The Hills Are AliveÉ
With the Sounds of Bigfoot!
By Tom Yamarone
The San Lorenzo River watershed extends
from the Pacific Ocean to the ridge at
Skyline Blvd. It encompasses all of the
area traversed by Hwy. 9 and Zayante
Road. This is the center of our “bigfoot
study area” and today I want to look at a
few of the more exciting encounters and
sightings that have taken place in or
around the area. There is only one
published report from the area – the 1980
sighting along Granite Creek Road. There
are a few reports that have been presented
to the museum that have yet to make it
onto any public sightings databases. We’ll
look at some of these in this article and,
as always, encourage you to submit your
bigfoot encounter (whether it happened
here or elsewhere) to the Bigfoot
Discovery Museum.
Let’s start back when this area was a
resort destination for those enjoying the
early days of California’s statehood.
California, San Francisco Post, 1870s –
Wild Men Of The Woods
& Mythic Grizzly Bear Hunt
Summer saunterings
by “Derrick Dogg”
[SUMMARY: Frank Harrison Gassaway used the
pseudonym “Derrick Dogg” for his numerous
writings in the San Francisco Evening Post. Summer
saunterings (1882) contains travel letters originally
published in the Post. They report transportation
routes, hotels and camping sites, natural wonders
and man-made tourist attractions, and local lore in
Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San José,
Napa, Saucelito, San Rafael, Santa Rose, Yosemite,
and other popular spots.]
Chapter 19
S’camping Out. A Philanthropic Mission —Amateur
Sponge Cake—Camp Felton —Wild Men Of The
Woods—A Coon Grizzly—A Popular
Assassination— Camp Capitola—Fish And Love—A
Breakneck Act—A Camper’s quarantine.
Page 172...
At the Felton camp one such remarkable specimen of
womanhood regaled us with a blood-curdling
account of a wild man of the woods that infested the
forest there-abouts, and which had developed a
hospitable habit of prowling around the camp at night
and uttering dismal cries, indicative of a gloomy
desire to lunch on the fattest young lady of the party.
The fact that these so-called wild men are greatly on
the increase in this part of the country has been
widely commented on by the newspapers—as though
there were anything strange about their origin. Every
confirmed camper-out will recall numerous instances
when certain members of his company have
mysteriously disappeared from among their fellow
lunatics. These deserters do not sneak off home as is
commonly supposed by the others. A long course of
scorched beans, water-carrying, of wood-ticks and
tarantulas has undermined their intellects and caused
them to relapse into the native barbarism of our
quadrumanal forefathers. They stand it as long as
possible, and then incontinently take to the woods
and live on raw jack-rabbits and good scenery. There
are doubtless thousands of just such miserable beings
in the vicinity, and the Santa Cruz county authorities
are beginning to consider the advisability of putting a
price upon the scalps of these woodland waifs in
order to protect the local hen-roosts and the still
greater industry of this section, which is the leasing
of camping grounds. It is a small and onehorse ranch
in these parts on which the farmer does not advertise
a camping ground to let for the season, supplied with
all the modern conveniences—to wit, fresh water and
alleged fishing and hunting facilities. One camp we
visited disclosed about twenty-five of its inmates
solemnly angling in a stream that looked as though it
had been made by upsetting a wash-tub. They had
pursued this pastime steadily for eleven days, with an
aggregate result of three three-inch trout. To this
purpose was devoted probably $2,000 worth of fine
tackle. Every other ablebodied man about the camp
was engaged in lugging expensive shooting outfits
and $75 nickel-plated Winchesters over the country
in search of a mythical grizzly bear, whose trail had
been discovered about six miles from camp. It was
only after two week’s industrious shinning up the
sun-baked canyons that the tracks were discovered to
be those of an old squatter, who was accustomed to
go hunting cottontails in his bare feet...
Although the author comes to the conclusion
that the “wild men of the woods”
are merely people “living off the land” (on
raw rabbits), we think otherwise. This is
one of the earliest known stories to emerge
from this region. Let’s remember – these
were WILD HILLS!! The loggers and the
drivers of the stages and wagons between
San Jose and Santa Cruz knew this.
Grizzlies inhabited these hills. It could be
a harrowing trip should you run into one
of them. What other large, hairy creature
might you run into? The story tells of
people sighting creatures and, at the end,
finding footprints. I think this is an
inadvertent reference to our big hairy
friend.
Our next account is the 1980 encounter 
on Granite Creek Road. Two men in their
early 20’s were camping around the area
in different locations for a little over a
week. In the early morning hours of June
9th they had chosen a good spot along
Granite Creek Road, described as a
clearing about 1/3 the size of a football
field with a steep, mountain slope at one
side and the road at the other. When they
arrived after midnight, they were
immediately overcome by a terrible stench
in the air. Soon after getting in their
sleeping bags, something big started
“walking” down the forested slope,
breaking branches underfoot as it
approached them. They heard the loud
footfalls stop some 20 feet from where
they lay and then heard loud, guttural
breathing. They called out to whatever was
there – I say, “whatever” because they
knew that no person was going to proceed
down that hillside in total darkness with
the regular, stomping pace they heard.
There was no answer to their queries. A
car came winding along the road and the
visitor’s silhouette was illuminated briefly
by the passing headlights. They observed
an upright figure approximately 12 feet
tall! At that point, they sat up in their
sleeping bags and the creature turned and
headed back up the hill at a quick pace.
They were certain they had seen a
sasquatch. They fled the area and went
back to New Brighton Beach where they
had camped previously. When they
returned to the site the next morning, they
found large indentations in the hillside
where they had heard the creature
approach them. They also found
impressions on the hill where they heard it
depart. Reluctantly, they shared their story
with the local paper.
A week later, the paper printed a short
piece about another family that resided in
the area and the sightings they had on their
property back in 1971 and 1972. These
people saw one in their window peering in

on them and found a footprint the next 
day in the dirt outside the house. They
described it as having only 3 toes. They
also heard unusual calls in the night, some
of them described as whistles. The family
was convinced they, too, had seen and
heard a bigfoot.
We have a myriad of sightings that have
made it onto the maps in the Bigfoot
Discovery Museum. In the case of one of
these encounters, we were able to go to the
site and hear from the witness first-hand.
In 1998, Rich (not his real name) from
Zayante was home from school sick one
day when he decided to take a ride on his
horse in the hills behind his house. He did
this often. His horse had a habit of picking
up on animal noises or movement and
would stop and point with his head in that
direction. They often saw deer, coyotes
and foxes in this way. Today, Rich was in
for a surprise when he followed his horse’s
lead and looked where he was pointing.
There on a hillside just over 100 yards
away squatted a large, hairy creature
digging in the sand. (The soil in this area
is sand, left over from an ancient sea bed.)
He observed the creature digging for about
a minute at which time it stood up, turned
around and walked in clear view along the
ridge away from him. He had an
unobstructed view of what he described
as a tall, hair-covered creature that walked
on two feet. We returned to the site with
Rich last Fall and hiked around the area as
he retold his encounter. He has also heard
unusual screams in the night and other
noises coming from the nearby quarry. We
found his account to be quite convincing.
Most recently, a resident from the hills
above Watsonville, CA came to the
museum and told Michael about the
activity they have been having on their
land for the past six years. It started with a
sighting his brother had while driving up
to his home along his long, wooded driveway.
As he proceeded slowly in his car, he
passed a “large homeless man wearing
furs” who was walking the other direction
along the road. Very unusual, to say the
least. He just didn’t have anything in his
experience or memory to compare with
what he observed. They eventually
concluded this creature was not a
homeless man wearing furs. Last year, as
our witness was visiting his father’s home
on the same large parcel of land, he
observed a large, reddish colored creature
in a prone position with its arms and legs
tucked up against its body. He thought it
was a pile of redwood bark from some
recent logging in his father’s yard. Then it
occurred to him that his father had not had
any trees removed recently. He backed up
his car to have another look and it was
gone! A week later he was on his back
porch at night when he heard a loud
scream emanating from the front yard of
his home. He was unnerved by the sheer
volume of this sound and was certain it
was no animal he was familiar with having
grown up in these woods. We find the
incidents occurring on this property to be
compelling and indicative of bigfoot
activity in this area. It fits with our theory
that the creatures may traverse the
mountains that ring the valley between
Salinas and Santa Cruz. There have been
sightings to the south in the Ventana
Wilderness as well.
These stories are interesting and spur us
on in our investigation of the San Lorenzo
Valley and adjacent areas. There are more
stories we have yet to investigate and
more continue to be reported at the
museum. In closing, we urge you to come
by or call the museum and share your
possible bigfoot experience with us. It is
our goal to document this activity and
continue to search for bigfoot in the Santa
Cruz Mountains.
This is the Zayante area where multple bigfoot episodes have been reported. We're looking from the SLV watershed area across Zayante creek at the ridge (R) where Rich saw the
black bigfoot about eight years ago. The inset photo is a closeup of the ridge area where he saw it walking. On the other side of the hill is the residence that experienced a
persistent prowler last summer