Not shy...I just understand how often the armchair warriors come in droves to tell you why what you experienced is an "active imagination"; Instead of the humble response of " I wasn't there, so I can't be sure of what you saw, heard, or felt. But here we go. I have had several unexplained encounters. Here is one of the more interesting ones. I have also attached pictures. (Disclaimer: Yes, I know that bear tracks can appear humanish due to their gait and how they sometimes superimpose back track on the front. I am not actually a very cynical person, I just know how many experts there are...lol)
So here we go.
My family and my sister's family decided to go on an adventure to West Virginia. We rented these cabins deep in the national forest. Once you turn off the main road, it takes over an hour of driving into the forest to get to our location. Between our two vehicles, we plugged 4 tires on this trip. It's remote. There is no power or running water, just an old hand pump.
Anyway,
One of the nights, just for fun, I took all the cousins on a night hike down this dead-end trail behind the cabin. I told them all to do their best bigfoot impression and hoop and holler. There are very few places anymore where kids can be as loud as they want at night, so they enjoyed this. We went back to the cabin and had a fire.
The next morning, I got up early and took my 100 lb Airedale terrier for a walk. As I entered the trail, I was surprised to see a sapling lying across the same path. Upon examination, I noticed it had been torn out by its roots. I thought this was odd, but it had rained all night, so I just figured there was a reasonable explanation and kept going. I walked another 200 yards or so, and my dog, who is normally fearless, was acting rather strangely and kept turning around and wanting to go back. This is a dog that has barked at a bear before and acted like he wanted to chase it. He is a guard dog through and through. After dragging him a little bit. I began to get that "feeling". If you have been in the woods a lot or walked at night in a bad part of town, you know what I mean. If not, I can't explain it. So I decided it was best to trust my dog's instincts and turn around. When I turned around and looked down, I saw this.
View attachment 2282724
Notice there are no claw drag marks. The line in the middle is where a stick I removed was lying. So, dead-end trail, raining all night, and about 40 degrees outside. Is it possible some hillbilly was running around without shoes in the cold rain on a dead-end trail... sure, anything is possible, but not likely. So once I returned to my cabin, I grabbed a firearm and then told my brother-in-law. I wanted to show him something. I took him to the track and asked him his thoughts without insinuating anything. He is not into the Bigfoot stuff, so I knew he would not automatically process it that way. He said that is weird. I had him take off his shoe and try to make a similar impression next to the track. He is about 325lbs. He couldn't even leave a mark.
As we were studying the track, I noticed, off to the side, a place where something or someone had walked through the ferns, leaving a semi-obvious path. So we headed in that direction. A few hundred yards in, going up an embankment we came across these tracks. There were two of them, almost side by side.
View attachment 2282723
You can see that everything is still very wet. I am a fairly big guy. 6"2" My hand for reference point from the tip of my middle finger to the bottom of my hand is 8". With my thumb spread out, the width is about 7". When I put my hand in the track, I could feel clear toe marks, as if something had gripped the edge as it ascended the small hill. Again, I had my brother-in-law try to leave an impression. The ground was so spongy from the moss and leaf debris that he could not leave an impression. After being weirded out by this, we decided to go back. The next few days were uneventful.
Fast forward 3 days:
On the last night, everyone had gone to bed except my sister and me. We were catching up on life around the fire when she commented on how quiet it had suddenly gotten. My sister is a bit of a chicken, so, being the great big brother I am, I said, " in the woods, if everything suddenly goes quiet, you need to pay attention. The woods do this when a predator is around." I was trying to spook her. Soon the sounds return, and we go back to talking. Then it happened again. Except this time, something let out a super-loud, low growl/huff. It was loud enough to wake my wife in our true log cabin. My sister took off for her cabin and I grabbed a piece of firewood (not in the fire) and threw it as far as I could in the direction of the noise. I did this twice, listening for movement. Hearing nothing I turned on my flashlight and headed to the treeline. My sister is yelling at me to come back, saying she doesn't want to watch me die. I lit up the woods with my Fenix fhislashlight, and there he was...j/k.
I saw nothing, but as i took a step back toward the fire, I thought I heard a small step matching mine. I did this again, I heard it again. So I walked a few steps and stopped short of completing it. Then I heard a clear, soft crunch in the leaf litter. By this time, my brother-in-law had the bright idea of hitting his remote on his car, and his headlights came on, but again, I couldn't see anything.
After everything had settled down. We went back to our respective cabins and locked the door. My dog, who had been sleeping in the bed with my daughter, kept pacing and then eventually lay in front of the door. My daughter was scared, so I put the dog back in bed with her. The result was the same. He'd get up and go back to lying in front of the door. I tried this one more time, but it was no use. So once again, I trust his instinct and let him sleep there.
So...I saw nothing....I make no claim of what this was. I just know that bears do not act this way. Whatever it was had lungs large enough to wake my wife, who was sound asleep in a log cabin and it wanted to make its presence known.
And just to reiterate this point. I am a fairly experienced outdoorsman. I have been false charged by a brown bear in Alaska. I have encountered a mama bear and cubs on the trail. I sleep in a hammock in the middle of the woods(and still do), and fear does not often get the better of me. Whatever this was...this was different somehow.
There you go.. there's my story(or at least one of them).
