Hiker Lost but Not Alone

there to relax and play. The trailer was just forty feet from the narrow road that circled the island and separated the property from the beach. Across the road from the trailer was a giant hedge that separated the road from the beach, and there was a break in the

hedge where we could walk right onto the sand. With one dusky evening, the kids decided to play hide and seek on the beach, and it was my turn to count first, and I had to count all the way to one hundred, otherwise we would all count too fast and not give the other kids time to hide. There was a rowboat with one end propped up on a piece of driftwood that we chose to count under to

ensure there was no cheating. Well, I got under there and I counted, and when I finished, I crawled out, surprised at how much darker it had gotten in such a short time. I felt alone, and I looked up and down the beach from where I was standing, and I couldn't see anyone. So I started toward the road.

The beach sloped up to the hedge. When I was about fifty feet from the opening, I saw the silhouette of a human like figure with its shoulders and heads staring at me from over the hedge from the other side. I thought it was one of my friends. I see you, I yelled out, pointing at the silhouette, but there was no response, and this thing didn't move. Hey, I shouted again, I see you again. The figure didn't budge. A sudden, eerie realization swept over me that something wasn't quite right

about this thing. I felt goosebumps cover every inch of my skin, and I felt my hair go straight as a wire. We just stood there, staring at each other for a few minutes while the sun was setting, and then it or he or she just turned away from me and strolled up the road. I stood there for a bit longer. I was a little freaked out and waiting for my legs to work again. I crept up the road to the opening in the hedge, and I peecked up the road to make sure the coast was clear.

And I ran across the street and into the trailer as fast as my feet would take me. And when I got inside, all three kids were there, hanging out and having a good time. Well, they started laughing at me. They thought it was real funny that they had ditched me. But I wasn't smiling. Were you out there on the road just now, I asked them, No, they answered They told me that as soon as I started counting, they went straight back to the trailer. Real funny, guys, I said.

I remember being in the car with my mom's boyfriend around those days, and he would tell me tales of Bigfoot being spotted on the island and swimming in the water. Well, I'm glad I only heard about those stories after my encounter with that figure. If I had known it was a sasquatch looking at me over the hedge, I would have been traumatized. But here's where it gets even weirder. Because of my recent interest in the Bigfoot subject. I told my sister about that evening and what I had seen,

and that's when she confessed. She told me that she and the other kids were on the beach looking for a place to hide when they noticed a figure looking at them over the hedge next to the road, and it was popping up and down, and it was trying to avoid being seen. They weren't playing a trick on me by ditching me and heading to the trailer. They were just trying to get away from that thing. It dawned on me that Bigfoot was probably watching me the

whole time I was under that boat and counting. I try to think about what my grandpa would say if I had told him what happened that night, and knowing him, he would have told me Bigfoot wasn't trying to scare me. He was just trying to see if we still wore the same size shoes. Okay, I don't quite get that last sentence, But there's a part early in the story that I skipped over because I didn't think it had

relevance to the story. So let me go back to the first paragraph and read that, and then her last sentence may make sense back to the very first sentence. I've always been interested in Bigfoot, probably because of where I grew up in Washington's Date, and when I was a teenager, my grandpa told me that the first thing Bigfoot would do if he came into the house was borrow my shoes. He was a funny man. And then the last sentence says Bigfoot wasn't trying to scare you.

He was just trying to see if we still wore the same sized shoes. He must have been making fun of her. She must have big feet, that's all I can figure. I know I just ruined the story for everybody, But this is this you ask for, genuine cam Buckner. That's who I am. My mind just wanders, and sometimes I skip things that I don't think are important. They wind up being important, like this grandfather making fun of his granddaughter's big feet. Maybe she had big feet, maybe

he called her Bigfoot. I don't know. I don't know what the deal is. But I thought this was a good story. And when she first said there was a figure looking, let me go back and find it, because I thought, oh, maybe it was an alien. The way she was talking separated at dusk. Steve ass, Okay, I'm getting close to it. So I started toward the road.

The beach sloped up to the hedge, and when I was about fifty feet from the opening, I saw the silhouette of a human like figure with its shoulders and heads staring at me from over the edge on the other side. Okay, I have no idea why. I thought that may have been like an alien head sticking up. No reason too. There was nothing she wrote in the story that made me think that. And now that I've totally ruined this story for y'all, I'm gonna quit talking and go to another one. All right, here we go.

All right, here's a bigfoot story. I hope you guys enjoy this. I liked it. It's kind of short. I want to be anonymous if you use this story. This occurred in the late nineteen seventies on our family property, which was eighty acres of land, was twenty miles south of the Oakey Finoke Swamp across the Saint Mary's River in Florida. At the time, my cousins and I lived on these eighty acres. We were all playing outside having a good time, when all of a sudden, we fell

completely silent. Right in the sunshine. On the opposite side of the creek, we watched a creature walking toward the swamp on the back half of our family property. It had six inch long, reddish brown hair, and it was at least six feet tall. I put it out of my mind until I was ten years old, when the youngest of our group that day came by to visit and asked me if I remembered when we saw Bigfoot.

The experience came flooding back to my mind right away, and since then I have asked all my cousins who were there that day, and they all remember it clearly. A few years ago on the property, my cousin's son was in that same area and he was hunting by himself when he came out of the woods on this four wheeler, white as a sheet, and he looked like

he had seen something. And there was another time I was sitting outside on my patio having a cigarette one night when I got the feeling that someone was watching me, and just as I was feeling creeped out, a swampy stench hit my nose and I got up and went in the house right away, and since then I have not gone out at night by myself at all. I believe the creature we saw in the nineteen seventies was a young Bigfoot. I think they migrate during the winters,

and I do believe they have always been here. Thanks Cam for all your stories in your channel. They creep me out, but I think people should know what's in the woods. Well, yeah, if they're in the woods, people ought to know. I told you that was a short story, but it was kind of a kind of a cute story. She's remembering way back in the seventies, I see. Does she say how whole she was now? No, but I'm

guessing she was just a kid. So she's probably around my age and she's remembering back, and a lot of people do that. But this was a good bigfoot story. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you miss Anonymous for sending it all. Right, this is a really really short I mean, this thing doesn't happen one hundred and seventy words. I could probably just make a short out of it. One night, my boyfriend and I had just put my twins to bed. My other son, who was just two years old at

the time was at his dad's for the week. We were settling into the evening when my boyfriend got up and he said he saw my son running around the house. I told you to go to bed, he yelled, while I was confused and reminded him that he was at his dad's house. Well then, who was that, my boyfriend asked, I don't know, I said. The next week, my son came home. We had just put all the kids to bed when once again my boyfriend saw my two year old running through the trailer and he yelled at him

to go back to bed. And when I went to check on my son, I found him sound asleep. Well, my boyfriend was scared, and as for me, I'm used to the unknown. Whatever it was, it never did come back through that night. Oh that's cool. Maybe she's got a little ghost, little ghost child living in that trailer. Maybe you never know, but this was great. I read them all. I read them all if I can, if I can possibly read them, and there have been a few that I just could not make heads or tales

out of. I read them all, whether they're exciting or not, because I think they're fun and I think they're important to the person who wrote them. So that's a little short one just for I probably shouldn't say her name, but if she hears this, she'll know I got this about two and a half years ago. And there it is. All right, let's go to something else. Here is a bigfoot story that's a little longer than the first three

I did in this podcast. Let's do it. In midst summer of nineteen eighty two, I decided to take a backpacking trip across the backcountry of northern Idaho to a hidden lake I knew of up there. The map I was using was ten years old. It showed logging roads and trails, but what I didn't know was that it was dangerously outdated and incorrect, not a time before Google Earth and modern navigation technology. A map and a compass were my only god. I followed the first logging road

until it split. According to the map, I had reached my first waypoint, so I decided to stop and make camp for the night. I watched the sun drop over the horizon while drinking a cup of hot coffee. It left enough light to make out shapes, but not enough to see any detail, and I noticed a figure to my right that I dismissed as a burned out stump. But something was off about the stump, and I felt

myself drawn back to it. It never move, it was in the same place, but deep inside me something felt wrong. I kept my eyes trained on it. Now. It was three feet across and strangely solitary. There was no head or neck shape, no arms, no legs, just a tall, broad figure that stood out in the dark. I was ten hours from nowhere, deep in the eye the whole wilderness, and the sun was far enough over the horizon that

twilight was turning tonight. My hand slipped up and rested on the twenty two revolver I carried on my hip. It's a stump, I told myself. Or maybe it's a weird light phenomenon, like a weird shadow. It was ridiculous that I was having a staring contest with a burned out stump. Something to my left made a noise, and

I instinctively turned to look at it. A deer had crossed the logging road, and I watched it for a few minutes, and it stopped and grazed on something, and then raised its head and jumped off into the woods, where it disappeared. I looked back over to the stump and it was gone. Rather than questioned the sanity of that concept, I told myself, well, at least it's gone, and I decided it was time to go to sleep.

My fire was a little more than a few burning coals when I climbed into my sleeping bag and the tiny two man tent. The long hike and the fresh air had me sleeping soundly in minutes. I was startled awake when a loud crack of breaking tree branches split the night like a shot. It was close to the camp and it was too close, and adrenaline surged through my veins as one hand reached for my twenty two

and the other grabbed my flashlight. Heavy footsteps approached from the left side, and another set was running up on my right, and this was followed by a loud knock. Whatever was out there, there were two two of them. I thought maybe some loggers were camped nearby and were coming over to mess with me. I'm armed and I'll shoot you, I yelled. As I unzipped the tent. I cocked the hammer so they could hear it, and made a loud, distinct sound in the silence that surrounded us.

I listened hard for some sort of response or maybe a retreat, but I didn't hear a thing. Eventually, I zipped the tent closed again. I laid back down. After a few minutes, I heard heavy footsteps walking away from the camp. Must have been someone messing with me, trying to scare me off, I said to myself. Now, I relaxed enough to uncock the hammer on the revolver, and I sat down the flashlight, but I kept the gun in my hand. At some point I drifted back to sleep.

The next morning, when I woke up, I was still holding onto the gun, and in the light of day, I searched the area around my tent for tracks, but I didn't find any. And then I looked over to where the stump had been standing the night before, and there was a pine tree there with the top snapped off of it, around ten feet off the ground. Well. I walked over and looked around, but I couldn't find the top anywhere, and it was fresh. It was a white break, and there was no tree top. Was this

a warning not to follow the logging road north? I didn't know. I was headed east, away from trouble. And after breakfast, I broke camp and headed out with that very thought in mind. I was walking away from trouble. At noon, I headed dead end. I was running out of water, but according to the map, I should have crossed the stream hours ago, and according to the map again, I was only two hours from the next main road.

I checked my compass and certain that I was on the correct heading, and I assured myself that I would cross the stream by dark. A few times as I hiked, I was sure I heard something walking alongside me to my right. It was keeping pace with me. It was an odd feeling. I felt like I was being watched, and I kept telling myself that it was a deer

or an elk sneaking away from me. But after this kept up all afternoon, I found a low area and I climbed into it and lying on my back with my pistol on my chest, I waited, thinking that whatever it was might come and take a look. And for thirty minutes I watched and listened, and nothing showed up. By the time it got dark, I was down to walking game trails through the thick forest. I was still on top of a flat ridge, which made no sense. According to this map, I should have crossed two more

logging roads by now. I'd kept an eye on my compass all day to make sure I was headed east, and at seven o'clock I stopped and made camp. Now used the last of the water. I had to make coffee, but I kept two cups for the next morning, and I cooked the can and chili, and I climbed into bed. Surely by tomorrow it would all make sense. At two am, I was suddenly awake, and I was lying there trying to figure out what woke me when I heard it.

It was the heavy footsteps and they were coming into camp. Mentally, I was running through a list of animals that could walk like that. It had to be a bear. I thought. The moon was bright that night, and the shadow fell over the tent as something big walked by on two legs. Oh yeah, it's a bear, I told myself, A big bear. Now. I grabbed the twenty two in the flashlight before sliding

down into my sleeping bag away from the door. The bear was standing five feet in front of the tent, and part of my brain was railing at me for making this trip alone, while the other part was thinking that my only chance at survival was to shine the flashlight in its eyes long enough to blind it so I could get a shot off a shot with the twenty two. My only hope was to kill a bear with a twenty two. Maybe I could get off a

shot hit it in the hour or the ear. I remember breathing and watching the shadow and listening and praying, and it felt like it stood there for an hour. It was more likely just a few minutes. But then it walked away, and I can still hear those big, heavy footsteps walking through the underbrush. Thank God. It was the most afraid I have ever been in my life.

I woke up a few hours later, not even sure when I fell back asleep to the sound of wood knocking again, and I thought that bear must be tearing a stump apart for grubs, and then I drifted back

to sleep again. I woke again to light rain the next morning, and it allowed me to collect water off the tent, and then I quickly built a small fire so I could reheat my coffee, and I tore down my camp and then I headed out, and the rain broke as I came out of the woods on top of a ridge that allowed a view ten miles across the valley, and the rain stopped, and the sun burst through the clouds and a rainbow stretched across the sky. I've never been a religious person, but it was as

if God said, look at this beautiful place. It was invigorating, and I suddenly felt better, as if I was going to survive this, and I began my descent down into

the valley. I was one hundred and fifty feet down to a flat spot twenty feet wide, but I couldn't see beyond that, and the terrain was so thick that I quickly found myself skiing down the mountain in my hiking boots, and the weight of my backpack was directing my route to the point that I had visions of winding up on my back, heading down headfirst like a turtle on its back, and I got myself turned to

prevent that, only to find my speed increasing well. I plowed through tree branches, hoping that they would at least slow me down, but they only broke against my onslaught and something sharp cut my face and I reached out to grab the branches, but they ripped through my hands and they cut my palms somehow. I was now falling back on my backpack and sliding down the hill like Fred Flintstone with my feet dug hard into the dirt well.

I stopped inches before being thrown over the edge of a cliff, believe it or not, And somehow I managed to get myself onto my feet and I was shaking like a leaf, and I took stock of the situation. I was on the edge of the ridge and going back up was not an option, and going further down looked like more of what I had just gone through. So what do I do now? Fortunately there was a game trail that slowly descended into the valley. It did not solve my lack of water, but at the top

I judged the valley to be two miles across. And now I was sore and exhausted from my impromptu ski trip. At least I thought whatever was following me would probably be deterred by my little fiasco. But no matter what, I had to find water as fast as I could. My thirst was the driving force I needed, and within an hour I broke out into an open meadow with a beaver dam and fresh water in front of me. Thank god, I boiled the water for my canteen, and

I caught three small brook trout from my lunch. And then I assessed my situation. My body was soreed, my hands were hurt, and I was covered with cuts. But I was alive, and I had water, and I had fresh food. I was twenty three years old. I was in great shape. But I was so concerned about that bear that I walked a quarter of a mile downstream

to get rid of the fish guts. I spent that afternoon exploring the little paradise stumbled into, and then I managed to catch two more brook trout for supper before deciding to call it a night. And once again, that son of a bitch bear was standing sixty yards away in the shadows. He was there like a statue, and he was standing upright in three foot tall grass. Just like the first night, there wasn't enough light to make

out any detail. A deer crossed the field between us, grazing aimlessly, and I found myself wondering why it wasn't spooked by this bear. And again, like the first night, while I watched the deer, I fail to notice that the bear had vanished. Again that night, I searched my mind for bear encounter stories. I had never heard of being stalked for three days by a bear. I have to admit that it was an uneasy feeling. And then I remembered that there were two of them. That really

didn't make much sense. I woke at three point fifteen am to the sound of a panicked animal charging my tent. Deer were snorting and running in all directions, some of them right at me, and I heard one jump over the tent and I watched as its foot caught the front pole, ripping the stake out of the ground, and the tent collapsed on my head. And feeling my own overwhelming panic building inside me, I zipped the front flap

and I tried to climb out. For a split second, I saw a bear or a mountain lion or whatever predator the deer were running from, charging right at me, and I stuck the twenty two out the door and I shot into the air well. That little twenty two sounded like a cannon going off to me, and the shot echoed through the valley, sending the bear running across the stream and splashing and breaking willows on the opposite side as it did. What the hell had just happened.

It was a nerve racking hour and a half until daylight, and I rebuilt the fire and started my coffee, and put on some clothes to protect myself against the cool mountain air, and I replaced the spence shell in my gun. Never in my life had I experienced something so intense. Well, I caught one more brook trout for breakfast, and I explored the area around the stream where the bear crossed it.

There were eighteen inch long footprints in the mud. I didn't have a camera to take pictures, something I regret to this day. If not for that night, I could have spent a week in that little paradise. But given the events of the night, I decided it was best to get out of there, with the fear of the bear was still going to follow me. Filling my every thought, I climbed out of the valley and found a main logging road, and I figured that even if I only had one mile per hour, I would still reach the

lake in three days. The distance to the lake was eighteen miles. I should have made it in two days, but this was day three and I still hadn't found it. About that time, a guy came driving up in an el Camino, and he had a load of firewood. I had never heard a vehicle or a chainsaw all morning, but there he was. I was only half a mile from where I had camped. I would have thought i'd have heard him. I stuck my thumb out and he stopped.

I put my pack in the back and I climbed in and he stared at me for a minute before asking if I needed a hospital. Well, no, why, I said, a little confused by the question. What the hell happened to you? Man? Did a cougar attack you? He said, What are you talking about? I asked, have you seen your hands in your face? You look like you've been through a meat grinder. Well, I told him about my ski trip down the mountain. He laughed and tilted the rear mirror over so I could get a look at myself.

Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital, he said, between the four days of beard growth and all the cuts and scratches, I looked horrible. He took me to his house, where I helped him stack firewood, and then he let me take a shower. I never mentioned the bear. His wife came home while I was in the shower, and she told me that it was a miracle that I had gotten out alive. Apparently the year before, two guys were hiking in the same place

and they were never seen again. I wondered if they ran into the same creature that I did. Well, the man gave me a ride back to my cabin, where my friend was surprised to see me show up after only four days. I told him the map was way off and I just left it at that. We later found out that none of the locals trusted the maps of this area. The map maker had apparently never been out there. His information all came from loggers sitting in bars.

It still didn't explain how I only managed to travel twelve miles in four days, but maybe that was for the best. If I had pressed on to the lake, I might have ended up like those other two guys, lost forever. Oh man, that's a good story. That's a Bigfoot story, and that's probably the main thing this audience

will take away from it. But I was more interested in him getting lost and how he survived, and how he would find sources of food, sources of water, and he would just relax and he would be calm and he would eat, and then he would think out as plan and he would execute. That's what it takes to get through these situations. You can't panic, you can't give up. You just got to keep eating, keep drinking whatever you can, and keep moving. I don't know, maybe I'm a weirdo.

I know that was a big in the story, but I just love the survival aspect of it. It was very cool. I've had this story for a long time. Just now getting to it, I thought it was wonderful. Thank you to the man who sent it. He wants to be anonymous. I hope he hears it. Thank you very much. All Right, that's going to do it for this podcast. Thank you for joining me, Thanks for clicking on the video. Thanks for clicking on the podcast. If you're listening through the what If It's True Podcast on

Apple or Spotify, I really appreciate you. Love doing these stories. Hope you enjoy hearing them. I'll see you guys on the next one. Talk to you soon. Thanks