Surveyors, prospectors, timber cruisers, rockhounds, hunters of every type- cats, bears, elk, sheep, deer, mushrooms, birds, etc, fur trappers, thru-hikers, Rock scramblers and mountain climbers, botanists (ever read about some of the hikes that David Douglas went on? How about that poor bugger John Day?), desperados and the men that chased them, snowmobilers, ice climbers, etc etc etc. The list is nearly endless.
As dear and important to our Western psyches as true wilderness is, I believe ALL of the PNW has been walked on. Sure there are some small pockets that are less often visited.. and even less often than that talked about by the guys that regularly hunt them, but still..
Geno, More than 40 years ago I was getting out the old 1950s topos of our beloved High Sierras and looking specifically for small lakes that had no name and no trail associated. I'd spend a couple of weeks each summer building a x-country loop trail of my own to visit these places. If *I* was doing it... Well... I'm sure it wasn't the only fella that came up with the idea.
Because someone "walked" there at one point in time doesn't mean that Bigfoot doesn't exist. What if it was hiding from that person that walked there at one point in time or what if it was a mile away from where someone walked at one point in time?
Hunters have walked past way more than one smart old buck that was bedded a few feet away.
I really lean on the side of skeptical that they exist even with all the reported encounters but saying something doesn't exist because a human walked through it's habitat is not much of an argument.
For me, it was eye opening when I flew in a plane over the Rockies for the first time at 35,000 feet. We humans are mere spec's on this planet.
