‘I befriended a Sasquatch’ Woman’s Strange Bigfoot Encounter Story – Part 1
THE HAND THAT CAME FROM THE WOODS
Part One
Chapter One: The Weight of Forty Years
I am seventy-three years old now. My knees ache whenever the weather turns cold, and the long hikes I once lived for are no longer possible. Time has slowed my body, but it has never loosened the grip of memory. For more than forty years, I have carried a secret that weighs heavier than any physical burden ever could. It has followed me through marriages, through jobs, through quiet nights and restless dreams. And now, with the end of my life no longer feeling like some distant abstraction, I believe it is time to let that secret breathe. Someone else should know before I am gone.
.
.
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What I am about to tell you will sound impossible. I understand that better than anyone. I have replayed it in my mind thousands of times, turning every moment over, questioning my own sanity, wondering if pain and fear somehow twisted my perception. But this is not a story about monsters, though it began that way. It is not a story about terror, even though fear nearly consumed me in those first moments. It is a story about the strangest and most unexpected friendship I have ever known, and how it shattered everything I thought I understood about the world and the beings who share it with us.
When this happened, I was twenty-eight years old. I was single, independent, and deeply in love with the wilderness. During the week, I worked as a secretary in a small office, typing letters and answering phones. On weekends, I escaped. While my coworkers filled their days off with parties and crowded bars, I disappeared into forests and mountains, often alone. They thought I was odd, a young woman who preferred silence and solitude to noise and people. They never understood the pull the forest had on me, the way it called like nothing else ever had.
I had been hiking since childhood. My parents took us camping every summer, and while my siblings complained about bugs and boredom, I found something sacred out there. The quiet felt alive. Sounds traveled differently through trees. The smell of pine and damp earth settled into my bones. The world felt both larger and simpler at the same time. By my twenties, I was taking solo trips regularly. I studied maps, practiced navigation, learned survival skills. I was careful, experienced, prepared.
But the wilderness does not care about experience. It can humble you in an instant.
Chapter Two: The Fall
That October day began perfectly. Even now, decades later, I can still see it clearly. The forest was ablaze with autumn color—brilliant oranges, deep reds, glowing golds. The air carried that sharp, clean cold that only exists in fall, cold enough to see your breath but warm enough once you started moving. I had driven out to a remote area I had never explored before, following old logging roads until they dissolved into nothing but trees.
The trailhead wasn’t marked on any map. That was exactly why I chose it. I loved places that felt untouched, where you could walk for hours without seeing so much as a candy wrapper or carved initials in tree bark. I started hiking around eight in the morning, following what was likely a deer trail more than anything else. After a few miles, I branched off, trusting my compass and my instincts, pushing deeper into the woods than I probably should have.
I stopped around noon to eat lunch on a fallen log, listening to birds calling back and forth and the distant rush of water over rocks. I felt completely at peace, at home in a way I never did anywhere else. I should have been paying attention to the sky. I should have noticed the way the wind was shifting, the temperature dropping. Mountain weather can change in minutes, and I had grown careless in my comfort.
The first drops of rain hit when I was miles from my car, deep in unfamiliar terrain. Within minutes, the rain came down hard, turning the forest floor slick. Leaves that had looked like a beautiful carpet moments earlier became treacherous. I moved slowly, gripping branches, testing each step. Then, on a steep slope, my foot slid out from under me.
The fall was sudden and violent. I twisted as I went down and felt something snap in my ankle with a sound I will never forget. Pain exploded through me, sharp and blinding. I lay there gasping in the rain, trying not to scream. When I tried to stand, the pain was so intense my vision darkened, and I nearly passed out.
I knew immediately it was bad. My ankle swelled rapidly, turning purple before my eyes. This wasn’t a sprain. Darkness was coming, the temperature dropping, and I was miles from help, unable to walk. For a few moments, fear took hold completely. I understood, in a very real way, that I could die out there.
But panic wouldn’t save me. I forced myself up using a branch as a crutch and began the slow, agonizing process of moving through the forest. I had barely covered a quarter mile when I heard it.
Chapter Three: The Scream in the Rain
The scream echoed through the trees, long and piercing, unlike anything I had ever heard. It raised every hair on my body. My first thought was a mountain lion—I had heard recordings before—but this was deeper, more powerful. It vibrated in my chest. When it came again, closer this time, my heart began to hammer so hard I could feel it in my throat.
Then I heard footsteps. Heavy ones. Not the silent padding of a cat. Something larger, something unconcerned with stealth. They were coming from behind me. I turned, gripping my branch with both hands, rain stinging my face as I tried to see through the dim forest.
That was when I saw it.
A massive dark shape moved between the trees, easily eight feet tall, covered in thick, rain-matted fur. My mind scrambled for explanations—bear, anything—but bears don’t walk upright like that. When it stepped into a small clearing, I saw it clearly. It was built like a man, but impossibly larger, broader, longer, standing on two legs with an unmistakably human posture.
I screamed at it, my voice shaking, brandishing my useless branch. It didn’t run. That terrified me more than anything. Instead, it walked toward me slowly, deliberately, curiosity in its movements. I stumbled backward and fell hard, the breath knocked from my lungs. I closed my eyes, waiting for pain, for death.
Instead, I felt warm breath on my face.
Chapter Four: The Hand
When I opened my eyes, it was crouched beside me, its face only feet from mine. In the fading light, I could see its features clearly: a broad, heavy brow, a flat nose, a face shaped differently from a human’s but unmistakably expressive. And its eyes—dark, intelligent, aware—were not the eyes of a predator.
Then it did something that changed everything.
It reached out one massive hand, palm up, offering help.
I stared at that hand, my mind screaming at me to refuse, but I had no real choice. My ankle was broken. I was helpless. Slowly, shaking, I reached out. Its fingers closed gently around my forearm, and with effortless strength, it lifted me to my feet. Then, before I could react, it lifted me into its arms.
It carried me through the forest with astonishing care, cradling me as though I were fragile. I should have been terrified. Part of me was. But another part noticed how gentle it was, how it adjusted its grip to protect me, how it moved through the forest as if every tree and rock were familiar friends.
Eventually, it brought me to a hidden cave and laid me down on a bed of dried grass. There, it treated my injury with crushed plants and leaves, binding my ankle with skill and gentleness. Later, it brought food. It watched in fascination as I made fire, as if seeing the process for the first time. We shared cooked fish beside the flames, two impossible companions in the glow of flickering light.
That night, I fell asleep with the creature sitting at the cave entrance, silhouetted against the darkness like a guardian.
And that was only the beginning.
