Wyoming Rancher Breaks Silence on Bigfoot Tracks at Door

The Powder River country of eastern Wyoming isn't the kind of place most people picture when they think of Sasquatch country. No dense old-growth forests like the Pacific Northwest, no misty mountain valleys. Just rolling grass and sage with cottonwoods along the draws and ponderosa pine in the higher folds where the land climbs toward the Pumpkin Butes. But anyone who's spent time following reports knows these beings don't read the maps drawn for them. They show up wherever they want to show up. A video that recently surfaced on YouTube features an 81-year-old rancher named Earl Hollister telling a story he's kept quiet about for over 50 years. It comes from the Bigfoot Sightings Canada channel, and it's one of those accounts that sticks with you long after the video ends. Earl has lived on the same ranch about 19 miles southwest of Sussex, Wyoming, since 1962. That's 63 years on the same piece of ground. In that time, he's found tracks along the Powder River cutbank that didn't match any animal he knew. Not bear, not cougar, not elk. Tracks that looked like a barefoot man had walked there, except the prints were too big, the stride too long, and the pressure too even. He found them twice—once in the soft mud of April 1964 and once in fresh snow in November 1968. He's also heard things. Low, sustained vocalizations from the timber across the river that carried like a tugboat horn across a harbor. Deep tones you could feel in your sternum before you registered them with your ears. Maybe four or five times in those 13 years, always in the warm months, always between midnight and 3 AM. His wife Dorothy heard it twice. The second time, neither of them said a word because some things between married people don't need to be spoken to be understood. Then came the winter of 1971 into 1972. On December 18, 1971, a storm came down out of Canada that nobody predicted would turn into what it did. By 10 PM, the temperature had dropped from 20 above to 4 below in about 40 minutes, with steady 35 mph winds and gusts over 60. The storm raged for 31 hours straight, dumping nearly 3 feet of snow on the level with drifts taller than a man's head behind the barn. On the morning of December 22nd, Earl went out to feed the cows and check on three heifers he'd moved into the home pasture. As he came around the corner of the calving shed, he stopped. There were tracks in the snow leading up to the door. Not human tracks. Not animal tracks. The same kind of tracks he'd found in '64 and '68, but smaller—about 14 inches long and 7 inches across at the ball. The toes were defined. The depth of the impression was about 3 inches into firm snowpack, suggesting significant weight even for the smaller print size. The tracks came down off the ridge behind the shed, crossed about 20 yards of open ground, ended at the south-facing door of the shed... and did not come back out. Earl stood in that snow for what felt like... well, you'll have to watch the video to find out what happened next. This is the kind of first-hand account that makes Sasquatch research so compelling. A rancher with 63 years on the same ground, no reason to fabricate anything, and a memory sharp enough to recall exact dates and details from over half a century ago. The Powder River region has had its share of reports over the years, and accounts like this one from people who've spent their entire lives working the land carry a weight that's hard to dismiss. The 14-inch track size is also consistent with juvenile Sasquatch sightings reported in other parts of the country, where younger individuals are often described as being around 6 to 7 feet tall with more slender builds. If you haven't seen this one yet, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's a story you'll be thinking about for a while.