The Encounter In Glacier National Park -The Weight Of The Boughs

The Encounter In Glacier National Park -The Weight Of The Boughs
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was early September and the air in Glacier National
Park was crisp with the promise of autumn. My friend
Sarah and I decided to take a long weekend to
explore this stunning wilderness, drawn by its majestic mountains and
pristine lakes. We had just spent weeks planning our route,

(00:20):
pouring over maps, and reading about the best trails, but
nothing could prepare us for the adventure that awaited us.
We began our journey at dawn, the sun just peeking
over the horizon, casting a golden hue over the dense forest.
The trail we chose wound through towering pines and vibrant

(00:42):
wild flowers, leading us deeper into the heart of the park.
The sounds of the forest enveloped us, birds, tripping leaves,
rustling in the gentle breeze, and the distant rush of
a waterfall. As we hiked, we discussed every thing, from
our favorite books to our dreams for the future. We

(01:04):
were both free spirits, craving adventure and connecting with nature.
The further we went, the more we felt like we
were leaving the world behind. Our phones had no signal,
and that suited us just fine. We were here to escape.
After a few hours of hiking, we found a secluded

(01:25):
spot by a sparkling lake, its surface reflecting the surrounding
peaks like a mirror. We decided to take a break,
enjoying our pack lunches while soaking in the breathtaking view.
As we sat there, a sense of peace washed over us.
But there was something else too, a strange feeling that

(01:46):
we were not alone. After finishing our lunch, we explored
the area a little more. As we walked along the
water's edge, I noticed something odd. There were large, unmistakable
foot prints in the mud. They were enormous, much bigger
than any human footprint I'd ever seen, and they seemed

(02:07):
to lead us away from the water into the dense underbrush. Sarah,
come look at this, I called, crouching down to examined
the prints more closely. They were splayed wide, with deep
impressions that suggested a considerable weight had pressed down into
the soft earth. What do you think made these, Sarah asked,

(02:30):
her brow furrowing as she inspected them. I have no idea,
I admitted. My curiosity peaked. But they don't look like
any animal I know. We stood in silence for a moment,
the only sounds being the gentle lapping of the water
and the distant rustle of leaves. The air felt charged,

(02:51):
as if nature itself was holding its breath. After our
brief exploration, we decided to continue our hike. The sun
had dipped behind the mountains and the shadows grew longer.
As we trekked deeper into the woods, the atmosphere shifted.
The cheerful sounds of the forest faded, replaced by an

(03:12):
eerie silence that sent chills down my spine. Do you
feel that, asked Sarah, my voice barely above a whisper. Yeah,
it feels like something's watching us, she replied, glancing nervously around.
As we passed on, the silence became more oppressive. We

(03:35):
decided to take a different trail that led us away
from the lake, hoping to find a spot to set
up camp for the night. The forest grew denser, the
trees taller and more ancient. Just as we went about
to turn back, the air suddenly shifted again. A deep,

(03:57):
resonant growl echoed through the trees, and it was unlike
anything I had ever heard, low and guttural, vibrating through
my bones. I froze, my heart racing. Did you hear that?
I gasped, Yeah, what was that? Sarah's eyes were wide
with fear. Before we could process what was happening, a

(04:22):
massive shadow moved between the trees. It was fast, powerful,
and it had an unmistakable presence. My instincts screamed at
me to run, but I was rooted to the spot,
staring in disbelief. Then it emerged into a small clearing.

(04:43):
A creature, towering and covered in dark matted fur, stepped
into the fading light. Its face was broad, with deep
set eyes that glinted with intelligence I had never encountered before.
It's a sass much, I whispered, my voice trembling. The

(05:04):
creature stood there, surveying us with an intensity that made
my heart race. It seemed equally surprised by our presence,
but there was an unmistakable air of aggression about it.
It let out another growl, this one louder and more threatening,
and took a step closer back away slowly, Sarah urged,

(05:27):
her voice shaking. We did as she said, moving backward,
trying to maintain eye contact with the creature. It watched
us intently, its muscles coiling like a spring ready to pounce.
The forest was silent except for our hurried breaths and
the low rumble of the sasquatch's growl. Suddenly it lunged forward.

(05:50):
An instinct kicked in. We turned and ran, the sound
of our panicked footsteps echoing in the stillness of the forest.
I glanced back to see the sasquatch chasing us, its
massive legs propelling it forward with terrifying speed. Run don't
look back, I yelled, adrenaline coursing through my veins. We

(06:13):
bolted through the underbrush, branches scratching at our arms and legs.
The forest blurred around us, the only focus being the
thundering footsteps behind us. I could feel the ground tremble
with every step the creature took. As we sprinted, I
could hear the sasquatch growling, a deep, primal sound that

(06:37):
echoed in the night. It was closing in, and I
could feel the panic rising in my chest. We needed
to find a way to escape. We burst into a
small clearing and I spotted a cluster of large boulders
over there. I shouted. We raced toward the rocks, hoping
they would provide some shelter. We scrambled behind the b

(07:00):
our breaths coming in raging gasps. The growling had stopped,
and an eerie silence enveloped us once again. We pressed
ourselves against the cold stone, straining to hear any sign
of the creature. Minutes felt like hours as we held
our breath, waiting for the sasquatch to find us. But

(07:22):
the only sound that reached our ears was the rustling
of leaves in the wind. I wrisked a glance around
the rock, but saw nothing. Do you think it left,
Sarah whispered, her voice trembling. I don't know, I replied,
trying to keep my own voice steady. We can't stay here.

(07:42):
We need to find a way back to the lake.
Just as we started to discuss our next move, a
loud crash reverberated through the clearing. The sasquatch had returned,
and it was furious. It led out a roar that
shook the very ground beneath us, and I fell. An
icy grip of fear tightened around my heart. We have

(08:04):
to go now, I exclaimed, pulling Sarah to her feet.
We sprinted away from the rocks, darting into the trees.
The forest was our ally, providing cover and obstacles to
slow the creature down. We zigzagged through the underbrush, desperately
trying to outpace it. As we ran, I could hear

(08:27):
the sasquatch crashing through the trees behind us. It was
gaining ground, and I could feel despair creeping into my heart.
We need to find a way to lose it, I panted,
glancing over my shoulder look. Sarah pointed to a narrow
ravine up ahead. We can hide there. We veered toward

(08:47):
the ravine, hoping it would offer some protection. We scrambled
down the steep slope, the loose rocks slipping beneath our feet.
At the bottom, we pressed ourselves against the rough walls,
trying to catch our breath. The growling had stopped again,
but the tension in the air was palpable. We listened intently,

(09:09):
hoping to hear the creature moving away. Instead, we heard
heavy footsteps approaching the edge of the ravine. Panic surged
through me. We were trapped. The sasquatch peered over the edge,
its massive silhouette blocking out the moonlight. It let out
a deep grunt, and I felt my heart race stay quiet,

(09:32):
I whispered, desperate to keep Sarah calm. We huddled together,
our backs pressed against the cold rock. The creature leaned down,
its eyes scanning the darkness. It let out a low growl,
seeming to sense our presence despite our silence. Suddenly it

(09:53):
lunged down into the ravine and we scrambled to the side,
barely avoiding its massive hand. The creature landed with a thud,
and we could see its eyes glinting in the dim
light as it turned toward us. Run I shouted, and
we dashed at the side, narrowly avoiding its grasp. We

(10:13):
sprinted along the ravine, adrenaline propelling us forward. The sasquatch
was close behind, its heavy footsteps reverberating through the earth.
As we reached the end of the ravine, we spotted
an old, fallen tree bridging a small gap. Over there.
Sarah yelled, pointing. We dashed toward the tree, launching ourselves

(10:37):
over the gap. Just as the sasquatch reached us. I
felt the rush of air as it swiped at me,
missing my inches, I stumbled on the other side. We
didn't stop to catch our breath. We kept running, not
daring to look back. The forest was a blur again.
As we sprinted through the trees, the sound of the

(11:00):
wilderness returned as the sasquatch faded into the distance. After
what felt like an eternity, we finally reached the lake again.
The moon hung high in the sky, casting silver light
on the water. We collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath,
our hearts racing. We made it. I panted, relief flooding

(11:23):
over me, but the fear still lingered, and I couldn't
shake the image of the sasquatch from my mind. As
dawn broke over the horizon, we sat by the lake,
the Knight's events replaying in our minds. We were shaken,
but alive, grateful to have made it through the encounter.

(11:45):
We need to head back to the trailheads, Sarah said,
her voice steadying, we can't risk running into that thing again.
I nodded, knowing she was right. The wilderness was beautiful,
but it held secrets we couldn't understand. As we packed
our gear, I glanced back to the dense trees, wondering
about the creature we had encountered. Was it truly a

(12:08):
sasquatch or was it something else entirely. We began our
hike back, the sun rising higher in the sky, illuminating
the landscape. The memories of the encounter would haunt us,
but it also sparked a sense of wonder. There were
still mysteries in the world, and sometimes they were best

(12:30):
left unexplored. Years later, the experience remained etched in my memory.
I often returned to Glacier National Park, drawn by its
beauty and the thrill of the unknown. Sarah and I
would recount our story to friends around campfires, the legend
of the sasquatch living in our tales. Though we never

(12:53):
encountered the creature again, the wildness of the park remained
a part of us, a reminder that there are forces
in nature far beyond our understanding, and perhaps, in the
quiet moments of the forest, the sasquatch still watched from
the shadows, a guardian of the secrets hidden within the wilderness.

(13:29):
In the coves of southern Ohio, where the Hawking Hills
bleed into West Virginia's shadowed hollers, Elias Rowe had carved
out a life as narrow as a deer trail, Once
a mill hand with a laugh that carried over the river.
He'd been whittled down by loss. First his wife Clara,

(13:51):
taken slow by the cough that settled in her lungs
like river mud after a hard rain. Then three years ago,
their ten year old boy Sam gone in a screech
of twisted metal on a rain slick country road. Elias
had been driving that old station wagon home from town,

(14:12):
apples from the market spilling across the dash like bloody accusations.
He walked away with scars like lightning forks down his arm.
Sam did not. After the funerals, Clara under the hill,
Sam beside her in a coffin too small for forever.

(14:35):
Elias sold the house in town and retreated to a
sagging cabin on ten acres of forgotten farmland. He was
a hermit now, but kind folks crossed the road to
avoid his days a rhythm of chopping wood and staring
at the dirt. In the spring, after Sam's store had

(14:56):
weathered its first frost, Elias planned nanted an apple tree
in the yard's softest corner, a golden delicious like the
ones Clara baked into pies and had filled the house
with cinnamon ghosts for her. He muttered to the sapling,
patting the soil like a fevered prayer, and him so

(15:19):
something grows where nothing will. The tree took root, stubborn
his grief by its third fall, branches heavy with fruit
that glowed like lanterns. In the dusk, Elias noticed the
signs apples vanishing, not the windfalls scattered by squirrels, but

(15:41):
the high ones plucked clean without a bruise, footprints too
wide is His forearm pressed into the dew like a man's,
but deeper, with toes splayed like roots seeking water. At first,
he strung bells on twine and slept within his shotgun

(16:01):
by the bed, but the bell stayed silent, the thief
polite in its Pilfering. One evening, as the sun bled
orange through the leaves, Elias sat on his porch rocker
with a jar of Clara's preserved cider, warm not strong
enough to blur the edges, and waited. It came at twilight,

(16:26):
a shape unfolding from the tree line, like smoke, given
form eight feet of matted chestnut fur, shoulders broad as
the cabin door, arms dangling to knuckles that dragged the grass.
Its face, God, that face was a mask of quiet indifference,

(16:49):
eyes dark as well water, neither curious nor afraid. Just there,
it moved to the tree without a glance at Elias,
one massive hand curling around a bough, twisting free an
apple with the delicacy of a lover's touch. Juice gleamed

(17:10):
on its chin as it bit, methodical, emotionless, no grunt
of pleasure, no wary side eye, just the crunch, steady
as a metronome. Elias didn't move. The jar trembled in
his grip, but he held yours. Then he rasped, voice

(17:33):
rusty from disuse. Long as you don't take them all.
The thing paused, apple half gone, and met his gaze,
blank as birch bark. It finished, dropped the cord at
the tree's base like an offering, and melted back into
the woods. That was the first night the little stories,

(17:57):
as Elias came to call them, in the screes rib
he kept under his mattress, unfolded over moons. The creature
Elias took to naming it grog, after the warm slop
sailors swigged to forget storms, returning with the harvest, always
at glooming, always silent. It never laughed at the whipperwills

(18:22):
never flinched at thunder. Elias left apples in a bushel
by the porch. Grog took them without thanks or theft.
They'd sit man on rocker beast at tree's foot, in
a companionship carved from absence. Elias talked, sometimes, words spilling

(18:45):
like sap, tales of Clara's pies, Sam's gap, toothed grin
chasing fireflies. Grog listened or seemed to its breath, a
low bellow in the cooling air. No joy in its eyes,
no sorrow, just presence, a bane for the hermit's hollow. Days.

(19:10):
For the first time since the wreck, Elias slept through
the night, come achrisp October. Elias noticed the limp. Grog
favored its left leg, fur matted with burrs and mud,
the pilfering slower. Elias, who took to whittling sticks into
nothing by the tree, set out a tin of water.

(19:35):
One evening, Grog drank deep, then collapsed nearby, not fallen,
but resting, chest heaving like a forge. Elias approached slow,
heart hammering up close. The heat rolled off like a
summer road, fever high and merciless skin flushed beneath the pelt,

(20:02):
civilization's curse, Elias whispered, thinking of Clara's cough, Sam's last
rattle in the hospital. He fetched cool rags from the stream,
draped them over Grog's brow. The beast stirred once, eyes
glassy but untroubled, and let him. By week's end, Grog

(20:24):
could barely rise. Elias knew the woods weren't mercy. Scavengers
would come, or worse, curious hunters with guns and greed.
Can't leave you to that, he said, more to the
tree than the dying thing. In a haze of resolve,
he backed the old station wagon to the yard, the

(20:46):
same one that acclaimed Sam. Dense in the fender, like accusations,
Grog coaxed with apples and murmurs, hauled itself into the
cargo hold, amid tarps and tools. The drive to the
deeper hollows was hell. Engine rumbled like judgment day, Grog thrashing,

(21:07):
wild claws, shredding the liner, bulks slamming the sides, guttural
wines piercing the cab. Like accusations, Elias gripped the wheel,
white knuckled tears, blurring the road. Easy, old boy, just
to the creek easy, they made a hidden glen water

(21:30):
Murmuring over stones, Elias nursed Grog there for days. Herbs
from Clara's old garden book, Rags rung, cold stories told
the fever's fire. Grog's eyes stayed flat, no fear, no plea,

(21:50):
just the labored rise and fall until it didn't. When
the end came under a waxing moon, Elias wept for
the first time since the graveside. Groc's bulk was a
mountain in death, too vast for one man's mercy. The
world would pry it apart. Scientists, side shows, fools, turning

(22:15):
wonder to spectacle. Not you, Elias vowed. Axe in hand,
he worked through the night, blade biting deep pieces wrapped
in oilcloth, and borne to scattered spots, one under the
apple tree's roots for Clara and Sam, another in the
glen by the creek, the rest in hollows where oaks

(22:39):
whispered secrets. Dawn found him bloodied, broken, burying the last
under a cairn of stones, no markers, no tails for
the town. The tree fruited heavy that next fall, apples
sweeter than memory. Elias sat the porch some evenings, jar

(23:01):
in hand, waiting for the bells that never rang. Grog's core.
He left by the trunk, a small rot in the earth,
feeding the boughs. Folks in town whispered of the hermit
gone madder still, but Elias knew in the woods some

(23:23):
bonds outlast the flesh, and in the quiet. When the
whipper wills called, he swore he heard a crunch, methodical, emotionless,
just there. I bet you thought I forgot. I didn't.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Just had to change my schedule up. Looks like I
might be putting these out on Sunday. Might make a
little bit more sense with my time and having a
full time job. It just it's hard to squeeze it
in during the week, So looks like Sundays might be
when I start putting them out. Before I go, go
check out wear Bigfoot Roams. He's got a new story

(24:05):
out and it is called Tragedy, Redemption and Bigfoot. That's
Dave Overt Wear Bigfoot Rooms great great YouTube channel.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Check it out.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
We'll have a great night.