In search of Bigfoot
“I hear you’re interested in Bigfoot.”
Joe pulls his head out from under the hood of an old pickup truck and smiles. He’s wearing a black Luxor Las Vegas t-shirt, and his blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail.
I had just stepped into the backyard after spending the night a house rented out by he and his wife to travelers passing through Salida, a mountain town in central Colorado.
I chose this little yellow bungalow because the owners were the local Bigfoot experts. It turns out the 116-year-old-house was also a landmark. Known as the Honk House, it has a history of locals honking at it as they speed by on Highway 50.
“Lief Erickson saw the first Sasquatch in America,” he said warmly, like it was perfectly normal to be talking about Bigfoot on a Saturday morning in a little house that people honk at every time they pass.
He navigated to a website run by an audiologist who has been collecting the sounds of Bigfoot and played snippets that sounded like someone hitting a tree with a small log or clacking two rocks together —“That’s not a chipmunk,” he said—and a series Wookie-like howls.
He plays the snippet called ‘Colorado Howl #1’ out of speakers on his truck when he is in the woods, hoping to lure a Sasquatch or two into the open. One of his many tricks.
“We build a campfire and burn bacon to attract them. It’s a gateway meat,” he laughs, his eyes crinkling from days in the high mountain sun.
“But there’s nothing Bigfoot loves better than cinnamon rolls,” he adds, revealing the secret to attracting big hairy missing links in the Colorado mountains. He leaves a nice spiral roll with nuts on a tree stump in the woods. “It disappears every time,” he says.
I’m loving every minute of Joe’s storytelling. I try to make out the blurry image of Bigfoot babies in the background of a group hunting expedition photo. I hang on to every word of his tale of encountering the glowing red and blue eyes of a family of Bigfoots on an inky night in the woods.
I can’t say I was convinced, but I can’t saw I wasn’t either.
“The next time you go on a hunt, call me,” I said. “I will hop on a plane and join you.” In the middle of the night. In a vast mountain range filled with bears and mountain lions. And Bigfoot.
He agreed and welcomed my return as we shook hands, and I wondered for a moment which one of us crazier, plunging deep into the woods in the middle the night looking for giant hairy monster.
I haven’t gotten the call yet, but I’m ready.