Courtesy of Wikipedia – Glen Eyrie
(eagle’s nest) Colorado Springs
Rampart Range Sasquatch Children
After my very personal introduction to both Sasquatch children and adults at Seven Falls, I was nervous about going alone into the South Cheyenne Canyon near Colorado Springs. It would be two years before I went anywhere after dark.
Eventually, Tom and I, and occasionally other friends, played tactical hide-and-seek in the Glen Eyrie area slightly northwest of the Garden of the Gods. For some reason, I thought we’d be far enough away from the Cheyenne Mountain Canyons that Sasquatches couldn’t find me. It gave me a false sense of security.
Glen Erie is a 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 and invited him to stay for a while. The adjacent property was the celebrated Flying W Ranch, famous for chuck wagon dinners served on rolled metal plates like the cowboys used.
My close friend, Tom, and I would run miles through the wilderness at night through a gully near these two historic properties and the Air Force Academy. We’d hunt each other at night using our cunning and stealth in glorified games of moonlight tag through conifers, scrub oak ridges, and upright sheets and pinnacles of white or red sandstone. We went to the same spot almost every night, testing different strategies and tactics.
Wikipedia – Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs Ho3o’uu Niitko’usi’i (Arapaho)
Suddenly, I heard a noise within thirty-five feet. He’d found my trail, then scurried up at an angle and was just out of sight around a bend. He crunched his way up the side of this gravel hill, 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 quiet, but because he was walking in gravel on a steep slope, the crunch, crunch, smash gave him away.
He stopped right above me, probably ten feet away – right there. I waited; it drove me crazy. Instead of rushing me, he wasn’t doing anything. Waiting in stealth was a weird behavior for him. Very uncharacteristic. His advantage was that he’d usually come right after me without stopping.
After thirty seconds, I said, “Dude, come and get me.” As soon as I finished the sentence, I heard Tom’s howl in the distance. Shit! Oh, my gosh…. That’s not Tom!
By Jamaps – Own work CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97219952
This “being” was so close to me. It had taken the high ground to observe me. I could have stared right into the face of whoever was standing over me, but I couldn’t bear looking into the features of a creature I knew nothing about.
Because of the experience I’d had before in South Cheyenne Canyon, I started panicking. Somehow, in my head, I thought the Rampart Range would be different. Sasquatches wouldn’t be there.
I was terrified because there was a 98% chance that what had 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. Tom would consider it because we’d discussed military tactics and strategies.
Now I was freaking out, but I wanted to be sure I was right. So, I pulled out my phone and called Tom right then and there. ‘Bro, where are you?’ He said he must be a quarter mile away. I pleaded, “Oh my gosh, please, please, please come over here as fast as you can.”
I could have turned my headlamp on at this point – a signal of distress to Tom. Or, 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, even though I didn’t feel any threatening intent.
He’d stopped right above me, behind the brush at the tree, probably ten feet away – right there. Shit!
It was the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, and I didn’t have an easy escape route – not if a North American Hominid chased me.
I thought, right now, you are kind of a monster to me. I don’t know anything about you.
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 to an open mining scar, where I could look across the valley for Tom. I was traumatized, but I was safe – so far. (Below Courtesy Wikipedia’s Garden of the Gods at dawn)
I saw Tom’s silhouette on the opposite slope, which inclined up towards Garden of the Gods type rocks, and couldn’t imagine why he would be so far away. Something was off. He was still a quarter-mile away! I howled, a signal we commonly used across distance, 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 the slope. What was going on! I turned on my light, a sign for Dude, get over here!
Tom saw it and finally came all the way across the valley and up to where I met him. The open mining scar was a desolate hill that was shaved off – mined for gypsum to build the Air Force Academy. We could easily see anything trying to sneak up on us.
I told him what happened, that I was certain I’d been approached by a Sasquatch. He was a little skeptical, but he also had something weird to report. He explained the reason he’d turned around was that as he came closer to 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.
There was adequate light from the stars, city, and moon to see their outlines. So, he thought I’d tricked him with unannounced friends to make the game more interesting. In the bushes at the gully, he briefly saw another figure creeping through the brush. He’d guessed that silhouette was me – that I had double-crossed him with the phone call as a prank to draw him in. He took off to evade the trap, and his howls became more distant. That is, until he saw my light illuminate across the valley.
I assured him there were no other humans and told him about the chill feeling that came over me when I realized it wasn’t him behind me. The only thing I could think of was Sasquatch. My intuition told me that the being didn’t want to cause me harm. It was similar to the way I felt scared, but not endangered during the first encounter – that is, until I became aggressive.
Perhaps this individual wanted to play what we were playing. 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 hide-and-seek, or tag and chase, when we weren’t there.
I’ve run into bears and mountain lions at night, and I did not feel scared. They were dangerous, but I knew what to do. That particular night, I’d been interacting with a creature that wasn’t even supposed to exist. I didn’t know how to operate. I was scared because it was an uncontrollable element, an unknown variable. What would happen if the situation became violent or aggressive? You can’t just go around them like you would a mountain lion or bear if you needed to.
IN RETROSPECT, maybe the Sasquatches looked at us as pets and wanted to domesticate us, lol. Or more likely, playmates.
Later on, near the reservoir by the high school, they’d play with me like I’d play with a kitten. They even sneaked alongside our cars and watched my girlfriend streaming shows on her phone. The Colorado Springs area was the perfect setting for a group of curious young Sasquatches to conduct controlled interactive experiments with humans. They had the advantage and knew the trails. There was cover for concealment and a myriad of safe approach routes to observe and interact with us.
They identified with our games and hoped we might be open to joining them. I stand by that assessment.
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Mateo Arguello Modern Explorer
If you would like to learn more about the areas in this story, or for more about Colorado Springs,
You can purchase a copy of my newest book titled
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Diane Olsen Author, Books, & Stories 