Cams Retrieved! June 13th - 15th, 2017

By Jamie Wayne

Humboldt marten

     Just got back from a great and epic trip down to the PG film site! We were able to service all of the Bluff Creek cameras. Robert Leiterman and I had done a preliminary scouting trip up Cedar Camp rd on Sunday 6-10-2017 and discovered all the gates were open and we could now access the film site. We were lucky enough to be accompanied by a small group of Southern Californian and Washington Bigfoot (and Bigfooter) researchers who had been planning the trip for some time. They were Ernie Alonzo, Ben Hansen, Mark Hopkins, Ed Day, Chris Bader, You might recognize Ben from some of his TV shows, Chris Bader  and Ed Day are professors from Chapman university in Southern California. Mark is a professional photographer. And Ernie helps run paranormal tours in Southern California. They were there to look into the nature of bigfooters themselves and witness the Mecca of bigfooting, the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film site.

Ernie Alonzo, Ben Hansen, Mark Hopkins, Ed Day, Chris Bader, Jame Wayne

Our best photo from over the winter, a pair of marten.

     We had originally planned on servicing the cameras the week prior but recent storms delayed the opening of the gates to prevent the spread of Port Oreford Cedar Disease (POCD). As it turned out the stars aligned and we were able to combine the trips into one great big excursion. After reviewing the photos and video footage on the memory cards from this trip we are very pleased to announce a great success in capturing clear images of the highly threatened cryptid Humboldt Marten. Despite this great accomplishment we were all saddened to see that we had lost several trail cameras to water damage. The snow had been too deep and several cams were buried which is almost always a death sentence for trail cams. While we were down there I filmed a small series of clips with a 16mm phone app. You can watch it below:






June 13th - 15th, Tuesday-Thursday trail camera retrieval trip...

After Robert and I scouted the roads he came and set up a ten in my backyard on sunday night. The crew was set to meet in Willow Creek on Monday June 12th in Willow Creek. They all met up and had dinner and rested in preparation for Tuesday's trip to Bluff Creek. Robert Rowdy and the crew left WC that morning and proceeded to Louse Camp to set up. It took them a while as the road had not been cleared yet. They were all able to do a preliminary hike into the film site and lay eyes on the creek.

One of the new trail cams 

I on the other hand was stuck installing an engine in my Subaru. I couldn't get a ride out there so i had to finish up an engine install after I rebuilt my motor. I was running late and did not get the motor in my car until about 8pm on tuesday evening. I fuelled up and pulled into Louse Camp about 12:30am when everyone was just getting ready to go to sleep. They were all still up and we hung out around the campfire for a bit.

In the morning I gathered my gear and proceeded to prepare the batteries, memory cards, and replacement cameras for the hike into Bluff Creek. We made it to the trailhead around 11am and proceeded to hike in, the crew didn't want to ford the river so Robert and I hiked downstream to the MK Davs site by ourselves. We noticed that the creek had incised quite a bit into it's channel and had exposed some buried logs, no doubt laid down in the 1964 flood. It's always fascinating to see history being exhumed.

View of the abandoned creek channel

Beargrass flower

We reached the MK Davis site and had discovered that the stream had abandoned it's channel and moved north about 20 yards. This created a sort of gravel highway through the dense forest It was truly cool to see. I took a bunch of photos and we serviced the two trail cams that were down there. We relocated one of them and installed two more on the newly created dry streambed. It's a wide open area so we hope to get some good shots of animals. It was a bit too barren so we added a sticks and stumps in front of the camera to make good shelter for small critters. When we get martens they tend to bound out of view really quick but if we add a few small arm sized logs they like to explore them a bit before moving along. 

We hiked back to the Plug cams and removed the Moultrie and serviced the Bushnell. We then continued all the way to the PG film site and met up with the crew. They had been flying a drone and were doing some photography of the area. When we got back they interviewed Robert while I serviced the trail cams. Three had been malfunctioning so I removed them. After 90 minutes or so we decided to hike out. On the hike up the hill i serviced the two junction cameras and discovered that they both had been destroyed by snow. We all met up at the cars and parted ways, Robert had obligations at home so he left for Fortuna and I headed back with the Crew to camp at Louse camp.

We hung out around the campfire and shared Bigfoot stories over some beers. We did a little bit of target practice on some cans in the forest as well. In the morning we packed up and said our goodbyes and ended a great trip to Bluff Creek.