Sasquatch, Bear or Elk?
In September 2000, in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest between Mt. Saint Helens and Mt. Adams in Skamania County, Washington, the Bigfoot Field Researcher's Organization (BFRO) was on an expedition to find evidence of Sasquatch. They played calls of what is said to be a Sasquatch from Ohio, hoping to get a response. They did receive a response very similar to the calls they had been playing. Then, on the next to last day of the trip, BFRO member Richard Noll decided to lay out fruit to bait a Sasquatch in a mud wallow off a Forest Service road to see if tracks could be seen in the dirt and mud. The fruit was left overnight, in the hopes that something would take the bait. The next morning, a few members of the BFRO went to the mudhole and found an extraordinary sight-a 2/3 impression of some animal like they've never seen before. They found tracks of other animals in the impression, such as elk, deer and coyote, but the large impression puzzled them. It appeared that some creature (possibly a Sasquatch) had laid down on the outer edges of this mudhole and reached across and grabbed the fruit. Hairs were found and examined, but unfortunately they were deemed inconclusive. The impression was cast in plaster and sent to Seattle to be examined. No less than 4 well-respected scientists examined the cast; the late Dr. Grover Krantz, Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Dr. Henner Fahrenbach and Dr. John Bindernagel all examined the impression, now dubbed "The Skookum Cast" because it was found on Skookum Meadows, and found that an unknown primate had thrashed around on that mudhole. My opinion of the Skookum Cast is that it shows an unknown primate. Though there are elk, deer and coyote tracks in the impression, it's hard to conceive of a bear laying down and rolling around in a mud wallow; it also doesn't seem to be a deer or an elk either, because this impression shows butt marks, leg marks and an arm mark, all inconsistent with a deer or elk. The Skookum Cast is that of an unknown primate, possibly Sasquatch.