Bigfoot Researchers: Be careful where you tread, a warning/advisary from AAA

AAA posted a warning to all Bigfoot hunters and hikers who like to tramp through the heavily wooded swath forest of nothern California in search of Sasquatch. The Sisquiyou County Sheriff’s Department instructed extreme care during the fall harvest due to illegal marijuana operations. The operations are run by unsavory—and heavily armed—Mexican drug cartel-types, the Sheriff’s Department warned.

“This is a high-dollar, high-risk business, and growers do not care about the safety of anyone out looking for Bigfoot,” warned a post on Bigfootsightings.org. “Be careful when you’re out there squatching.”

From AAA: Road Journals:

Bigfoot hunters: Be careful where you tread

Posted on July 7, 2011 by John Flinn

Make of this what you will, but the heavily wooded swath of northern California we think of as Sasquatch country overlaps to a very large extent with marijuana-growing country.

It makes sense that mountains sufficiently rough and jumbled to hide a large, foul-smelling ape-man could also conceal sophisticated and extensive illegal marijuana cultivation operations on federal land.

Because of this, last year people who like to tramp through tangled forests in search of Sasquatch passed a warning through their ranks. It came from the Sisquiyou County Sheriff’s Department, and instructed extreme care during the fall harvest. Many of the illegal marijuana operations in the national forests are run by unsavory—and heavily armed—Mexican drug cartel-types.

Squatchers—that’s the name by which Sasquatch hunters refer to themselves—were warned that backwoods pot farms typically have a boundary of brush and tree branches piled around them, and PVC pipes dipping into nearby creeks.

“This is a high-dollar, high-risk business, and growers do not care about the safety of anyone out looking for Bigfoot,” warned a post on Bigfootsightings.org. “Be careful when you’re out there squatching.”

Confusing matters greatly, it turns out that one popular strain of high-grade marijuana is actually called “Bigfoot.” According to the Hemp Depot, which markets seeds for growers, Bigfoot is “a heavy production commercial strain” that “smells really, really sweet—almost like vanilla ice cream, with a hint of cinnamon” and “really starts packing on the resin at week 6.”

In case you were wondering, smoking Bigfoot produces a “nice warm Indica buzz, great for relaxing”—according to the website, anyway.

So if you do happen to be hunting for Bigfoot in Humboldt, Trinity, or Sisquiyou counties, you might want to make it clear to anyone you meet that you’re on the prowl for fauna, not flora.

John Flinn’s essay about Sasquatch will appear in July at AAA.com/via.