YEAR: 2001

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

DATE: 15

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Mason County

LOCATION DETAILS: GPS 47.2844N 122.8834W coordinates for the 67 acre park. Jerrell's Cove State Parke 395 E. Wingert Rd, Shelton WA Walking up stairs from beach by boat dock.

NEAREST TOWN: Shelton, Washington

OBSERVED: August 15, 2001 I was living on a boat moored at Jerrell's Cove Marina on Harstine Island, WA. At about 4 AM my puppy woke me up to needing to go potty. I took her to the back deck of our 77” 1940's Coast Guard Cutter where we had a potty area set up for her. She kept barking and didn't pee. Finally I looked where she was looking, across the small body of water to Jerrell's Cove State Park. There, under the lights (that came on every night lit up the Marine Park floating dock and stairway) was a large black sasquatch walking up the stairs. He was about 8' tall and was methodically, kind of slowly walking up the stairs. His back was to me, I am sure he heard the puppy barking, but he did not turn or pay any attention to it. I couldn't distinguish a neck, maybe hair was preventing me from seeing that. His arms were too long perportionately (not the same perporrtion as a humans arms to body height) I could clearly see glistening muscles on his right thigh in the light over the stairs, the hair was a bit sparse there, I got the impression he had probably shed some and had his light summer coat on. The skin was black on his thigh as well as on his hands, his hair was black. I watched him walk up the stairs and along the walkway until he came to the land. Then he took 3 casual strides and disappeared into the evergreen forest. I watched him for about 15 seconds.

ALSO NOTICED: After my son told me what his friend said, we took a little tender boat over to the Jarrell's Cove State Park. I walked from the end of the walk way to the forrest taking the biggest strides I could. It took me 15 long strides (at 5'5”) to get to the forest edge. It took the sasquatch 3 relaxed casual strides to go the same distance.
Jerrell's Cove State Parke 395 E. Wingert Rd, Shelton WA

OTHER WITNESSES: a second witness came forward 3 days later. He had gotten up early to fish when he saw what he reported below:

I didn't say anything about what I saw. I knew my husband would laugh at me. Three days later my 10-year-old son told me that his friend told him that since his family was going to be leaving Sunday morning, (the day I saw the sasquatch), he got up really early to do some fishing before he had to go. He told my son he saw something black swimming in the water. He thought it was a seal. But then it went to the other side of the water, to the Jerrell's Cove State Park and walked out of the water and then proceeded to walk up the stairs, down the long ramp/walkway and disappear into the woods. My son's friend saw the same thing I saw. I just came in at the part when the sasquatch was walking up the stairs.
I am not sure why I am telling you this after all these years.

OTHER STORIES: I read of some after experiencing this. Of one looking in a kids window several times and of log knocking sounds.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: about 4 AM

Night lights on over the dock and stairs making him very visible. Maybe a quarter moon in the sky. Summer night, good visibility, nice weather.

ENVIRONMENT: Evergreen, Douglas Fir forest

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor:

I was able to contact this witness over the phone. This witness now lives in Alaska. Although the sighting was 24 years ago, it is an unusual sighting at an important location.























I asked her to describe what she saw. She said that the creature had black hair, and black skin on the legs and hands. She could not judge how tall it was.

She did not see it get out of the water, but since it was walking up the ramp it had to have hauled its self onto the dock.

The friend of her sons who she mentioned, was only a “friend” for when they were there on that vacation trip. After they left, the two never again had contact. However, that young man was able to watch it swimming, thinking it was a seal, and watched it get out of the water onto the dock. He watched it at the same time that she was watching it, but she didn’t know at that moment that he was up and fishing.

One thing she thought to do was go over to where it walked off the dock ramp and pace off how many steps it took to cross the open space between the ramp and the woods. She took 15 steps and the sasquatch took only three.

I went to the site to get some photos and an understanding of distances. The area right around the dock contains multiple campsites. At 4:00AM, it is likely the few people on that side would be up. The open space between the dock ramp and the woods is about 30 feet.

This is a view of the dock from the marina. This is what the witness would have seen.




This is the view of the dock from the state park side of the cove.




I measured the distance from the marina dock to the Jarrell cove dock using Google Earth tools. The distance was only about 260 feet. This distance agrees with my on-site observations.


Harstine Island is well known to have a population of sasquatches. The book “Visits from the Forest People” by Julie Scott was about frequent interaction with sasquatches at their home which is only about a mile away. There are other reports also.

Below you will see a link to a page listing other posted sasquatch reports from that county (Mason). There are a handful of reports from Harstine Island, two of which occurred near this same camground.

These reports are years apart, suggesting that sasquatches have been coming to this island for a long time, and will likely come back again in the future, and will probably swim across to this cove to this same dock sometime in August so it doesn't need to make a big detour on foot around the whole cove as it tries to follow the perimeter of island on the north end.

Mason County report in BFRO Database

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 19 years.

Scott will be leading a Washington BFRO expedition in 2026 (July 16-19) which is open to non-members. For more details and registration information for that trip click here.

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