Well, I am exhausted and exhilarated. It was cold. It was pine-y. It was rustic. We stayed in a log cabin at about 8000 feet in Northern AZ. Being a woman who would like to spend her entire life in an autumn forest, I was in my bliss.
The purpose of the hunt this time was really to acclimate ourselves, giving Bigfoot hunting a reference. We learned from our tracker some things about good locations and tracks. He did a lot of reconnaissance, finding us a good location for our nighttime vigil.
Here's the lodge at the cabin place we stayed at. Very rustic and western, huh?
We got to learn a lot about studying the trees and watching for movement between them, about cattle paths, game paths, ideal locations, trying some wood knocking and whooping and using the FLIR.
Here's video of our daytime practice and studying the woods for a good place. Oh, and me wood knocking and Bigfoot whooping too!
When we came back at sunset and hiked deep into the woods up the mountainside, we found an ideal location near springs and a ravine. We sat down and turned all lights out and listened, getting used to the sounds the woods make. We used the FLIR to be aware of any creatures.
For some times, I heard twig snapping in the ravine, but not heavy, some lighter creature. We hard what sounded like a cat a few times. A couple times, I could swear I heard chest thumping down the pathway where I sensed something studying us. We watched the stars above. In the city, you don't get beautiful skies to see every single star. We watched lots of satellites and shooting stars and bundled up in the cold air.
(Julie, above)
It was very beautiful sitting there on a granite shelf shaped like a recliner chair, studying the sky, looking around me, listening, now and then turning on a flashlight to see what was making noise. Someone on the team saw the glow of eyes too. The team member who scouted out the location mentioned bobcats living in a cave up the hillside, so we figured they might have been curious.
The whole process of going out there and hiking around was to get ourselves into the hunting mode. We do this as ghost hunters, but it's very similar hunting Bigfoot. It involves long periods of time, becoming attuned to changes in the environment and trying experiments for communication. It's our hope to get more exposure to such jaunts before taking it on the road to some better chance areas like the Sierras or Oregon.
You know me, I can't just end it on a serious note. What are the woods for with a nightvision camera except to have some fun?
And, since it's October, it seemed appropriate for a little red riding hood shot in the woods--
