“A strong pattern of observation as a prelude to interaction with lots of help from Mateo Arguello, Glenn Norberg, and my cousin, Heidi… I hope you enjoyed reading Part One of this informative information on the sightings and research by my friends and family.”
We know there have been many reports about this willy beast in many states like Washington, California, and Oregon forests. And in many other states in America and around the world. Could Bigfoots still be reproducing and growing families we don’t know about? Well, it could be possible and explain the many sightings. So let’s dive into part two and see what else Mateo and others have to say, shall we!
~Author Diane Olsen writer of the Award-Winning Series Rising Wind.
Scrub Oak Hide and Seek – Part Three
“After my very personal introduction to Sasquatch, I was still nervous about going alone into South Cheyenne Canyon after dark. It would be two years before I would. I guess I wasn’t technically alone; I was with Tom and, occasionally, other friends in the Glen Erie area, a location slightly northwest of the ‘Garden of the Gods.’ For some reason, I thought we’d be far enough away from the Cheyenne Canyons on the other side of Ute Pass that Sasquatches couldn’t find me. It gave me a false sense of security.
I was confident I’d be safe in the area of Glen Erie, an English Tudor Castle built in 1871 by General William Jackson Palmer, an early resident of Colorado Springs who took an interest in the arcane inventions of Nicola Tesla, who built his Tesla Experimental Station in 1899. Tesla had found a way to harness lightning, but the outcome was not necessarily popular with the region’s inhabitants. Even though he was an extraordinary scientist and made theoretical physics functional, most of his inventions were patented by others.
“The adjacent property was the celebrated Flying W Ranch, famous for their ‘chuckwagon dinners’ served on rolled metal plates as the cowboys used. Guests were entertained by what some called ‘tumbleweed’ music played by the Flying W Wranglers, a cowboy band.”
There was a wash or gully between these two iconic properties where Tom and I would run miles through the wilderness at night. Using cunning and stealth, we’d chase and hunt each other in glorified games of moonlight tag, or rather hide and seek among the conifers, scrub oak, and upright sandstone ridges and pinnacles. We went to the same spot almost every night around twilight to play. It became a ritual for us and helped us become strong. We tested different strategies and tactics trying to escape from one another.
I was the first to arrive one night in November, at 11 p.m., at a spot between the borders of the two properties. Tom always ran late. It was a Tom thing – late every single time. It felt like winter, and there were little patches of snow on the ground. Not too much, but it was cold. While waiting, I decided to rock climb up a sheer sandstone ridge to keep warm and get the lay of the land. Perhaps I could get the drop on Tom after he arrived and started to look for me. Finding a route to the crest in the middle of the night was really exciting. I stayed up top checking things out before dropping over to the other side to explore and continue waiting for Tom to come.
Finally, I heard him a quarter-mile away doing howls. We would howl really loud to let the other person know our location or keep in touch with one another.
If one of us hid too well and the other person couldn’t find them, the game got stagnant, and it was easy to become demotivated and bored. A howl would keep the game going. Although howls could indicate our direction, sometimes we’d fake the distance with softer calls. As I listened carefully, I heard his howls getting closer. It sounded like he was close to me now – 200 or maybe 250 yards away, but his screams became quieter again. I thought he was faking me out. Sometimes I’d turn away and make my howl quieter, so it sounded like I was in a different spot, and it would be harder for whoever was chasing me to discover me.
I just assumed that was what he was doing, but it turned out that his howls weren’t close to me. They sounded farther away – strange because I thought he must be close now. I was listening, paying attention, and I heard a noise – it couldn’t have been very far away – within thirty-five feet.
I assumed he was just out of sight around a bend. It sounded like he came onto the trail and then scurried back up at an angle. I heard him crunching his way up the side of this gravel hill above me, smash, smash, smash, coming right over me to a small cluster of brush encircling a tree. I couldn’t see him, but I heard him, he’s a big guy. You could tell he was trying to be very quiet, but because he was walking in the gravel on a steep slope, crunch, crunch, smash.
He stopped right above me, behind the brush at the tree. At this point, he was probably ten feet away – right there, I heard him. I’d been paying attention, listening, waiting for him to come and get me – then nothing. I heard him come right up to me, but instead of rushing at me, he wasn’t doing anything. Very uncharacteristic of Tom. The moment he saw you, he’d go right after you without stopping. That was his advantage because he’s fast. Waiting in stealth was weird behavior for him.
Now he was just chilling. I waited thirty seconds, well, I’d already been waiting for him for an hour, so I said, “Dude, Tom, come and get me.” And as soon as I finished the sentence, I heard Tom’s howl in the distance. Shit! Oh, my gosh. That’s not Tom! Because of the experience I’d had a year or two before in South Cheyenne Canyon, I started panicking.
Somehow in my head, I thought the Rampart Range would be different. Sasquatches were not going to be there. That’s why I let myself play out here at night instead of the canyons down south. I started panicking because there was a 98% chance that what sneaked up above to observe me was a Sasquatch.
It took the high ground, the key terrain – things that a regular person wouldn’t do. It was right above me. Tom would consider it because we’d discussed military tactics and strategies, then we’d practice them. It came naturally to us. One of the essentials was to get key terrain and high ground.
Now I was freaking out, but I wanted to be sure I was right. Getting really critical has always been my safety net, I thought maybe that was Tom, so I pulled out my phone and called him right then and there. ‘Bro, where are you?’ Then he said, ‘I must be a quarter of a mile away from you.’
“Oh my gosh, please, please come over here as fast as you can. Please.’
Then I hung up the phone. I had my headlamp, and I could have easily turned it on at this point – a sign of distress for Tom to see, and I could have used it to look right into the face of whoever was standing over me, but I wasn’t ready at that time. I didn’t want another frightening experience. I couldn’t look into the features of a creature I knew nothing about.
It was the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, and I didn’t have an easy escape route. If I went out the way, I wanted to, into the rugged country, which would have been okay if Tom was the one chasing me – but not okay if a North American Hominid was chasing me. I’d have no advantage.
My best option, even though the riskiest, was to run back down the trail. If this thing wanted to cut me off, it would be so easy for it to come in at an angle as I ran. It wasn’t the best bet, but I didn’t know what else to do. In desperation, I began screaming and running, trying to look as big and intimidating as possible. I sprinted with all my might, descending the trail as fast as I could, down to the open mining scar, and on down to where I could look across the valley for Tom, but I stopped before the path dropped into the draw that separated the Flying W Ranch and the Glen Eyrie properties.
I was terrified, but I was safe – so far.
On the opposite side, there was another hill where I saw Tom’s silhouette on the slope, which inclined up towards the other “Garden of the Gods” type rocks. I couldn’t imagine why he would be so far away. Something was off. He was still a quarter-mile away. I howled to get him to come down, and I saw him running into the valley towards me. But when he got close to the bottom, he turned around and started running all the way back up that slope. What was going on! At this point, I turned on my light, a sign for Dude, get over here!
Tom saw my light and finally came all the way across the valley and up to where I met him. I still didn’t feel comfortable even with him there because we were surrounded by trees and scrub oak, so we ran all the way back up the trail to the scar, which is a desolate hill that had been shaved off – mined for gypsum to help build the Air Force Academy. It was a large open space, and we could easily see anything trying to sneak up on us.
After we met, I told him what happened, that I was certain I’d been approached by a Sasquatch. He was a little skeptical but also had something weird to report. He explained that he’d turned around because as he came closer and had almost reached the valley floor, he heard something behind and above him. He looked back and saw the silhouettes of two individuals following quietly, one behind the other on the path he’d just come down.
He was able to make out their outlines because there was adequate light from the stars, the city, and the moon. Now he thought I’d tricked him, bringing unannounced friends, which we did at times to make the game more interesting. He also said that when he came down into the bushes at the bottom of the gully, he briefly saw another figure creeping through the brush, but it quickly left his view.
He guessed that silhouette had been me – that I had double-crossed him. He thought I’d made the phone call as a prank to draw him in. As far as he could tell, we were setting up a proper ambush – trying to catch him in the middle – so he took off to evade the trap. That’s when his howls became more distant because I was now chasing him in his mind. That is until he saw my light illuminate from across the valley.
That’s when he knew I was serious and headed back down to join me. I assured him I had been there well over an hour, and there were no other humans. I told him about the chill feeling that came over me when I realized it wasn’t him behind me. Oh, oh my gosh, that’s not Tom. That’s something else. The only thing I could think of was Sasquatch. But my intuition told me it didn’t want to cause me harm. It was there because it wanted to play what we were playing. I was still scared because it was an uncontrollable element, an unknown variable.
I thought I didn’t know anything about you. Right now, you’re kind of a monster. I was certain it was a North American hominid who wanted to play. I didn’t get any threatening intent, similar to the way I felt scared but not endangered during the first encounter – until I became aggressive. My thoughts were reinforced when Tom told his story of another pair of individuals just following him around and perhaps another one observing him in the valley bottom. Apparently, we had intermeshed with a group of youngsters. My immediate thought was they had seen us play here night after night and wanted to be included. They could associate with what we’re doing because they almost certainly played tag and chase when we weren’t there.
One thing Tom said, and it’s hard to know for sure, was that one of the vocalized howls wasn’t him, and he didn’t think it was from me either. He thought it was strange. I didn’t hear anything like that, but I also wasn’t paying much attention. I thought it was Tom the whole time, but the closer calls coming up to me might not have been him. The realization of what we’d experienced was so frightening, like out of a scary movie or book. You’ve gotta be kidding me. I ran into bears and mountain lions at night and did not feel scared. It wasn’t that they weren’t dangerous, but I knew what to do. That night I had been interacting with creatures that weren’t even supposed to exist.
I didn’t know how to operate. What would happen if the situation became violent or aggressive? How could I avoid them? You can’t just go around them like you would a mountain lion or bear if you needed to. That was one of the scariest pieces at the time. I decided not to go out anywhere at night without a gun. In retrospect, it was the perfect setting for a group of young Sasquatch to conduct a controlled interactive experiment with humans. There was lots of cover for concealment, and they had a myriad of safe approach routes to get close, to observe, and interact with us. They had the advantage and knew the trails.
Curiosity and interaction were the main points of their visits. We were playing games out there, so we weren’t focused on them; we focused on each other until they let us know they were around! They were interested in what we were doing because they could identify with the games. I stand by that assessment. That was something they did – they saw us doing it, and they wanted to join in. That’s why they got so close, just trying to follow us, playing around – presumably hoping we might be open to the experience.”
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Part Four and my finale of sharing my friends and family’s bigfoot encounters and sightings will be just as exciting and interesting as the first three parts!
I hope you are enjoying this article series, and it just might be a new up-and-coming book from me! You never know…
BIOGRAPHY
Award-Winning Author Diane Olsen, a seasoned influential writer, began with a non-fiction book titled; “Ancient Ways: The Roots of Religion,” which won a bronze medallion from the Christian Illuminations Book Awards in 2017. Diane’s “Rising Wind” book series has also won several awards. “The Thunder Beings” was released in 2018. “Ice and Bone,” and “The Weeping God and The Book of Hope” were released in mid-2021. “Weeping God” garnished her a second bronze medal win in 2021. Book four has now been released in March 2022, titled “Like Feathers of a Wing: Deep, Informative and Pertinent.”
Three of these books earned five-star ratings from Reader’s Favorite, and in 2021, she received a second Bronze Medal from Christian Illumination for book three entitled; “The Weeping God and The Book of Hope.” Rising Winds is an excellent multi-cultural, cross-genre fiction read with a light Christian-themed, action-packed mystery thrill ride like no other! Everyone will enjoy this ‘Indiana Jones style’ series regardless of their beliefs or cultural backgrounds, which rides a balance between science and religion. Diane shares how all of us, all of humanity, are connected as one. Her books are available on Amazon, Kindle, B&N, and many fine online bookstores.
Born and raised in Colorado, Diane is an Undergrad at Colorado State University Ft. Collins: Pre-vet med, Anthropology, then attended and received her BA and MA at the University of Montana, Missoula: Anthropology, Archaeology, and Paleontology. Diane has proudly raised two grown sons, Andrew and Gavin, has four grandsons, Dylan, Brayden, AJ, and Asher; when she is not writing, Diane enjoys spending time with her family, especially her grandkids.
A few of her favorite books are ‘The Book of Certitude (Kitab-i-Iqan), The Upanishads, and The Great Initiates.’ She is currently working on the next book to her ‘Rising Wind’ series and resides in the beautiful Pacific Northwest of Washington State.
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Diane Olsen~Award Winning Author 
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