YEAR: 2011

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: October

DATE: 06

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Thurston County

LOCATION DETAILS: Vail Loop is where all of the activity has mainly happened for me

NEAREST TOWN: Vail/rainier

NEAREST ROAD: Vail Loop Road

OBSERVED: I live in Rainier Washington but I grew up out in Vail. A buddy of mine lived out in Vail as well, about 5 minutes from me driving and probably 25 mins walking [46.853568, -122.6668671].

The whole thing started when we were all hanging out and watching a movie. My buddy fell asleep who was supposed to give me a ride home [46.842467, -122.647580]. Story short I decided to walk as it was not far away. We lived near the bottom of Baumgard Hill and the power lines.

I had been walking for about 15 minutes when I first started having a very erie feeling as if I was being watched [46.848633, -122.669594]. I thought maybe it was an animal in the woods. No worries as I grew up out here. I continued walking. To the right of me in the tree line there were small trees, about 15 feet tall, that Warehouser had planted. That’s where I could hear something probably 30 feet away. It was pacing me. When I stopped it stopped. When I kept walking I could hear it walking as well through the brush.

I thought maybe it could’ve been a bear for as large as it sounded. I grew up hunting with my dad. He always told me to make myself look as large as I could to scare predators off. So being a kid, I flipped my jacket up over my head, and begin yelling towards the sounds I was hearing. That’s when I heard some small deep grunts in the trees [46.844779, -122.664942]. Two of the trees, about 8 feet apart and 10-15 tall, started shaking. That’s when I called my buddy on the phone who lived close to my destination to come pick me up immediately. He could hear me screaming to whatever was in the woods. It was definitely not a bear or a cougar.

I have also seen footprints and trees that are about 6 inches around, not broken, but twisted and laid across trails that we would ride ATVs across, blocking the trail. I have also heard whistles and whoops in that area.

To send this message makes my hair stand back up and eyes water because I remember what it felt like when that happened.

Not long after the incident, me and my buddies were four wheeling out in Warehouser land. We got our truck stuck. It was probably still October, November maybe. It was after dark. One of my buddies had grabbed a branch that was about 4 inches around. It had all the bark off of it. He tried to do a knock. He hit the tree in front of us twice [46.856542,-122.705620]. We heard nothing, but then as we walked away, about 300 yards up the slope, we heard a single loud knock. It terrified us. He says to me, "I’m going to pretend I did not hear that, and we are never doing that again."

Prior to the summer before, a gentleman who drove a silver Jeep Wrangler TJ model drove down my buddy's driveway (under the big powerlines) out in Vail off Runyon Road. He introduced himself and said that he had been tracking Bigfoots from Utah to Idaho to here. He explained that if we thought he was weird he would leave, but we were interested in hearing what he had to say. He explained to us the various different colors that they come in.

We took him out to the river out by the pipeline. We looked around for a while and then he found a track off the side of the pipeline road in the swampy tall grass [46.858083,-122.704660]. It was about 18 inches long and had five distinct toes.

ALSO NOTICED: The only thing that was unusual is that it was trailing me to the side, and when I would walk, it would walk. When I stopped it stopped and made the hair stand up on my entire body.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just me. My buddy was on the phone with me while I was screaming at whatever was in the woods to get away from me.

OTHER STORIES: Yes, there are other reports. They are also on your guys page.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Clear sky could see stars. Was clear enough I could see the ground around me, but dark out.

ENVIRONMENT: It was all Wayerhaeuser replant, all of the trees. And also 10 to 25 feet tall fir trees.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor:

3/27/24 6:00PM. I called the witness to interview him about his experience.

The event was in the fall of 2010. He was just out of high school. The time was 1:30AM. He was visiting a friend who was supposed to drive him home. His friend fell asleep, so he decided to just walk home. He was walking in a southeast direction along Vail Loop Road when he began to feel a strange vibe. As he walked along the road, he could hear something to his right-side walking along with him in the woods. He would stop and it would take one more step then stop. He started walking backwards so he could see if anything was following him.

When he got near the entrance to the Little Bit Ranch, he pulled his jacket up and held it over his head by both hands so as to look larger and he yelled at whatever it was. Then, he heard a deep grunt, and could hear movement in the bushes. He heard very heavy foot-falls.

There were two trees that were about 8 feet apart, and they both began shaking. He felt that whatever it was in the bushes had grabbed each tree and was shaking them hard. In a panic, he called another friend who lived nearby to come get him. He continued to shout at whatever it was while his friend was on the phone. His friend (Trevor), came to pick him up. When his friend arrived, the creature in the bushes calmed down.

3/29/24 1:00PM. We met the witness and his friend Trevor at his house. From there we followed them to the site where his encounter took place. He clarified which direction he was walking and where exactly he had been walking. He also pointed out the two trees that the creature had been shaking. The trees were about 12 feet tall at the time. They are now more than 20 feet tall. There is also a house and fence there that wasn’t there at the time. The interesting thing is that the witness was the one who built the fence for the property owner. He said that going there to build the fence was very upsetting to him.

This Google Maps photo shows the scene from above.



This photo shows the scene from ground level. The arrow indicates the two trees that the sasquatch was shaking.



After reviewing the events there, we followed him to a gated road nearby and parked there. We crossed the gate, and followed the road for about 300 feet. At that point we turned off the road onto a trail that took us to a railroad grade. The railroad tracks are no longer there.

We followed the grade to a bridge and crossed over the river. On the other side of the river we followed a trail that generally followed the railroad grade, but was close to the river. We hiked along this trail for about two miles. The trail crossed under a powerline right of way. Then further down the trail was a gas pipeline that crossed the river. While walking through the woods, we were shown a tree that had been twisted and pushed over. The tree was about 6 inches in diameter. Further down the trail we found a clear barefoot footprint, which we measured and took photos of. It is about 11 inches long, and shows splayed-out toes. While human size, the time of year and location are not where humans would likely be walking. Also, the footprint was along the right side of the trail, not in the middle. It is likely a sasquatch track.

We followed the trail to where it went back up to the railroad grade, and then followed the railroad grade to a large boulder pile with a cave-like overhang. There were animal bones nearby. Turning around at this point we walked the railroad grade all the way back to our vehicles. Along the way we found several “X” glyphs.

This photo shows the tree that was twisted and pushed over.




This photo shows the footprint.




This is the power line right-of-way.




This is an “X” glyph. We found several of these.



This is a photo of the witness, Taylor Betts, taken during the general time frame of the report. At the time he was 21 years old, 6' 5" and roughtly 250 pounds -- larger than the average person.



I followed up on a bigfoot report a decade ago in this same general area, only on the other side of the river. Reports 28856, 34710, 49991 and 76936 are nearby reports from the area that follow close along the power line right-of-way.

Report #28856
Report #34710
Report #49991
Report #76936

Based on these facts:

1. Something large and bipedal followed the witness.
2. The bipedal creature was matching his footsteps.
3. The bipedal creature was able to reach two trees that were 8 feet apart, and shake them vigorously. It would take a very large creature to do that. Nothing else that is recognized would be able to do that.
4. This behavior has been described many times by witnesses, especially in Washington State.

This is another sasquatch encounter within a mile of a powerline right of way.

______________________________________

Notes from BFRO Investigator Matt Moneymaker:

I have inserted the GPS coordinates for the different places he mentions so you can look up those spots on Google Maps or Google Earth. Simply copy those coordinates and paste them into the URL field in a Chrome or Edge browser, then hit enter. A map will appear with the spot marked.

The tree shaking incident occurred along Vail Loop Road near the driveway for Little Bit Ranch.

Although these incidents occurred in 2011 and the report is Class B (not visual) it is more important than most reports because of the location. The location is only 17 miles SE of the state capitol and close to the Deschutes River. It is close enough to the state capitol building for the Governor of Washington or state legislators to potentially find fresh tracks on their lunch breaks if they were to look for them. Not many state capitols are this close to a sighting area (The capitol of WV is another one).

Warehouser (logging company) owns and manages a lot of land in Washington State (roughly 900,000 acres). What better way to show they are managing their holdings rather well than by demonstrating to the Governor and legislators that there are sasquatches residing on parts of their land, along with a lot of other healthy wildlife.

If Warehouser people at the nearby Vail Office (2,000 feet east from tree shaking incident) find fresh tracks or encounter sasquatches around Baumgard Hill, I recommend they reach out quickly to offer a golden invitation to the Governor and legislators to scoot down there to see their tracks and hopefully experience these creatures for themselves. That can actually happen nowadays if there are established lines of communication for this specific scenario.

Washington would be the perfect state to do this first, as these creatures are almost their mascot already.

For years we have heard that logging companies like Warehouser will not reveal what they know. Some say they will stop at nothing to conceal the presence of sasquatches on their land. Those folks will talk about the spotted owl controversy, which really did cripple a significant part of the logging industry (old growth redwood) and decimated many vibrant logging communities in the northwest years ago.

There is no bigger, hairier example of applies-to-oranges comparison than to compare spotted owls to sasquatches.

Spotted owls only make nests in old growth giant redwood trees. If old growth giant redwoods (which live only in the coastal Pacific Northwest) are all gone, then spotted owls will go extinct.

Sasquatches, by contrast, are almost as adaptable as coyotes. They can live in many different types of environments. Sasquatches are not nearly as sensitive to habitat change as spotted owls. Sasquatches are on the other end of the adaptability spectrum. They can live well on well managed logging land, as do the deer herds they shadow. If sasquatches live there, then it is well managed.

If there is a history of sasquatches frequenting some Warehouser land, then it shows that sasquatches have adapted to the local logging practices.

Sasquatches would not be living on Warehouser land if Warehouser wasn't doing something right.

The way Warehouser does logging, in distanced 20-year tracts, is clearly not making those areas less suitable for sasquatches. Warehouser is not damaging the streams either. In the past stream damage from logging was common in many parts of the country, but not nowadays. Warehouser is effectively protecting the wildlife in their holdings almost as well as the Park Service does in National Parks, and the local sasquatches prove it.

________________________________


I spoke with the witness, Taylor Betts, at length by phone. He is credible. Back then he spent many days driving backroads in jeeps in the Warehouser tracts around Baumgard Hill and up Johnson Creek (which is marshy) . Scott Taylor spoke with the friend he called that night while the tree shaking occurred. The friend confirmed what happened on the phone call that night. Taylor is not making up the story.

He mentioned something else that spoke volumes to me. For about two thirds the distance of it stalking him along that dark road, he was walking backward. He would not move unless he was facing it. It was as if his body would not let him turn his back on the stalking sounds. That is a common thing in real stalking situations. You do not want to turn your back to it. It's almost an instinctual reflex, and it is very scary, and that seems to be the point of it.

The powerline route mentioned heads SW over the saddle near Baumgard Hill and then to the Tono area, where it intersects with the powerline route that crosses Interstate 5 (I-5) just south of the Maytown Rest Area -- a likely travel pathway to Capitol State Forest and the Olympic Peninsula, as indicated by various other incidents along that route.

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.

• Explanation of the report classification system
• Submit a report for the sightings database
• Please send any comments or inquiries to ContactUs@BFRO.net