We called it Summer’s End, but that wasn’t the real name of the place we loved to camp when I was young. It was a beautiful, magical place for us. My family and I would camp there every year, at least we did until Bigfoot happened.

I never thought for a second I would ever see such a thing, experience such a moment, not for a thousand years… but I did; well, we did.

Here is my story.

Summer’s End

Growing up and living in the Pacific Northwest, you hear the tales of Bigfoot from time to time; at least most folks have. I was in the minority. Nobody in my family believed in such a thing, but the stories are told here nonetheless.

I grew up just outside of Salem, Oregon, in the northern part of the state. Every summer, my family would travel south to camp at our favorite place. I will keep the name and location to myself for now, but I can tell you it is in Southern Oregon, near the coast.

It sat next to a large pond, and I mean large. As a young boy, it seemed more like a lake, but as I grew up, things in the world got smaller while some things did not. We called it Summer’s End because we always rented this beautiful, large cabin near the end of August each year for a week-long vacation before school would start again.

My sisters, Gale and Leslie, were older than I. Gale was fourteen, and Leslie was twelve when this all happened. I was ten years old. That summer was the most memorable for the three of us, and for a very good reason: we saw what we know today was a literal Bigfoot.

The Cabin

The first night there, everything went as usual: a big dinner, s’mores over the campfire in the evening as the sun faded into the west, and a bit of catfishing in the dark with my dad. Nothing seemed off, weird, or ominous. That would start the next night.

It started with Gale…

That second day, we hiked the three-quarter-mile trail to the beach. That evening, when all the fun was had, we headed to our rooms. Gale and I shared a room. It was well after midnight when I found myself being nudged by Gale until I sat up.

She whispered to me that she heard something outside the window. It sounded like someone was breathing heavily. I sat up, and we both stayed motionless as we listened. I, too, heard it. It was like a person who had probably smoked cigarettes their entire life. It was raspy, deep, and smelled awful.

There was a heavy, skunky smell coming in through the window. It had a tinge of garbage mixed in as well. I whispered to her about the rancid scent, and that is when the breathing stopped.

Soon enough, the air cleared out, and we could breathe easy again. We sat there chatting about what it was and decided to tell Mom and Dad in the morning. Gale’s bed was by the window, so naturally she wanted to crash on my bed.

We woke up with the sun and told our parents about what we heard. My dad headed out back to see if he could find any sign of someone or something, but found only elk and deer tracks all over the place. He gave it up to a large elk that might have been eating the hedges that grew along the back wall.

So did we…

That third night was pretty quiet. However, I could tell that Leslie seemed a bit off. It was as if her senses were heightened. We all decided to crash together in her room. That is when she spilled the beans.

The night before, she swore she saw something out by the pond. She loved the stars. Later in life, she studied astronomy in college and worked down in Arizona until her untimely death from cancer at the age of forty-two.

She said she was staring at the sky when something moving along the edge of the pond caught her attention. It looked like a pretty tall person, a dark silhouette at least, walking along the shore. She thought it might have been Dad; he was pretty tall.

That thought did not sit right with her. Earlier that morning, she looked at Dad and realized that even though he was tall, this person or thing was thicker, broader, and walked rather funny. That was when we told her about what we experienced on the opposite side of the house.

We all decided that night to wake up early and take a look around, doing a little investigating of our own for any sign of who it could have been visiting the cabin at night. That was the game plan.

There were impressions in the taller grass near the edges of the pond, but nothing confirmed what it was. We kept searching and searching. Of course, being ten years old at the time, I got caught up in all the frogs and pollywogs.

I did notice Leslie would constantly raise her head and stare out across the water and into the woods surrounding the pond. I found it a bit unnerving because the look she had seemed to me, looking back now, to be almost ominous, even frightened or, at the very least, extremely nervous.

We sat there for a while, wondering what it could have been. Then it hit her: Bigfoot! I looked at her as if she said something in a foreign language. Not every kid in the Pacific Northwest back then had heard of the legend. I was among the few.

She told me about a film that had been captured of one near a creek in Northern California back in the sixties, or fifties. She did not know the actual year, but she did remember seeing it on TV one evening while staying at a friend’s house.

She described the thing to us. It was tall, female, and covered in pitch-black hair from head to toe. It was a monstrous-looking thing, she said, roaming around the woods of the Pacific Northwest. She explained how it moved and what the two men thought about what they had captured on film.

I was not sure I believed in some monster of the woods, but I did believe what she said she saw; my sister never lied to me.

We continued our walk even though Leslie seemed a bit apprehensive about walking around the entire pond. We continued looking for signs of this so-called Bigfoot thing. Here and there, we found more impressions in the tall grass, even more so when we reached the opposite side of the lake, and closer to the forest.

It would be cliché to say that the forest beyond was thick with trees and high brush, but it was. Even with the sun still pretty high in the sky, the forest was dark, even a bit foreboding. I know it was for Leslie; she kept looking over her shoulder into the trees.

After a while, we got caught up playing in the water and were less focused on seeking the footprints of monsters. Even Leslie lightened up a bit once she saw Mom and Dad waving at us from the opposite shore.

We played around for nearly two hours before we realized the sun was starting its dive behind the cabin. It was at that moment that I noticed Leslie sitting down, facing the woods with her arms over her knees. She did not look scared or anything of the sort; instead, she seemed to be studying the forest.

Gale and I found ourselves sitting there next to Leslie after a moment, staring and scanning the forest before us. I am not sure if it was shadow play with the breeze or what, but now and then, we would point to any movement we could see.

It was not long before we could hear our parents whistling and yelling for us to head back for dinner. They would be leaving us for a “date night” down on the beach, and we would be eating all the ice cream we could.

My sisters both stood and started heading back to the cabin. I was the last one to follow suit. I am still not sure if it was a play of shadows or not, but as I stood up and started to walk, out of my peripheral vision, I noticed something large- a shadow- and it seemed to disappear behind a large Douglas Fir.

I gave it all up on the constant shadow play inside the trees and trudged on behind my sisters. My eyes, however, stayed fast on the tree line as we headed back to the cabin.

Home Alone

The final night at the cabin, Mom and Dad would take their usual dinner date to the beach, and we would have the cabin to ourselves for a few hours or so. Leslie would be in charge, and we would all have a bit of free rein with the s’mores or ice cream; the choice was ours!

They left about an hour before sunset, and we made the s’mores over the fire. Of course, the conversation consisted of the odd things we experienced, and our eyes were constantly scanning the woods beyond the pond as we ate.

Just before the last bit of light faded, we all headed in; none of us wanted to be out there in the dark anymore, especially with our parents gone for a while. Besides, Leslie was starting to feel more nervous as it grew dark, and she made sure to lock the door after we all got inside.

Gale and I were putting things away when we heard a short shriek coming from Leslie’s room. We both dropped what we were doing and ran to see what happened. She had her light off, and she was covering her mouth with her hands. She whispered for us to be quiet, to come over to the window, and to leave the light off!

It took Gale and me a few seconds for our eyes to adjust to the darkness outside. When they finally did, we saw it, a tall, dark figure, practically black against the well-lit night. It stood there for a moment, then crouched down next to the shoreline. With a swift movement of its right arm, it seemed to grab something and then bring it up to its face.

“Frogs,” I whispered. “It’s eating frogs or pollywogs.” The girls nodded their heads in agreement.

Gale has allergies, and sometimes they can come on in an instant. They did that moment as well, unfortunately. She sneezed. She tried to cover her mouth, but that thing still heard her!

It stood up and turned towards the cabin!

That thing had to be, looking back now, at least eight feet in height, broad at the shoulders, and blacker than the night that surrounded it. Its head seemed huge, pointed on top, and in the ambient light that was available, its eyes seemed to glow a brilliant and shimmering green.

We instantly ducked down, leaving only our eyes and the tops of our heads above the windowsill. That thing suddenly and deliberately started walking towards us! My sister, Gale, grabbed my hand and squeezed it so hard it almost ached. We both heard Leslie. She was whimpering, and her breathing became erratic.

It stopped about ten yards or so from the back of the cabin. We could hear it breathing by that point. It was a deep, guttural type of breathing I recall, as if this thing’s lungs were the size of backpacks.

My sister, Gale, motioned for us to follow her and to stay low. We crawled out of the room and headed for the living room. She turned off the lights on her way, all but the living room and kitchen lights, of course. It was then that things got a bit crazy.

I almost let out a scream when it happened. A loud ‘whack!’ came from the back of the cabin, as if that Bigfoot monster-thing slapped the side of it hard. It echoed throughout the place. As I said, I practically screamed from sheer terror. Leslie practically collapsed on the floor. Gayle and I pulled her closer to us, as we all huddled in front of the living room couch.

Gale, however, seemed to stay as cool as ice. She told me to sit on the couch as she locked the front door. Again, another slap on the outer wall shook Leslie and me to the bone. Then there came a sound that I will never forget!

Two very short, but high-pitched screams penetrated the walls: ‘whaah, whaahh!’ It was so loud and guttural that it felt as though it vibrated right through you. Leslie seemed to have passed out from fear by that point, and I was feeling like I was starting to shut down. I wanted to curl up in a ball myself and hide as far away from this thing as possible.

I looked out the back window in the kitchen, and that is when I saw its face. It was very ape-like, except for the eyes, which still had a green glint, and they were large. The top of its head did seem to come to a point. The face was mostly covered in dark black hair.

I pointed at it. Gale gasped and ducked down beside me. It stood there for nearly thirty seconds, give or take, then turned and walked off. Another sound came; this one sounded more like a sharp, loud bark followed by a deep grunt. It was as if this thing was annoyed.

It fell dead quiet in the cabin; no sounds of crickets, only the hum of the refrigerator. We could hear it walking off towards the pond. That thing had to weigh a ton because we heard every step it took. Leslie, however, seemed to have gone into shock. She was rocking back and forth against the couch, with her arms wrapped around her legs, shaking uncontrollably.

Then the door flung open, and this finally set me off. I screamed so loud my mom almost had a heart attack as she ran through the living room and pulled Leslie and me into her arms. My parents were home, and we were all safe.

The End of Summer.

They’d heard the loud barking-like sounds and knew they were coming from the direction of the cabin. Dad started running at that moment, and my mom followed suit. Both said they were frantic and ran as fast as they could to get to us.

My dad had never heard anything like that in the woods of the Pacific Northwest before; that is what had him so startled and suddenly worried, heck, even scared for us.

Leslie never set foot out of that cabin until we were packed and heading home the next morning. She does not camp there to this day. She moved to Arizona with her husband. She wanted to move as far from these woods as she could, she stated later.

Gayle, from time to time, brought up that night with me through the years. She never did talk about it in front of Mom, though. Leslie passed away at the age of forty-two, as I said. She was so young. We miss her horribly. My mom, to this day, tears up just looking at a picture of her.

I remember that night like it happened yesterday, and I recall how Gayle kept us together and as safe as possible. She was like that, the perfect older sister any little brother or sister could ever be blessed with.

That is my story, thanks.

Brandon

Feature image by David.