July 9th-12th camping trip report.

Thursday July 9th:
     We left Orick around 2pm and drove over the scenic Bald Hills to Weitchpec. It was supposed to be pretty warm but it started raining once we were up on the ridge. We proceeded up highway 96 to the GO rd and continued on to Louse Camp. We arrived around 5pm and found Robert and Kipp taking shelter under a canopy shelter. Kipp had his new CAMPCHEF stove setup and was preparing to cook up some food. It was still raining heavily. We setup our canopy shelter near the campfire and thought it best to try and get one going. We talked about our thoughts on the trip and decided that Friday might be best for a trip to service the cams on upper Deer Lick Lake and Twin Lakes. We stayed up until around midnight drinking beer and root beer schnapps.

Kipp investigating a gift left at the campground by an inquisitive Bigfoot.

Friday July 10th:
     We had decided that we would spend the day servicing the cameras at Upper Deer Lick Lake. We got a late start and spent the morning going through equipment and setting up gear. At around 11am we left the camp site and drove to upper Deer Lick Lake and were met with a downed tree Blocking the road.




     We continued our trip and serviced the camera on the abandoned ridge road. We observed a good looking bobcat on the camera that had been captured a few weeks prior. Below is a video of the animal. Bobcats are pretty rare up here. We observe about one bobcat for every ten mountain lions.




     Mosquito Lake was our next destination where we looked for animal tracks The mud surrounding the lake is prime for registering tracks and casts from there make excellent souvenirs. We found several excellent tracks and cast three.We then made it to Twin Lakes and pulled all of the trail cameras. The camera at the East lake had been malfunctioning so we removed it and it's housing. We upgraded the bolts securing the camera at the bear wallow on the west lake and replaced the memory card. We then proceeded to head back to Mosquito Lake to collect the casts that had been drying.

Steve Streufert, Kipp Morril, Robert Leiterman, Mike Meraz, and Mark Zoulas from Left to Right

We headed back to Louse Camp at around 5pm and met up with Steven Streufert, Mike Meraz and Mark who were waiting for us in camp.











Mike Meraz and Mark Zoulas were in Law enforcement but are now retired. Mike has been coming to the area since the 1970s and he and Bigfoot researcher Howard Walker was originally taken to the PG film site by Rene Dahinden in the 1980s. He was a friend of Rene Dahinden as well. He brought with him a selection of photos and letters from his personal archive which he inherited from Howard Walker. This included an early copy of the Patterson-Gimlin film that was made by the late John Erik Beckjord.

One of Rene Dahinden's letters from the archive.

Original photo of Rene Dahinden by Mike.

Robert Leiterman chatting with Mike over an old photo album

Kipp reading one of Rene's letters

Kipp taught me how to take selfies.

Telegram from Beckjord to Howard Walker.

Some Beckjord blobsquatches

Mike's copy of the Patterson Film. One of two copies made by Beckjord from Patricia Patterson's original copy.

Steve Streufert, Jamie Wayne, Robert Leiterman, Mike Meraz, Mark Zoulas, and Kipp Merril.

After a few hours of campfire stories we crashed out at about 12pm.

Saturday July 11th:

Kipp Morril had learned of family tragedy after making a phone call and decided to head home early, he left around 9am. In the morning we had planned to go to the film site but since we had already been there a few weeks prior we decided to investigate the area known as Elk Valley. I had not been there before and I thought it might be a good place to install a trail camera. We ran into Rowdy on the drive to Elk Valley and he followed us up there. We hiked up the north end of the valley and installed a single Reconyx camera. We hiked out and hung out by the cars sharing more Bluff Creek stories. I headed home early due to family obligations and left the group to spend Saturday night with themselves at Louse Camp. I received word that everyone headed out early on Sunday after a long night of campfire stories at Louse Camp.

Steve posing in front of his Sasquatch research vehicle

Rowdy in Elk Valley

Robert in Elk Valley

Port Oreford Cedar in Louse Camp with an interesting message painted on it

Bluff Creek is closed indefinitely due to fire. The creek might burn along along with a few of our cameras in the next few days. I'm confident that our brush clearing efforts and steel bear boxes will protect the cameras sufficiently to preserve the memory cards. Currently we have eight cameras that will likely be destroyed should the fire reach the creek. We should have some great HD video of the PG film site burning. I'm thankful we were able to survey it in time. We will rebuild!

Mountain Lion compilation

I've been meaning to do this for a while. Here is all of our mountain lion footage.

http://youtu.be/jBcW7Iu5dUc

Film site at last!

Abstract:
     We had a pretty successful first trip to the PG site. We took a family down there who had donated a camera to the project to help install it. We serviced the cameras and installed a couple new bear boxes but we did have some problems. At the PG site we had two catastrophic camera failures, at "The Plug" one of the cams had the wrong settings resulting in 3000 still photos of the ground, the MK Davis site camera was missing it's SD card, and one of the junction cameras (cheap Moultrie) failed to record anything. Overall, the outing was a success and all of the other camera worked perfectly. I haven't reviewed all the footage yet but we have a few really nice shots of cougars traversing the PG film site, but no Bigfoots. :-(






Beginning of the day:
     We started out the day early in Orick. Dani and I left at about 8am and proceeded to rendezvous with Robert Leiterman and the Price family at the Willow Creek Museum. We met up at about 10:30 and walked about the museum for a bit. I met Patty one of the curators and talked about our camera project. I offered to try and raise some donations for the museum on our next crowdfunding campaign and perhaps maybe contribute some of our work to the displays. Robert and the Price family headed up to the film site while Dani and I headed to Bigfoot Books to pick up Steve. We made it up to the berm around noon.

The Family:

Robert Leiterman:

Steven Streufert:

The Hike Down:
     After about 20 minutes of camera prepping I realizes that I had forgotten my screwgun so I would not be able to properly install the three new bear boxes that I had brought. I found a few 3" screws and a screwdriver that would be able to attach the boxes to the trees but it's not as good as the 4" lag bolts I had hoped to use. The hike down was without incident. There were no new rockfalls or debris in the trail from winter storms, although the trail has become overgrown in recent years. We did notice that just past the big washout the two downed trees that we used to walk under had been cut with a saw and discarded. More on this later... We arrived down at the bat boxes in good time and started to head up the creek on the trail. About halfway to the film site we noticed a large bird kill. It appears that an own had been predated and had all its feathers ripped out. I'm not sure what animal did this.

 

Continued:

We pushed on on and arrived at the film site. We saw a few bear and deer tracks along the sand bars and I found one shoe track which notified us that we were not the first to hike in this year. Upon reviewing the trail camera footage the was a group that was at the site on 6-17-2015.

Camera Servicing:

     I pulled the five cameras that we had at the film site and started to review the footage on my laptop. I immediately noticed a few problems. Two of the cameras had malfunctioned, The HD "37" had worked fine for two months then it had just continuously taken footage for two days straight and filled up the SD card and drained the batteries, and the 8mp "36" camera had just recorded continuously for three days after it was deployed. The two blacked out HD cams worked flawlessly and recorded some of our best footage. The panoramic Moultrie camera had performed better than expected, the batteries were only supposed to last two months but they lasted the whole eight. I suspect that since it had alkaline cells they shut down when it was too cold which conserved power.

Vandalism To The Patterson-Gimlin Film Site:

     Upon visiting the "Big Tree" we noticed that something was very wrong. Someone had cut down the vine maples that were original to the PG film. They can be seen in the background with their bright red broad leaves. They have been cut amaturely and roughly about three feet from their base which left a disturbing row of unsightly bare snags. The limbs were felled and left on the ground in front of the tree. Needless to say we are shocked at this and would like to remind people not to cut, remove, or modify anything that is visible in the original film.

At The Base of The Big Tree:

New Camera Install:

     The Price family had donated a new camera to install down at the site so we had them help find a location and install it. Their son found a suitable spot and we were able to secure it and the bear box to a tree. The site is ideal and views a long open sandbar. This site will no doubt prove fruitful in the coming months.

Servicing the Plug and MK Davis Cams:

     We hiked back to the bat boxes and the Price family headed back out with Steven Streufert to wait for us at the berm. We continued down the creek to "The Plug" which is a large rocky outcrop in the creek. We had two cameras here. The Plug camera had performed well and recorded throughout the winter. The second camera was setup quickly in the dark in October 2014 and unfortunately was programmed with incorrect settings. It was set to default still "camera" mode, and set to "fullscreen". It was a nice new HD Bushnell that should have been set to HD video mode in widescreen. It did manage to take about 3000 pictures of mostly raccoons other small critters. It was also somewhat haphazardly installed on the tree and faced down slightly which ruins the shot and decreases the trigger range drastically. I installed it downstream about 20meters from the plug in a bear box that was screw to an alder with a 3" screw. I made sure it had the correct settings and an SD card. Unfortunately I didn't have a lock for it.

 Camera attached to tree:

View from the camera:

 

Continued:

Robert and Dani went to service the MK Davis camera at the "gifting altar" (built by unknown persons in June 2014). That camera was missing the SD card. I had logged that one had been installed (a 32gb Sony card) but it is possible that it was just never installed. It is also possible (more likely) that the card was removed by unknown persons not wishing to be on camera. That camera was not in a bear box and anyone could have taken it.

The Hike Out:

     We proceeded to hike upstream to the bat boxes. We then started up the hill to service the "Junction" cameras. We removed and packed up the Moultrie A5 since it had no bear box and was not secure. We serviced the junction camera and replaced the SD card. We then hiked owt to the berm and met up with the rest of out group. I was getting late to the Price family and Robert headed out while we finished packing up. We stopped to take a picture of the newly installed and (in my humble opinion) goofy looking "BIGFOOT WORLD HERITAGE SITE" sign. We are against the posting of such signs and do not know who placed it there. It used to have a large sign that said "DO NOT REMOVE BIGFOOT BAIT". We have never seen any Bigfoot bait at the site.

Pizza and Beer!:
     We decided to meet up at the Pizza Factory in Willow Creek for a beer and to review the footage. We managed to go through about 30% of the footage before the battery in my laptop quit. We said our goodbyes and headed back to Orick. We got home around 11:30pm. Not a bad trip!

5-24-2015 Trip Report, Gate Closed!!

High Hopes:
Upon return from my vacation I messaged the crew and called Robert to see if anyone was up for a last minute trip to the film site to check the gate and possibly service the cameras. It has been raining pretty steady here that last few weeks and we were skeptical that the 12N13 (Louse Camp Rd) gate would be unlocked. Robert headed up about 10:30 and I left about 12:00 from Orick. The plan was to try and meet at the gate at 2:00, and if the gate was open we would then rendezvous at the film site, but if the gate was closed then we would meet at Mosquito Lake to check for tracks.










Lame!
Upon arrival at the gate I discovered it was closed and locked. A small cairn was erected which signified that Robert had been there before me and moved on to Mosquito Lake. I drove about five miles down 12N12 (Cedar Camp Rd) and met up with Robert at the Deer Lick Lake rd. He was driving his new squatching rig a FJ Cruiser with winch. We drove on to mosquito and that gate was locked as well. We hiked in to the lake about 3/4mile down the road past the gate. The water was up and no suitable mud was around the late that could support tracks. We spotted some faint bear and cat tracks on the road. We hiked out and back to the trucks, then proceeded to drive out.

New Friends!
On our drive out from Mosquito Lake we encountered a toyota pickup with three people in it, the plates were from Oregon. We were cautious at first thinking they were poachers at first but then after some prodding we realized they were there to go to Bluff Creek to the PG film site. Their names were Doug, Yogi, and Stephen. We talked for a bit and relayed the info about the gate being closed and invited them up to Twin Lakes with us to check the cameras. We rendevoused at Twin Lakes and met some more people who were at the lake to see flowers and birds. Their names were Leanne, Robert, Alan, and Toni. Steven Streufert and his friend showed up and hung out for a bit. After chatting it up we serviced the cams on the west lake. I borrowed an SD card from Robert Leiterman as I had forgotten the spare cards. We serviced the Bear Wallow camera with fresh batteries, SD card, and replaced the broken bear box and lock. We then removed the 7mp Bushnell camera and packed it out. I didn't want to leave out any cams that weren't in bear boxes. We all left and headed home around 6pm.

Here is the HD video from the Bear Wallow Camera:




Here are the still shots from the Bear Wallow Camera:

Quick update...

Hey everyone, Jamie here!

Just a quick update, the crowdfunding campaign has ended and we have raised over $700 for new cameras... It is really awesome to have so much interest in the project. This completely funds the replacement cameras for the three that malfunctioned, as well as two more. I am more than pleased at our progress so far. Indiegogo has made us some sort of power fundraiser with a better rate which is cool. They also added a feature to let the funding page accept donations after the project has ended. This is a cool feature because people often message me about donating after the funding date. This makes it so I don't have to create a new page. I think I'm going to stick with our current crowdfunding schedule of offering four 60 day funding drives each for fall, winter, spring, and summer... I'm not sure if you guys know this but we are pretty much the only Bigfoot research project that has been successfully crowdfunded, and we have hit our goals several times already. So far we have raised more money than the Falcon Project, which is far more costly to operate. We are without a doubt, in terms of total area covered over time, the largest Bigfoot research project in the world.

      So far this year we've had some issues covering the high lakes. We lost a camera to theft at a small lake that is popular with bear hunters. We had it in a lock box and it appears that someone had pryed it off the tree. There is a large chunk of the tree missing where it was bolted. Fortunately I had anticipated this, and replaced the HD that was previously at that location with a cheap 5mp model that only takes photos, so the thieves didn't get away with much. They did take the nice bear box too which is kinda lame as it was worth almost as much as the camera. We try to mitigate potential loses by only installing cheaper cams at these popular locations, but this is the first time we have actually confirmed that a camera was stolen.

      On a good note, Robert and Rowdy were able to locate camera that had been "lost" since last July. They set it on the far side of one of the lakes and I was unable to locate it during a subsequent trip. During a scouting trip around the lake, Robert and Rowdy were able to find it. Unfortunately that camera had some sort of battery malfunction causing it to lose power, likely a shifted battery, so only a few pictures were taken on it with nothing in frame. It still seemed to function properly and had eight fresh Lithium batteries in it still. The gates will be open soon on the road to the PG film site and we will be able to service the cams for summer and check the SD cards. They have been soaking for six months now and we should be able to get to them mid April.

      I'm behind on my bookkeeping so I'll try and get caught up this week and get all the donations and camera expenses tallied. I bought four cheap refurbished Bushnell trophy cams a couple weeks ago to replace our malfunctioning cameras. I might try and swap some parts to see if I can Frankenstein one or two together from the broken ones.

      Also we will be getting some T-shirts and hats this summer. Team member Wes Losner is hooking us up with some shirts and I'm going to purchase a few hats embroidered with the BCP logo. I'm not sure how many I will order but I might throw a couple up on the next crowdfunding drive as a perk, although I'm hesitant to start selling merchandise. I guess I could just put them up at cost so we could avoid any issues. I really want all of the money to go solely toward cameras and not toward offering cheap merch or trinkets.

More updates coming soon,
-Jamie

Mission Acomplished!

We just hit our Winter 2015 crowdfunding goal! I'm over the moon at this point! We're at 109% of our goal and we still have more than two weeks left. I just purchased three new cameras today, along with a cheaper model I purchased last week. This brings us back up there in terms of operating cameras. We were running 18 total after the two died in December. This brings us up to 21 cameras. We received a generous donation of batteries as well to cover the cams for the summer. At this point our only obligation is getting some lithiums for next winter. We still have our spring funding drive coming up in April as well. That funding drive will include embroidered hats as a perk for donating $50. I just purchased some embroidered hats for another project of mine (geology related) and as it turns out it's not too expensive to get some high quality hats embroidered, so I'll keep you guys posted on that front.

In other news Robert Leiterman has started work on our new book on the film site re-discovery project. It should turn out pretty good. We're all writing a portion, Steven, Rowdy, Robert, and I so I will be a collaborative effort and hopefully serve as our capstone for the film site re-discovery project. You can expect that out around fall-winter 2015.

Thanks much for the support guys! I'll upload some new pics of the cameras when they come in! -Jamie