Sleepless in Yosemite
It was quiet, yet, that was the first thing I noticed. We were in the middle of a forest; forests aren’t usually dead silent. I laid there still, staring at the top of the tent. Something didn’t feel right; that third sense that everyone supposedly has was telling me something was out of place. When I heard it, it sounded maybe 10 feet off from the campsite. The sound was like a crunch when I heard it, heavy enough to be displacing the dirt and rock when it stepped. The steps’ tempo told me it had to be walking on two feet rather than a quadruped who walk on all fours. Awake now, with adrenaline surging through my body, my mind went to work, conspiring a theory on what creature was walking towards us. The results were it was either a human, here to murder us in the middle of Yosemite or Bigfoot. The BFRO (Bigfoot Field Research Researchers Organization) has only recorded 3 Bigfoot-related reports within Mariposa county, the county Yosemite National Park resides within. Washington is the Bigfoot central with 693 documented reports, California comes in second with 454 reports.
It was getting closer. The sound from its footsteps was becoming more apparent and distinct. Being an anxious kid, I was confident that this was not going to play out well. We were 8 miles deep within the National Park with no more than a knife to protect ourselves. Discovered Bigfoot tracks had shown the creature’s foot to be approximately 24 inches in length and 8 inches wide. Bigfoot’s height is said to range from 6 feet to 9 feet, according to witness sightings. Rational thinking goes out the window when you’re about to be mangled by a Gigantopithecus. Gigantopithecus is a confirmed primate that inhabited the forests of Southeast Asia but went extinct 300,000 years ago. Think of Gigantopithecus as more of an orangutan than a hairy relative of humans.
The unknown invader stepped right into the middle of our camp and stopped. Even in the bolster heat of the summer night, I was ice cold. It was the pinnacle moment, one that comes right before disorder. After what seemed like an eternity, the footsteps continued. Whatever it was had walked right through our encircled tents, stopped, and then continued on its way without disturbing anything. I knew it wasn’t a dream because my dad called out from his tent the minute it had left our camp. In a raised tone, my father asked who was out there, to no reply. The footsteps just continued into the dark until they were too far to hear.
There is a wealth of information on Bigfoot. You can even pull up the declassified 22 page FBI investigation on the mythical creature. Even though Bigfoot has countless sightings, there has yet to be any concrete evidence that it genuinely exists. Even the fossils of Gigantopithecus have only been found in parts of Asia and Indonesia. Not to say the primate could have crossed the Bering ice bridge and migrated to the Northwest and taken up a quiet residence in, say, Yosemite National Park.
