Backpacker observes a tall, early morning visitor in camp witnessed in Chelan County, Washington

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After arriving at the lake we set up camp and heard screams a couple times that we thought were mountain lions. An hour or two after we went to bed I was still awake because the rest of the group hadn't made it to the lake and I was worried about them. A wind break of poles about 6' tall was beside us and a head was moving along on the far side of it. I thought it was one of our group. When it got to the far end of the wind break it squated down and began going through my pack. This didn't bother me because I thought that one of our group needed something. I said "You finally made it." It stood up and at this point and I realized it was a foot or two higher than the wind break. Between the moon and what was left of the fire I could see what some years later people were calling Bigfoot. It turned and walked away into the night. Update: December 12, 1999. Before I start let me say that although my memory is still quite clear there are certain parts that I am not sure of. I am going to try to get in touch with Glen and get his memory of the night and make sure I'm not forgeting or wrong about any of it. Glen was the president and I was the VP of the Edmonds Junior Sportsmen's club. Our group of about 6 kids and one adult left on a Friday to go to Lake Colchuck. The adult fell into the creek at a crossing about two miles in. We had about four miles to go. Glen and I decided to go on ahead and build a fire so the adult could dry off when he got there. It got dark long before we got to the lake. So dark that we couldn't see the lake when we first got there. We lost the trail or actually the trail ended because we were at the lake. We started circling around looking for the trail. One of us would stay put while the other walked around looking. We stayed in touch by yelling back and forth. Glen found a lean to and we set up camp for the night. The moon started showing through the clouds and Glen went looking around. He came back and said we were just past the lake. I took a pan to go get some water from the lake to cook with. When I was dipping water from the lake I heard screams from the other side of the lake. Suddenly the screams were about half way around the lake. I thought a cougar was racing around the lake to attack me. I ran back to camp and grabbed my .22 rifle and waited with Glen for the cougar to show up. It didn't so we decided to scramble eggs since I dropped the water while running back to the lean to. We decided finally that the rest of the group wasn't coming up that night so we went to bed. A hour of two later I was still awake and saw the head moving along the other side of the wind break. At the far end of the windbreak, about 10 or 15 feet from my feet it squatted down and started going through my pack. I thought it was the adult possibly getting some dry clothes. I said "You finally made it." The thing stood up and I finally realized it was quite a bit taller that the wind break. I realized it wasn't who I thought it was. It was about 7 1/2 or 8 feet tall and wider than most men. I was scared and confussed. Even though the .22 was right beside me I was too scared to move. After several seconds what ever it was turned and started walking away. I woke Glen up and told him to look. He couldn't see anything at this point but we could both hear it moving through the trees. In the morning after a sleepless night I went to my pack and noticed that it wasn't torn but my stuff was all over the ground. The part of the story that seems to make people not believe me is that the only thing gone was the oreo cookies. The package was there but no cookies. I didn't see the thing eat them but I don't know how else they could have disappeared. When the rest of the group showed up I told them the story and the adult said it had to be a bear. Only it wasn't. Someone made some comment about a big foot but neither I or anyone else believed in that. Later that day we were walking around the lake to where the screams came from the night before. The talis slope was formed by some very large rocks. One large slablike stone formed a sort of cave under it. Inside at the far end was some brush and maybe grass. There was hair on the brush that looked to be black. Everyone decided it was a bear den and that was what I had seen the night before. Some years later while working with my dad in someone's house I noticed a magazine with a kind of siloutte of a sasquatch on the cover. I think it was called "The year of the Sasquatch" or something like that. I looked inside on the sightings page and in the Colchuck Lake area there were a bunch of dots. That's when I allowed myself to believe that maybe these things do exist. I also listened to some of the recordings others have made. The high pitched screams very closely resembled the "cougar" screams I heard while getting water.