The Oregon Bigfoot Highway, the quest of all quests.

If you drive the Oregon Bigfoot Highway, at some point during your travels a sasquatch will watch you pass by. At least that is according to the book aptly titled 'The Oregon Bigfoot Highway' by Joe Beelart and Cliff Olson. As soon as I read that line, I knew it was time to plan a trip.

Since I was a kid growing up in the humid, muggy, weird Midwest of America (I comment on the weather because it's hot as the surface of the sun plus the collective heat of all the world's religious hells in Portland right now, where I currently live), I have been intrigued by the mystery of the unknown. I would wake up early every morning in the summers to watch the Scifi channel reruns of the show 'Sightings' hosted by Tim White. I would stay up late and listen to Art Bell or George Noory on Coast to Coast AM on the radio. They would discuss aliens, Bigfoot, ghosts, cattle mutilations, poltergeists, demons, and the Men in Black, encounters with 'high strangeness'.

It's all something we can relate to, right? Who isn't awed by the sublime horror of the first Matrix film? In that sense, we are all attuned to the idea that there is something not right with reality as we perceive it. And these supernatural sightings are an example of that.

At the end of the day, modernism has boxed in our ideas of what the universe is and isn't, what we are and what we aren't, as any older mythology has. In 'modern' societies, most of us are so distracted by fake sport tribalism, fake political tribalism, student loans, bills, work, bills, work, taxes, netflix, the Bachelorette Rachel and her denial of the perfect, man-god sex symbol whaboom!guy, super hero hyper-universes (hello Grant Morrison!), social media, gossip, porn, bills, work, bills, taxes, the ghost of Johnny Depp's career, you get what I'm saying right?

Cue video of hamster running around in a wheel too fast and getting spun out.

Or to quote Pink Floyd, 'we are two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.' We really are limited by what we perceive the universe to be. This is the age of Saturn, baby—the scythe god rendering us all the useless matter of giants. We are trapped, and none of us know it.

'High strangeness' encounters are Lovecraftian cosmic horror because they render the experiencer at a complete loss—to put it another way, it's like watching a television program and having one of the characters turn to you, the viewer, and say, “You! Yes you! Save me, I'm trapped in here!” It's impossible. It's horrifying. It destroys your sense of reality. Your sense of self. But it also has the potential to render YOU free of your 'box' of what is possible.

What if?

That was the first question. And close second is:

How? How are these strange paranormal sightings continuing to happen with no tangible proof? And if you can have an 'experience' yourself, will you be set free of the Matrix?

Currently I live in Portland Oregon, not too far from the picturesque byway no. 5 that is known on the maps as 224 and to Beelart and Olson as the Oregon Bigfoot Highway. It takes you through Estacada, up into Mt. Hood National Forest and the Willamette National Forest, and will deposit the driver into a little town by a lake of the same name, Detroit. It is also a hotbed of bigfoot sightings and high strangeness encounters.

Our journey started around noon on June 24, 2017 and took us southbound on 205, off exit 13 going east, and then southward towards Estacada. It was, as I have mentioned earlier, a hot as the combined hotness of the sun plus the world's religious hells kind of day (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit). Our rented half of a duplex, like so many in overpriced PDX, has no air conditioning, so being in an A/C enabled 2014 Mazda CX-5 was actually a relief.

By the way, check out the back of my car:

Now you know I am serious.

The path down the Clackamas highway, which as the name suggests, follows the Clackamas river up into, you guessed it, the Clackamas river watershed. The hottest weekend of the year so far drew more people than usual out of their homes to relax, raft, and meander in the river. It was also the Lavender festival weekend throughout Oregon.

Emily and I stopped by an Eagle Creek ranch. It was chill. A band played folksy laid back rhythms.

There was lavender soap for sale. Lavender honey. Lavender jam. 

Lavender lemonade. Lavender bath salt. Lavender you-cuts.

Emily purchased a bbq rap from a vendor. I got a pulled pork sandwich. We reclined in the shade of an oak tree as we ate our meals, the band jamming out, the ranch house behind us, the Clackamas river in front. Swallows dived into the dark lackadaisical water of that particular section of the river. Rafters competed with ducks for space in the moving water. I think it was the exact kind of atmosphere that would draw sasquatch in. 

Perhaps before I go on, I should explain what the gentle giants are, to me at least. Though I am someone who has never had an encounter, but I have read several books on the topic.

 

Bigfoot is the Willy Nelson of nature spirits. He's hairy. He stinks. He probably smokes weed. He takes a lot of late night trips to taco bell. He votes strictly Democrat unless it's Hillary Clinton, then it’s Green Party all the way, baby. He’s the nowhere man in that Beatles song. He walks around like a bare footed hippy. He's a nudist. He's covered in hair, not fur, like the burly overweight Eastern European guy who likes to go to hot springs shirtless. He enjoys the simpler things in life. He likes kids because their innocent. He is your lazy cousin who spent his summer living inside a redwood tree with a group of similarly minded nowhere people.

I’m overpaying this hippy thing a bit—I think it’s true, but every truth has a 'but' (just like every person has a butt). Bigfoot, as a people, are actually more like local organic farms that are celebrated by urban hipsters so much. They aren’t afraid to kill deer for food. They aren’t above throwing rocks at intruders (I’m pretty sure bigfoots arent a fan of guns, or fire for that matter). Also bigfoots appear to be voyeurs. There are accounts of them staring at people as they sleep in their truckbeds, peeking through windows into bedrooms as the occupants slumber, even watching human television through same said windows. 

 

Emily, for one, says bigfoots scare her. I don't blame her. They are reportedly 6 to 12 feet tall by eye witness accounts (all we have I suppose). They are physically intimidating. Think of what violence a chimp can, and have done, to people. They are, to our knowledge, exclusively encountered in their own domain, so they always have home field advantage. Though, it is to be said, that often these encounters do happen in the liminal spaces on the edge of society-- homes near the woods, farms with orchards, ranches just outside a nature preserves. Like people, personalities among the sasquatch are likely to vary. They are not all Willy Nelson types—like humans, there are likely to be aberrants. 


Like I said earlier, these fears are justified. But deep down, my perhaps unjustified belief is that to see the impossible would set me free. 

 

Bigfoot are people, if you didn't pick that up. They are as smart or smarter than us.

Bigfoot are also a supernatural people. I do believe they have abilities to communicate with us and each other without words, as in they are likely telepathic. I also believe, if they exist, they are able to enter other worlds through some sort of portals.  It is impossible that they have existed this long without us finding them if they do not have some paranormal abilities.

 

Now things get fun because we drift into the Daimonic reality, the great Cosmic joke. We are entering a new world, folks, where, if you can believe, the impossible becomes the possible. 

Our trip was taking us into the heart of bigfoot country, where anything can happen.

to be continued...