Chelsea, generally we have a fairly standard practice for fringy minis in that they're news articles that we want to convey to people. But this time around, just with it being the Halloween season and it being our creature feature week, in fact, so everybody gets to know it's the creature feature week, I actually thought we could cram one more creature feature in here with the fringy mini. And Chelsea, this one is fantastic. I don't want to give too much away other than it's a land whale.
A land whale. A land whale. Okay, can't be a new species. No, and Chelsea, just prepare yourself for this because this is one of the most fantastic cryptids I have ever heard of. Oh, it's a cryptid. Okay. Yes. Okay. I'm trying to prepare, but you might as well just go ahead and tell me. I don't know if I could ever be prepared. This is called the Slide Rock Bolter. It's out of Colorado. And I'm going to be reading an article about it from wanderingwhaleroad.wordpress.com
written by Wandering Whale Road on October 12, 2017. What a weird set of words you just put on this. Yes. Autumn is upon us. 2017. Yes. Okay. I thought it was a recent. Okay. Autumn is upon us. And so today we turn to the colorful forests of North America for our story of the Taysian folklore. Landlock, Colorado is not the place that you'd think of when it comes to marine mammals. But in the early 20th century, American lumberjacks told all sorts of stories about fursome critters.
One of them was the Slide Rock Bolter, a terrifying mountain whale. The tale of the Slide Rock Bolter comes to us from William Thomas Cox, the state forester of Minnesota, who in 1910 published fearsome critters of the lumberwoods with a few desert and mountain beasts. In this collection of lumberjack tales from all over the United States, Cox detailed various creatures that workers in the logging industry imagined late at night in their shanties. The Slide Rock Bolter
story is set in southwestern Colorado. Cox worked with forester, Court de Bois, who drew the illustration and botanist George Bishop Sudworth, who Latin taxonomical names for the creature added to the work's tongue-in-cheek imitation of a field guide of the Slide Rock Bolter. Cox wrote, In the mountains of Colorado, where in summer the woods are becoming infested with tourists, much uneasiness has been caused by the presence of the Slide Rock Bolter. This frightful animal lives
only in the steepest mountain country where the slopes are greater than 45 degrees. It has immense head with small eyes and a mouth somewhat on the order of a sculpin, running back beyond its ears. The tail consists of a divider flipper with enormous grab hooks which it fastens over the crest of the Mount Norridge, often remaining there motionless for days at a time, watching the gulch
for tourists or any other hapless creature that may enter it. At the right moment, after sighting a tourist, it will lift its tail, thus loosening its hold on the mountain, and with its small eyes riveted on the poor unfortunate and drooling thin skid grease from the corners of its mouth, which greatly accelerates its speeds. The Bolter comes down like a toboggan, scooping its victims as it goes, its own impetus, carrying it up to the next slope, where it again slaps its tail over
the ridge and waits. Whole parties of tourists are reported to have been gulped at one scoop by taking parties far back into the hills. The animal is a menace not only to tourists, but to the woods as well. Many a draw through spruce covered slopes have been laid low. The trees being knocked out by the roots or mowed off as by a scythe where the Bolter has crashed through from the peak above. Now is that not the most amazing cryptid you've ever heard of Chelsea?
It pretty much is. It's obviously extinct now or they're still sighting, do you think? To be perfectly honest, the the leading theory that this was just like a fun tail that Lumberjacks hold each other and the knights to just pass the time, but I need to show you the illustration of this thing Chelsea. Okay, sharing my screen. There is the unsuspecting slide rock Bolter coming down the hill. Pretty much what I was thinking actually. Yeah, yeah, look at that.
There you go. Yeah, that's a good one. You can find a few pictures of slide rock Bolters. They're fantastic. But yeah, it's just like I felt like it was a bit of an addition to our like fringy mini topics of whales taking down the rich in that maybe they shouldn't be partying in Colorado anymore because maybe the orcas will have their number there. There is a bit more. That is more
terrifying. Yes, like most creatures that Lumberjacks told stories about the slide rock Bolter was probably conjured up late one night as part of the storytelling contest when seasoned campers competed to convince newcomers that fearsome critters lurked in the woods far away from the ocean where any real station would swim the form of a whale was likely chosen because of its great
size and distinctive tail which suits the peculiar behavior of this particular cryptid. Tox's account goes on to describe how one forest ranger tricked the slide rock Bolter into attacking a dummy dressed as a tourist debate, a Colorado guidebook and a Norfolk jacket common to the upper class went men who could afford to seek adventure in the exotic West. The dummy was stuffed with dynamite. However, and when the Bolter slid down lizard head for the kill, the resulting explosion flattened
half of the buildings in Rico which were never rebuilt. It is this story's unusually precise geographic location in Rico Colorado that enables us to situate the Bolter in a wider context. An investigation into the economic history of Rico reveals the slide rock Bolter to be a snapshot of the tension that came with a time of great change in southwestern Colorado. I think that's far enough for where this is because I just wanted to talk about the rock Bolter. It's fantastic.
I love that it was like a group of guys probably sitting around a fire, a campfire. I don't know why I was going to say that backwards. And this one guy was like, oh yeah? Well have you ever heard of the slide rock Bolter? It's literally the biggest creature on the planet and it couldn't just hide in plain sight because it's so gigantic. Well that's its whole thing. Nobody's looking for a giant whale on a mountainside. They're not going to notice. Yeah because they wouldn't expect it
there. So if you're not expecting it there you're just not going to see it no matter how large it is even if it's larger than the mountain itself. Well it can't be larger than the mountain itself. That is clear. That one picture is a little off-putting because its entire hunting strategy is to let itself slide down the mountain. So it can't be bigger than the mountain. And it literally can't get anywhere if it's not in water because these renderings, I mean it's just sliding down the
mountain. I don't know how I get that. Yeah no if you look up images of slide rock Bolter there's some fantastic ones out there and I am just, we need to put this out into the zeitgeist. That this needs to be a horror movie of people going camping and going for a hike and then they suddenly hear something and they don't know what it is and just a whale is sliding down and eats one of their friends. No it would have to eat the majority of them and then one lucky person
is not Eden. Well no importantly Chelsea two things and he's eat most of them and also their camping gear. Yeah. Like there needs to be something to say that they're stuck there on this mountainside full of whale. Oh yeah it would make a pretty good ad horror movie. Yeah. But yeah I'm kind of hoping once the billionaires figure out these land yacht things that these, the slide rock Bolter figures that out. Like it knows what it needs to do it's in its genetics.
The point was made clear from, wrote that article. Cox. The slide rock Bolter itself. Well it's not up to much it's just waiting for Pastor Pies to go through. It could write a blog or two while it waits. Yeah well now you get a triple creature feature this week. We are just jamming it in there you guys are so lucky. Lucky you guys. I don't know how you guys are going to manage with all this luckiness but I don't know find lucky pennies or
gold or something. I don't care just do what you will with your 48 hours and we'll see you back here you terrified people. Bye. Yeah. Bye.