BFRO #470: Late night sighting by backpacker near Crater Lake

📍 Location

📝 Description

For the past several years, my hiking partner and I have been heading out to the Crested Butte area of Colorado for a week-long backpacking trip. This year we both decided to be extremely aggressive and hike over an expanse of land we'd been eyeing on the topo map since our trip last summer.Because of the vast amount of land we would be covering in 5 days, we decided to acclimate so that altitude sickness wouldn't claim us halfway through the trip. We flew into Denver, spending a night in Boulder. The following day we drove to Breckenridge and spent a night there. Finally, we made it to Crested Butte and spent a night in town before hitting the trails. On Monday, August 21, 2000, we headed out on the trail toward our final destination, Snowmass Lake The trip was to take us on a "loop", a 360-degree trail from Schofield Pass, through the Maroon Bells and Snowmass Wilderness to Snowmass Lake itself. We would then hike from Snowmass to Geneva Lake, then down through Crystal Canyon and back into Schofield. Our itinerary put us at a lake every night so that we were guaranteed water and a little aesthetic value as well. The carefully-planned trip took exactly 4 nights and 5 days.Day 1 was uneventful. The both of us set camp at the base of Maroon Bells in order to complete our acclimation and, most importantly, avoid the clockwork storms and showers that torment the area during this time of year. If you didn't set camp by 5:00 p.m., you were in for a wet one! Day 2 was an aggressive hike through Maroon Bells and to Crater Lake, where we planned to set up camp for the evening. This, however, wasn't going to happen. Due to the lack of rain over the summer, Crater Lake was more like Crater Sludge. The lake was dried up for the most part and swarming with mosquitoes and black flies. Also, there were no sources of flowing water.Without going into a panic, I realized we were both dangerously low on water. Our camelbacks were almost completely empty, and I didn't feel confident filtering the sludge that was remaining in Crater. We could've backtracked to a river about 2 miles up from Crater Lake but that would've set us back tremendously.It was approx. 3:30 p.m. when we both decided we would begin hitting the trail that would take us to our next destination: Snowmass Lake. We both figured that as we went up toward the next pass, we were bound to find a river or stream where we could grab some water and set up camp.After hiking for about 1:45 hours, we hit a shelf that overlooked a rather expansive canyon. The shelf and surrounding wilderness was not conducive to setting up camp but there was available water and the storm was literally minutes from hitting us.We set up camp in the best possible place we could find, then ran down the canyon to the stream and filled our camelbacks. As soon as we returned to the campsite, the rains started. I was exhausted and decided to sleep out the storm. It was approximately 6:00 p.m.At approx. 8:30 p.m. I awoke to silence. The rain had stopped, but a mild misting continued. My hiking partner was propped up in the tent and had passed out while reading his book, awaking soon after I had. Having to desperately relieve myself, I unzipped my side of the tent and pulled myself out to walk up to the trail and find some privacy. It was pitch black and though the sky had started to clear, there was no visible moonlight or starlight at this time.As soon as I stood straight up from the tent to hit the trail, I saw what I could only describe as ___ well, I can't compare it to anything, really. About 70 feet directly in front of me on the trail was a set of large, green-glowing eyes. At first - for a split second - I thought it was a bear but that's when I realized it was significantly taller than I was, and the eyes were larger than any animal I'd ever seen. As a comparison, later in the trip we were camping and had a fire burning when a whitetail deer came into our view. The full-grown doe was approx. 20 feet from me, and looking straight at me. The doe's eyes were no more than one-quarter the size of the eyes of the critter standing 70 feet away from me that I've mentioned above. In other words, the eyes were big. Also, I stand at 6-foot-1-inch and this thing had to be over 8-feet tall.The critter and I stared at each other for a little over 30 seconds before I was able to mutter some words to my partner. The two of us were talking to one another the entire time but I couldn't get him to get out of the tent and help me. I guess, whatever it was I was saying to him was not prompting him to leave the tent and check this thing out with me.NOTE: I also observed two "floaters" at about the mid-section of my observer. These "floaters" had the same green color as the larger critter's eyes, but were constantly moving (in almost a figure-eight). Keep in mind that there were NOT two sets of "floaters" but only one on each side. It's not as clear as I'd like it to be if you consider these to be the young of

🔍 Circumstances

My hiking partner witnessed several events. Please see above report.

🌤️ Weather Conditions

Please see above report for complete details

ℹ️ Additional Details

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🔗 Sources (1)

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