Burst Rock, Stanislaus National Forest

In September of 2000, my 15 year old daughter and I found a large clump of strange looking hair while we were on a hike in a remote area of the Sierras.

The hairball was lying at the base of a large rock. We were very near the top of a formation known as Burst Rock when we found this hair.

Burst Rock is in the "Emigrant Wilderness" about a half-hour drive from the Dodge Ridge Ski Area (Stanislaus National Forest, California. It is in a rather remote area.

The last portion of the road to the trailhead is dirt. The hiking trail takes you to an elevation of 9,161 ft. There were still trees were we found the hair but the ground was very rocky and there was no grass.

We thought the 9,100-foot level was rather high for the hair to have come from any domestic animals that were allowed to roam the National Forest. There were no bones or skin around the hairball. We were there just a couple of weeks before the first snow.

The closest town is Strawberry. We found out later that there have been Bigfoot sightings in the Strawberry area over the years. The attached picture gives you an idea of how large the total hair mass was.

If you would like a sample of the hair for possible identification or testing, I would be happy to send some of it to you. (The hair could easily be pica, marmot or rabbit, ...Short)

Dan Hartshorn

Report logged by Bobbie Short, Wednesday, June 13, 2001 9:55 PM