Brief by Central Staff
Wildlife – February 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Most legends about Bigfoot (or Sasquatch) come from the Pacific Northwest, where there are many tales about giant hominids walking about.
But a long article in the Jan. 14 Denver Post mentioned some Colorado sightings that have popped up over the years, and many of them are around here.
The oldest was an account in the Oct. 28, 1880 edition of the Leadville Chronicle: “For some time past the miners in the vicinity of Grizzly Peak, about forty miles southeast of this city, have reported the presence of a strange animal different from anything known in the mountains. On a number of different occasions a creature, resembling a man, save for the extraordinary length of its arms, and the long shaggy hair that covered the body, has been seen at a distance among the rocks….”
The Chronicle of that era may not be the most reliable source, however. One of its reporters was a fellow named Orth Stein, and in Colorado’s Magic City, historian Ned Blair wrote that “When there was no news, Stein was at his imaginative best. He created a vast cavern north of town, his Cyclopean Cave, complete with stalactites, stalagmites, underground pools, a bottomless lake, and even an underground river…. Others of his enduring tales concern an abominable snowman, a great underground wreck of a ship that seemed to have an early Egyptian registry, and the discovery of a man’s remains with chains about his neck and bowls of food just out of his bony reach.”
More recent (and credible) reports include some big footprints along the Eagle River last spring and some primate howls near Mt. Massive in 1994. Numerous reports have come from the Pike National Forest west of Colorado Springs, and hikers have claimed to see large furry bipedal creatures near Crested Butte and in the Lost Creek Wilderness Area.
But even so, we figure it still makes more sense to worry about bears and raccoons when you’re camping.
