The Lighter Side: Sasquatch In Wyoming – Are You A Believer?

As my soon to be wife and I drove a road known to locals as “Red Grade” we were engaged in conversation and I was only half paying attention to the road due to our slow speed. As we rounded a sharp bend we both noticed a grayish-brown figure standing next to the road. Dismissing it as a mule deer it took a moment for what we were seeing to register. The animal quickly moved off with a fluid, swinging, gait… upright! 

The speed, albeit slow, of our vehicle had us on the spot the creature stood in the blink of an eye and the forest was quite open in that place but when we stopped to inspect the strange animal it was nowhere to be seen. This was quite unlike mule deer that inhabit that mountain range which normally stand and watch approaching vehicles, especially in the summer. 

“What was that?” my bride to be asked.

“Squatch!” 

“No, there isn’t any such thing.” 

“That was a bigfoot! I know it, did you see how it moved?”

She was incredulous at my quick deduction but I know what I saw and I’m not alone here in Wyoming. There have been almost 30 reported sightings of Sasquatch in Wyoming over the past half-century and more Wyomingites are confirming their belief in North America’s great ape as the national believers in bigfoot percentage has risen 13% according to a 2020 poll by Civic Science. 

Sightings have ranged across Wyoming and always occur in the most heavily forested areas. Park county(Yellowstone National Park) leads the Cowboy State in bigfoot sightings with nine incidents, followed by Lincoln and Teton counties but Carbon, Crook, Fremont, Johnson, Sheridan, Sublette, Sweetwater and Washakie all have recorded Squatch sightings.  

Sightings are nothing new for Wyomingites however and not all of them come from tourists or “forest crazies” either. There have been several reports from professional wildlife managers regarding bigfoot sightings with one harrowing encounter in the Wind River Range that involved WGFD biologist John Mionczynski and a particularly inquisitive Squatch. It seems Mionczynski’s case was not isolated that summer in that particular section of forest as he was informed by the National Forest District Ranger that numerous incidents had been recorded previous to his harrowing experience. 

So when you’re hiking out of the deep, dark woods of the Wyoming mountains this fall and you feel as if you’re being watched or followed… the eyes of the Squatch may be upon you. 

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