Several Sasquatch Encounters (Footprint Photos) in Delta County, Colorado

"My encounters occurred at Gunnison Gorge NCA and the other in Adobe Butts on the sides of the Grand Mesa in Colorado. Both incidents happened in February. I don't carry a GPS so I have to guess at elevations. Where we live is at 5,000' so it's pretty easy to make a guess.

First incident happened on Smith Mountain in Gunnison Gorge NCA. Smith Mountain is the northern end of the Black Canyon. I'm handicapped and had 2 large labs, a yellow male and a black female. I drive a Jeep Cherokee and love exploring the many Jeep trails out here. On the 1st event we had been up on the mountain, between 6,000 and 7,000 feet, for most of the afternoon. We were starting to drive back down, since we had been running into "nearly dead" sheep. That area is used by sheep ranchers to feed their herds and they always leave sick or injured sheep behind to fend for themselves.

We had just left a ewe with a broken leg because my yellow lab was circling her and barking up a storm. So we were driving back down the trail through a very rocky terrain where you have to drive slower then slow. About 20 yards to our left was a cliff a good 350 feet high (down for us), and to our right the top of the mountain stretched out in rolling hills for a good 5 or 6 miles. This area is filled with those pine trees that grow about 10-12 feet high. (Not sure of their name since I'm new to this area by a few years.) Anyway, both my dogs are hanging out the rear windows looking for more sheep or rabbits to bark at. Suddenly this huge hairy "man" ran across the trail in front of us, having come from the cliff side. It got to be in front of one of the pine trees and I watched as it knelt down onto one of it's knees probably trying to hide from my Jeep. I turned to make sure neither dog was escaping out a window, and when I turned back it had vanished. It stood a good 8 or 9 feet tall and was covered in longish fur the exact same color as an Irish Setter. I looked for tracks, but the ground was too rocky and frozen, although there was no snow for it being February.

The 2nd incident happened last February, 2015, and me and my black lab (had to put the yellow lab down) were riding along the main Jeep trail leading into the Adobe Butts area off of Trap Club Road. This trail goes back in about 6 miles and then meets up with East Pipeline Road. As I'm driving along the rim of one of the butts I come to a bend where I can see down into an area of many small canyons. It was only about 5 degrees out that day, but crystal clear skies. As I'm going around the bend I notice 2 individuals walking along in the main canyon. As they saw me they instantly ran into a side canyon and disappeared. It looked to be an adult with a juvenile that was maybe 4' tall. They were walking in the direction of the Gunnison River, coming down off the sides of the Grand Mesa (we're in Delta County out here). At the distance I saw them it appeared they were both clad head-to-toe in dark fur.

As I got further out the road I came across tracks of a single individual walking in the sand. Couldn't tell what they were, but since I had been in that same area just a few days prior, I knew they were new. About a mile before East Pipeline Road there's a 30' deep wash that runs parallel to the road and in a few spots there are older washed-out roads going down into and back up out of this wash. I could see by the tracks in the sand that pronghorn antelope were using this old trail as a way to traverse this canyon.

I walked down into it and discovered what looked like a child's barefoot footprint in the semi-wet sand in the bottom of the wash. Since it was in February and only 5 degrees outside I couldn't imagine someone letting their kid walk around in the mud barefoot. In the pix at one point it looks like the juvenile had stood with its feet together looking up through part of the bushier section of that wash. That wash away from the crossing road is around 30' deep yet only about 5-6 feet wide and very curvy.

I go out into both these areas and more of the surrounding areas around here but have yet to see another creature/Sasquatch.

I usually don't have a weapon with me and other then the 3 Sasquatches, I've only run into coyotes, pronghorns, mountain sheep, mule deer or elks, nothing causing a major protection mode to kick in. During both incidents the batteries in my camera picked that moment to die. I now keep my video camera running on the dashboard via an electric adapter so I can't have dead batteries again. The top of Smith Mountain would be a great place to go camping as it is very desolate up there. Very few people go up other then the sheep herders or some of the guys hang gliding from the tops of the cliffs out into the Grand Valley. For the record, I'm retired, on disability, 60 y/o, and trek out into the deserts nearly daily with my dog and explore the wildernesses around here." TT