On the morning of November 12th, 2005, I traveled to Bass River State Forest in the Pine Barrens region of southern New Jersey. I was joined there by fellow NESRA researcher David Girard who met me at the park office. Our trip that day had a dual purpose. We wanted to visit the exact location of the previous sighting of two Sasquatch/Bigfoot creatures in the park which took place on September 29th, 2003. (Click HERE to read the 2003 report.) We also wanted to look for any signs of possible recent activity in the area. The weather was perfect for a hike that day; sunny skies with temps in the lower 60’s with a light wind at about 5 mph.

Forest Entrance	Pine Barrens	Wild Berries

I arrived at the park office at 9:00 am and went inside to get maps of the campsites and trails there. As I was sitting in my car examining the trail maps David G. arrived. We exchanged greetings and proceeded to examine the maps together to decide a plan of action for the day. We decided we should visit the location of the 2003 sighting first because it was very close to the park office. After doing this we would hike the trails to look for any signs of possible recent Sasquatch/Bigfoot activity in the area.

With our plan decided we left the office and drove the short distance to the parking lot in the area where the sighting took place. As soon as we had parked and exited our cars the sighting location was immediately in view. The exact location where the 2003 sighting took place is a swing set located in the Swimming Beach Complex of the Lake Absegami Recreation Area. This area is located on the eastern shore of the lake surrounded by the campsites of the park. The swing set lies between the parking lot and the many tables and barbeques which make up the picnic area, approximately 60 feet west of the parking lot.

With our cameras in hand, we walked the short distance to the swing set sighting location. We noted how close the swing set was to the parking lot as well as to the picnic area and the large building which sits facing the lake. The distance from the swing set to the closest table in the picnic area is only approximately 25 feet while the distance to the large building is approximately 100 feet. The swing set sits literally at the edge of the woods. The first few trees and scrub brush of the woods begin only 10 feet from the swing set. There is also a small inlet area just beyond the edge of the woods where the lake comes in to within 25 feet of the swing set.

2003 Sighting Area	2003 Sighting Area	Lake Inlet

David and I began to explore and take pictures of the immediate area around the sighting location. We checked out an area just northwest of the swing set where the land juts out into the lake forming a small peninsula. The whole area north and west of the swing set is lake front beach. The ground in this area is soft sandy soil and readily shows footprints and other impressions. We checked the area for any type of large tracks or impressions but nothing was found. We also investigated the edge of the woods around the swing set and at the muddy edge of the lake in the inlet area just north of the swing set but no large impressions or tracks were found here either. It doesn’t appear that there has been any recent activity in this immediate area as we were unable to find any possible signs of activity.

We then decided to leave the sighting area to begin exploring the trails we had chosen from the map of the area. The area we decided to investigate was located approximately 6 miles northwest from the Lake Absegami Recreation Area where the northwestern edge of Bass River State Forest meets the wilderness of the Pine Barrens. There are no buildings or other signs of human habitation for miles in any direction from the trails we were hiking through. This area is virtually untouched, pristine wilderness. There are no campsites in the area and the only people who use the network of trails there are probably hikers, hunters and the occasional off-road enthusiast. Most of the trails we saw in the area during our hike are accessible by truck or ATV. Only a few trails were too narrow for any type of vehicle traffic.

The surface of the trails in the area is a mix of soft sandy type soil and harder packed dirt. Most of the trails were partially covered in dead pine needles, sticks and other debris blown across the trail from the surrounding Pine Barrens scrub. The dense brush came right up to the edge of the trials and limited our off trail visibility to 10 – 20 feet in most areas and less then 10 feet in some areas. There were signs of a plentiful deer population in the area. We found deer tracks on virtually every section of every trail we hiked as we searched the area for signs of any possible larger tracks or impressions. As we hiked into the Pine Barrens, David and I had our digital still cameras in hand and I was also recording our entire hike on video. I wanted to have the video rolling constantly to record anything we might see or hear as we searched the network of trails.

Trail Picture	Trail Picture	Area Impressions Found

On the first trail we searched, approximately 1.5 miles southeast from our starting point, we found what appeared to be three or four “footprint shaped” impressions. David was out in front scanning the ground ahead for any type of tracks or unusual impressions on the trail. I was following him as I constantly panned the video camera left and right into the surrounding brush. He suddenly stopped and pointed to the ground at his feet. At first glance it was very hard to see the impression he had found because of the layer of dead pine needles covering most of the trail. After a few seconds of staring at the ground I was able to look through the pine needles and see what he was pointing at. There appeared to be a large “footprint shaped” impression in the soft sandy soil of the trail. As we scanned the area we found two more matching impressions and possibly a fourth. Each impression measured approximately 12 inches long but lacked any real detail, except that they were all roughly in the shape of a footprint. There were no individual toes evident in any of the impressions but they all had a depressed area in the front and back sections. The depressed areas were set deeper into the soil as if they were made from toes and a heel. In the center portion of the impressions the soil was either slightly raised or level with the surrounding soil. We noticed that the first three imprints were in  line with each other. Then we noticed something unusual about these simple impressions, there appeared to be quite a distance between them.

Area Impressions Found	First Impression	Second Impression

I got my tape measure out of my backpack and we confirmed the distance between the first two impressions as being unusually long. We measured the distance between the impressions, also known as the step length, and we were surprised to find it was almost exactly five feet. David is a big man who stands 6’6” tall and weighs about 270 lbs. He attempted to equal the apparent step length between the first two impressions and could just barely stretch his legs long enough. He was so stretched out that he almost fell over and could never have walked this way at all. He was only able to equal the distance by standing with his legs stretched to their absolute maximum length. The apparent five foot step length made the discovery of the impressions all the more interesting. We also found a fourth possible impression at the same location as the first three but this impression wasn’t exactly like the others. This one wasn’t nearly as deep in the soil as the other three were and the outline was even less clearly defined. We thought it was possible that it might have been made at the same time as the other impressions but it just didn’t quite match. This possible impression was on the edge of the trail where there were some broken branches and other bits of wood debris on the trail. The possible impression was directly on this wood debris so this may have been the reason that it didn’t quite match the other impressions. There was a slight depression in the front edge of the possible impression but the back portion where the bulk of the wood debris was didn’t show any really noticeable depression in the soil. Because of this we can’t say with any degree of certainty if this was a fourth matching impression or not. We also don’t know what made these impressions on the trail, but they did get our attention.

Third Impression	Step Length	Step Length

We continued to search the trails in the area for any other large or unusual impressions. The only other large impressions we found that day appeared to have been tracks left behind by a horse ridden through the area recently. As we hiked along the trails we would stop and listen at regular intervals for any unusual sounds. A few times while we were hiking we did hear something moving in the brush and we immediately stopped to listen more closely. Most of the time the noises weren’t very loud and we thought it was probably a small animal like a bird, a mouse or a squirrel. We did hear a louder noise coming from the brush in one area that sounded like a much larger animal. We couldn’t see what it was because of the dense scrub along the trail but we guessed that it was probably a deer as there were so many of them in the area. We never smelled anything unusual or felt like we were being watched at any time during our hike.

I think that this area is a perfect potential habitat for Sasquatch/Bigfoot creatures because of the vast tracts of undeveloped Pine Barrens wilderness, the abundant wildlife there including both smaller and larger animals like deer and bears, and the many accessible water sources in the form of lakes, streams, ponds and marshland in the area. I found wild berries growing on many bushes in the area which could be part of a potential food source for these creatures. There are many different small animals like mice, frogs, fish, rabbits, squirrels etc in the area as well which could also be potential food sources. I would imagine that if it’s possible for large carnivores like bears to survive there that it should be possible for large, omnivorous bi-pedal primates to live there too. I think that the generally soft surface of most of the trails in the area and the muddy areas around the marshlands might possibly yield a good clear track eventually if these creatures do in fact live there. I plan on returning to the area again in the future to explore the trails more completely and to search for any possible tracks or other types of trace physical evidence.