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Elbe Trackway

Oh no, I hear what you are saying, but if it makes them happy I can see spending your money on far worse things. At least a bigfoot camping trip isn't going to kill you unless you get eaten by a bear or mountain lion, or fall off a cliff. I doubt either would happen with a group.
 
Jodie said:
Oh no, I hear what you are saying, but if it makes them happy I can see spending your money on far worse things. At least a bigfoot camping trip isn't going to kill you unless you get eaten by a bear or mountain lion, or fall off a cliff. I doubt either would happen with a group.
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And if it does, you've signed a waiver... :D
 
You have to cover all of your bases, there is always some idiot that does not follow directions. :)
 
I still think that committing fraud for personal profit is a fairly despicable act, even if the people you defraud are, to an extent, gullible, willing victims. I don't consider it harmless, unlike a fraud done purely for the lulz.

I mean, opposing that kind of fraud (and worse, frauds that take advantage of distressed people who aren't thinking clearly, like mediums and faith healers) is really at the core of what JREF is all about. The people that Uri Geller defrauded may have been perfectly willing victims, but that doesn't make what he did right, because he was getting rich via his fraud. I don't see how the deliberate frauds that make up so much of the core of footery are any different.

But the Elbe trackway doesn't seem to fit into that category. The fact that the insiders dropped it so quickly means it almost certainly wasn't an inside job, and thus not a case of fraud-for-profit. It looks more like the crop-circle type of fraud.
 
If people are not getting hurt, I see no harm in it. I'm not about to pay MM 500-600 for the pleasure? of camping with him or his organization.
 
Melissa says she had two friends missing in WV. I looked up the locale, and they were BF hunting in an area that has forty inches of snow on the ground. They have been found, but it points out another aspect of the dangers of what FB promotes.
 
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Sounds more like poor individual choices. Not so much bigfooter choices. I've been out and about during some less than pleasant weather, but generally speaking I'm prepared for it if I'm out there. I'm glad this situation ended with everyone alright and perhaps wiser for the future.
 
Footers' so-called research is endless and compells them to go out in questionable weather and circumstances, whereas most others (hikers, hunters, etc.) will postpone their activites if the weather gets bad. I would guess a number of Footers think they're impervious to bad things happening, since they're already usually good at magical thinking anyway, IMO. Not all are crazy like this, but enough are to make for potential tragedy.
 
Drewbot said:
Melissa says she had two friends missing in WV. I looked up the locale, and they were BF hunting in an area that has forty inches of snow on the ground. They have been found, but it points out another aspect of the dangers of what FB promotes.
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glad they were found okay
 
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For decades I was getting myself into extreme danger, which was rather the point of it all. Crashing planes in the wilderness, going through the ice on snowmachine or skiis, on Mt. McKinley at 30 below zero with hundred mile an hour winds, marching straight at three grizzlies who stole my moose, shooting others that attacked me, chased by river pirates on the Amazon, confronted by Shining Path guerilas in Peru...

What I see these 'footers doing is just what the Elbe trackway example shows, or the finding bigfoot episodes: Parking their 2wd passenger cars in a parking lot just off a road with thousands of cars passing each day, walking a few hundred feet, staging/cropping their photos to make it look remote, and very rarely even camping the night. But if so, at a regulated park with picnic table, steel fire pit, manicured lawn, bathrooms, etc.

So I feel pretty differently, that the general strategy is a big pretense and being "lost" and snowbound is merely drama created for just that purpose.
 
In one case Caribou hunting in December and with the lack of light not being able to tell that the lake I was trying to land on was a mogul-infested horror rather than flat. But still I was cautious and creeped down slowly instead of just landing, feeling my way in. I ripped my left ski off, it ricocheted off and bent my wing struts, then ripped out the whole left side of the plane. I ended up attempting a landing on one ski where I could see it was ice instead of snow, and that was a controlled crash. I wasn't hurt in that one.

Another time on a moose hunt it was carburator icing, which happened on an approach to landing on a gravel bar. I bailed out of the landing and for a moment got control of the situation, but in a slow turn out of there the engine quit completely sending me into a spin, nose-first into the ground. I was pretty badly hurt in that one with blood spraying out of my head when I regained consciousness, my ankle extremely screwed up, and arm useless. I had a raft in my gear which I put into the river to make my way some 80 miles to a village downriver but it was whitewater. I couldn't steer in the conditions, with my injuries. So the raft capsized and I spent that night at ten degrees, wet, and not feeling too chipper.

I've lost the motivation to do it now. It seemed like so much adventure before but now just living in a cabin in the woods is enough, not venturing further than my wife can rescue me. But still, I don't need to stage my photos or crop them like these Elbe photos. And there are thousands upon thousands of others living like this or working in logging camps, on fishing grounds, in remote villages etc. Where just day-to-day living is more than the staged bigfoot hunts.

Ironically the thing that tends to happen to us is underestimating your own front yard. You're really focused on a long expedition, packing all the right survival stuff, but on any given day you might just jump on your snowmachine and race off thinking you are going to check out a place you saw from the air. Back in a few hours, hon. And your snowmachine goes through the ice 12 miles from home, but you can't walk back on the track you made because the snow is too light and deep. So you crawl mile after mile on your shins and forearms screaming about how stupid you are for not bringing snowshoes, which brings a wolf in, trailing you the whole way and waiting for you to expire. Can't shoot him because you didn't even bother bringing a pistol. Friends of mine have died doing little day trips, one with his wife and daughters who watched him die in front of them from hypothermia. I fished with him on the Bering Sea, a thousand miles by boat downriver. But he died on a day trip to a lake with his family.

At Elbe there are four to eight thousand cars going by that can take you to the inn a few hundred feet away if you stub your toe. And they're talking about what great habitat it is, how remote, for an undiscovered primate to be dwelling. This is why nobody gets killed bigfoot hunting, but people who actually do live on the edge of the wilderness die on stupid day trips from their cabins.
 
I always enjoy your narratives... Thks for sharing..

I just quoted the ' crash ' comment, because of the way you toss it out like ' just another day at the office ', which of course it was for you..

These Bigfoot hunter clowns crack me up.. You ought to read ( if you haven't ) the details of the ' expedition ' that recovered the Skookum ( elk ) Cast.. A real knee slapper..
 
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Skeptical Greg said:
I always enjoy your narratives... Thks for sharing..

I just threw out the ' crash ' comment, because of the way you toss it out like ' just another day at the office ', which of course it was for you..

These Bigfoot hunter clowns crack me up.. You ought to read ( if you haven't ) the details of the ' expedition ' that recovered the Skookum ( elk ) Cast.. A real knee slapper..
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bolded mine

" We went tens of yards in to the dense overgrowth searching for the magical forest ape. after securing our $2000 dome tents and setting up the sattelite TV Jim pointed out to me a suspicious depression in the mud, hundreds of inches from a rarely travelled,desolate hwy. After Betty returned from taco Bell with our lunch,we hiked back to this depression and after tens of seconds of investigation we came to the conclusion that it could only have been the hind quarters of a SASQUATCH!!"
 
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You know, one must be careful with sterotypes... Back in the late 80's and early 90's I was involved with ecotourism. Sure, when you look at a group, the first instinct will lead you to believe the odds are the "soft" types will be the ones which will get in to trouble. Pale overweight urbanoids, quite often carrying lots of gadgets and gizmos. Yes, you may be right and they may be the ones who will not notice the nest of wasps, lose ballance, become too tired to walk, etc. However, usually they tend to follow the rules and the orders because they know they have limits. Quite often the troublemaker turned out to be that athletic person who's used to hiking, clibing, spelunking, etc. (or claims to be used to it). He/she is so convinced of his/hers awessomeness that believes to be above the rules and with über skills, the real life Tarzan. That's one of the reasons why I believe getting hurt in field expeditions is not the main bigfootery problem. Taking in to account the average profile of the footer, based on the images I saw... I doubt they will get themselves in to more problems than the average hunters, hikers, visitors of national parks, etc. will, because **** happens and sometimes its impossible to avoid people from taking part in to a "Jackass" act...

Oh yes, the worse types are the pale overweight urbanoids, quite often carrying lots of gadgets and gizmos which are so convinced of his/hers awessomeness that they believe to be above the rules and have über skills... Make them suffer, they deserve it, I say.

The real problem of bigfootery is fraud. It doesn't matter if the fraudster is taking just some cents from the sucker. Its wrong, its fraud. And also remember, extract a few cents from lots of people and you'll make a lot of money. Oh, and yes, making money out of bigfoot tours is IMHO fraud too. Even if people have fun at them, its a fraud, because someone is making money out of a lie, a fraud, a hoax - the assumption that bigfoots are real and there's a chance you'll see one at their tour.
 
I bet there's a disclaimer to sign that says "The BFRO makes no claims as to the existence of the creature known as Sasquatch. We merely provide a fun guided adventure through the wilderness where we hope to encounter evidence that will shine a light on this subject."

or something to that effect
 
Skeptical Greg said:
I always enjoy your narratives... Thks for sharing..

I just quoted the ' crash ' comment, because of the way you toss it out like ' just another day at the office ', which of course it was for you..

These Bigfoot hunter clowns crack me up.. You ought to read ( if you haven't ) the details of the ' expedition ' that recovered the Skookum ( elk ) Cast.. A real knee slapper..
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Thanks, I worry about doing too much of it. In the Elbe trackway stories too the narratives are just like the photos: staged and cropped.

If you wrote it with the intention of explaining how to get there, it would be something like "pull off highway where railroad tracks cross on north side of train yard. Tracks are on edge of water there."

That most essential feature of the trackway is the one thing missing from every description by someone who was there: yet every one of them had to be given this description in order to get there. So it shows the universal lie by omission in 'footery.

One story of the Elbe trackway I remember the author making comment about the driftwood he had to navigate and it reminded me of the time some buddies had me take this girl from LA off in the forest, just an ordinary day dragging home a tree for firewood. I jumped off the machine and went a few steps to a tree I had downed and told her to come over and see what I was doing. She said "how do I get there?" There was no sidewalk I guess. I just laughed and laughed, and that's why my visitors had sent her with me.

It is easy to hoodwink that kind of person.
 
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