Idaho’s Bigfoot Summer: Campers’ Weekend Claims and a Hiker’s Sighting

Idaho rarely tops the Bigfoot tables – the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) lists only a few reports a year from the state – but two accounts from its central mountains drew wide attention this summer. Both were filed with the BFRO, both were rated “Class A” (meaning the witnesses say they saw something clearly), and neither comes with physical evidence that anyone outside the group has examined.

Memorial Day weekend near Lost Valley Reservoir

The more dramatic account is BFRO report #81202, submitted on May 27 by a young woman named Kyera, one of ten campers who spent Memorial Day weekend, May 22–25, in the Payette National Forest about a mile east of Lost Valley Reservoir in Adams County. The BFRO lists New Meadows as the nearest town, and its headline, repeated by the Denver Gazette, puts the site about 16 miles northwest of McCall. According to a Fox News write-up carried by Frederick, Maryland’s 930 WFMD, nearly all the campers were 18 and came from Parma, Idaho.

The report describes a weekend that escalated. One camper said she saw a tall, dark figure behind a tent on the first night but kept quiet until Monday. Kyera herself described something whistling at her from the trees; others reported branches snapping near the fire and, at about 3 a.m. on Sunday, “aggressive and rhythmic” knocking. Later, a young man said he saw a two-legged figure “about 9 feet tall” with “blank reflective eyes” near the camp’s makeshift toilet. After the group fired warning shots and went to check on friends camped nearby, two of the young men said three creatures circled them in the woods; one, Colton, said he shot one of them and then fired five more warning shots.

On Monday morning, the group said, they found broken trees arranged in crosses and teepee-like shapes, prints near camp and handprints on two vehicles. The BFRO page includes a photo of a possible footprint; handprint photos are mentioned but not shown.

They are telling the truth. The only question is whether it was a misinterpretation.

BFRO investigator Matt Moneymaker, after speaking with two of the campers (report #81202)

Moneymaker added that four of the ten had daylight sightings, which does not quite match the written narrative, where most events happen after dark. Nothing in the report says what became of the creature that was supposedly shot – no blood, hair or body is described. As the Denver Gazette pointed out, a group of young people with phones produced no published video or audio, and a prank or campfire storytelling cannot be ruled out.

A lone hiker at Deadwood Dam

Three weeks later and roughly 60 miles to the southeast, Donny Schmidt, a 50-year-old Boise-area store manager, was hiking near Deadwood Dam in Valley County. In BFRO report #81276, he said that around 11:30 a.m. on June 13 he noticed movement on a shaded hillside 60 to 70 yards away. He assumed a bear or mountain lion – until the animal rose onto two legs, looked toward him and walked quickly uphill, out of sight within about 20 seconds.

Schmidt estimated it at 5 to 6 feet tall, with long reddish hair, a bulky chest and long arms, and said he heard deep, pig-like grunts. He told the BFRO, “What I saw was not a bear or any other animal I recognize,” and said he left the next morning. Radio stations KFFM in Yakima, Washington, and KEZJ in south Idaho later picked up the account. Moneymaker called him a credible witness and wrote that he had been an ardent skeptic all his life.

The skeptical view

Schmidt himself compared the animal’s color to a cinnamon black bear, a common color phase in the interior West, and black bears do stand and take a few steps on their hind legs; a large one upright can be 5 to 6 feet tall. A brief view through shade and trees, at more than half a football field’s distance, leaves room for error. The Payette account rests on a group’s shared, fast-moving story at night – conditions in which knocks, whistles and eye-shine are easy to misread and easy to embellish.

We found no statement from the Forest Service or Idaho Fish and Game about either report. Moneymaker wrote that he was trying to set up a group interview with the campers; no update had been posted as of mid-October. Both remain unverified witness claims.