The Wolf Creek Wild Man
A closer look at the Bigfoot of Pagosa Springs…
If you’ve never visited Pagosa Springs, in southwestern Colorado, well…you really ought to.
It’s a charming mountain town tucked away in the southern San Juan Mountains, just north of the New Mexico border and a short drive from all sorts of fascinating places—like Durango, or Chama, or Dulce. Pagosa Springs is an outdoor enthusiast’s dream: there’s something to do all year long, whether you enjoy skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, mountain climbing, fly fishing, rafting, hunting, or just luxuriating in the hot springs and soaking in the natural beauty of southern Colorado.
The hot springs, of course, have always been the major attraction in Pagosa, going back centuries, when the Utes settled in the area and gave it its name—Pah gosah, which some say means “healing” or “boiling water,” and others say merely means “stinking water.” Which makes a great deal of sense, particularly if you’ve ever spent any time in downtown Pagosa, and caught a whiff of the sulfur springs at their most malodorous.
The Utes weren’t even the first to settle in the region, either. The presence of the spectacular nearby ruins of Chimney Rock—a kind of northern frontier or outlier of the mighty Chaco empire in northwestern New Mexico—attests to the presence of human civilization in the Pagosa area hundreds of years earlier.
It’s no wonder. Pagosa Springs is a beautiful place, in a lush and well-watered green gem of a valley overlooked by a nameless range of snow-capped peaks; a kind of oasis nestled between the forbidding crags of the San Juans and the harsh deserts of New Mexico.
And if some people are to be believed, it’s that great natural beauty and wild loneliness that attracts not only humans, but what many think is our shy and retiring cousin as well. I’m talking, of course, about Bigfoot…or, if you prefer, Sasquatch, which is usually reserved for the Pacific Northwest variant, but in recent years has come to be applied generically to the entire species.
Whatever you wish to call it, there are rumors that a big, hairy hominid has been sighted from time to time in the region. It goes by many local names, including “the Pagosa Primate,” the “Wild Man of the Weminuche,” and—perhaps my personal favorite—“the Wolf Creek Wild Man.” The latter two monikers refer, respectively, to the vast wilderness area stretching to the north of Pagosa Springs, and to Wolf Creek Pass (or possibly the nearby Wolf Creek Ski Area).
Now the sightings of the Wolf Creek Wild Man or Pagosa Primate are not very numerous; but they do happen from time to time, and seem calculated to remind the human inhabitants of the area that they aren’t the only bipedal humanoids in town. I tend to think that’s a salutary reminder, by the way, and something we humans often need to keep us from getting too big for our britches.
In any case, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization website preserves records of a few of these sightings, and they definitely reward a closer look.
For instance, one case file (Report #5586), which took place in the winter of 2001, is regarded as a “Class A” report—that is, one which involves “clear sightings in circumstances where misinterpretation or misidentification of other animals can be ruled out with greater confidence.”
The sighting took place in the vicinity of Chromo, Colorado, which is about a half-hour’s drive from Pagosa Springs:
“It was Friday, January 25, 2001. At first I was not even going to go down to the area were I and a friend saw a bigfoot. I was going to finish watching the Pagosa Basketball team play and go home. But a boxing match was on the same night and my best friend’s (not the friend that saw it with me) brother-in-law was going to buy it on Pay-per-View, and his brother-in-law lives in the area of Cromo [sic] and Edith, Colorado. There are always some crazy sightings of UFOs and Bigfoot sightings. I really didn’t believe in these type of things until I saw one for myself.
“We watched the boxing match and after it was over we started to head back to Pagosa Springs on Cromo Rd [sic] and we were almost to Highway 84 when about 20 yards in front of us this thing or big foot crossed and went quickly, almost as if we were seeing things. I didn’t know what to think, so I asked Sammy if he saw it, and he said, ‘What was that?’ We got up to where it crossed and I opened my door to look down on the road and saw a footprint and Sammy opened his door and saw a track too. We both freaked out and I drove as fast I could to Pagosa Springs. We didn’t tell that many people, only the ones that would believe us.”
Now I don’t think there is a “Chromo Road,” or at least it’s no longer called that; there is an “Edith Road,” or County Road 391, which runs from Edith to Chromo, on US 84, and I assume this is what the witness means.
I’ve passed through this area many times, and I can say that the Chromo Valley is spectacularly beautiful—and quite remote. Chromo itself consists of a US Post Office…and not much else. There are also lesser sulfur springs in the valley, and to the east of Chromo is nothing but a vast and unspoiled wilderness, the imposing and unvisited South San Juan Wilderness, dominated by the craggy outline of Navajo Peak.
In other words, the perfect country for a reclusive Bigfoot.
A followup investigation to this incident was performed by Dr. Steven Coy, who attested that the witness was both credible and was an avid outdoorsman—in other words, someone who knew his wildlife, and was not likely to make a shoddy identification. The witness said the creature must have been between eight and nine feet tall, and that the sighting happened around 11:30 at night.
Moreover, Dr. Coy hinted that others in the area claimed to have similar sightings.
Another, somewhat terrifying story (Report #9018) involved three friends—all of them current or former police and military men—who were camping and enjoying the wilderness near the Vallecito Reservoir, located near Bayfield to the northeast of Pagosa Springs, in June of 2004.
In this encounter, it seems the three men were intimidated or “hunted” by three Bigfoot—at least, that’s what they assumed had menaced them. No creature was ever seen, since the encounter took place around midnight, as the three witnesses sat around a campfire after a long day of hiking and adventuring.
The men heard a series of loud, terrifyingly bass-toned howls that seemed to emanate from three different creatures, and gradually closed in on their campsite from a distance of a quarter-mile, before stopping at the treeline to seemingly study the campers from only about fifty yards away.
The vocalizations were loud and resonant—the kind of sounds that only something very large can make. It’s safe to say at this point that the men were beginning to rethink the wisdom of spending the night in the woods:
“We were all pretty shaken. We felt that we had aroused at least three, big things that were communicating among themselves and closing in on us. We were all facing out from a dying fire with weapons and flashlights drawn. We didn’t know if we were being studied or they were getting in position for attack.
“We decided to leave. After some debate, we decided to pack the trucks while one of us took turns watching with flashlight and gun. A few minutes later we were packed and headed down the mountain to the main road. We did not see or hear anything while packing or leaving.”
Unfortunately, the three men weren’t out of the woods yet—literally or figuratively.
“When we got to the road, we stopped to unload our guns and stow them legally in the trucks. There was one house close to the road and after a while the dogs started to bark. I joked to JG that ‘they’ were coming after us. Just then, we heard another set of howls about a mile back the rd. we’d just come down. Whatever it was had followed us and we left immediately.
“We were not sure what it was that night but after talking about the incident quite a bit, we think we had a Bigfoot encounter. It was a remote, wooded, mountain location with a large lake over the hill. There were at least three intelligent beings communicating that sounded loud and large. We had been leaving our scent all around and had been cooking meat all day. No person would be crazy enough to risk getting shot playing a prank on us. The howls were very eerie. Like I said, they were all like the first 2-tones of a wolf howl but much deeper. There was no trailing off like a dog/coyote/wolf howl, just 2-tones. Each 2-tone howl was in a series of three howls that took approx. 5-6 seconds per series.
[…]
“We are not out to hoax anyone. We hope none of our colleagues find out so our day to day judgment is not questioned or ridiculed. This was the first time any of us had seen any of the other ones scared. We just felt that we had to share our experience for what it’s worth.”
Followup investigations confirmed the above account. One of the witnesses explained just how terrified they all were:
“We felt, being ex-military, like someone was flanking us,” KT said. “I felt like we were going to get pinned in. We didn’t know what to do. We were facing something unknown. They, whatever it was, were communicating and getting closer. I didn’t like the odds.”
[…]
“We were just standing there with our hearts in our throats and starting to shake. And I mean we never get like this. Nothing fazes us.
“I’ve been up against armed people before and I’ve never been as scared as this.”
Another witness described that it felt like they were being stalked by the things:
“It was crashing like a deer or elk or something when you get it to bust through the brush. I heard it come over [the] hill. It came down just far enough in [the] trees to where it couldn’t be seen by light. That one started calling and it was answered by the first one a ways off. It couldn’t have been more than 50 to 60 yards in front of our fire. I don’t know any animal at all that will just walk up to a fire making noises”
As to what was “hunting” them, the men figured it might have been a band of young Bigfoot—perhaps some rowdy juveniles causing a ruckus, or maybe as part of some kind of initiation ritual…an attempt to prove their courage by “bearding” humans in their den:
“We kind of thought they might have been juveniles off on their own. That’s pure speculation.
“But from one spot on the hill, you could see straight up into the Weminuche Wilderness. If you needed a winter quarters in the cold season, this would be a perfect place—lots of game, water, and in the summer there’s a path straight up to wilderness. Looking at it, you couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Verdict: Is there an undiscovered hominid wandering in the southern Colorado wilderness near Pagosa Springs? Is the Wolf Creek Wild Man, the Pagosa Primate, the Wild Man of the Weminuche—whatever you want to call it—a genuine cryptid?
Hell, I don’t know. It sure makes sense though.
I know what some people will say. They’ll say it’s all a load of bunk, and point to the infamous video of a “Sasquatch Sighting at Wolf Creek” published by the Pagosa Daily Post on April 1, 2007.
If the date alone doesn’t give away the hoax, the video itself ought to clear things up:
Go ahead, yuk it up—but I wouldn’t want to encounter the real deal, if there’s any truth in that story by the three frightened campers. And I can see no reason to doubt it.
It’s not all that astonishing that there should be strange and undiscovered creatures in this part of Colorado. In the immense, trackless forests of the South San Juan Wilderness east of Pagosa Springs—and not at all far from where our first witness reported seeing a strange figure—Colorado’s last grizzly bear was killed in circumstances that make for a story perhaps even more remarkable than any of the ones recounted here.
After all, why shouldn’t there be an unknown hairy biped of some sort, a kind of cousin-german to man, wandering around in the immense and unmapped forests of southern Colorado? The place is rank with UFOs and secret alien bases anyhow, and it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump from the paranormal paradise that is the San Luis Valley, so it only makes sense that Bigfoot should be skulking around there somewhere.
So by all means, come to Pagosa Springs, and stay for the hot springs, the fishing, the fine food, the excellent shopping, warm locals, and world-class skiing. But if you decide to venture out into the wilderness, do yourself a favor, and keep an eye out for Bigfoot.
He’s the only thing in the area more terrifying than errant grizzlies and Texan tourists…