YEAR: 2024

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: May

DATE: 18

STATE: Washington

COUNTY: Thurston County

LOCATION DETAILS: See map below.

GPS (within 100 feet): 46.788475, -122.709130

NEAREST TOWN: Tenino/Vail

NEAREST ROAD: Skookumchuck Road

OBSERVED: May 2024, we went camping up at the Skookumchuck Reservoir Dam outside Tenino Washington. It is private and discreet. The land is owned and controlled by TransAlta Corportion. You pass three security gates to get there. You need to have the keys that are given to you by the company. It is completely isolated and it is special access to be able to go camping up there…… somebody you know has to work for the company. Huge liability form, etc. Nobody can even accidentally be up there. There are cameras at the entrance and security guards daily that drive through the area and around the reservoir. It is completely isolated from the outside world.

The encounter occurred the first night we were up there. We were all in tents. There were five adults and three children spending the night.

We all headed to bed about 11 o’clock. About 45 minutes after we laid down I heard what I thought what was a man getting up to go take a pee. I did not hear his tent unzip, but I heard someone walking around. There is a port-a- potty about 60 yards away, but this person was walking in the opposite direction of the toilet. After about 10 minutes of him walking around, it crossed my mind to go out there and check on him to see if he was OK. That’s when what I thought was a person, walked in front of my tent about 5 ft away and I immediately knew something is off.

My tent was 12 foot wide across the front. As it walked across the front of my tent something was off, but I wasn’t sure what it was. As it walked past my tent a second time I realized that the stride was about 3 1/2 to 4 strides from end to end of my tent. I immediately had a gut wrench feeling that this was not human.

I sat up quietly, halfway out of my sleeping bag, careful to not make any noise, and I grabbed my pistol. I went to wake my husband. He also heard the noise. He had been drinking and just said that I was "a better shot than he was” and he went back to sleep.

The previous year a black bear went through our campsite and didn’t cause any issues.

I don’t raise any alarm just because I see or hear an animal. I love to hunt and I’ve been in the woods my whole life. I’ve always enjoyed wildlife and pay attention to behaviors and animal patterns. Each animal has their own distinct behaviors and noises that they make while moving around. Any hunter who hunts in thick brush know that’s true.

I sat there, dead quiet, making sure to not make any noise. At first, I just wanted to study exactly what I was listening to.
The grass was dry and crunchy about 5 inches tall from being brushed hogged. I could hear every single step that it was taking…..Every move every change of direction.

Immediately the first animal that came to my mind that fit this description was a Bigfoot. A wave of heat and slight shock came over me. There is no way I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing. I decided to not wake my husband up again. I believe he would have caused a big commotion and could have possibly put us in danger. He did not grow up in the woods hunting like I did. Sometimes he doesn’t know when to stay quiet. I did not want to speak again and let this thing know that I was awake and paying attention.

It took me a couple minutes to calm down and get into what I call “hunting mode”. I quickly became calm and just observing what I could, trying to take a mental notes of everything I could hear. At this point it had already been in our tent site over 10 minutes. I figured that whatever it was, it was more curious than trying to cause harm.

I looked at my phone to note the time. At this point it was just about 12:10AM.

I stayed calm and quiet, listening to every clue that I could hear outside of my tent as what this was. I was able to rule out every single animal in the Pacific Northwest that I was aware of, including moose and bears.

I tried very hard to convince myself that this possibly could be an extremely large bear walking upright onto two legs. The only problem was there was a very steady, rhythmic consistency in the walking pattern, which bears do not have walking upright.

It walked across the gravel by the fire pit. I could tell it was a padded foot and not hooves. I listened to it walking around the camp for over 45 minutes. After a while I had no fear, but just genuine curiosity.

I contemplated many times trying to unzip my tent to take a look. I tossed going back-and-forth with the idea because I knew if I saw it with my own eyes, it would absolutely confirm that it was a bigfoot. There was a part of me that didn’t want it to be real and a part of me that didn’t want the woods ruined for me forever.

My dad has claimed to have seen a bigfoot while he was a log truck driver, and after that I grew up seeing many Bigfoot documentaries at our home. I did not believe any of them. I love my dad, but he had definitely been the butt of jokes about his sighting for a lot of people for as long as I could remember. But I remembered enough about those documentaries to know people say bigfoots come around camps at night.

As I set up in bed, with my husband and two younger children sleeping next to me, I decided I was not going to risk it. I was not going to risk letting this creature know that I was awake. I was not going to risk my family.

For 45 minutes, I listened to it walk from our picnic table to where we had our ice chest and our grill and where food stored. I listened as it walked over to the fire pit circling around it and then walked to our vehicles. It went back and forth, always pausing for a couple seconds around the picnic table area, where the food was. Always in a very slow rhythmic pace. Always a slow steady, rhythmic pace with brief pauses. It never picked up anything or moved anything. It was just studying everything that we and being meticulous about it.

About 35 minutes in, from the time I took note of the time on my phone, I heard the sounds of a child. The daughter of one of the other campers in another tent woke up. She was about two years old. She started very lightly whining for her mom. I heard her mama consoling her, trying to get her quiet. Immediately, the bigfoot turned its attention on that tent and walked over to it.

The crying was only just a couple times. It was fairly quiet and subtle, but I could hear the wife trying to wake up her husband. The wife knew there was something out there, but she did not know I was awake and listening as well. I could hear the fear in her voice as she tried to wake up her husband. She was trying to keep from crying.

The baby quieted down and I didn’t hear another noise from their tent for a while. The bigfoot went back to checking out the camp like it previously was doing.

About 15 minutes later the baby started crying again this time a little louder. I heard the woman trying desperately to wake up her husband as quietly as she could. I could hear the panic in her voice. She was scared.

All of a sudden the demeanor of the bigfoot completely changed. It marched over to the tent, much faster paced. And what I had envisioned in my head, he was circling the tent multiple times. Walking circles around the tent very closely.

A wave of heat and fear came over my entire body, almost like I could feel the anger. Something definitely shifted. I thought something bad was about to happen.

The bigfoot circled thier tent at least three times and then all of a sudden stopped. There was just a long pause of no movement at all. For a long pause the bigfoot didn't move. It just stood right in front of their tent.

Earlier in the day we had talked about animals coming into the camp area at night. We agreed that if anybody feels scared they are to set off their car alarms to scare the animal away. We said that during the previous year had a black bear come through.

The bigfoot was standing there right in front of their tent. I had that got wrenching feeling something bad was going to happen. I very slowly reached into a pouch and was grabbing the key fob for my truck to shut off the alarm…. When the other woman set her car alarm off seconds before I did.

At the same slow pace that bigfoot had been walking the entire time I had been hearing it, it walked past my tent one more time in that same slow steady pace. It did not run when the car alarm went off. It did not make a noise. It didn’t jump. It just walked away, and walked past my tent for the last time. Then it took a left and went straight into the woods and stepped over the 4 foot bar wire fence. I could hear some branches snapping as it went back through the woods.

There was not another sound from the other woman or I after bigfoot left that night . We just sat in our tents, completely quiet. Nobody dared to get out of their tent.

We all got up about 6 AM.

When we sat around the bonfire. I looked at the other woman. She looked completely petrified. She asked if anybody else had been up last night. I looked at her and I said that I was. Even though I just met her the day before we locked eyes, and we both said exactly what we believed it was. We both believed adamantly that this was a bigfoot.

We spent the next two hours talking about what happened, with her confirming what I had heard. We went to look for tracks around the tents, but the grass and ground was too hard to leave any tracks near the tents.

At the time we lived only 3-4 miles from the dam. We did not spend the night there after that first night. We just came back in the morning and spent the day.

When I got home and back into service a couple days later, I called my dad to tell him that he was right about bigfoots. He couldn’t believe the words I was saying. We talked about his sighting, and he wanted to know every detail of my experience. And then he told me he was sorry for me. Because the woods were ruined for him after his sighting. He didn’t ever want me to feel the same way.

It turns out I know about eight other people that have encountered a bigfoot at one time or another. They just kept it quiet because they don’t want people making fun of them. I am now one of those people that are just aware now, and know that the Native Americans were also right. I still go into the woods during the daytime, but not at night anymore.

Something to note: Earlier in the day when I was out fishing there were some sounds I heard that did strike me funny.

The wind was blowing slightly to the east. But multiple times I thought I heard something purposely moving every time the leaves would ruffle in the opposite direction. I noticed it, but I thought it was weird and maybe my imagination because every time the wind would pick up and the leaf would make a ruffling noise. Something was moving in the opposite direction, snapping and breaking branches, almost as if it was using the cover noise of the wind and the leaves to move.

I also did have that feeling that maybe something was watching us.
But I wasn’t worried about it. I was in a fishing boat.

I do have great, detailed photos of the area and maybe even what I would consider a partial print in the mud bank.

In total 2 adults, a 25-year-old female and 30-year-old female, are witness to this incident. A 30-year-old male says he heard something, but he was too buzzed to really care or pay attention and went back to sleep.

OTHER WITNESSES: 2 fully aware witnesses.

OTHER STORIES: Yes, after talking with a couple other people who also live in the same valley of the Skookumchuck Reservoir. I have encountered at least four other people in this area specifically who have also said they have encountered or had sightings nearby. And I know about eight people in total some that don’t live nearby who also has stories that I can tell you about. But it’s too long to type.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: I was right around midnight. Clear crisp night. I don’t remember there being really any moonlight. It was calm and quiet.

ENVIRONMENT: Surrounded by trees, but we were in about a 2 acre clear cut that was brush hogged. Right next to a giant private reservoir lake filled with fish.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor:

I was able to interview the witness over the phone.

The witness was 30 years old at the time. The family knew someone who worked for the company that operates the dam and were able to obtain access to the area behind the locked gates.





She said that employees camp there when they want to, but if you are not an employee or the friend of an employee you have no access to the area. It is not open to the public. Because of this, I am unable to go investigate the site.

Having said that, I have investigated another report from the area. Report 34710. Report #34710 Further, there are powerlines nearby. Other reports from this county suggest that bigfoots probably use the powerline right-of-ways to travel long distances. I also have had a discussion with a tribal person who has access to the watershed. He says that sasquatches sightings are common there.

What this describes is typical of sasquatch behavior that others have reported. Bigfoots will sometimes walk around a camp at night, fairly quietly inspecting the camp and the items left on tables. They also may look inside vehicles, especially in the beds of pickup trucks, and sometimes leave hand prints.

I found it interesting that the witness was astute enough to use the width of the tent, 12 feet, to gage the step length. She said that it took three steps to cross in front of the tent. That would be a 48-inch step length, which is outside human range, but often observed with sasquatches. I asked her if she recalled any smells. She said that the tent was all zipped up with no open windows so she didn’t smell anything at all. Sasquatch encounters don’t always involve a smell, especially if they are down wind.

The witness supplied some of the photos that she took of possible sasquatch footprints.



This photo shows one of the larger footprints. Notice also the more recent footprint just below it. It is wide and flat, as is typical of sasquatch footprints.




This is photo of an older track that has probably been rained in. It shows the characteristic wide and flat track of a sasquatch.

I am confident that that the two witnesses had a nighttime encounter with one of the sasquatches that live in the area. This lake is loaded with fish I am told. This combined with the very restricted human presence would make it ideal sasquatch habitat.

About BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor:

Scott Taylor is a retired aerospace manager. He lives in Mason County, Washington. He had his first bigfoot encounter in October 2005 where he was stalked and later heard vocalizations.

Scott has attended official BFRO Expeditions in the Washington Cascades in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. He also attended 2007 Central Oregon Cascades and 2007 Utah. He now organizes BFRO expeditions in Washington and has participated in bigfoot conferences over the past 19 years.

Scott will be leading a Washington BFRO expedition in 2026 (July 16-19) which is open to non-members. For more details and registration information for that trip click here.