Bigfoot Days - Estes Park ‘24
04.25.24
If you’ve ever found yourself turning down the lights on a lazy Saturday to watch a Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, you might have gone down the horror-fan rabbit hole about that eerie hotel, then found out the hotel was inspired by the Stanley Hotel at Estes Park, Colorado.
So, it may come as a surprise this little mountain town has been running a festival dedicated to what is, perhaps, America’s favorite cryptid—the legendary Bigfoot.
Making my way through the winding mountain roads of Highway 36, I found myself drawn to what amounts to a home-grown festival that, at first glance, resembles more a farmer’s market than a cryptid festival until you get closer and spot a giant, happy-faced inflatable Bigfoot effigy.
It’s a light, jovial atmosphere within the town’s festival enclosure, rock-Irish-fusion blasting from a stadium nearby and vendors’ tents peddling their wares, that meets the senses. All of this with a scenic mountain backdrop that, on a chilly spring, was sprinkled with the lightest snowfall and a Rocky Mountain breeze.
It’s a family affair, a goofy, toothy, light-headed (especially if you happen on to the Twisted Griffin’s beer on tap) mini-romp in the park. Yet, for a state which is not readily known for strong Sasquatch associations –unlike, say Oregon, the Eastern Board or even the Southwest, this is a welcome lean-to; a sweet, pillowy meetup with the farcical side of the paranormal.
I enjoyed the levity, the respite from the seriousness that I found contrasted in the Bigfoot-Celebrity-Hunter-twenty-dollar-per-autograph-photo-booth –which is a great feat, in and of itself, considering we can’t really point to any trophy-head Bigfoot hanging over the lodge of a bearded mountaineer –and thank the deep-woods gods for that!
Yes, missing from this festival, and perhaps others too, was the gravitas that the sacred lore of the Wildman should evoke and does, indeed, exist in Amerindian oral traditions. Instead, as you graze through vendor tent to vendor tent, you happen on children’s versions of Bigfoot. This is no exaggeration –there was an author whose work was dedicated to rendering the mystical giant from the forest to a Scooby-doo cartoonish figure not a stone’s-throw away from Bigfoot and the Hendersons.
It's all fair, really—and as a legitimate a part of the spectrum of how we process, how gawk, how we celebrate, and share our imaginary foray into this creature’s realm. But, I’d like to see a pivot, a place, a little corner, even, where the spiritual and mythical connections to this land and its First People’s intersect.
In this little corner of the internet, this Phenomena Case Files, we’ll see our way through all these phases of the Bigfoot conundrum –sightings, witness accounts, anthropologist’s take, the Native American perspective, and the wandering festival-goer, too, of course.
As far as the Estes Park Bigfoot Days goes, it’s a great kickoff to my own ventures into the festival season. You come along, too, as I make my ways into previously unexplored terrain, walking on egg-shells (for the time being) around the mighty personalities who visit and who sell their wares at these paranormal festivals.