Hoping to harvest some fresh morels, Cheryl and two of her retired friends drove just north of Willow to explore an old, steep wildfire burnout area near the Alaska Speedway. Navigating the tangled, charred "pickup sticks" of fallen trees was exhausting work, so the ladies sat down on a sun-bleached log around midday to enjoy some tea. Their peaceful afternoon shattered when the entire interconnected pile of logs beneath them began to shift and jiggle. Suddenly, the forest went dead silent, followed by a bizarre, low-pitched sound resembling an elephant seal and a terrifying, demonic grunt that instantly triggered their fight-or-flight instincts.
Frantically packing up to flee, the ladies hurried down the steep, tangled hillside. When one of the older women tripped on a jagged branch and fell upside down, Cheryl rushed over to free her pant leg, gripping a canister of bear spray in her other hand. As she pulled her friend free, a loud snort erupted from directly behind them. Turning around, they realized a massive Hairy Man had been standing perfectly camouflaged behind a thin birch tree just twelve feet away. When the towering entity snorted again, Cheryl unloaded the entire canister of bear spray directly into its face. The blinded creature wiped its massive hands across its face, let out an ear-splitting scream, and violently plowed through the dead timber to escape. The terrifying, close-range encounter completely ruined the ladies' love for the outdoors, and they haven't gone foraging since.
