A Visit to Bigfoot Days

I've never been to any Bigfoot-themed event. I think of the Big Guy as a myth, although I want to be wrong. (I have, in fact, put up a $1000 reward to the person who finds the specimen leading to a description in a top peer-reviewed journal.)  But this event was pretty close to me, and I was curious, and I have book to push, I headed north from Colorado Springs to the Bigfoot Days event in Estes Park.  It was, to say the least, interesting, and I mean that in a good way despite my skepticism about our furry friend.  It was about a two-hour drive through fields, mountains, and evergreens - quintessential Colorado. I went through Boulder and a few small towns. (A pretty one called Lyons struck me as the only town I'd seen with more pot shops than Starbucks: a resident told me I wasn't wrong.) 

This was basically a fun event, not a gathering focused on evidence. Cliff Barackman  was the only serious person of note there: the other headliners were from Mountain Monsters, a show that, based on the one episode I saw, did not seem likely to discover a cryptid if it was confined to a broom closet. (My thanks to Cliff for answering a lot of questions in the course of three conversations.) 

Nothing changed my mind about Bigfoot, but I learned more about the people who are interested in it.  The people serious enough to seriously overpay for a Bigfoot BBQ Dinner the night of the 1st (I would have thought there was some Endangered Species Act rule about BBQing Bigfoot, but whatever), were a very friendly bunch with a family vibe.  They were also a reminder that Bigfoot aficionados can't be lumped together and characterized as being a few digits short of a password.  My table had, among other people, a geneticist trying to cure sickle cell, a biotechnology expert, a software engineer, and so on, and we talked about developments in gene therapy and data science and so on. Also, the non-Bigfoot BBQ was superb.  

The Bigfoot Days open-air festival on Saturday drew more aficionados and a lot of tourists (the season is well underway in this gorgeously-sited town). It was a gorgeous Colorado day in Bond Park, with an almost cloudless sky and a temperature in the 50s.  At 7,500 feet, that also makes it a good day for sun exposure, and I got a touch too much despite a hat and sunscreen.

Some 15 or 20 vendors sold everything from T-shirts and footprint casts to popcorn and (for some reason) cutlery. I should have gotten a table: I was really surprised by the absence of authors, with only my friend Lija Fisher there to sell her delightful middle-grade cryptid adventure novels. (Think Jonny Quest with a grumpy mentor and a basketful of cryptids.) There were numerous families with little kids and dogs: Estes Park makes a point of being a very dog-friendly town. 

I bought a cast from Barackman's table that was so unusual I loved it for the sheer oddity: the fingers, purportedly, of a sasquatch that probed into a bait jar of Nutella. The cast (below) showed fingers a bit larger than mine: I have very big hands, but this still wasn't out of the human range. There was also a Bigfoot calling contest. I assume someone invited Bigfoot to judge it, but he apparently declined.

The Park Theater hosted a couple of presentations. The theater is very interesting by itself, being 109 years old, so we writers are required by law to describe it as "the historic Park Theater." 

One was Cliff's "Bigfoot 101" lecture. I'll go over the points we discussed in the next entry. Not only do I get an extra blog post out of it that way, but I think anyone interested in Bigfoot will want to read it. I'd never met Cliff, have seen his show Finding Bigfoot only once, and haven't read anything by him.  So I'll be posting my immediate, spontaneous reactions and thoughts.

The other was the premiere of a documentary about aliens and Bigfoot in the Rocky Mountains, which I didn't attend for  obvious reasons. I think cryptozoology is for zoologists, however speculative, and aliens, apparitions, and so forth are for the parapsychologists.

I also hit a delightful 94-year-old bookstore whose proprietor described it as "haunted, in a good way." I gave them a signed copy of Books and Beasts to sell on my general principle of always supporting independent bookstores. I'd done the same with an equally cute place called The Book Worm on  my way up from Colorado Springs.  

So this wasn't a scientific conference, but it didn't pretend to be. It was focused on talking 'bout Bigfoot and family fun, and I relaxed and enjoyed it.  A final pleasure was that the live band, Shovelin Stone, was really good. (There was supposed to another band, called That Damn Sasquatch, but they unfortunately had to cancel due to illness.)  I didn't get to visit the Stanley Hotel this trip, but maybe next year!

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Matt Bille

www.mattbille.com

Author:

Of Books and Beasts (Hangar 1, 2021)

Rumors of Existence (Hancock, 1995)

Shadows of Existence (Hancock, 2006)