Bluff Creek
To get to Bluff Creek in upper Northern California from Yakima Washington in 1967, Bob Gimlin needed to navigate his pickup truck and trailer packed with quarter-horses through winding mountain roads. On one side of the bumpy and slow road was a steep drop down to a river, on the other side was a rocky cliff face.
State Highway 96 was not paved its entire length. It followed the Klamath River into the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, crossing into Del Norte County through the very small towns of Yreka, Weitchpec, Orleans and Happy Camp, and Willow Creek.
Bob Gimlin and his passenger, Roger Patterson, had entered Bigfoot country. The area was well-known for Bigfoot sightings, an abundance of footprint trackways, as well as the occasional UFO encounter. Bigfoot investigators had been active in the region since the 1950s. Activity increased through the late 1960s as logging camps and town populations pushed further into the coastal wilds, disturbing Bigfoot’s upper Northern California wilderness habitat.
Back then, of course there was no internet for people to connect to discuss sightings reports. The locals were aware of Bigfoot through newspapers, word of mouth, the strong regional folklore, and personal encounters. The existential Bigfoot would finally reveal itself in 1967 through the Patterson-Gimlin Film but it was not until 1977 that the PGF would receive television broadcast coverage. Read about it on my free Substack.