I was hiking with a friend, and a Green Beret in the Klamath river area in California. We were doing an 80 mile hike on a closed logging road. I was bored with walking on the road, and decided we should take a well traveled trail, that ended up being on a deer trail. We hiked for hours, and we ended up on a very steep side of a hill over looking the Lower Klamath River. The trail was fine, but it was getting dark, and it was starting to rain. It was to steep to camp.

We put our military ponchos on and covered or packs, and continued to hike. I had been trained by Chuck my Green Beret friend, but my school buddy not so much. It was getting dark and we desperately needed to find a spot to pitch the tent. We used bushes to help pull ourselves straight up, and kept climbing until we hit another trail, and we did this couple more times. Lights were not very good in those days, so we walked by using the light for a second or two at a time. We were cold, wet, hungry, and my friend was scared, but we had no choice but to continue walking. Around midnight we finally found a place to camp, and it was a perfect spot. We had lots of fire wood, but it was wet. My Scout training kicked in, an I found some pitch, and and some cedar tender under some dead fall. With Chuck around I wasn't to worried, but he stayed out of it just to see how much I had learned.

We built a small fire that struggled as we hoped for it to burn. As the fire burned we kept adding wood, and in about an hour we had a pile of wood an small logs shaped like a teepee burning brightly. Then we heard a very loud sound that was as much howl as it was growl, and it was so loud. The creature howled several times, and I felt the hair on my neck raise, and put even more wood on the fire. I had spent much time in the woods, and this was a sound that I had never heard before. I heard cougar and bear, and this sound was nothing like. It was much louder and eerie. This creature made that sound several times.

We heard the the sound of several thumps land near our camp, and we were now on top of the mountain, and the ground was flat all around. It sounded like large rocks that crashed through the under growth and then hit the ground with a thump, and then it was silent. We used the abundant heat of the fire to dry our clothes, tent and sleeping bags. We ate some chocolate and sardines for dinner. we were nearly out of water. For the next couple of hours we heard large trees falling, and crashing has they hit the. There was no wind, it had to be this creature. There was a strong musty spell in the air. We were at least 40 miles from anyone. Chuck was sure that we had gotten to close to this creatures area. We didn't sleep much that night, but we each had the feeling that we had encountered BIG FOOT.