Here is report that a friend made on our last outing on Sunday

Since we have chosen to write off our earlier research area as a "dead zone' for the present, Thomas, Bill and I decided to scout another nearby creek valley this afternoon, one with a long history of sightings, including the famous Ruby Creek "home invasion" of 1941, and a sighting by a bear hunter as recently as 2008, which was investigated by Thomas, who found and cast a large footprint in the mud near the sighting.

We knew that there was a major power transmission line being built through this valley, and across many others in the region, as well, and wanted to see how much of the valley was affected by the construction. We were only 2.5km up the logging road when we got the first clue; 5 large trucks from the utility company came rumbling through in convoy, raising huge clouds of dust, on Sunday afternoon! The lead truck stopped, and asked us to let the others clear before proceeding, which we did, and let us know that they were the last outbound for the day. We continued on to the site of the hunter's report to Thomas, which Thomas said had changed dramatically since that time, as the electric company had filled several acres of a swampy area, to build a large capacitor station,almost on top of the incedent location.

The rest of the day was spent following the roads deeper into the valley, until we reached a high point that gave us a good view of the whole upper end of the watershed, from which we could glass a large area of clearcuts and the powerline right of way, so we stopped to stretch our legs, check the topo map, and let Thomas load his pipe for a good smoke.

We found no sign at all, and think there's too much construction and logging activity right now to devote more time here, so it's on to the next area next weekend.