SC EP:912 The Appalachian Trail Encounter

Lee writes "I’m reaching out because this past September my son and I had a run in with what we believe were multiple Sasquatch while kayaking the Lower Buffalo River, wilderness section.

We were on day 2 of our trip and we were specifically there to fish for smallmouth bass. It was around 4pm when we went through a narrow section and around an obstruction and all hell broke loose. This thing was at the rivers edge when it bolted through the woods like a bulldozer. The crazy thing about it is that it sounded like a pissed off monkey as it ran tearing through the woods.

We went a little over 2 River miles and made camp on a narrow gravel bar. While we were setting up camp we heard a tree knock across the River from us. We joked about it being Bigfoot and just kept on with setting up camp. After camp was established I broke out my weather radio to check our regional forecast for the next day due to a high percentage of rain in our area. After about 20 minutes of listening to several regional forecasts I cut the radio off. Right after that we heard a yell come off the ridge from us close to the tree knock location. Well from that point until 4am all hell broke loose.

We experienced rocks being thrown off the bluff into the river, more tree knocks, the pissed off monkey sounds multiple times, deep chatter, a log being snapped into, and a freaky sound that was like something singing. We had to set up a lighted perimeter and we pulled a cot out of one of the tents and set it up by the fire. We set up a 2 hour fire watch shift where someone would be awake the entire time. When the log snapped just inside the tree line behind us it was around 3:30 am. We were both awake and we decided to break down camp to show that we had intentions of leaving. Everything ended at that point and we were in our kayaks at first light. As soon as we were getting into our kayaks the last rock came flying of the ridge clipping trees on the way down and hit the river.

We were done and got off the river that day. The worst thing about it all was we were on a section of the river we’ve never been on so we weren’t able to run it in the middle of the night. We were stuck between the river and the woods on a narrow gravel bar. We literally had no where to go. I truly believe if we would have done one thing wrong we wouldn’t be here today. There was nothing friendly about that night and it seemed the pissed off monkey was extremely upset that we surprised him and held a grudge.

After returning home I contacted a Ranger friend of mine that put me in contact with a Ranger stationed on the Buffalo River. That was an extremely interesting conversation. I want to let people know there is definitely something on that river and my whole purpose reaching out to the Ranger was for safety reasons. I didn’t want to read about a family getting hurt on that section of the river and me not say anything."