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Bamafoot
Member
| Joined: | Thu May 22nd, 2008 |
| Location: | Hayden, Alabama USA |
| Posts: | 13 |
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Posted: Tue Jun 17th, 2008 09:49 pm |
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| I spent a few years in Arizona and a great deal of time camping out. At the time, Bigfoot was the last thing on my mind. There was one campsite in particular and 2 occasions that have me wondering what else might have been using the same area. Perhaps some of you who are more familiar with BF's behavior can tell me if I am on the right track or if I jumped and went left... I don't know if any of you are familiar with AZ at all, but just in case I will give a brief description of where I was. The campsite I would frequent is in the Mogollon Rim country. About 80 miles n. of Phoenix is the city of Payson. If you go east from Payson about 15 miles, you hit Christopher Creek. Not much there, a general store and some cabins to rent. About 2 miles beyond Christopher Creek, there was a "fire road". (dirt road up the mountain in case of wildfires) If you travelled about 7 1/2 miles up the fire road you could find my camping area. I never saw anyone more than 2 miles up the fire road in all the times I camped there so I wasn't within 5 miles of anyone. There was a little pond up there and, as far as I know, the only water unless you made the several mile trek down the mountain to the creek. I did see tons of deer and elk up there and had just assumed that it was elk I was hearing. On 2 occasions, once while I was alone and once when a buddy was camping with me, I had animals "blow" at me. The first time, I was alone and it is the only weekend I have ever been up there and didn't see any deer or elk. It was about 1/4 hike to the pond and I would go in the evening and just watch to see what was coming in to drink. I would park my truck, set up camp, and just burn a weekend relaxing. On this particular weekend I had come up alone. Set up my camp and started walking toward the pond. Walking toward the pond, after the first several yards, something would "blow" at me every few feet. It was coming from my left as I walked, and it was almost like they were on a perimeter. The sounds were all the same, but they were not in the same place, kinda like there were a bunch of elk and everytime one picked up my scent, he had to let me know he didn't like it... It made me pretty nervous, but I figured I could at least get into thick enough cover if I had an elk decide to come charging at me. I didn't ever see anything, and walked all the way to the pond with the constant blowing sounds. I didn't hang around until after dark as I normally would. I wasn't terrified, but I was a bit uncomfortable and wanted to be in my camp before it got very dark. There was nothing else unusual about the weekend. Wandered around and just enjoyed the woods the rest of the weekend. It was memorable for 2 reasons, though. The whole weekend, I saw no animals and that is the only time in all the trips I made up there that I didn't. The other reason is obvious, lots of heavy breathing.... The second trip with the same experience was either the next weekend or 2 weekends later. My memory is decent, but not that good. I took a friend of mine up there who wanted to try and photograph some of the deer and elk. We got up there Friday evening and set up camp and headed to the pond. First thing we came across was a rattlesnake in the path. Shame on me, I killed it. We went all the way to the pond without incident. About 5 minutes after we got there a big, beautiful, bull elk came in for a drink. Somewhere I have about a dozen pictures of him, he was huge and beautiful. He got within about 30 feet of us before he walked back into the brush. We stayed until it got too dark to see anything else and headed back to camp. All the way back to camp, the blowing again. He asked me what it was and I told him, of course, elk. We sat around and knocked a few beers back and laughed about how freaky the feeling was with all the "blowing" coming back through the woods and called it a night. Nothing happened Saturday or Sunday, but we also didn't see anymore animals for the rest of the trip. Like I said, Might be exactly what I thought back then, maybe one of you can tell me....
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Robroy
Member
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Posted: Wed Jun 18th, 2008 02:40 am |
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| I know the area very well...absolutely lovely...and yes i think they are moving around that area.
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Catamount
Member
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Posted: Wed Jun 18th, 2008 03:25 am |
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I was working for NASA back in the mid 80's and one spring spent about three months in Phoenix at Unisys Space Systems. I lived in an apartment up at the north end of town off Bell Road. Every time I got some time off, I hit the boonies. I know the area you speak of fairly well. I investigated a couple of BF sightings in the Mogollon Rim area roughly northwest of there about 75 miles.
There are definitely boogers along the rim, and even out west of Flagstaff. I got to know a Navajo guy quite well and met some of his friends and family, and heard some good stories from them. Some of them lived in the boonies outside of Payson.
But to answer your question, I've never been around any elk that would stand around and blow at you like a whitetail deer will. Elk are more elusive and cautious than whitetails and one will blow and the whole herd will move out quickly at the approach of a possible threat. And when whitetail do it, there's only one, maybe sometimes two that do the blowing. Not several from different locations. So, I think you had boogers blowing at you.
Plus, it has been my experience that sometimes they will "huff" at you when your presence is PO'ing them, or if they are warning the others in the area of your presence.
Catamount
Last edited on Wed Jun 18th, 2008 03:33 am by Catamount
____________________
"There's things in these woods that only God-Almighty Himself knows what they are." - O'neal Sockwell's explanation to me, as to why I needed to carry a gun when I went in the woods on the back of our farm.
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Catamount
Member
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Posted: Wed Jun 18th, 2008 06:07 pm |
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I looked at a map of the area you spoke of, and I had forgotten that the Christopher Creek area is where Hwy 260 runs out on top of the Rim. Beautiful country up there. I always wanted to spend more time in that area. The topo maps show all kinds of interesting places to explore.
One of the places where I rooted around is much closer to there than I had realized. Within around 30 miles to the NW, roughly. There were definitely boogers there. First time I went into that area exploring, I drove up to the end of a Forest Service or Fire road and parked. There was a small trail leading up the canyon, upwards towards the rim. There was a small amount of water in the creek in the bottom of the canyon. I was around a half mile from the car and easing along enjoying the gorgeous scenery when everything went dead quiet, my hair stood on end, goose bumps popped up all over me and I got that creeping dread feeling.
This was before I had Bo, the Bigfoot Dog. So, not having anyone to direct me otherwise, I kept on going and eventually found what I was looking for. I also found a couple of tracks and one of them was pretty good. I took a few pics and eased out of there. I never saw anything, but I did hear a few whistles.
Looking back on that incident, I'm lucky that the Mogollon Rim BF were not as agressive as the ones we encountered in New Mexico in the foothills of Sierra Blanca (just west of the White Mountain Apache Reservation), where we had cantalope sized rocks hurled at us.
My Navajo friend had an interesting view of BF. He believed that BF was an ancient race or tribe of humans that had inhabited the U.S. long before any of the present NA tribes were here. He also said that some tribes, including the Navajo, had warred with some of the BF tribes long ago. He also spoke of some of their Holy Men communicating with BF and that the BF had chosen to adhere to their ancient ways.
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"There's things in these woods that only God-Almighty Himself knows what they are." - O'neal Sockwell's explanation to me, as to why I needed to carry a gun when I went in the woods on the back of our farm.
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