I came to the edge of a clearing where I could see the distant mountains and waterfalls spilling down their sides from thaws. It was gorgeous. I had my sketch book tucked under my arm, hoping to sketch at the next stop, but I was half tempted to start drawing. I scanned the trees and tried to remember the look of it for my drawing and a potential oil painting when I got home again.
Down below me on the nearby mountain, I saw a clearing between trees of about 20 feet wide. I started to turn away, but a movement made me keep my eyes on it and I saw something dark seem to come out of the brush on the right of the clearing as if it were going from squatting to standing and then it loped across the clearing on two legs in a loose-limbed gait, large strides, long arms, and very dark brown but some of it seemed medium brown where the light hit the part facing me. It disappeared in only several steps into the woods on the left of the clearing.
My very first instinct when it stood up was that a camper/hiker was on the other hillside. When it stood erect and walked, it did so comfortably. I knew it wasn't a hiker because there was no outline or definition of clothing or backpack and the head was the same color. This thing was dark and appeared to be all the same color. For a flash of a second, I thought "bear" but the shape was completely wrong and the gait went on for several large strides through the clearing.
I took a step back, puzzled, my mind racing to explain it. My knowledge of Bigfoot at this point was the films from childhood in the early 70s and I always assumed he existed only in Washington State. I didn't know California had sightings and even though I had seen film on TV of the Patterson-Gimlin film, I did not recall hearing where it was taken. We didn't have internet then and Bigfoot was not "in" at the time, so no one was putting on specials or documentaries on TV about it.
I baffled a few minutes, afraid to look away from the clearing, wishing it to come back and also scared it would come back. if I yelled to the group, there would be nothing to tell them except a very weird story. The feelings that came to me were like if you walked outside and saw your hairy fat neighbor leaning over for the newspaper with his boxers on, like I wasn't supposed to be seeing this and I felt shy and kind of guilty for witnessing it.
At the time, my (now ex-) husband was not a person who believed in a single thing that wasn't already in scientific manuals and I had not even shared my psychic talent or the stories of the things that happened in my childhood haunted home. I knew better. The group was all engineer nerds and I knew not a one of them would believe me and ask me to show them something that had already left my view.
I just held it in, figuring that I could eventually explain it to myself somehow. We continued on up to Baboon Lake (ironic name now that I think of it) and we camped out, but I didn't sleep. I kept thinking about that "thing" and if it could make it to 11,000 feet and if it had friends.
It wasn't until years later that I let myself use the term "Bigfoot" for it. There simply was no other way to explain what was a very organic, natural, fur-covered, upright walking creature. It was definitely not a man. It was absolutely not a bear. It left me few options. I still recall the weird fluttering in my stomach when I saw it as if I had witnessed something that even I couldn't believe, much less others. I held this in for decades, not wanting to sound like a quack, but finally admitting I ghost hunt in search of answers for unexplained occurrences and being resolved that I have some crazy weird skills in the PSI realm, I had to finally realize; what is one more amazing occurrence in an otherwise serendipitous life?
If you ever wonder why I run a ghost hunting theories blog, then you must not read the blog. I am hounded by my very logic-minded side and the witness I have been to some extraordinary things. Still, I am not one to jump right to the woo-woo or spiritual realm. These things launch themselves in our physical world for us to see, hear, smell, feel and so they work in the natural world. It is that natural realm I hope to pursue answers that ring true.
Hope you continue with me as I make more theories and test them.