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Introduction

   Inventory and Abstraction of Data

     Area C

     Area Y

     Area Z

     Area D

Initial Visit

Visits and Logs

20/06/05 - First Return

Area C

Area D

20/07/03 - Listening to the Darkness

20/07/18 - Guided Evening Visit

20/07/25 - First Experiments in Observing the Subjects

20/08/18 - Another New Moon

20/08/27 - Two Tree Breaks

20/09/01 - Back Roads

20/09/06 - Looking for Tree Breaks

20/09/26 - Visiting with the Group

20/12/28 - Coyote Serenade

Introduction

    Nothing is learned in secrecy. These are among the first words from the researcher who leads work in what I will be calling Research Region 1 (RR1). He shares this area with people interested in doing actual research. He has little time for experiencers, and no tolerance for the woo.

    As I have indicated in the blog, I am tolerant of paranormal ideas, but I make clear distinction between explanations based on belief and those based on evidence. I understand and to a great extent agree with him on this: Unsubstantiated beliefs that cannot be proved or disproved get us nowhere. If it can be demonstrated, that is a different matter. I need to experience something truly strange before I begin to resort to paranormal explanations - and he has not observed anything requiring such conjectures here.

    His openness has had clear impact on what I will call Area C in this region. Someone he brought into the region was back the next day with friends and family. They apparently returned with others, and the impact of human presence is trash. Humans are often trash, and many have no place outside the city where there are people to clean up their wake of garbage. The world we live in deserves basic respect, we should be stewards instead of wastes of air.

Inventory and Abstraction of Data

    While I am practicing open science, there are barriers for the sake of security. I certainly maintain detailed notes, but this document will be abstracted from details regarding identity of people and places involved. Those who are familiar with this research area will recognize my references to places, and possibly to people. However, I will seek to protect this place from those who are unable to visit a place without leaving bits of plastic, soda cans, and toxic wastes in their wake.

    Region 1 is in the foothills of Mt Ranier with easily accessible areas below around 3000ft elevation, and higher of course with effort. I will refer to the host as R1H (Region 1 Host). R1H is retired military and has been part of the Olympic Project in the past. He organized the map of this region into a grid of research areas. Over the years the group has noted activity almost continually in 4 of these areas.

    The lower parts of the area are characterized by abandoned roads from old harvesting projects of the timber industry. Once you start into the slopes this is less so. This area is managed by the state DNR (Department of Natural Resources), and the roads and access are controlled by that agancy.

    The condition for using this place is sharing observations with the group.

Area C

    This area is a spur from a main road in the general area. It has 2 branches of the road and each dead-ends pretty quickly. Each dead-end has been used as a campsite, but one clearly more than the other with all manner of plastic, aluminum, and glass container trash left behind.

    It is no wonder to me that this area has diminished activity in the last few years. It feels a bit like someone came into your dining room and used the corner as the bathroom. This fits my general perception of humanity, unfit to share the world with.

    This is where R1H had his experiences with (apparent) infrasound.

    There is generally more activity in this area over the warmer months. There are some longer term experiments being planned here.

Area Y

    This area has a Y in the access road. It is a saddle between a couple of the hills in the area.

    One summer afternoon, someone was not paying much attention. R1H was making a quick exploration just off the road, and did not have either a recorder or camera. Just a few yards off the road he was startled with an adult female Sasquatch jumped up from behind a log and stormed off into the woods.

    The lesson from this is to have a recorder or camera running most of the time.

Area Z

    This is the end of a road unless you have a key from the DNR. While heavily forested, it would overlook a valley. This is a place where vocalizations are often heard.

    A creek is apparently followed frequently here and is a place recording might be done.

Area D

    This area is located between and around a couple of marshy areas near the main access road. It seems to be used a lot during the colder months.

Initial Visit

    The initial visit was a guided trip to see the principle locations of the 4 most active areas for Sasquatch activity.

    Area C had some (aldar) brush bent over and a cascara tree twisted over. Looking closely at the aldar, there were apparent tracks in the soft soil, possibly from a trailer. There was a broken reflector there, confirming someone backed a trailer off the road trying to get to the camp site. I don't think this explains the cascara being twisted around.

    One interesting moment came when I got a strong scent of lavender. I stated I was suddenly noticing a strong floral scent, but I was the only one to notice it. I checked my jacket and clothes, also my wifes, nothing. I also checked anything green or flowering within sight, nothing. R1H said that Sasquatch females are sometimes accompanied by a strong lavender scent. That just about floored me because I used the word floral, but he filled in lavender. It is unclear why I alone noticed it.

    Area Y included a location of an accidental close-up encounter by R1H. I recognize the setting from the video where he reported the observation.

    Area Z is a place I might want to set up recorders later in the summer, and a place I might want to wait into the evening to see if I can hear voclaizations.

    I was surprised by Area D. Within a minute of arriving there We heard a single low-toned woop from the woods E-NE of where we parked. We continued talking and heard another of the same sound within a couple minutes. We stepped into the woods in that direction and there was a series of tapping sounds, and a minute or so later one last low woop. These sounds were a single short tone that sounded very much like someone pronouncing the word woop; that probably means tourists.

    We walked a short distance on an abandoned road bed, and when we paused for a few minutes talking there was the sound of a rock or stick hitting a tree about 30 feet from us.

    Just before we headed back to the road R1H thought he heard a brief huff or growl from opposite where the the impact sound with the tree came from. I did not hear it, but am still working my way through the 6 hours of recording I made during the visit.

    While all of this is interesting, and I would note it as unusual activity, I must agree with R1H that there is not enough in this to be really excited about. There isn't enough activity in either repetition or variety to make much of a judgment.

    The woop sounds may have been from an owl or from an elk. I have heard similar scounds from both, but not as a single short tone. From elk I have heard that sound repeated many times in a row, never just once. From owls I more commonly hear 2-5 repeats of an alarm hoot. If they were of animal origin they were just a bit odd. If they were Sasquatch then they were not intended to garner our attention, but were probably to alert of our presence.

    The branch is a bit tougher to explain. A few moments before a small twig fell from above us an bounced off my wife's shoulder, that didn't seem too unusual. But this was a bigger smack and I did not notice anything really move even though I was basically looking in that direction when it happened. If this was deliberate then it was to garner our attention, and probably to check our reaction.

    When I finish going through the recordings from the visit I will note anything that got recorded. I sincerely doubt the woops got recorded under the circumstances, but you will hear our voices pause briefly if I find that worth sharing. The branch sound almost certainly got recorded. I hope that the sound R1H said he heard got captured, but my ears didn't capture it. I'll put anything of interest to podcast or youtube if it is found.

    Not a bad outing, though, for the first to deliberately look for some evidence to experience.

    I have multiple research goals, but I need to spend some time observing these areas to get an idea of what will be beneficial here. The group R1H is working with is focusing on the group movements and behaviors. My surface interests are with hair and DNA, but these are rare artifacts to obtain from an uncooperative subject. Vocalizations and audio evidence seems pretty profitable for this area.

    R1H offered to show us how to set up hair traps. I will avail myself of this at some point.

    While I am still organizing my notes, mostly on the recording of the visit I am still reviewing, there are some things I want to make sure get noted regarding activities with the clan(s) in this area.

    Vocalizations can be heard nearly any time of day here. Activity is more intense around the new moon, less so around the full moon. They will be quiet while you are outside, but once in the camper they move about pretty freely.

    The observation here seems to suggest the murdered woman scream is an alert call. While a couple of (presumably) juveniles were throwing pine cones at R1H in Area C, the scream came from the top of the hill and something big was coming down the hill making the sound. Shortly there was clearly activity from several of them making growls and huffs and throwing things in a show for intimidation. R1H stood his ground and the activity calmed down (very gradually, eventually) as he took no action in response.

    From this I would conjecture they would prefer he had left, but since he did not escalate the confrontation and tolerated their harassment, they eventually accepted he was not an overt threat.

    In contrast the so-called o-hi-o call seems to be a challenge display and brings the clans defenders out just as effectively as the scream, and happy to push back.

    The only call R1H seemed willing to make while we were there was a more traditional rising woo'oop as you hear on cable TV shows. We observed no response to those in Area D.

    I did not get the sense anyone was home in areas Y and Z. I am not sure if we were observed in Area C, but I would wager we were observed in Area D, presuming anyone was around at all. I am curious about the scent I caught in Area C. While R1H has no patience for woo, I have to wonder how I could smell something so clearly, as if sampling the scent of a lavender hand soap, for a couple minutes, and nobody else did.

    Camera traps don't work any better here than elsewhere. Parabolic microphones garner some curiosity, the subjects don't seem to know what they do, but they do get investigated.

    The subjects here like biscuits most, apples pretty well. Tennis balls disappear, but using game cameras has shown that ravens will take apples and tennis balls. Game cameras may at least be good for tracking mundane animals taking bait...

    This will certainly be a place to go back to and see if we get activity on our own.

Visits and Logs.

    This section will document visits to the area and research and observations.

20/06/05 - First Return

    It was a cloudy, but not rainy day in the general vicinity, and I wanted to try and find a place to do a range test of the thermal imagers I have. To do that test I want to have at least 0.3mi of unobstructed view. It is more challenging than you might think to find that in a forest setting, and we were not able to.

    The distance need is based on a theoretical claim that a human-sized object can be discerned at 1200ft with these imagers and, while I have my doubts, I want to use an appropriate setting to test their effective range. While I have doubts of the 1200ft claim, I do want at least 1500ft to use. There is an appropriate road in Gifford Pinchot, at least I am certain it is straight enough for long enough, I am not so certain of dips...

    It truth it is hard at any place in the forest to see more than around 200ft, and that is all I require. These are not high resolution imagers, they are for situational awareness only.

    We arrived later than we would have liked, around 6PM, with a plan to stay until there was profound darkness. It was noted to us that the subjects are more active around the new moon, and I wanted to use a time with a much brighter moon as a baseline.

Area C

    It was pleasing to see that the trash was largely cleaned up in this area since 5/11. The place is still littered with shells of various calibur and many shotgun shells. After so many boxes of redneck fun are consumed there is no stump or tree nearby that will threaten good folk coming here...

    In part I wanted to recheck the area for scents, but there was nothing distinctly floral this time.

    There were a number of a not distinctly familiar bird call, but I will need to search more to see if I can find that call, nothing I would call suspicious.

Area D

    We hoped last night to observe the day-to-night transition in Area D, where we heard activity during our visit on May 11.

    There is a weather phenomena in the windward side of large mountains where rain is prevalent as weather systems are blown onto the slopes, and Rainier was doing this last night. While the day had been cool and dry, it started to rain shortly after we arrived, around 7PM. We hoped the squall would pass, but it only got more intense with time. Wind gusts picked up, and within just over an hour the rain had penetrated the canopy and was reaching the forest floor.

    These beings outclass us so profoundly in the forest, and I see no reason to give them every advantage trying to observe their activities. With the rain and the wind it is impossible to hear quite subtle sounds that may reveal them as they move around.

    I did clearly hear one of the same kind of monotone woop, and perhaps a second just as a gust of wind picked up at one point. These possible vocalizations were from a different direction than before.

    I also heard several branch breaks from the direction where we heard the vocalizations last time. I do not necessarily associate these breaks with the gusts and rain, they happened during lulls in the weather.

    I wonder if the vocalizations I did hear were meant to draw my attention so others could move unobserved into the area I was watching - to get a better view of me. I have no objection to their curiosity about a new human in their space, I welcome it.

    However, that is all just speculation. Nothing was visible with the thermal imager, and with the rain reaching the floor I knew the sounds of dripping water would continue for hours after the rain stopped. We had planned to be there until around midnight, but ended up leaving around 8:30PM.

20/07/03 - Listening to the Darkness

    Mostly we explored some roads this evening. We also encountered a couple camping between areas Y and Z, which make me reluctant to try any calls to elicit a response.

    They apparently camp there frequently this Summer, and I had no interest in finding out their reaction to the subject of our visit that evening.

    Is it fair to let them camp there, potentially unaware of the subjects of our visits to the area?

    To answer that I will refer to the history of interactions observed in the area by R1H: The subjects in this area are generally unobtrusive unless you get into the wrong areas.

    If you are someplace they do not want you to be, they provide encouragement to leave, but have not acted to do harm to anyone in the project.

    Encouragement to leave includes, for example, a half dozen large males stomping about, growling, yelling, and throwing things. They throw to intimidate, they could easily injur or kill if they chose to, they choose not to around here.

    Our host described one incident attributed to infrasound that was debilitating for an extended period.

    I may have heard distant vocalizations, but a running stream was too loud for me to be sure. Mostly because of the stream we left earlier than planned, but spotted a bear by thermal on the way out.

20/07/18 - Guided Evening Visit

    I was invited to join a group by R1H at the site I have described as Area C. They have observed the subjects to be active in this area from July through the fall; they have also observe them to be more active around the new moon, which made July 18 a good time for this.

    Mrs CC and I arrived around 7:30 PM, two others had arrived earlier than we had. One of them was had some experience observing the subjects, one had not – which became an issue. Everyone was back to the camp by around 8:30.

    After it grew dark I started firing up my thermal imager every 10-20 minutes or so and scanning around the camp for situational awareness. Other people can spend $18K to see a blob on a hill a mile away, or 4K to see a slightly more detailed blob a bit closer... My interest is knowing if it is near enough, and big enough, to be of concern.

    In general the research group does not bother with cameras, except in the area of debunking. The subjects avoid the camera, or redirect the camera, but little more than the occasional hand or shoulder is imaged, if anything at all. Game cameras show what conventional wildlife is in the area. They have shown that ravens can take apples, for example.

    Instead, they record audio to make observations of activity.

    I have already described their observations of vocalizations in this group of subjects. I have heard our host make the rising woo'oop call common on TV. I have heard a low, monotone, woop apparently observing our presence.

    I have also heard tapping on wood, associated with the woop call from the subjects.

    Doing knocks tends to make these subjects shut down and pull back, so if we want to press toward more interaction that is also not recommended.

    There is no formal orientation to this, these are just anecdotes I have learned from R1H.

    So, the more experienced visitor picked up a stick and walked off into the woods around 8:45 and came back a few minutes later. This gave me a chance to verify my thermal imager as he came back and before it got more profoundly dark.

    During one of my scans around the camp, I noticed a small hot-spot where something seemed to be next to or peeking form behind a tree. This did not have a large heat signature, but it was clear and apparent. R1H has one of the $5K range thermal cameras, and said he could see what looked like eyes watching us from that location.

    So, my use of my thermal imager is validated to that extent.

    However, it was at that point the newcomer started to become a bit agitated – apparently agitated at the idea that what he was there for might actually be happening. Since I arrived last, on the narrow one-lane unimproved dirt road, I had to pull out first to the agitated visitor could leave with his friend.

    I could have waited for them to pull out, and then pull back in... And I had planned to stay for a few more hours, but R1H said he would be back next weekend, so we decided to bag it for the night. One of them went out knocking, which tends to push the subjects back, making it less likely we would have anything interesting to observe – and the other got freaked out at the thought that something interesting might actually be observed, and needed to leave right away.

    I did not bother to make a VLOG journal for this visit. The thermal image was not anything unusual, and was the only element of the experience worth reporting.

    Just for clarity, while I was disappointed with the outcome, I do not in any way want to push someone past their comfort zone. There is a level of risk to this project and anyone who has not considered this well beforehand has no business being out there during an encounter.

    As to the other taking action that would make any observations less likely, even a negative result is a result. I don't expect things to happen right now, I expect this will take time, and the more time I spend out there the more I will learn sooner than later...

    Reviewing audio the next day, I was told, it was apparent there was a subject near the camp during the time I was there, but there were no significant interactions after we left.

20/07/25 - First Experiments in Observing the Subjects

    Well, this weekend did not go as planned. It is a nearly 2 hour drive to the research area, and I went there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and got mostly frustration, and I am not the only one...

    Last weekend I was left with the understanding that R1H would be there Saturday evening. I wanted to plant a recorder (Olympus DM-720) Friday evening and pick it up Sunday or Monday.

    Mrs CC was not feeling well and, while genuinely interested in the project, declined to participate this weekend... So, I arrived around 8:15PM on Jul 24, and while I had everything I needed, I found between this day and the next that I need an arrive on site checklist that includes at the very least to begin recording audio immediately upon stopping the car.

    I went to area C; I planned to place the recorder on the hill south of the camp, but decided instead to conceal it in the habituation area (HA) instead. My goal was changed to see if there was apparent movement there, indicated by the movement of brush, as has been recorded by R1H using parabolic microphones.

    There was absolutely a near encounter with lesser primates on Friday, and that is covered in my initial VLog recording of the evening.

    I believe some activity from the subjects was recorded, as well, but the experience highlighted some points that require redress for future field trips.

    A single recorder provides very limited information. A story requires at least 2 such devices.

    The principle example is movement recorded around the embedded recorder. There is clear evidence of a rodent near the place the recorder was resting, so it is unclear if the movement recorded was from that or from a larger subject.

    At the same time, some of the evidence of movement I recorded resembles recordings made by parabolic microphone by R1H.

    The problem I have now is that with my one microphone I have no sense of scale. If there were two set apart from each-other and both recorded a sound then it was a more significant sound than any recorded by just one but not the other.

    To properly observe this area, in general, I think I would need at least 4 recorders. One in the habituation area, one where the two spurs connect, and one on the hill south of the camp area. Then I would still want a recorder on my person to document any contribution I make to the sounds recorded as well as to record my observations at any given moment.

    There would still be a potential perspective problem. The knock and break recorded around 22:23 registered on both recorders. However even that did not make clear what my personal observation does, that these were two events at different locations, first due south from the camp area and the second, moments later, was southeast from the camp area. There was no appreciable wind at that moment, either.

    Minutes later the squirrel scolding something disturbing its space registered just barely from my car, but not from the HA. This came from due south from the camp area, as did the apparent vocalizations a couple minutes later.

    Since they are only on one recorder that does help much to localize them, but the vocalizations are vague and distant, and without another recorder picking them up could be dismissed as me breathing.

    Note, however, I have many examples of me breathing deeply or giving out a deep sigh of disappointment for the activities that clearly pass as fun in this area. Also bear in mind, I heard them, so while they now effectively fall under anecdotal evidence, it is my anecdote, and I was there to hear it.

    Shortly after the lesser primates moved along with their guns there was movement around the HA, and this movement was similar to that recorded by the parabolic microphones used by R1H.

    Similarly there was movement after I left the area for the night.

    The HA is well-packed gravel with lots of fine particles packed hard and greening up. There will be no crunching of this gravel under any foot, or even under car or truck.

    I would expect a large animal to cause more general disturbance of the brush along the road here when getting there. I would also expect to hear evidence of more than two feet, which I do not clearly hear. I must examine more closely all other access points to the HA.

    Still, there are several distinct levels of active movement and some seem more clearly substantial.

    There are taps and knocks of varying levels sporadically, entirely expected in the woods at any hour, only a small number seem distinct. Nonetheless, more carefully observing the area in person would be helpful for possibly identifying chronic sources.

    It is interesting to note that the only clicks and taps that continue throughout the day are those I associate with trees swaying in the breeze, of which I only included an example in the summary for completeness.

    All other forms of movement were rather sporadic, and all examples of them were included in the summary along with their spectrographs on youtube.

    I will be collecting more data, but having spent plenty of time camping in the woods in the past, there are sounds that simply grab a level of attention. They do so because they do not occur all the time, they are more unusual, but that does not suggest a cause in and of itself.

    Consider the two-sound knock-break event at 21:23 for example: If the sound came from a single direction then I would consider it a branch break high up in a tree, which fell to the ground. Had I not been there when it happened, I would assert that is the most likely explanation. However, the first sound came from the south, and the second sound came from southeast and was absolutely from a widely separated location.

    I wanted to look for the tree that came down, and I have not thoroughly explored the area surrounding the camp. I was told there are so many trees down in the area it would be a pointless search. I may still do some exploring in the area, but am not expecting to easily find a tree down... Still, if I do so and it is obvious the break is fresh, I will record the information nonetheless.

    I did not remain Saturday 7/25 because an unknown white minivan was parked in the camp. I seriously considered waiting until Monday to retrieve the recorder because there were two unknown pickups parked on the branch of road leading to the habituation area on 7/26, around where I parked briefly on 7/25, where I heard the tree come down from. I waited for about 20 minutes and observed no activity of any kind, and picked up the hidden recorder anyway.

    I passed R1H on the way out, and told him what I knew. One of the pickups had two large bags of deer feed in the back – it is, of course, illegal for hunters to bait prey in this area. R1H stayed at the camp area for a few hours, the trucks were there well after dark.

20/08/18 - Another New Moon.

    I have made 3 additional visits to this area in the last week or so. I have 4 voice recorders and attempted to address some of the issues discovered in the last visits.

    Two recorders within about 10 feet of each other absolutely helps distinguish small movement near one with larger movement in the area. There are still limitations with audio only observations, but this is a big improvement. This is a necessity for an area not in direct view.

    I also attempted to make use of a wireless microphone, actually I tried two designs. One is a Karaoke style microphone with a cost just over $30. The other is a wireless lapel microphone with a cost just under $60.

    The cheaper of these is not sensitive and has no adjustment for pickup volume at the transmitter; it is completely unsuitable out of the box. It may retrofitted with a different module to feed the transmitter, but that is a project for later.

    The lapel microphone has pickup volume adjustment, but is still not sensitive enough in general for these purposes.

    My hope was to leave a live monitor to listen in real-time and be able to decide if investigation was warranted. This is not the way to get there...

    For each of these visits I was relatively quiet, and observed no discernable activity. Of course the car doors are audible over a wide area. Any hunter-gatherer worth its weight in salt would hear that for quite a distance, but if there then they chose not to investigate.

    During the initial visit R1H was present, and there was apparent activity. During the other visit when I observed activity I started with some rising whoop calls after dusk. I will try making calls again on the next visit. In hopes of seeing a correlation.

2020-Aug-27 - Two Tree Breaks.

    On July 24 I got a branch break when I started with the rising whoop, actually my initial calls were not consistent that evening. Other times we make no calls at all and we get no perceivable response from no calls consistently. When we have tried the monotone whoop like I heard during my initial visit to the area we get no response consistently. On August 27 I tried 3 rising whoops, as frequently heard on TV and other sources. We certainly got a response.

    One reason I do include normal animal noises in these is that we are there for hours and capture an occasional sound... The other is to build experience of what it is like out there when an ordinary thing happens. Most of what happens is ordinary.

    You should notice that ordinary calls from ordinary animals are nearly always multiple calls. So what is less ordinary is when a single sound happens.

    If you hear it, you get quiet and listen for it to repeat. It does not repeat... Now you must wonder if that was a mimic call, or just the odd one-off call from that kind of animal.

    As for the tree breaks, I think they are significant. Outside the influence of storms I have never heard a tree just fall over; especially just a couple weeks after a rainstorm blows through to do that work naturally. I have heard 3 within a month at this place, and two on the same night and in opposite directions from our position.

    The same goes for branch breaks like that heard on July 24. Also I never hear a branch break in one direction, and land a significant distance in a different direction.

    Tree breaks seem a bit more aggressive to me. Branch breaks less so. I have to consider if we are irritating the subjects a bit, and if there is any reason beyond our presence for that.

    I think I have made an error by sitting inside the car on some nights. It is my purpose to pique the inquisitive nature of the subjects, but staying in the car makes it hard for them to observe us without getting rather close. I think that I sould set up the chairs in the camp and use them for such evenings - and just be prepared for the climate of the evening.

    I do not know if they understand English, but I believe I should probably thank them when they respond to our presence. They have certainly observed humans enough to know if they are calm or agitated - especially in response to their activity.

    Speaking out into the woods after they seem to do something would express our attitude and acceptance of them, even if they do not understand the words. Then they can decide how to act next.

    I feel safe doing this here. The subjects have a history of hazing people out of areas where they do not want company. I believe that so long as we do not ignore escallation from them, should they actually want us to simply leave, we may find a balance...

2020-Sep-01 - Back Roads.

    We explored the larger region today. We found all the road branches that may be passable, found all the gates and otherwise blocked roads, and noted a number of other spurs that may be worth exploring.

    This did not take a lot of time, but we arrived too late in the evening to search for one of the broken trees from a few days ago. I don't want to be too deep into their safe space during their safe time before we have a better understanding of this group.

    We did find the gravel pit where all the locals love to create big fires, drink a lot, and shoot off their guns. Trucks, booze, guns, and a few girls - what could make a better Friday Night? It is about 3/4 miles from the Area C camp, nominally in the same valley. No wonder we can hear it so clearly.

    Unfortunately, most of the remaining spur roads are closer to the ad-hoc gun range. I think that makes them unsuitable for observing the subjects and for camping.

    This leaves a few gated roads we might explore by bike or hike at some point.

2020-Sep-06 - Looking for Tree Breaks.

    Yesterday we tried to find the tree breaks North to East of the camp area of Area C, where tree breaks were heard on Jul 25 and Aug 27. There are many broken trees in this forest, the forest was harvested in 1979 and replanted in 1980.

    It is a temparate rainforest area. Let me express I am used to the kind of forest we find in the area of Skykomish or Easton. In contrast, the research area has deep and heavy undergrowth reminiscent of Jurasic Park. There is a lot of water in this area, demonstrated by the kinds of vegitation found here: Devils Club is in huge clusters all around the area. Lady Fern at or above the typical 6 ft range - I barely had to duck to walk under some of them. Stinging Nettles are laced into both of those. This creates a dense layer of living material that was consistently around 6 to 8 feet tall across the whole area.

    It is impractical to search this area for the tree breaks we heard. While I admit we are not in the greatest shape, it took nearly 90 minutes for us to search a single swath roughly 250 feet long from east of the camp to the main road. This is not to say we lack valuable observations from the experience.

    We did observe a number of tree breaks, at least a dozen that were in the 8 to 12 inch diameter range. All of these were older breaks, evidenced by the condition of the logs as well as the condition of the breaks in the wood. The breaks are all clearly exposed to the elements for years, and the logs have largely shed their bark. And NO - there is no indication of anything harvesting the bark of these downed trees - the condition of these appears entirely natural.

    We did not observe anything resembling structures. After 40 years there are plenty of downed branches and debris, but there was nothing that could clearly be considered as assembled in terms of complexity or artistry.

    The Nettles and Ferns in this area are fragile, and bend and bruise easily. Our tracks through the area will be clear until the Spring. We did not cross any paths made by any large animals on our search. There was a single path we found, about enough for a coyote to get through. Anything that is 3 feet from backbone to sternum and 4 feet from shoulder to shoulder would leave a mark... The path we followed in the picture at the right did not cross such a path.

Conclusions and Further Actions

    Logically we would expect that if the subjects were in the area enclosed by our search path and the roads they most likely did not cross our search path. We have looked carefully on the spur up to the camp and there is no clear trail there. So, there are 3 main probabilities: (1) The subjects moved into the area crossing the main road. (2) The subjects moved into the area crossing into thick brush within 100 feet of us without making a sound. (3) The breaks were further out than our search path and the subjects have not used a path crossing our search path.

    I consider (2) to be less likely because it is much closer to the recorder we left near the camp. Also we did not find any clear game trail crossing that area.

    We will make another excursion east of the camp, working to the left as possible until we reach the road or run out of daylight. There is another spur about 1/4 mile in that direction that reconnects to the main road making about a 1-1/2 mile walk back if we get there...

    We will make a survey of the main road looking for trails other than that we made.

    We will make a search SSW of the camp for the first tree break of Aug 27. We may use the trail that comes down into the Habituation Area as an entry point for this search.

    Time is running out for the Summer...

2020-Sep-26 - Visiting with the Group.

    As someone inclined to scientific thinking, I like to point out that even a negative result is a result. All we got was the Barred Owl that haunts the forest around Area C.

    The host has said there are times the subjects mimic owls. I must confess that being surrounded by a dozen or more owls calling out would be... Unusual.

    This was just one. Later in the evening when it had moved to around the focus of our study area for the evening I walked up and down the road to try and judge its location. It was about 50 feet back from the road, and about 20 feet above the level of the road - almost certainly an actual owl in this case.

    It had been raining for several days, finally clearing smoke from the air and sharply reducing fire danger in the area. The rain stopped, but in this temperate rain forest the drips continue under the canopy for many hours.

    Certainly it sounds like it is raining in the recordings, but the spectrographs still show where a potentially interesting sound presents itself. Unfortunately there was no sound I could not attribute to the camp area. There were a couple alarmed chipmunks; a handful of tree frogs enjoying the rain; and the barred owl that haunts the area.

    Reviewing the first recorder, I was hearing sounds that made it seem something was messing with it. But I heard this sound from all 3 recorders. This convinces me that sound was caused by drops from higher trees hitting the bush the recorder was clipped to, or the plastic protecting the recorder.

    We are probably done for the year, unless the group gets together again. Hunting season is open for guns now, and there are too many lesser primates shooting at whatever moves.

    The subjects, I have been told, disappear around this time - the guess is to higher ground - until the hunters leave.

    By spring, they seem to be down in the lower .

2020-Dec-28 - Coyote Serenade

    I met Brent Dill¹ in Area C after recording a fantastic sunset on Mt Rainier. Note that this evening was a nearly full moon, and that the subjects in this area are typically much less active during a full moon.

    While we talked, we were interrupted by a handful of sounds. A few thumps or thuds that sounded mostly like a car door. A couple of probable gun shots in the distance. A single call from an owl to our south-east.

    Then we found ourselves listening to a creepy series of screams coming from a marshy area west of our location. After a few minutes we concluded it was probably coyotes, but the sound was distorted somehow. It turns out the forest was acting as an accoustic filter, spreading and slurring the yips and howls together into something much more spooky sounding.

    The pinched nerve in my leg was bothering me after standing for a long time during the sunset, and then again talking with Brent. As I was driving out of the research area, I drove slowly with the windows open in hopes of getting closer to the source of the sounds. At the end of the video I let you hear the sounds from much closer to the source.

    It is important to be aware of how sounds change when they carry for great distances through different locations. It would be easy for someone to believe they were hearing a Sasquatch screaming in the distance. It would have been just as easy to believe a coyote was being torn to shreds by something, as well. Yet it was just caroling to the full moon...

1 - Brent Dill - The Tall Ones youtube channel.