Expeditions

Sasquatchers

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Expeditions

December 27-30th 2008 Cheaha Expedition

The expedition started off great. It was made up of David Isbell, Joseph Williams, Kurtis Clayton and myself (Derrick Clayton). We left Huntsville early morning on the 27^th and made the drive towards Cheaha State Park. The weather of the drive could not have been better. We did have some delays in the trip however. Just outside Anniston my Xtera started to over heat so we stopped at a gas station to let it cool down. It was a good little break in the trip and we had a blast in the parking lot of a “ma and pa” gas station. Well the Xtera cooled down and we got back on the road. Things seemed to be going good and we were all laughing and joking as normal. Then we started to go up the hills and mountains to get to the camp site and the Xtera started to over heat yet again. So we pulled off the side of the road to let it cool and have a break in the trip. Well it cooled off and we jumped back in to find out that we were stuck in the mud. Well after about an hour of setting on the side of the road with cars passing us by, someone finally stopped to pull us out. We were pulled out and thanked the guy and made it to the camp site with enough time to set camp up and go set our camera traps up before dark.

I decided that the best place to set one of the cameras up would be on a clearing that followed some power lines. Well on the way down the mountain, we started to hear something “shadowing” us off deeper in the woods. We never was able to see what it was but the things that happened next lead us to believe that it was a NAP. I (Derrick) made several “looting” calls while moving down the mountain and had some replies back. Well I decided to get a little bold with my calls, just to see what would happen, and I did a “siren” call or an “alarm” call. Well a few seconds after I made the “alarm” call we were walking down the mountain and all the sudden something huge was thrown to the ground. I say thrown because if it was a large rock or tree limb falling there would have been the sound of under brush or leaf litter breaking as it fell, that was not the case. All we heard was something very large hit the ground and stop with no other sound. It was something big enough that we felt the ground vibrate under our feet. The sound seemed to come from the other side of the clearing, a distance of about 100ft. After this we kept walking down the mountain looking for more signs of a NAP.

This is was 2050ft, we followed this all the way down. This is where Derrick made the first "looting" calls and got the replies. The picture is looking west.

This is view of the area where we heard and felt the large something hit the ground.

The spot that we set up one of the cameras looked out into the clearing where there were a few game trails. It seemed to have potential for a spotting. We made a few wood knocks with no reply. So after we took a break for chow we headed back up the mountain. There was no activity on the hike back up the mountain, but there was at the top of the mountain. When we reached the top my brother, Kurtis, did a few wood knocks and had a few replies that seemed to come from the area where we put the first camera trap. We decided that the top of the mountain would be a good spot for the second camera trap incase a NAP followed us up the mountain. After setting the second camera trap up we headed back to camp.

The night was cold and wet, all the wood was soaked and we didn’t have the foresight to bring our own dry wood. With that said we still managed to start and maintain a camp fire well in to the night. It was the first time that all of us had been together since before I was deployed to Iraq so we all were just enjoying the company. We turned in pretty early that first night just because it was so cold. The next day my brother, Kurtis Clayton, had to go back home because he was missing his 14 month old son, so the remainder of the outing would just be David, Joseph, and myself. We cooked some beans for breakfast (the essential camping meal) and headed off for the areas where we put the trail cameras.

We decided to go down the mountain a different way than the day before. It was a more open wooded area with a good bit of large rocks and small cliffs. It was a beautiful area. On the way down I did a few vocalizations but had no response. We did however find something of interest. As I was walking ahead of David and Joseph, I noticed on a large rock a “wad” of seemingly chewed cedar. It was a relative large amount, more than could fit in to a large mans mouth. It is important to note that there was no cedar trees with in seeing distance from this find. We took several pictures of the “wad” and carefully collected it and saved it in a plastic container. Lots of animals chew tree bark for a variety of reasons, what would make Sasquatch any different? There have been several reasons why they would do such with cedar. One is that it acts as a natural bug repellent, but it was to cold for any bad bugs to be out. Another reason is that they would chew cedar for an “anti-freeze” purpose. This theory would make more sense seeing we found it in the middle of winter. Other theories are that the cedar has medicinal purposes, that the cedar is a sort of candy to them, and that it helps keep their teeth clean. Whatever the reason, we have dubbed this find as “Sassy Snuff” and you can see the pictures in our Photos section.