YEAR: 2000

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: July

DATE: 25

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Yakima County

LOCATION DETAILS: From Western Washington, take state hwy. 410 over the pass, past Ghost Lake and past Crystal Mountain. Exit at the Cedar Springs Campground Exit. Follow the Bumping River back until you reach Bumping Lake. The latitude is 46.873 deg-N and 121.300 deg-W. Elevation is 3426 ft.

NEAREST TOWN: American River

NEAREST ROAD: 410 Highway.

OBSERVED: My nephew, his girlfriend and I were camping at the Bumping Lake camp grounds adjacent to the boat launch. It was about 10:30pm and we had just finished cleaning up after dinner. All of us goofed off for awhile running through the dark woods with flashlights, just exploring. After getting our fill of that, we built a fire in our fire-pit and were just relaxing and talking. Suddenly, we heard a horrific scream coming from behind us on what I think was Nelson Ridge. It was a long, high-pitched bellow that instantly caught our attention. The scream was a classic sasquatch scream, trying to catch the attention of another. About 15 seconds later, we heard another roar come back from down-range from what I think was Miners Ridge. We were all petrified and instantly knew what it was. Things settled down and we ended up going to bed. My nephew and I were up, decidedly exited about what we heard. We were laying in our tent, just talking. Suddenly, we heard another scream. Both of us grabbed our hand-guns at that point. We weren't sure what was going to happen. Eventually we fell asleep and nothing else happened. We are planning a trip back to Bumping Lake, specifically to look for what we heard.

ALSO NOTICED: Dead quiet around the time of the scream.

OTHER WITNESSES: My nephew Dan, his girlfriend Alison as well as me, Tom.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was night, about 10:30pm. The weather was warm, about 65 degrees.

ENVIRONMENT: The environment is a rugged mountain type region. There is a dirt road that runs about 10 miles back into the forest. It's truely wilderness.

Follow-up investigation report:

I talked with this witness at length over the telephone. He seemed to be a very competent and articulate person who was very curious about his experience and eager to recount the events in question.

He recounted the events without prompting, and for the most part his oral retelling of his submitted report was the same as the latter.

During our discussion we came upon 25 July 2000 as the probable date of the events in question.

The witness has been a hunter since he was a young man (he is now 31), and has hunted deer, coyote, bear, and fowl. He has heard elk bugles, grunts, and cow calls, and the vocalizations in question were NOT any elk vocalization he has ever heard before.

I asked if he had heard mountain lion mating screams before, and he said no he had not.

He described the vocalizations as a primal growl/grunting scream - very deep, that peaked out as a high shrieking noise, then stopped abruptly.

He did note that the vocalization between 7 - 8pm came from behind (east) camp toward Nelson Ridge.

He also noted that the first vocalization between 10:30 - 11:00pm came from about the same location, and that the "answering" vocalization was quite a bit further off, coming from the SW, possibly from Miners Ridge or a distant part of Nelson Ridge. The compass direction suggests it was Miners Ridge.

The witness mentioned that he has held a general interest in the subject since he was a boy, but never really felt the possibility of sasquatch being a real creature come-home to him until his experience. When asked, he said he couldn't be sure what he heard was a sasquatch, or a lion, but it interested him enough for him to begin investigating websites on the subject.

He listened to WAV files of putative sasquatch vocalizations on the internet, and found them to be very similar to what his party heard. When he found reports from the same general area as his experience, he thought he should submit his report.

It is quite interesting to note that another group, camping in the very same area (see report 382) reported similar vocalizations and unusual events around their camp on Deep Creek on 21 July 2000 - the same week as this report.

A & G reference p. 49, B6