Bumper year for sightings of sasquatch 


by Andrew DeMillo 
Seattle Times staff reporter 
It's been 44 years since Cliff Crook said he first saw the legendary beast known as a sasquatch emerge from the deep woods of Washington and tramp into the middle of his campsite. He says the image still gives him chills today, as does this summer's spate of reported Bigfoot sightings across the Pacific Northwest. 

In his four decades trailing the bearded creature said to roam the forests of the Northwest, the 59-year-old "Bigfoot tracker" can't remember a summer as active as this one. 

"These are some pretty exciting finds," said Crook. 

Park rangers and police say the upswing in reported sightings is just another instance of nature playing tricks on the eyes of hikers and hunters who mistake shadows of tree stumps or animals. However, Crook and teams of Bigfoot trackers and enthusiasts around the country say this very well could be the summer of sasquatch. 

Crook's Bigfoot Central - a tracking and research center based out of his Bothell home - has logged 11 sightings in the Pacific Northwest since May, a record number, he said. 

Most have come from Washington, according to Thom Powell, northwest curator of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, based in Los Angeles. The nationwide network of trackers, scientists and enthusiasts also has received a record number - more than a dozen reports in the past two months, Powell said. 


"Washington seems to be the most active spot around right now," said Powell, a middle-school science teacher in Portland. 

Attention has been focused on a report from the Hoh Reservation on the Olympic Peninsula, as well as a reported sighting by an Oregon psychologist hiking in the Oregon Caves National Monument in that state's southwestern corner. 

Mary C. Williams, who lives on the Hoh Reservation, said she and her husband noticed a set of curiously large footprints behind their home. She said her husband heard an intense banging sound and found animal hairs near the prints. 

"It really surprised me and the rest of the folks around here," Williams said. "Just think how long they've been around here for." 

An official with the Bureau of Indian Affairs said the agency looked into the report but was skeptical. "There is something big going through their yards, but it's most likely a bear," said Indian Affairs' Scott Small. 

But Oregon psychologist Matthew Johnson, who had never thought much about sasquatches, said he's sure what he saw while hiking with his family July 1 at the Oregon Caves National Monument was anything but a bear. Johnson, who lived in Alaska 20 years, said he knows the difference between a grizzly or black bear and a sasquatch. 

"This was it, Bigfoot," he said. "It was this tall hairy animal poking through the woods at us." 

Since Johnson's reported sighting, which was widely reported in news accounts, the park has been getting several calls a day from media representatives and visitors interested in the sighting, said Craig Akerman, superintendent of Oregon Caves. 

"I would just prefer that we would get attention for the park itself," he said. "Not for Bigfoot." 

Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company