A US Army veteran and his son are hiking and camping in the Idaho forest. After quickly breaking camp at night because of a nearby Grizzly they encounter a terrifying creature that he believes was a Bigfoot.
"In the Idaho forest, my son Samuel and I had an interesting experience in the summer of 2010 that made me a believer. I had just returned from Iraq a few months earlier having served two tours in the US Army. I was pretty confident in my abilities and the capabilities of my weapons. I was also confident that I was very familiar with this location as I've been coming here almost annually since I was 14 years old on backpacking trips. It was still a little too early to go backpacking as there was still a lot of snow that had not yet melted. But I had to get the trip knocked out because I was due to report to a new duty station in a couple of weeks.
Seven years prior a friend and I had walked to this lake. There was something odd I noticed. On the way up was a footprint. It looked like a child's foot, probably about seven inches long. It was clear and deep. This trail's covered with sharp-edged shale, so a child walking up here barefoot would be highly unlikely. The funny thing is I bent down to look at the print but walked off and didn't think any more about it.
The place we walked is about 10 miles in. We only saw two other people on the way in. They went to the first lake for a few hours of fishing then rode out on motorcycles in the evening. Besides us, there are only two people, a couple, that were signed into the trailhead, and on the way into the lake, we had about half a mile to go.
I heard a couple of gunshots from a high-power rifle. It was odd as most backpackers carry a pistol if anything at all and rarely shoot up here. Upon arriving at the campsite I noticed the motorcycle that the couple had come in on chained to a tree. They had apparently ridden the motorcycle as far as permissible and hiked into one of the further legs.
Sam and I set up the tent and started a campfire. Sam was not feeling well so he laid down for a nap. I hung a bear bag, filled canteens, and all the rest to be ready for the next day's hike which was going to involve a lot of walking. Around 9 45 PM, just as the sun was making its last appearance, I peered out the mesh window of the tent as I just settled into my sleeping bag and what I saw out the window was the biggest grizzly bear that I had ever seen. It was on the other side of a large stream that separated the camping area from the other side of the trail. I reached for my rifle and unzipped the tent just enough to get the muzzle of the rifle out. The first warning shot went unheated and the second made the bear walk back a bit. I watched knowing that the bear was not leaving. I had Sam keep the weapon oriented on the bear and I broke camp in about five minutes. We had about 10 minutes of daylight left so we put some distance between us and the campsite.
We had our headlamps for light on the way out but the batteries were going out. This is an area where a fire had come through many years ago. It has a lot of standing and fallen dead trees. At this point, we heard wood knocking. It was a phenomenon that I was familiar with because I enjoyed watching Bigfoot programs. It's not as if someone had a baseball bat and was pounding on some of these old dead trees. Sam asked me if that was normal. I haven't spent a lot of time outdoors. I knew it was not but affirmed to him that it was indeed normal.
By that time, an unseen creature was pacing us even though the terrain it traveled through was uneven and encumbered with deadfall. Sam and I were on a trail and could not distance ourselves from it. Sam was in the lead and when he turned his head to speak to me at one point his headlamp illuminated four sets of eyes, three green sets and one red set. I heard claws on trees and one of the sets of eyes, the red set, came directly toward us. I told Sam to run as the eyes were slightly ahead of us. To the left, I ran toward the red eyes and fired off some rounds into the fallen trees just off the trail. I did this in hopes of scaring the animals away. I've read Bigfoot has glowing red eyes. I can't say for sure if there may have been wild cats in the trees or something explainable. All I know is that I felt an irrational fear which was telling me to get out a little further on.
We met up further on at the creek that paralleled the trail. The stream was probably about five feet deep at that point and out of nowhere, a huge rock was thrown into the water. It was obvious the rock was huge because of the 'kerplunk' sound it made as it went into the water. I told Sam to run and I kept a watch to see if anything was coming up from behind us. I faced rearward on the trail allowing Sam to get some distance away. I saw what looked to be a large figure I would say was approximately eight feet tall. Across the trail behind me, probably 15 to 20 yards back, there was just enough light to see it move, and also that the figure was not dark in color. I figured it must have been gray as I would have not seen a darker animal. I decided not to take any more shots as I was dark and my mind and nerves were frazzled. I questioned my own sanity and felt that I must be losing my mind. It would probably be safer not to fire any more warning shots as I had fired six to eight shots already. I put the rifle safety on and ran after Sam.
About an hour later Sam and I returned to the truck exhausted."
Transcribed Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mirtg7MBscA
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