CLASSICS An Elk Hunter's Sightings!

a guide in Colorado. And I was like, oh, that's really interesting and he said yeah, he watched it through binoculars for a few minutes, and I immediately recognized the story because I was always a big fan of the writings of a researcher from Kansas named Keith Foster, and he actually worked with a number of elk hunters and people that were prominent in that community in Colorado to put together a lot of information about Sasquatch sidings there.

And then there was a journalist for the Denver Post named Theo Stein who had written this. So I immediately I just took a chance with this guy and I said, Hey, is this friend of yours? Is his name Jeff die Singer? And he was like, yeah, how did you know that? And I was like, I got a pretty good memory man for sasquatch related stuff, and so to learn that he lived here in the same area as I do, I reached out and we had a great conversation, and I thought, we've got to get him on the podcast.

And so I know you guys are somewhat familiar with the story, but I'm going to let Jeff tell it, so you guys can host the conversation and I'm all here for it.

the seventy fifth Special Forces out of Fort Benning. Been deployed in South and Central America, Africa, over in the Middle East. So did that, and I was with a QRF, a Quick Reaction Force team, so if people got in trouble, it was our job to go and get them out and that sort of thing. I was a part of Somalia where I was you know, wounded three times over there.

And so anyway, I got out, went to college in Oklahoma, played a little baseball there, and then after college I came back to Nashville, and played music professionally for about three years.

thought I was the only person in the world. And I'm down there, you know, quarnering and skinning this thing. And I was about six miles in I was backpacked bow hunting, and this was probably like ninety five, maybe ninety six, somewhere in there, and this cowboy rode up on a horse with like two mules out of nowhere and scared the snot out of me and ended up being the owner of one of the largest outfitters in

the country, really is Pike's Peak Outfitters. And he said he'd set up on the mountain and watched that whole thing, and he goes, you ever want a job, call me, And by Georgie the next year, I've had enough of the music business, and and so I called him and kind of escaped out to Colorado and and started guiding full time. So and you know, did that in the fall, and then they also had a wilderness program and was an instructor there during the summer and and you know,

book tunts and that sort of thing. So I was I was only one of two guys that were full time there when everybody else was seasonal. And so I spent literally probably three hundred days a year out you know, in the outside. So so yeah, and then you know that brings that brings us to when when the sighting happened? Really, you know, so, uh.

this thing was breaking all the barriers. And I had gone to see that, and you know, when I walked out of that, I was like, Oh, that's crazy there.

I want to say. It was like ninety eight. Maybe I had been guiding for a couple of years, had won Colorado Guide of the Year the year before, I do remember that, and so we me and the head guide that summer had found a spot on the backside of PAC's Peak back in the wilderness area there that summer and had found just a bunch of elk, And so he and I decided that two weeks prior to season. We would go in, take a couple of the new guys and set up some wall tents and you know,

corrals for the horses. Because it was my horse. It was probably about a three and a half four hour ride by horse. And so we'd gone in and you know, a couple of weeks prior to the season, and by that time I had clients that repeat clients, so they had hunted with me in years, you know, a couple of years passed and he had definitely had repeat clients, and so we're like, man, let's let's give these guys a great hunt. And so we took me and him, Bob Gorman. We had we each had two clients and

then we had a cook, slash, a wrangler. He took care of the horses and stuff. And so the day the clients get in we have so four six we had seven horses and probably eight mules to pack everybody stuff in on and all of that for a seven day hunt. And each client had an elk tag and each client had a deer tag, and one of my clients actually had a bear tag. So we went in that you know, we went in on a Saturday. We

got there Saturday afternoon and got it. Everybody settled, and you know, the cook did his thing and just had a great afternoon and evening riding in. And next morning we get up and we killed three elk right away, three bulls, and we're having like, we're like, holy cow, this is amazing. I don't know if you've ever done that or not, but when you kill an elk, it's it's an all day process, really, and so when you

kill three elk, it's really an all day process. And so you know, we didn't finish till late at night. And then the next day my other client who didn't kill he and I went out by ourselves while the rest of them went meal dier honey, and my client killed a bull that morning about nine o'clock. Well, so we start working on that elk and we get back, well, the other three guys had already killed a mule dinner. I'm like, holy cow. They're like, we're having a like

the best time ever, you know. And so anyway, the next morning we get up and my client kills a mule deer and we went back to one of the gut piles, and that afternoon he shot a bear. So in three days we had killed you know, four four deer and a bear. I mean, it was just the most amazing thing. And so it was on a Wednesday, Wednesday or Thursday, and we decided that we were going to pack the meat out, and where the wrench was was close to a town called Cripple Creek. They're on

the back side of Pike's Pee. And so we were like, let's let's pack out in the morning or you know, whenever. We get everything packed and ready to go, and we'll go back to the ranch. We'll get the meat hung in the coolers and all that, and get the hides and the heads taken care of, and then we'll go spend a couple of nights in Cripple Creek and have fun. And everybody was up for that, and so that's that

was the plan. So by the time we got off our gear and everything situated and horses ready and every you know, meat and heads and all that, by the time we got ready to go, it was it was probably one or two o'clock in the afternoon. And so we're coming back and we're about more than halfway back to the trailhead where the trucks and the horse trailers were at and we're coming along the side of this mountain and on the trail it does like almost a ninety degree loop, if you will, like a horse shoe.

And so I'm in the lead. I've got two or three pack animals, and then we've got the four clients just on horses, and then we've got the cook and he's probably got a couple of pack animals, and then the head gud Bob was riding drag and he's got the rest of the meals. He's got probably six meals with him. So we're in this horseshoe and I get through the horseshoe and my horse just started acting crazy,

like he wouldn't go anywhere. He was like trotting, like just his front feet, like he was trying to stemp out something. And so Bob's on the other side of me, not fifty yards, and we're looking at each other and he's like, what's going on. I said, man must be a bear or a mountain lion or something. I said, he smells something, cause I mean I'd had that horse's

and parades and nothing really bothered that horse. And so Bob's like, we'll get off and lead him on up the trail, and so where we were at it was pretty steep grade right there. And so instead of getting off on the downhill side, because I'm only five to nine so I'm not real tall, so I got off on the right side of the horse on the upside of the mountain. And as soon as I got off,

this thing burst between everybody down this valley. And I'll be honest with you, the only thing I really saw was like a head and the shoulders, and I'm I'm going, is that a bear? Like? What is that? Is that a bear? And this thing is so fast, so fast didn't make a noise, like like you could hear the pine vals like you know when you're running on them, but like it wasn't any crunching or any sticks breaking or anything like this. I mean, it was like full speed down this mountain.

that's not a thing. Come on, that was a bear, man, No, come on as a bear, and Bob goes, dude, it was on two legs. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, no way. So I was still doubting what I saw because I didn't I didn't get a clear, clean look at it. So anyway, we get back up to the horse trailers and the wrangler has the big horse trailer and then I have a horse trailer, and then we

had somebody meet us down there to pick up the clients. Well, we got every the clients got picked up, and we never really had a conversation at all with them, you know, unloading horses and geared meat and all that kind of stuff, and so it was just me and the wrangler and Bob there and we're getting everything loaded up, and the Wrangler's like, dude, that was bigfoot. I'm like, man, there's I said. It's not even real. Man, Like, come on.

And so Bob gets in the truck with me and we've got probably about an hour drive back to where we're going, and we're going up the mountain and Bob's like, man, I've heard people talk about that thing, but I've never, ever in my life, ever thought i'd see one. And he'd been doing he'd been guiding. He was probably in his sixties then, and I mean this guy had been guiding since he was thirty, so I mean he's got thirty years out there and had never seen this thing.

And so one of Bob's big things was, look, when we get back to the ranch, we don't talk about it. We like, this never happened. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, man, what if it gets out that we saw a bigfoot? He's like, and it

gets out like big time. And this was way before like social media and all that match, right, and so, and what was I mean back then, we were getting like all the good write ups and like Western Horsemen and you know, Bow Hunting magazine, North American Hunting Magazine, and so his big thing was don't say a word. I'm like, no worries by me. You know, I'm not gonna say anything. So I never paid any attention. And so fast forward almost a year to the day, almost

it's opening season. So I've got two brothers that are coming in from Michigan that had hunted with me the year before, and so they had booked another hunt with me. So everybody comes in on a Saturday, and not that it matters, but when you're a new guide, these people show up, you kind of mingle with them. And if you hit it off with somebody and they like you and you like them, that's who you got. Well, I was in a position where I didn't have to do

that anymore. I had to repeat customers, and I knew who was coming in, and I know what they liked and what they didn't like, that sort of thing, and so you know, I'm just kind of sitting there at the lodge and I'm mingling with people and I'm waiting for my guys to get there from the airport. And I get a phone call from the two brothers saying that their dad had passed away and that they weren't going to be able to make it. And so this was like nine o'clock at night, and so by that

time all the other clients had been taken. So here I'm left with not having any clients for the for the week. And so I go to the owner and the head guide and I said, Hey, do you guys want me to stick around this week? I said, I have an elk tag in my pocket. I'd love to go hunt. And Bob goes, where are you going to go hunt? I said, probably down there. We had that great hunt last year. And Bob goes, I don't know

if i'd go down there. I'm like, come on, man, really, And so anyway, the next morning, I get up and I go to the trail head and so I hike in. You know, I have a backpack, got my bow, and I even took a fishing ride because it's a couple of beaver ponds down there that have brook troiling in them. And you know, I was just going to do it up for a week and have fun. And if I'd killed one, I'd hiked out and come grab my horse and packed it out. And it'd been a lot easier,

you know that way. So anyway, I hike in there that afternoon, and I get in there, you know, fairly late in the afternoon, probably three o'clock or so, because it takes me about five hours to get in there, walk in five or six, and I get in there, and I set up a tent, and I'm at the very last beaver pond. And where this place is located, to the south is this big, huge ridge that goes on for like two miles. It's just solid rock and it's probably a couple thousand feet tall, like the only

way anybody's going up or down that way. You'd have to be a professional rock climber to do that. But there's this valley that comes out of it, and it's meadows with aspen and it's just like the perfect little cubby hole for elk, and there's lots of water in there. And so I'm at the very last beaver pond and caught a couple of brookies and cooked those up, and the elk were bugling, and I mean, it was just

a perfect night. And so I get up the next morning and make some coffee, and I hear the elk bugling, and so I go up and I passed a couple of these beaver ponds. Is I'm headed kind of up towards the cliffs, and to the right there's an outcrop in there. So I crawled up on the outcropping and I was gonna wait for the sun to come up. And during all this, like I said the elk word, screaming and bugling and doing everything, and I was so excited,

like like I was having so much fun. And so the sun's starting to come up a little bit, and to where I can use my binoculars. Now, when you're guiding, binoculars is your number one friend. I mean, if you don't have binoculars, you're you're gonna miss so much out there in that big country that's out there. And so we had become sponsored by all these different manufacturers, like you know, we were sponsored by Rocky Boots and you know, real Tree camouflage, and but one of our best and

biggest sponsors was Seiss binoculars. And it was kind of before Sarovsky had come out and become big and all that. So Seiss was as good as it gets, when you know, it was as good as it got during that period

or whatever. And so I had a pair of ten by fifty Zeiss and when you're guiding on just a regular hunt, you were in those binoculars probably eighty percent of the time, so you know, and then with all my training and stuff in the military, there's a way to glass areas and especially if you're looking for you know, enemy guys and all that, and it pertains the same

way basically to Honey. So anyway, I'm up on this out cropping and it's daylight, it's getting daylight, and so I hear an elp bugle, and I would, you know, I'd get my binoculars up and oh, there he is. He's three hundred yards away. And another one would bugle, and you know, he's five hundred yards away. And all in all, there was probably seven or eight different bulls than this herd of elk, and they were just scattered

all along this like meadow area. So anyway, I heard just bugled down by where my tent was, and my tent was probably about three hundred and fifty four hundred george away, and so I just glassed down there and it bugled again, and I realized that he was closer to me than my tent. So I'm kind of working the glass back up towards me, and I'm hitting these beaver ponds. You can see these beaver ponds, and I

noticed this thing in this beaver pine. Like I said, man, those elk are down there wallowing in those beaver ponds. And so I'm, you know, it's right at first light, and so I'm, you know, I'm really focused on what's going on down there, because I could get to those elk fairly quick, you know, if I wanted to. And so I'm looking at this beaver pond and then all of a sudden, this thing raises up out of this pond and I'm like, holy cow, like, what in the

world is this. So then it gets out of the beaver pond, and right away I'm thinking, Okay, that's the bigfoot that they're talking about. I'm freaked out inside a little bit because, I mean, nobody, if you've never seen one, I mean, you don't know till you know, right, I mean, I don't know how else to explain that. I Mean, you know, we can say there's aliens, but until you see one, you don't know how you're going to react,

especially with a big foot or a sasquatch. So this thing gets out and he kind of shakes off a little bit, and man, I am like zooming in on this thing, and he's probably about one hundred and fifty yards out, so with ten by fifty s ice like, I can see this thing blinking, you know. And my first thought really wasn't you know, oh my gosh, oh my gosh or whatever. My first thought was, this is

a monster. And if he comes at you, and I'm hunting with a recurved bow like the Indians used to do, I'm like, if this thing comes at you, you're gonna have one shot. That's it.

I just never have. I mean, I'm holding a bow in my hand, so you know, if I can't get something to stop by me shooting it with an arrow, you know, and I've had some close calls, you know, up in Alaska, I had a close call. I've had one mountain lion experience that was kind of a weird thing. But you know, in all my years of doing this, I've been doing this for over thirty years, and you know, I'm just I've never put myself in a position to where I felt like I needed to carry for arm.

So but so anyway, this thing kind of he's kind of shaking the water off of him. I guess you would say, not like a dog, but you know, there's like one arm and then the other arm. And while he's doing this, I am noticing that, like this thing is built like anything I've never seen. Like the forearms were massive, the hands were massive. I mean the legs were like like, man, you know, looking back in a calm area, I'm like, man, I wish I had legs

like that, you know. I mean, this thing was just for a reacher or whatever you want to call it. I mean, this thing was in peak physical condition. And so I'm sitting there watching it and he's kind of turned. I'm I'm sitting facing to the to the northeast. That's kind of where he's at but he's facing more north than east, and he hasn't I don't he hasn't seen me, at least I don't think he had. And he turns.

And when you're when you're in a when you're in glass like that ten by fifty binoculars like that, when he turns and looks up towards me, you think he's looking you through your soul, you know, when in fact, he's probably looking past me, or he could have been looking at me. I don't know. But through the binoculars it was like he was looking through my soul. But he didn't look he didn't look scary though, I mean, he looked to me more man like. Then you know,

people describe gorillas or whatever. And we'll get back to Keith Foster, because he did a drawing that was just amazing. I mean it was so spot on. And so I'm sitting here and this thing doesn't appear to be a threat to me, and so I kind of you know, I'm at a twelve, and so now I'm at like a ten, and I'm thinking strategy more than anything else, Like if he comes at me, what are you gonna do?

Da da da da? That kind of thing, and but I'm getting to watch him and he's just middling around this beaver pond, and you know, I watched him mess with his face, like he touched his face. I'm watching his eyes blink, you know. At one time he reached down to get like a clump of mud off his leg,

which was kind of different. And so then he turns and he walks north towards my camp, and he's having to go up this hill, and so he gets kind of cross side heeling, if you will, and he gets about even with my tent, and he squats down like he's using the bathroom, and he's looking right at my camp and he's just sitting there and he's watching my tent. And so I've already decided that once he crosses that hill,

I'm going to give it about ten minutes. If he doesn't come back, I'm going to go down there and grab my gear and I'm getting out, because I mean, he was scary enough that I didn't want to be in there by myself with him. I don't care how many Elko's in there.

to the car or the truck. And so yeah, I mean the whole episode of seeing this thing was probably about ten minutes long. And once I get back to the vehicle, of course, coming out of there, I was totally paranoid, like it's this thing following me, Like you know what happens he jumps out blah blah blah, and so you know, this total state of paranoia hiking out of there and running and you know, just almost killing

myself to get out. And so I get to the truck and immediately I go to the ranch and it's probably gosh, I don't know, it's probably around lunchtime, maybe at one o'clock, and so everybody's out hunting like, there's no guides there, there's no clients there, but the owner was there, Gary Jordan, and I go into Gary's office and he's like, man, did you kill one? Did you

come to get the horses? And I'm like no, Gary, I said, you know that thing that happened to us last year with me and Bob and the coat, And he goes, yeah, I said, I saw this thing up close. And he goes, what are you talking about. I said, I watched him for ten minutes this morning and he's like, no, you didn't. He goes, it was a bear. I said, Gary, I have how many bears have I got it on?

I had up to that point, I'd killed probably me personally, had probably killed like five bears, but I had got it on probably twenty five or thirty by that time. So I know what a bear is, you know. And that's what I'm telling Gary. I'm like, that was no bear, man. I'm like that, I don't know what it is, you know.

And like I said, I'd never researched sasquatch or Bigfoot, didn't have any knowledge of any of that, and so I didn't have anything like nowadays you hear people go well, it's a mix between a man and an ape or a monkey or something. I didn't have that. I was like, it was one of the best built men. Harry people that And I came up with like Neanderthal because that's what I think of Neanderthal would look like. And that's what I told Gary, and Gary goes, well, he goes,

you're obviously shook. And I had an apartment down in Colorado Springs at the time, and he goes, you need to go home and spend a couple of days and come on back up here Friday night and let's get back on the saddle and start guiding again. I'm like, okay. So I go down there, and I do have a computer at the time, and I get on there and I google Bigfoot or Sasquatch, and I start seeing all this stuff. And it's the first time of me seeing the Patty film and this thing looked a lot like Patty,

except the mail version. And because it was a mail and so anyway, I come across the BFRO website. Didn't know they even had a thing like that, and it said, hey, if you've had a sighting or whatever, please tell us. So I sat there for like two hours typing, and I would like, you know, like I'm going, is this too much information? Not enough information? You know, blah blah blah whatever. And it's on like a Wednesday. No, it's not even that. It's on like a Monday or Tuesday.

And so I write my story and tell what happened, you know, both accounts, the first one and then this last one, and I write on there you know, this happened yesterday. And I submitted it. Well, within like less than an hour, I get a call from Matt Moneymaker.

by George. That night, I get a phone call and to my for my life, I can't think of the name of these two guys. One of them's name was Jim and maybe y'all can help me with this. But he and I don't know if he was just telling me a story or what, but he had said that he at one time he had set like the highest altitude sky diving record or something, and his name was

Jeff something. I took him in there and we looked around, and sure enough, we found prints around that beaver pond, and up until a couple of years ago, I actually had a copy of that casting and or had the original cast really and through a divorce and all that and moving, I have no idea where it's at. But so anyway, so that happened, and shortly after that, man I started getting phone calls from all kinds of people.

And what was one of the weirdest things that happened to me was I get a call from this guy like I didn't and he goes, hey, is your address blah blah blah blah, and I'm going yeah, he goes, good, at four o'clock today, you're going to receive a package. He goes, I'll see you there at like five o'clock. I'm like, who are you? He goes, I got this coming to you. He goes, I got to know if

this is what you saw. And it was the original copy of I want to say, Memorial Day footage where the people were in the boat and the and the bigfoot runs across the side hill and then jumps that big gully. It was that footage. And I'm going, well, who are you, like? Where did you like, are you CIA or FBI or something? You know, because I've worked with those guys when I was, you know, in the military. I'm like, this is some CIA FBI stuff going on here. And so he actually I told him, I said, man,

I don't have a VCR. He said, he brought a VCR with him and we hooked it up to my TV and watched it. And I'm going, well, the one I saw wasn't quite as big as that. I mean, the one I saw was probably like seven foot maybe. I mean, he wouldn't know. It wasn't like ten twelve foot or whatever something like that. He wasn't. I mean, seven foot's pretty big. But I mean this dude, this thing I saw was just jacked up. I mean just

every part of his body was just muscled up. And so when this thing jumped that gully, I was like, I could totally believe that, and he goes, what do you mean, I said, the way these things are built, I said, I said, he could have probably jumped up on that rock outcome cropping and ate me for you know, breakfast that morning, and just the way he was built. And so after that, I really I never really had any more interaction. It didn't really change the way I

felt in the woods. And I think the reason being is that, for lack of a better word, was a peaceful encounter. You know, I didn't feel like this thing was going to eat me or tear me apart or any of that. And you know, and I was fascinated

by how it looked and all that. But you know, weeks and months following that, I kept thinking that, you know, that thing probably watched me walk right by him, because I followed that series of beaver ponds going up to that rock out cropping, and so that kind of set me on edge a little bit. But you know, I never had any ill will or bad feelings or you know, anything like that towards towards what I saw, and so

you know, I carried on as normal. You know, I still guided, I still hunted, but hoping that maybe I'd see another one something, you know, because it was just cool. So now I'm not going to tell you that coming out of a mountain, you know, and you're six miles from your vehicle and your own foot and it's dark, you don't think about that because you do. But you know, as far as ever being scared or you know, beyond being able to do whatever, and just never happened for me.

But his lips were I mean, can you use the word normal, but I mean they were normal for what I was looking at I guess, and the eyes just looked they looked like our eyes, really, I mean, you know they there wasn't anything crazy about on.

don't know any way describe that, I guess. So I guess his torso from his waist up was bigger or taller than from the waist down. So I don't know if that makes the arms look different or not.

But the hair was pretty proportional. I mean, you know, it wasn't like long, stragglely something crazy like you see in some of these movies. I mean, it was pretty I don't want to use the word man or groomed, but I mean, you know, his face probably had maybe an inch or half inch hair, and his head probably the same, and then.

exactly what I saw exactly. I mean, so if you look at that picture, I mean, I don't know if you could age that or not. I mean, thirties forties, I mean not old enough to be like an old withered man kind of thing, you know.

guessing four or five inches wide. Made me.

asked me that. So when you're when you're hunting elk, elk put out a smell that you can if there's especially if there's a bunch of them during the mating season, a bull elk will will urinate on himself and and he'll get in what we call walls, which is they dig out of and it'll kind of that has water and they'll make mud out of it, and they'll get in there and they'll coat themselves in this mud because

an elk will spend more time. A lot of people don't know this, but elka spend more time trying to stay cool than he will anything else. And so by kicking himself with his mud and all that, it helps him stay cool. And so during the mating season, what an elk do. He'll get in there and he'll start wallowing and doing all that. And while he's doing that, he'll urinate in the mud on himself. And so when the rut occurs, it usually goes on somewhere between anywhere

from twenty five to forty days long. So you're thinking that this thing is doing this, you know, at two or three four times a day, and so that creates a smell. So it gives you that musky smell. And so a lot of times when you're hunting and you're down when of an elk, you can smell long before you ever seen them. And there had been a couple times that the stitch has come over us and you're going, that's not like, man, that is the grossest smelling elk

I've ever smelled. You know, and in the back of your mind going, you know that don't even smell like an elk, and so so, not knowing one hundred percent, you know, if I had, I would say probably, just because I think I've smelled them before.

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