All about bigfoot

Bigfoot appeared at Schafer State Park Saturday, in historical and contemporary accounts retold by Marc Myrsell, a land surveyor who has been researching the creature for over 30 years.

Myrsell spoke as part of the interpretive series sponsored by Friends of Schafer and Lake Sylvia state parks.

Myrsell was born in 1966 and grew up in a "renaissance age" of the unexplained in pop culture, he said.

As he got older, he realized land surveying skills could help with "research of the unexplained," he said, for example, collecting field evidence.

He started collecting old stories of Sasquatch and reinvestigating the tales.

The story that got Myrsell's involved in the "bigfoot community" happened near Mount St. Helens in the summer of 1924.

A group of miners staying in a remote cabin said they were attacked by rock-throwing, 7-foot-tall hairy ape-men.

"The youngest, a guy named Leroy Smith, was coming back from a spring and there was this big individual coming out of the brush ... and it's a big 6 or 7-foot tall

hair covered creature," Myrsell said.

That was the first encounter.

A few days later Smith sees the creature again near the cabin and shoots. The men inside ran out and pumped around 16 shots into the beast, according to the story.

"The creature either crouched down or fell down into the canyon, which was only about 10 or 15 feet away," Myrsell said.

The cabin was attacked that night.

A massive impact shook the structure, and the men saw "in the moonlight six or seven of these creatures. They called them mountain devils," according to Myrsell.

"These six individuals, all night long try to bust their way into the cabin. The guys blockade the door and the creatures are up on top of the roof trying to beat their way in, throwing rocks and stones," he said.

In the morning, the miners found rocks scattered around the area and huge footprints.

"Later, a reporter visited the cabin and he said he found evidence that something that night was trying to dig under the foundation to get to these guys," according to Myrsell.

The canyon near the reported attack is now known as Ape Canyon.

Myrsell visited the area, east of Mount St. Helens, and discovered the foundation of the cabin in 2013, after five or six trips, he said.

"We found some of their tools, some of their spoons, that kind of thing," he said.

Myrsell wrote a short book about the attack, "Mountain Devil! The 1924 Ape Canyon Attack and its Aftermath."

Investigating these stories and looking for "a physical component that could still be out there" is his favorite type of research, he said.

He also collects contemporary stories and shared some tales of local encounters.

"In Grays Harbor, there's plenty of stories," according to Myrsell.

"Donkey Creek Road has so many stories associated with it that are suspicious and unexplained," Myrsell said.

The road is in a scenic area connecting U.S. Highway 101 near Humptulips with the Wynoochee Lake area.

A woman told Myrsell about a strange incident that happened on a camping trip along the road. She was with her uncle and siblings. In the afternoon, a rock "came out of nowhere, falling near their camp. And then another one. And another one," he said.

"There are these massive rocks being hurled," he said, larger than any human could throw.

The woman and her family packed up and left.

Another man said he and his girlfriend were driving the road late at night. They spotted something by the road and slammed on the brakes, Myrsell said.

"Six or 7 feet tall, incredibly long arms ... and this really prominent muzzle," he said. The couple saw the creature again a week later, when it crossed the road in front of them.

Myrsell shared a few other stories of furry giants spotted close to Ocean Shores and Grayland and then told the audience something personal.

His own bigfoot encounter.

"It was the weirdest five seconds of my life," he said.

It happened in Curry County, Oregon, about 60 miles north of the California border. Myrsell and some friends were trying to find another cabin allegedly attacked by bigfoot creatures more than 100 years ago. There have been reports of ape-like creatures in the area since the 1870s, he said.

"The defining feature of each one of these reports was the creature walks upright but it's covered in not dark hair, but blond or yellow," he said.

When Myrsell was driving by himself down a remote forest service road, something crossed in front of him.

"Why are they wearing a fireman's outfit?" he first thought, he said.

"It was yellow. It takes one step and then as it's stepping, it looks back down from where it had come from, and a second individual in a crouching position comes up," he said.

"Yellowish blond, heavy, heavy brow, no real hair on its face. I only saw it in a profile because both of them were looking down at the ground. They didn't want to look at me," he said.

When he got out of the car the animals were gone.

"The movement was so fast, it was almost like watching a dragonfly take off," Myrsell said.

Myrsell said he had a hard time telling his story without crying.

"For the first seven or eight times telling about what happened down at Thompson Flat in Curry County, I couldn't get through the story without tears coming down my face," he said.

"Even right now I still get choked up about it and I don't know why," he told the audience, comparing his reaction to post-traumatic distress.

"What I saw was so like nothing else I've ever seen."

He encouraged attendees to record their own unexplained stories.

"We have these campfire stories. We have stories that we tell to friends or at parties. But the ones that hold up are the ones where you wrote it down."