Bigfoot Encounter in Northern California

© 2003 by Linda Moulton Howe

There are underground tunnels at the Carmack mine beyond Portola close to where Sandy Lund and her family have camped nearly every year since the mid-1960s. In 1974, Sandy, her niece and nephew came face-to-face with an 8 to 10 foot tall Bigfoot. Then a decade later near the same place, she and her brother were terrified by loud, angry screams from an unidentified creature that remained in the shadows beyond the camp fire.

May 19, 2003 Reno, Nevada - Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, Yowi, Skunk Ape - whatever the name around the world - for centuriees people from China to Australia to North America have reported seeing tall, hairy humanoids. I've interviewed dozens of eyewitnesses and even traveled to Laos a couple of years ago with a Discovery Channel television crew on the trail of what the Laotians and Vietnamese call "wild men." See 07-07-02 Earthfiles. We heard lots of stories, but never got close to one - as Sandy Lund of Reno, Nevada did once when she was a teenager camping at the Carmac mine beyond Portola in northern California national forests.

The year was 1974 and the time was 7:30 in the morning. She was walking with her niece and nephew along the fast moving West Fork of the Yuba River. To the left was a steep mountain wall of sheer, slippery rock. Here is Sandy Lund's story about what happened next.

Interview:

Sandy Lund, Drug Addiction Counselor, Reno, Nevada: "What I noticed when we got half way down a little mound was this tree branch maybe 10 or 15 feet at the very most waving really a lot, out of context with the rest of the trees. I was looking for a big giant bird because it seemed like that's what would make it wave like that. I'm looking and that's when I seen this face like peeking around the tree looking straight at me. It scared me so bad I just froze. I was just frozen because this face was like a gorilla face. Then the body ­ I seen it all the way down to about the chest at first because it was leaning out around the tree like to spy on us.

Then my niece seen it and grabbed me. I told them, 'Don't move!' because I didn't know if this animal was going to attack us and I knew, I was taught early never to run from an animal. So, I just froze. I held in one hand the stomach of my nephew to stop him and then my niece. She grabbed the back of me and was crying. I said, 'Just be quiet and don't move.'

I'm watching him and he's just watching us standing there looking at us for the longest time, a good minute! But it seemed like for eternity, I swear. I didn't know what to do. So, I stood there so long looking at him. Then I seen the rest of his body. He like showed the rest of his body and he was really skinny.

WHEN YOU SAY HE SHOWED THE REST OF HIS BODY, DO YOU MEAN THAT HE MOVED DELIBERATELY AWAY OUT FROM BEHIND THE TREE?

Yeah, and he just stared at us. The first impression I had was that this was a boy, a male. It just seemed like a teenager or something. I don't know why. That's always stuck with me, I can't explain that part.

THE IMPRESSION OF A TEENAGE MALE ABOUT HOW TALL?

Tall, skinny and tall! I would say between 8 and 10 feet tall. Huge! I was standing on the side of a slope and I've always been tall for my age and he was still taller than me.

WHAT COLOR WAS HIS SKIN OR HAIR?

Dark color. Actually the tree trunk, if that tree trunk wasn't moving, I wouldn't have seen him until we were right on him because his entire body was the same color as the dark tree trunk. It just blended in there perfectly.

WAS THE FACE ALSO DARK?

The face was like, it was darker than the skin but it was shiny and his eyes were brown, big huge giant eyes, like golf ball sized eyes. Big eyes! And his head was deformed on the top.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

It looked sloped up like a ski slope.

OH, SO IT WAS SORT OF A PEAKED SKULL?

Yeah.

SOME BIGFOOT EYEWITNESSES HAVE DRAWN THAT PEAKED HEAD BEFORE.

What struck me was how thin he was. The whole thing scared the hell out of me! But how skinny he was and how long his arms were because they were hanging down to his knees. He was just really tall and skinny.

THOSE EYES WERE DEFINITELY A BROWN OR DARK COLOR?

They were brown.

WAS IT THE COLOR OF A BROWN BEAR?

Even darker. I would say the face was more of a black, but shiny kind of. His face was not mean looking. His body was mean in just the way he looked, but his eyes ­ you know how you get a mean dog or even mean people and they have mean looks. But this didn't look mean. He just looked curious and fearful both.

CURIOUS AND FEARFUL.

And I was terrified,.

THE FACE WAS DEFINITELY, FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW, LIKE A GORILLA, NOT LIKE A HUMAN?

That's a hard question. My mom raised a lot of monkeys, even a baby gorilla, different spider monkeys. And it was different. I would have to say it was more human face than a monkey face. It just seemed like it had character, like a personality in there.

Then a good minute went by and he went out a little ways and then all of a sudden he just leaped all the way across the whole trail right in front of us on to that cliff edge. With all four of his legs, he was just stuck to the side of this cliff like he was a magnet on steel. And then he looked at us to see where we were when he did that ­ like if we moved ­ and that scared the heck out of me then again. I was already terrified, but that just made my heart jump again. Then he just went straight up the side of this cliff like it was walking on the ground, like the gravity and slope of it didn't even bother him and he just hauled really fast up the side of this mountain until he disappeared in the trees over the edge.

Then we ran back to camp and were screaming and crying and said we wanted to go. My older brother and his friend made me go back to show them where it was. That's when we saw the fingernail marks in the ground that went all the way up the side of the mountain, like he had really sharp claws or fingernails that just dug right into the ground all the way up.

DID YOU TAKE PHOTOS OF THEM?

No. Now I would because now I'm an amateur photographer. I would have taken pictures everywhere. But then, I was only almost 15 and I just more or less wanted to go home. I didn't want to stay there no more.

WHAT DO YOU THINK HUMANS ARE AFRAID OF WHEN THESE CREATURES NEVER DO SEEM TO TRY TO HURT ANYBODY?

Right.

THIS CREATURE DIDN'T TRY TO HURT YOU. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WERE AFRAID OF?

I think I was just being 15. I think I would be terrified now as an adult still, just because it's unknown. It's like a monster, that's what it's like. It's not human. It's not something we're used to seeing. If they ran around, then we'd be used to it. My first fear was I hoped it wouldn't attack us because I didn't know.

HOW CLOSE TO THE UNDERGROUND MINES WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN?

Less than a mile from where we camped.

SO REALLY CLOSE?

Yes.

YOU'VE BEEN GOING BACK TO CARMACK FOR A LOT OF OTHER VISITS. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANY OF THESE STRANGE CREATURES AGAIN?

I didn't see them, but we heard them. Just about 8 or 10 years later, me and my brother and a friend was up there. And this time it was the longest time we was ever there. We was there for 11 days. We was dropped off up there. We had a little motorcycle, a mini-bike with gas in it, but that was it, and our camping supplies. Our dad was supposed to come back and get us in 6 or 7 days, and he ended up - something happened to a friend. Anyway, to make a long story short, we was there for 11 days and it was OK up until around the 8th or 9th night. I had this big huge dog called Bear and she was like 120 pounds, half St. Bernard and half black lab. She's fearless and she was never afraid of nothing and she was with me sleeping in the tent.

And all I know is that I wake up to this - Oh, my God, this awful screaming! It was so loud a screaming that it just paralyzed my whole body. My dog got on my sleeping bag and that terrified me even more (that she was afraid). I couldn't move for a few minutes while the screaming was going on. Then, I pried myself lose. The scream ­ I don't know if you've ever been around such a loud, piercing noise, just terrifying to where your body is just frozen. I was just frozen! I couldn't move. It took a minute to move and when I did, I ran to the trailer where they were ­ it was a flatbed trailer that they was sleeping in, my brother and a friend. They was already up. I asked, 'What is that?' And they said, 'I don't know.'

There were railroad tracks over by our camp and I made them drag them over to the campfire because we had no weapons or nothing. And they poured the rest of their mini-bike gas on it and that's what we kept burning like a huge bon fire that we kept going all night.

DID THE SCREAMS CONTINUE?

Yes, they kept going. And they was like circling around our camp. And the scream was ­ like I witnessed a cow getting hit by a train on the side of its leg and it didn't kill it. It made a really awful, awful sound. That's what I compare this with because this was even louder than that and just so deep. It was a huge animal that was doing this and also, it was like hitting ­ it had something and was hitting the trees or something. We could hear the beating on the trees with the screams. It was terrifying.

It was probably 30 miles before you hit anyone where we were. We was going to walk out the next day. But we said, let's just get another log and we'll have a big fire and we're going to wait one more night. Even though that sounds stupid, now I think I would have just walked out because I'm more fearful now.

But anywise, the second night it was the same thing. We had a bigger bon fire this time and this time we didn't even try to go to sleep or nothing. It was the same thing ­ just screaming and like it was really mad at us, or just, I don't know.

ON THE SOUND AND PITCH OF THE SCREAMS ­ I HAVE RECORDINGS OF SASQUATCH/BIGFOOT THAT VARIOUS PEOPLE HAVE MADE GOING BACK INTO THE 1960S AND 1970S AND SO FORTH. MOST OF THEIR RECORDINGS, THE VOICE GOES INTO A VERY HIGH PITCH. CAN YOU EVEN TRY TO MIMIC ON THE PHONE WHAT YOU WERE HEARING?

It was screaming, to me, it was super deep. It was really deep.

LIKE AAAAGH?

Yeah, like AAAAAGH and just super, but loud and really long. It was like it had a lot of air in it.

WHAT WOULD THERE HAVE BEEN ABOUT THAT NIGHT, THE 9TH NIGHT, THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE PREVIOUS NIGHTS THAT WOULD HAVE MADE THIS CREATURE MAD?

I don't know. But we ran out of food the 7th day. That's an excellent question. We ran out of food and the only thing we had left was salt on the 7th day. We started taking things out of the river. There was this one pond near my first sighting (in 1974) and it's just off from the side of the river and it's full of these little trout. We was putting our T-shirts in there to catch a few of them in the T-shirt with the sleeves and neck tied. We caught a few of them that way. And we were taking all the crawdads out of the water because we had a big pot and that's what we was eating on. And we killed a goose to eat. My friend threw a rock and hit the goose. So maybe we was taking its food, or maybe we was there too long. I don't know.

What really sticks out in my mind is how he jumped across the trail. And it wasn't like he was jumping and his legs were hanging down. It was like when he jumped, his legs were in front of him with his hands and then he clinched right onto the side of that cliff wall. It wasn't like normal jumping.

I SEE, IT WOULDN'T BE LIKE OUR LEGS DOWN SPREAD. HIS LEGS AND ARMS WERE UP IN FRONT OF HIM.

Yes. Up the side of it.

HE SPRANG HOW FAR, DO YOU THINK?

It was a good 6 feet from where he was standing to the face of that cliff.

FROM A STANDING POSITION, HE SPRANG INTO THE AIR AND WHEN HE HIT THAT WALL, HE SOMEHOW WAS ABLE TO CLING ON?

Yeah, stuck like a magnet to steel, just stuck there. Looked over real briefly to see where we were still and then just hauled up the side of this cliff so fast. It was amazing!"

Wow.

Whoa!!