Our family loves spending time at the family cabin in Oregon which is in an area of vast wilderness. The property has been in Angie’s family for over the last century and is located about one mile off the paved road and approximately eight miles in either direction to the nearest electric light.
The family cabin’s remote location allowed all the familiar night sounds of the forest to be easily heard. The hoot of an owl in the distance, the chirping of crickets, the howl of a pack of coyotes on the hunt, the occasional buck snort (not to be confused with the “buck snort” that old uncle Fred had when we would take him for a ride in the car from the care home). It was not uncommon to hear random bumps and thumps in the middle of the night from squirrels in the attic or the foraging family of raccoons under the floors looking for the debris of the human invaders of their home territory.
One time we took a large group of friends and family up to the cabin. Our kids were in their late teens to mid-20’s. This was during my boy’s “arm yourself to the teeth stage” where they accumulated an impressive collection of firepower. In my youth we owned guns. We lived in the country, and it was not uncommon for most households to have a .22 rifle or a shotgun in the home to deal with any threats from the variety of pests, four legged or otherwise, around the home.
My boys took gun ownership to a whole different level. On this trip they took the whole arsenal. This achieved two of their goals. One, that any peace and quiet the parental figures were looking forward to would be doomed and two, we were well prepared for the coming Zombie Apocalypse.
A target range was selected to prevent any stray friendly fire towards the cabin and the “target” practice commenced. The definition of “target” was rather vague and included bottles, cans, sticks, trees, bushes, wildflowers, bugs, lizards, hikers, low flying aircraft, and any soon to be extinct critters of the forest that dared show its face. (Note: I put an end to the items listed after lizards after the second single engine plane went down. The kids said it was “engine trouble “. One aircraft is an accident but two leans towards a felony.)
After the first day of shooting, my kids had to make an ammo run to Walmart. I never knew Walmart’s sporting goods department carried an item called Binary Targets. These things are targets that explode when shot. After some research upon our return to home I found out these things are illegal in California. Probably to prevent the loss of digits, limbs, heads that would get in the way of the explosion. Apparently, Oregon is doing a booming trade in reattachment surgeries as the devices were readily available there.
Angie and I were sitting by the fire pit enjoying the relative peace and quiet that occurred while the “militia” reloaded when we heard the first boom. ‘Hmmm”, I thought to myself,” they must have brought a shotgun to improve the forests supply of lead.” After several more booms there was quiet. When you have over armed offspring lacking the common sense that comes to survive this age, any prolonged silence is concerning. After a bit, we relaxed when we heard a rifle shot, followed by another every 15 seconds. This continued for around five shots total when a large explosion echoed through the meadow. “What was that?” Angie asked. “Either they found that crate of dynamite Uncle Fred lost years ago with a stray bullet, or the US Air Force bombed the kids in retaliation for the two downed aircraft” was my reply. Either way, it did not sound good.
About this time, Tristan, our youngest boy staggered into the campsite. His shirt was tattered, his hair was sticking out in all different directions, and he had dark soot marks on his face. We quickly checked him out and found no permanent damage. ‘What happened?” I asked. This is when we found out what Binary Targets were. They lost the original thrill after the third “boom” and decided that they could fix that by combining the mixed powder from four targets into one. They placed their invention into a hollow stump and paced off a “safe” distance. Tristen convinced his older brother to let him have the honors and the result was that the first round missed. That was why we heard measured rifle shots, when Tristen missed, he simply walked 10’ closer and tried again. Apparently, he is very accurate at about 15’ from the target. The results were standing in front of us loudly shouting the story out due to his fortunately temporary hearing loss.
The cabin had a well-designed water system consisted of a gas pump at the well in the meadow that pumped water up to the water tower equipped with four 50 gallon converted water heater tanks that gravity fed the water to the cabin and the shower in the meadow with a plexiglass homemade solar hot water tank. Once you got the water heated up you could have a nice warm shower for about 10 minutes. There was a redwood stall with floors and walls that kept you “semi” private. The standard procedure is that everyone would hang out on the other side of the cabin to afford the shower-ee a bit of privacy as the redwood slats were spaced a little too far apart and a sharp eye could make out partial body parts. I was using the shower one day when I heard giggling from the outside. It was my boys thinking that they would play a prank on dad by stealing his clothes and towel that were hanging over the wall. My suspicions were confirmed as the clothes and towel quickly disappeared being replaced with shrieking laughter as the boys ran off. The laughter quickly turned to screams when they saw their wet, angry, and very naked father running after them. They never tried that one again.
The outhouse was another attraction at the cabin. It was located about 100’ down a trail. In the daytime, it was doable for almost everyone except for me. One of the many “issues” I deal with is called Paruresis, or porta phobia which is the fear of using public toilets like porta-potties, especially when others are around. I would rather explode than poop in a 5-gallon bucket on top of the vile offerings other people have made to the Outhouse God. I fortunately have the rare gift of superior sphincter control so that every other day I can take a trip 8 miles down the road to the flush potties at the campground in Howard’s Prairie. I prefer the handicap stall as it is always cleaner and has grab bars for power squeezing. Now if they only had stirrups…….
One night in September of 1981, myself, my wife, Angie, our 15-month-old daughter, Marisa and my 18 year old sister-in-law were sitting around the campfire roasting “smores” when I noticed that all the normal nighttime noises were strangely missing. I was about to mention it to Angie when the silence was pierced by a loud scream coming from the far side of the meadow. It sounded like a cross between a woman and a large cat. This cry was answered by another coming from the direction of the footpath between the cabin and the outhouse. “What was that?” asked Angie. That’s exactly what I was thinking at that moment. I have spent all my youth camping out of doors in many remote places and I had never heard anything like that. Before I could formulate an answer for my now very scared wife and sister-in-law, we heard heavy footsteps approaching from the footpath. I stood up with the .22 caliber rifle that we always kept handy. The footsteps approached the fire, and I leveled the gun above where I thought it was and let a couple of shots off to discourage any further interaction. I told the girls to run to the cabin which they did without any further encouragement. When I got to the door, I found it locked and after some frantic banging accompanied by blubbering and pleading the girls opened the door and let me in. I stood in the middle of the cabin trying to gather my thoughts. What was that thing? One thing was for sure, we were not spending the night in the cabin! I told the girls that I was going to go out the back door of the cabin with the rifle and the lantern and they were to follow with the baby and get into the car. I then turned off the lantern and rushed to the car as the light faded to pitch black. I started the car and backed into the meadow but, to my horror, as I put the car into drive it would not move forward! Much to my relief I remembered the parking brake and after releasing it we drove down the dirt road towards the safety of the family farm in the valley. Getting out at the first gate to unlock it in the pitch darkness was an experience I would not want to repeat. We made it to town around 12:30am and woke up Uncle David and Aunt Connie. Dave gave me a skeptical look as I breathlessly related the evening’s events but when we got up in the morning to return to the cabin to get our things, he had placed a .44 magnum pistol on the front seat of my car.
The next day, we were accompanied back up to the cabin by a half a dozen cousins and a small arsenal of weaponry. The cabin appeared undisturbed when we arrived in mid-morning. We went down to the campfire area to trace back the approximate direction of the sounds and found large footprints in the dust around the cold fire pit. I walked towards where the footsteps had stopped and found a large footprint deep in the soil behind a fallen log about 60 feet from the fire. It was approximately ¾” deep with a well-defined outline of a bare foot complete with heel and toes. The big toe was slightly bent out away from the toes instead of the normal position you would find on a human footprint. I stood on the log and jumped down with my boots and the imprint was only ¼” deep. At that time, I weighed about 175 lbs., I have become denser as I age. We followed the footprints back across the meadow and found two other sets of prints at the far end of the meadow. The set we followed from the fire was the smallest at 14” long. The other two were 16” & 17” in length. The biggest and the smallest prints were traced back along the edge of the meadow toward the outhouse path and it appears they were coming up the path towards the cabin while the mid-sized prints, which stayed at the end of the meadow apparently made the first scream that was answered by the pair coming near the cabin. We measured the stride on the largest prints and found it to be 6’ between toe and heel. We also found a pair of the largest prints at the window on the end of the cabin around the corner from the rear door we came out of on our panicked retreat. It seems from the position of the tracks that the creature was looking in the window.
None of the family that has been staying at the cabin since the late 1940’s ever had an experience like that, and they shrugged it off to me going through some detoxification symptoms because I had run out of beer a couple of days before. Since that time, we have heard several vocalizations at night over the now 41-year span. I have caught quite a lot of grief from the family and friends over the years. Angie confirms the account, and this disturbs some of the family as they always assumed that she was not affected by my vivid imagination and sense of humor. After years of research, we have concluded that we encountered a family unit of Bigfoot consisting of a large male and female with an adolescent. If you are still skeptical, please feel free to bring a large bottle of good bourbon and I would be happy to discuss it with you.