could estimate, very broad at the shoulders with legs that appeared long and thin compared to the rest of its body. It was hard to make out the shape of its head, as I couldn't see a neck and its head appeared to be bent, looking down the mountain towards us. It then quickly moved behind the broken tree and into the treeline . I wished I'd had my binoculars that day, but in our haste to get on the trail that morning, I accidently left them in the truck. My feeling while returning along the trail to the truck was almost of myself being stalked, a strange "role reversal". My friend moved quickly down the trail, no words spoken about what was on that hillside. When I recounted the experience a couple months later to friends, I had forgotten the part about the dead muskrat, which my friend quickly interjected to them as a very disturbing incident to him. Yet he laughed when I told them we may have seen a Bigfoot, which he readily dismissed.
This bear bait site, coincidently, is along a drainage that connects to a larger creek near where a year ago, I had heard some strange and disturbing sounds on a moutain pass while hunting deer. I related the incident about the sounds to BFRO this past winter.

ALSO NOTICED: Mentioned the fresh muskrat carcass on the trail about a mile before the bait site.

OTHER WITNESSES: 2 witnesses, me and Brian. We had just finished putting food items into the bait barrel and were preparing to leave the area.

OTHER STORIES: Friends at work who had lived in Cokeville, WY, stated heard of sightings outside of Montpelier, ID. One friend said "they've been there for years." Read on BFRO about a winter sighting somewhere along hwy 89/30. Also heard of an incident about a California hunter who saw something like a bigfoot along Water canyon, which is near the top of Salt Creek Pass, 4 or 5 years ago.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: late morning, was very cold and damp early morning, quickly warming up, bright sunny few clouds. slight breeze.

ENVIRONMENT: Packstring creek, which originates less than a mile from the baitsite as a spring. Beaver ponds. Intermittant heavy forests, mainly pine and quakies on steep sloping mountainsides, many small connecting canyons, and high grassy outcroppings. Elk and deer calve in the late spring.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator  :

I spoke with the witness B.F. on the telephone and learned that she is a 53-year-old registered nurse. She is an avid hunter and experienced in the outdoors. She repeated the information in her written report with good consistency of detail, and added the following additional information:

She was resupplying her bear hunting bait site with a co-worker. B.F originally looked up to spot the animal when she heard branches breaking on the side of the hill above her. She saw a piece of a tree fall and spotted the animal higher up. The animal was broad shouldered, dark (the color of a moose), and appeared to be standing on two legs. She was confident that it was not a moose because she would have necessarily been able see the moose’s whole body when it later moved into the trees. “Moose don’t walk sideways like that,” she told me. She estimated the animal was seven to eight feet tall. She said she made this estimate by comparing the animal to the trees. She couldn’t make out much of a neck or head, but she saw “something on top of the upper part of the body.” She estimates she looked at the animal for about 15 to 20 seconds. It moved into the trees with three quick steps, which she described as “bump, bump, bump”. Her companion was not interested in observing the animal, and dismissed it as a moose. Later when the two of them were discussing the incident with others he said he “didn’t want to have anything to do with Bigfoot.” B.F. climbed the hill to attempt to investigate the area where the animal was standing but there were too many broken fallen trees. Due to the drought many trees had fallen over because of soft soil.

Her bait site did not appear to be disturbed but she noticed a rancid smell that she could not compare to anything. When she went back at a later time to replenish her bait site she noticed the same smell throughout the area. She emphasized that at the time of the sighting she only noticed it right by the bait site. Food items left at the bait sight included apples, chicken, and hot dogs. She never spotted a bear on the site that season or any evidence of it having been visited by a bear. She did not think a Bigfoot had been eating the food at her site. Her basis for this inference was that not much of the food from her bait sight was ever eaten (she had to haul most of it back after the baiting season was over). In addition, her bait can was situated with heavy tree limbs on top of the bait barrel which a large animal would have to remove to get a good sample of the bait. None of the limbs were ever undisturbed.

About BFRO Investigator  :

Carter Mackley is a private attorney in Seattle Washington with eight years experience as a public prosecutor.