Oregonbigfoot.com file# 00021

REPORT OVERVIEW

Date: July , 1998
Clackamas county, OR
Nearest town: Salem
Nearest road: Hwy 214
Conditions:
Time:
Location:

REPORT DETAIL

Description of event: From Ray Crowe's Track Record #79 - July, 1998

Met long time member Steve Williams in Salem, OR, on 7/15. He had a report from a friend, Orrie (Horatio), that there were Bigfoot tracks embedded in the asphalt tarmac of a road nearby, and he thought he had found them.

We drove in his new (to him) '93 Suzuki 4X4, and had son Chris, nine, for a companion. It was a warm day with a nice breeze. Pink and white foxglove flowers were abundant everywhere (source of heart medicine digitalis). Lenticular altocumulus clouds (misidentified as UFO's by some) could be seen in stacks over the Cascade Mountains as we approached Silver Falls State Park, OR, 15 air miles ESE of Salem on Hy. 214. The site of an asphalt cabin access road was near the swimming pool at the park's convention center. There in the cool fir-spruce woods, was the track, impressed in the road, a second not so clear one 33 inches away (heel to heel). Steve says when it was damp and relief was high, he had identified deer and bear tracks also. The road had been paved two years ago, and due to the shaded coolness of the area, had not probably remelted in the hot sun. The initial track was 16 1/2 inches long. We put a bit of water in the depression, to shallow to cast, to help define it for a photograph.

Steve mentioned the area has a history of Bigfoot sightings. In 1994 he had found a 100 feet of tracks paralleling Hy. 214 at the park (south side), then crossed the road in the snow. It appeared to be walking on ferns whenever possible.

Traveling north on Hy. 214, at Drake's Crossing, we turned back SE on Grade Road for five miles, and then left on the Abaqua Mainline four miles, to the Abaqua Basin (T8S R2E). Many roads had been closed or gated by the BLM. Our goal was a site overlooking the Abaqua Basin, where Steve 1 1/2 years ago, had found a place where stones to large for a bear to turn, had been pulled up and were missing. As we were driving, Steve told of tale from five years ago on Rock Creek, near Lyons, OR. A boys dad and uncle had been picking blackberries, and were challenged by a Bigfoot. The creature would charge them, stop and shake trees, then walk away, turn and charge again. They froze up, and the Bigfoot charged three times before they got outta' there. Then they found a huge log blocking the road out, that wasn't there on the way in. They had to nudge their way around it to leave. We turned again on a road marked #20, and went uphill in the hemlock forest, with a heavy salal and Oregon grape understory.

Steve mentioned that mushroom hunters heard noises here , and others had heard screams in the early spring or the late fall...when stuff seemed to happen in the area. A lady and her sons living nearby said she heard screams that she could only compare with a dinosaur. Steve had brought Todd Deery of the Bigfoot Research Project here once, and they had found strange stacked rocks and bent trees while together. At the parking site (a berm in the road forced us to walk from here across a narrow bridge of skinny cut trees), a mud puddle had nothing interesting...a pile of coyote scat and several deer tracks.

Steve said in 1993 when he was here he found a series of 12-18 broken and twisted trees spaced over 1 1/2 miles. You could see each succeeding tree from the last...a sort of trail that led near several rabbit holes. Stacked rocks were also found. He camped at the site two years ago and heard wood-on-wood raps three times from two different places. Steve replied on his own, but there was no answer. His friend Orrie said in 1991-2, two BLM men had found a rock shelter (not very deep cave) over the cliff here, off road #200, where they had explored and seen something "furry" sleeping inside, not a bear. The left it alone and left the scene. Steve found the shelter, but there was nothing there. We tried this day, but the road had been gated off. The area, sign marked Longview Fiber Company, has been closed to prevent dumping, shooting of trees, vandalism, smoking, fire problems, and such. Hiking out to a splendid overlook of the basin, there was a vista point where miles of country could be seen...including numerous clear-cuts. We found the area where several boulders had been pulled and were missing on a rocky spur covered with brush. The holes were so large it was thought doubtful that bears had removed the stones. Photos were taken but lacked definition so are not here reproduced. Berries of salal, Oregon grape, and red huckleberry were noted. I shot several photos, and we left the area, wandering around the forests on roads going everywhere, but where we wanted to go. While traveling, Steve told me of his story, why he got interested in Bigfoot. Steve Williams was born and raised in Tennessee, four miles from the Cumberland River, and about 7 miles NW of the town of Clarksville. When he was ten years old, he was playing in a gully area with a heavy canopy. Heavy vines were used for swinging, and in 1961, a mid-summer day, around 2-3 PM, he thought he heard some friends approaching. His friend turned out to be a creature that he had never heard of or seen before. He could see the thing on a ridge that went through a patch of dense pine trees, and it was knocking them out of the way with it's forearm. It had a crown shaped head, and a very tiny waist, unlike the Patterson female...it reminded him of a weight lifter, and it approached to within 50 feet as Steve hugged a tree tightly, unseen. The 6 1/2 foot (estimated) thing had shiny black hair, and walked very vigorously, like it had a purpose and somewhere to go. He later moved when he was 12 to Oregon with his mother, an uncle lived out here. Returning to Tenn., he asked his sister if she had ever seen anything strange, and she replied of having seen a giant snake with a pointy head (don't know what that could be...a mistaken Bigfoot head?). Also lots of screams had been heard from the area over the years, and were said to be black panthers (possibly extinct in that area).

Source: The Track Record #79
record updated:2002-07-09 00:00:00