Bigfoot of Cedar Ridge (Campfire Story)

High in the Cascade Mountains, where the cedars grow so tall their tops disappear into the fog, people have been telling the same story for a very long time. The Coast Salish peoples called him Sasq'ets, the wild man of the woods. Loggers who worked those hills just called him the big hairy fellow, and they never left a lunch pail out after dark.

Then, in 1958, a road crew in the mountains of Northern California came back to their bulldozer one morning and found footprints all around it. Human-shaped footprints. Sixteen inches long. A newspaper printed the story and gave the track-maker a name that stuck: Bigfoot.

Ranger Ellie at Cedar Ridge told us all of this our first night at camp, standing by the trading post with her arms folded. 'You'll hear a lot of rules this week,' she said, 'but here's the one that matters. Bigfoot doesn't bother a clean camp. Pack it in, pack it out, hang your food, and drown your fire. Do that, and you'll never even know he was there.'

The Flaming Arrow Patrol thought that was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. That night they left their campsite looking like a tornado had come to a cookout. Candy wrappers in the fire ring. Half a bag of marshmallows on the picnic table. A pot of cold mac-and-cheese with the spoon still standing in it. Somebody's sock was hanging from a tree, and nobody wanted to claim it.

Around midnight, Tyler woke up. The woods had gone completely quiet. No crickets. No owls. Nothing. Then, from somewhere up the ridge, came a sound like a baseball bat on a tree trunk.

KNOCK.

A long pause.

KNOCK. KNOCK.

Tyler shook his tentmate awake. Together they listened as something big came down the hill. Branches snapped. Gravel crunched. A smell drifted through the tent screen, like a wet dog that had rolled in pine needles and then rolled in something worse. Footsteps circled the picnic table, slow and heavy. Something rustled the marshmallow bag. Something clanked the pot. And for one terrible second, a shadow fell across the tent wall: a shadow taller than the tent, with arms that hung down past its knees.

Nobody in the Flaming Arrow Patrol slept another wink.

At first light they crept out of their tents, ready to find their campsite torn to pieces. Instead, they stopped and stared. The candy wrappers were gone. The marshmallows were gone. The pot had been scrubbed and turned upside down to dry. The fire ring had been drowned, stirred, and drowned again until it was cold to the touch. Their trash bag was tied shut and hanging from the bear line, higher than any of them could reach. Even the sock was folded on the table.

Ranger Ellie strolled up with her coffee and looked around. She didn't seem surprised at all. 'People always ask me why nobody has ever found Bigfoot,' she said. 'No bones. No campsites. No trash. Not one candy wrapper in sixty years of searching.' She took a long sip. 'That's because he's the only one in these woods who really follows Leave No Trace.'

Then she frowned, knelt down by the fire ring, and pointed at the soft gray ash. There, pressed deep and perfect, was a single footprint. Sixteen inches long.

'Huh,' said Ranger Ellie, brushing it smooth with her boot. 'Must have been in a hurry. Somebody ought to remind him.'

Storyteller tips: knock two sticks together for the wood knocks, and let the silence before each knock go on a little too long. Drop your voice for the shadow on the tent wall, then brighten it for the morning.

Optional ending for younger Scouts: hold up a folded sock and say, "And this one's still unclaimed."