John & Shayleen Salmond: Sasquatch Tracking Class

This took place at the End of May 2009

Well I had the great opportunity this last weekend to spend some quality time learning how to track. C. Leigh Culver, JT McAvoy and Matt Pruitt were kind enough to fly in from Georgia/Washington and instruct our group how to man track. Six of us from the Utah Squatching Group (Amanda, Jake, Christina, Todd & myself) and five others were in attendance. It was by far the most educational outdoor activity I have ever been a part of. I have been in the mountains in one form or another for over thirty years in Yellowstone and Utah. Whether it was hiking, scouting, photographing, exploring, camping, hunting, instructing, or guiding I thought I knew a thing or two. I have always been fascinated with tracking. I think I waited so long to actually take a tracking class because I was having so much success with the knowledge I had gained from my experiences. With my focused changed from hunting large game to researching Bigfoot I knew I didn’t’ know much if anything at all about the subject. I wanted to learn from the best and I wanted to learn how to track them.

Arrangements were made and Leigh, JT and Matt came to Utah to instruct us on how to Man Track with an emphasis on tracking Bigfoot. Through their course and the knowledge they shared I was able to track a human track line that was twenty four hours old and had gone through several hours of heavy rain. That night I was able to track even older tracks that had been rained on. I know this is only the beginning of something totally awesome but I was given a very firm foundation. I also found out how much I didn’t know about tracking and there is so much more to learn. I wish I would have been smart enough at a young age to have taken a class like this. This old dog has been taught some new tricks. I am now looking forward to learning more about the subject and I can’t get enough. Hats off to our instructors and my many thanks. I am very grateful they took the time to come to Utah and show our team how to track and be more aware of what is going on around us. They taught so much more than just tracking. We have already talked about having them come back at least once a year if they are willing. I also had tons of fun, met some great people and hopefully made some lifelong friends.

The last night we were there our team finished our track line first. The three of us were done so we retired back on a log out of everyone’s way. Todd and I were there talking to Matt about our favorite subject. We were sitting on a log with Matt in front of us moving around while he was talking. Matt decided to sit down on the log to my left. He told us he was thinking to himself that it would be classic Bigfoot behavior if now that all three of our backs were facing to woods that we would get a rock thrown at us. Within thirty seconds a rock hit the log to his left. We all heard it. I thought I had been seeing eye shine but didn’t say anything. This had happened after all of the other teams had finished up and went back to camp. Shortly after the first rock throw JT came up to where we were sitting. Without telling him Matt had him sit down on the log with his back to the woods. About forty five seconds or so another rock hits the log next to Matt. Matt jump up because it startled him. At this time I told everyone I had been seeing eye shine to our left. When the second rock was thrown JT saw a blur of movement from behind us. I wasn’t totally sold I was seeing eye shine because it was a dull green, almost a reflection from the moon. The moon was to our right shining in the direction of the eyes. It wasn’t until someone else saw the same eye shine that I felt better about what I was seeing. I like to be skeptical because I have to be. That is my hunting back ground. When I go deer hunting not everything is a deer. When I go Squatching not everything is a Bigfoot. We need to rule out everything before we can even think it is a Bigfoot. So it made me feel better after three of us on the log had seen eye shine. There was also movement that was heard around us. We decided to pack it up and go back to camp. We relayed our story to everyone and found out one of the other track team members had seen red eye shine. Leigh and JT decided to go back to take another look. They heard some activity and saw more eye shine. While they were gone Matt and I went out to the perimeter of our camp to us my gen one night vision. I saw an extremely brief eye shine back in the woods where we had the activity earlier. My daughter also camp out later and saw eye shine with her normal vision. It was a nice way to book end the events of the day.

Another interesting thing happened when I got home Sunday night after the tracking class. My sister was in town and came over with my mother. She found where I had been and started asking questions. I told her a little bit. She then pipes up and tells me that her family found a Bigfoot track on their property several years ago. She lives in a remote area of Colorado. She told me that the local farmers and land owners say there are Bigfoot everywhere and they have seen them on many occasions. Really? We start to talk about her property. She tells me that they believe their property is haunted because they have strange things happening and they attribute it to an Indian burial ground nearby. They have seen shadowy figures with red glowing eyes and thought they were like demon dogs or something. Late in the night one time one of her kids thought someone was trying to talk to him in a weird language. They have heard something that sounded like teenagers partying but no one was on their property. Events like this have been going on for ten years. They have one of the only water sources around. Elk and deer are all over their property. The list goes on of events on her land. She lives on a mountain. One time their dog went missing for a day and came crawling back to their house with both back legs dislocated. Their dog was huge like a Great Dane but I can’t remember the breed. It chases off bears and the like. No fear. They thought maybe their dog fell off a cliff and got injured but they thought that would break bones and not dislocate them. They couldn’t explain how that only the back legs got dislocated. I have never told my sister anything about Bigfoot and I know her and she knows nothing about the subject. However she explained a long list of events that have occurred for the last ten years that have Bigfoot written all over them. This is just her property. Her husband has a job where he talks to all the locals and their neighbors. They all have similar stories that have happened on their land. I told her because she is a local she has an avenue to get all of the info. I instructed her on what to do and told her that if any of her neighbors who would like to talk to call me. I told her to read all she can on the BFRO website and educate herself on the subject because she is not alone on her land. I told her to call me and send me pictures if she ever has anything happen. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

I would like to finish by just saying thanks to our instructors and the time they took to educate me about tracking. I look forward to where this will take me.

I am going to add some stuff now that I am transferring this post. Leigh was the hardest to track. No one like tracking him. He hardly left any sign and he was difficult. His team was usually last because of the difficulty. JT was all over the place and never kept a consistent stride. Both are Special Operations and have been schooled in counter tracking and all of that jazz and you can tell when trying to track them. Matt was our pistachio addict. We had some Salt and Pepper Pistachio's and he was very polite but you could tell he would have eaten the entire bag. We missed him on the Utah trip. We really liked all of our trackers and hope to have many years of contact with them.

JT, Leigh, Matt and Todd