YEAR: 2004

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: July

DATE: 17

STATE: Oregon

COUNTY: Lane County

LOCATION DETAILS: The campground is about 8 miles SE of Dorena Lake.

NEAREST TOWN: Cottage Grove

NEAREST ROAD: Sharps Creek

OBSERVED: July 17, 2004
My two sons and I were camping this weekend at the One Potato Mineral campground...just up the Forest Service Access Road from Mineral Camp. (Sharp Creeks/Bohemia Mine area). We were hiking up the steep road leading to the Ghost Town mining area in the early evening. We kept talking about a "strange bird sound"...the "Whoop-Whoop- Whoop"...and just dismissed it as some weird bird. I happened across your website because I was looking for information on the Bohemia Mine.
I had chills and goosebumps when I read your journal entry.
We also heard "heavy" footsteps outside our tent on Saturday night, July 17th. Then in the very early morning...around 4:00am...I could smell something REALLY nasty.
Here...something had "Marked" our tarp and our tent. The urine smell was SO strong...we had to leave our tent tarp behind.
I really do believe NOW that we had a "Sasquatch Encounter". Whoa!

OTHER WITNESSES: 2

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Early evening

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Dr. Wolf H. Fahrenbach:

During their evening hike, the three participants each independently and simultaneously got an acute feeling of "being watched" and returned to camp at a run. The night-time steps were distinctly bipedal and of slow cadence. The odor was definitely not a cadaverous one, but an intense "dirty" animal aroma. The witness could not be positive that the animal had, in fact, urinated on their tarp or just touched it. Their small dog, which had furiously barked at a visibly approaching cougar, was silent and cowed inside the tent when the nocturnal events happened.