Terror in the Timber: Our Logging Crew Was Hunted by a Sasquatch, but the Ending Is Truly Unbelievable
The Day I Drove into Hell with Bigfoot
They called me crazy when I said I drove a Caterpillar D8 bulldozer straight into hell alongside a Bigfoot family. But I have the proof. What I hang on my wall isn’t a trophy head. It is a piece of yellow steel melted and warped with a five-fingered handprint pressed deep into it—a print twice the size of a human face.
On that fateful day in Black Canyon in 2003, I didn’t fight against it. We fought together to push through a mountain of rock to escape the firestorm. It used muscle. I used hydraulics. And this is the naked truth about the day the line between beast and man was completely burned away.
Before we fire up the engine, let me know in the comments what city you’re listening from. As for me, I’m writing this from an old garage in Portland. Now, hold on tight. My name is Frank Vance, but the loggers in the Pacific Northwest usually call me by my christened nickname, Iron Head. I am 58 years old, and I have spent 40 years of my life operating mechanical monsters, shaving mountain slopes bald from Alaska down to Northern California. But the story that has kept me awake for the past 20 years didn’t happen in Alaska. It happened right in our backyard—Gford Pincho National Forest, Washington State, August 2003.
The area we were logging has an unofficial name on the map: Devil’s Spine. You need to understand the geology of this place to know why the disaster happened. The soil here isn’t red clay or mud like other places. It is volcanic ash. Ever since Mount St. Helens blew its top in 1980, this entire region has been covered in a layer of gray ash meters thick. It is loose, light, and extremely unstable. When dry, it’s like talcum powder that clogs engine air filters. When wet, it’s slippery as axle grease. And in August of that year, it was bone dry. It was a record-breaking hot summer. The ground temperature measured at 2:00 p.m. hit 110°F. The black volcanic rocks absorbed the heat and radiated it back, turning the entire valley into a giant bread oven.
The timber company gave my crew an ultimatum: “Frank, clear sector 4 by Friday. The forest service is about to issue a level four shutdown. If you don’t finish, you lose the bonus.” The bonus? That was the only thing making us risk our necks under this scorching sun. We had two steel beasts to do the job. Sitting proudly at the top of the slope was the Medil 1721 tower yarder. If you’ve never seen a Medil, imagine an orange-red tank weighing 80 tons with a 60 ft steel tower stabbing straight into the sky. It uses a cable system called a skyline—a braided steel wire 1.5 inches in diameter stretched across the valley to haul logs weighing 20 tons off the ground like toys.
The roar of its Detroit diesel V12 engine under load sounded like rolling thunder vibrating in your very chest. As for me, I sat at the bottom of the landing operating a Caterpillar 988F wheel loader. This was the latest model in the ’90s. Instead of a standard dirt bucket, it was equipped with a massive hydraulic log grapple. My job was to catch the logs the yarder brought in, clamp them, and stack them onto trucks.
Inside the cab of the 988F, even with the AC cranked to max, I could still feel the sweat running down my spine. “Boss, hydraulic oil temp is hitting the red zone,” Cody’s voice came over the radio, crackling with terrain static. Cody, nicknamed Greenhorn, was a scrawny 19-year-old kid with eyes that darted around like a scared rabbit. His job was choker setter. He was the one who had to crawl around the valley floor, wading through knee-deep ash to wrap cold steel cables around the felled trees. It is the most dangerous job in the world.
“Ignore the light, Cody,” I barked back, my hand still jerking the joystick to make the loader bite onto a Douglas fir. “My machine, I know it. You just worry about setting chokers faster. We have 30 more turns to hit the quota.” But boss, Cody’s voice hesitated. “It’s weird down here. Too quiet. No birds, no crickets, and I swear I just saw some boundary stakes pulled up.” I paused the machine for a second, looking down at the valley covered in gray ash. “Don’t be yellow, kid. Probably just bears or deer.”
“Not bears, boss,” Cody whispered, his voice tight with tension. “Bears don’t know how to stack branches into an X shape. Someone or something doesn’t want us here.” I scoffed, spitting onto the dry ground. I thought the kid had heat stroke. Or worse, he was spooked by those nonsense local ghost stories about the giant of St. Helens. “Drink water and get back to work. I don’t pay you to tell fairy tales.” I was too arrogant. I believed in the power of a 500 horsepower diesel engine more than I believed in human intuition. I didn’t know that right at that moment, from the sheer cliffs surrounding the valley, dozens of dark eyes were silently watching us. They were staring at the yellow and red machines roaring and tearing apart their home. And they were preparing for a counterattack that no technical manual had ever taught me how to handle.
The morning of the second day in Black Canyon, the sun hadn’t even risen, but the heat had already settled in like a suffocating wool blanket. I woke up with a splitting headache from dehydration and the jarring sound of metal clanging from the machinery staging area. It was Cody Greenhorn. The kid was standing in front of the Caterpillar 988F loader, holding a wrench, his face pale as if he had just seen a ghost. “Boss, come look at this,” Cody shouted, his voice cracking. I spat my morning toothpaste onto the dirt, grabbed my hard hat, and walked over. “What is it? Did you forget to bleed the tank pressure again?”
“No, boss. Look.” Cody pointed at the hydraulic cylinder cluster that lifts the log grapple. I squinted, and instantly, my drowsiness vanished. The hydraulic system of the 988F series is secured by steel safety pins the size of a thumb, locked in place with cotter pins to ensure the grapple doesn’t drop if pressure is lost. Those pins were gone. But they weren’t broken. They weren’t smashed by brute force. They had been removed. And what made my spine go cold wasn’t that they were missing, but where they were. Three shiny steel pins were placed neatly, perfectly aligned side by side on the wheel fender, just like a tidy mechanic had set them down during maintenance.
I stood frozen. A bear might tear a rubber hose out of curiosity or rage. A mountain lion might scratch the paint, but no wild animal on earth knows how to use a thumb and forefinger to straighten a cotter pin, pull it out, then remove the main pin and set everything down neatly like this. To do this requires two things: dexterous hands with opposable thumbs and a high-level intelligence that understands mechanics.
“It’s saboteurs,” I growled, kicking the massive rubber tire. “It’s eco-terrorists. They must have snuck in last night from the Pacific Crest Trail.” Back in the 2000s, it wasn’t rare for radical environmental groups to sneak into logging sites to sabotage machinery, spiking trees to break chainsaw blades. “But boss,” Cody stammered, “I stood watch until 3:00 a.m. The dogs didn’t bark. No vehicle sounds. And besides, how could city folks have the strength to bend that tie rod?” Cody pointed to the 2-inch diameter steel tie rod under the chassis. It was bent into a U-shape.
“They used crowbars or hydraulic jacks, you idiot,” I yelled to drown out the vague fear creeping into my gut. “Put the pins back in. Check the whole machine. I’m not letting some long-haired hippies from Portland stop me from getting my bonus.” I grabbed my Winchester 3030 rifle from the truck, chambering a round with a loud clack. I walked a perimeter around the camp, scanning every bush. No bootprints, no beer cans or cigarette butts—the signature signs of humans—only the gray smooth volcanic ash.
But as I walked further toward the tree line where the clearing met the ancient Douglas firs, I saw Cody standing there, staring at something hanging in the air. It was a bizarre structure. Three young pine saplings as thick as a bicep had been snapped—not cut with a knife, but snapped and frayed and driven upside down into the ground, woven together to form a giant X shape. It stood about 9 ft tall. Right at the intersection of the X, a bleached deer skull was wedged in, its empty socket staring blankly toward our camp.
“What is this, boss?” Cody asked, his hand trembling as it touched the pistol on his hip. I swallowed hard. I had been in the woods for 40 years. I knew how Indians marked trails. I knew how hunters marked traps. But this carried a much more primal and violent message. It wasn’t a trail marker. It was a do-not-enter sign. Or more accurately, turn back or die. Just a prank by some kids, I lied, though my voice wasn’t as steely as before. “Tear it down. Don’t let it spook you.” Cody hesitated for a moment before kicking the structure over. When the deer skull hit the ground and shattered, a blast of hot wind from the valley suddenly rushed up, carrying a pungent stench that made both of us gag.
It wasn’t the smell of ordinary rotting flesh. It was the smell of a massive carnivore mixed with the acrid scent of burnt hair and a sharp chemical tang like sulfur. “Jesus, what is that smell?” Cody coughed. “Geological gas,” I fabricated a technical reason. “We’re near Mount St. Helens. Probably sulfur gas venting from a fissure. Put your mask on and get back to work.” I turned and walked away, trying to maintain the swagger of a foreman, but my hand gripping the rifle was slick with sweat. I knew it wasn’t geological gas. I knew that smell, and I knew that whatever had removed the safety pins of a 50-ton excavator as easily as taking apart Lego blocks was very close, and it was not happy that we had ignored its warning.
By noon on the second day, work had slowed to a terrifying crawl. The 110°F heat had turned the air in the canyon into a thick liquid, distorting the images of distant trees. The Medil 172 yarder was still roaring at the top of the slope, the skyline cable screeching as it hauled logs, but their echoes seemed to be swallowed instantly by the void. There is a phenomenon we veteran woodsmen call the silence. It is when the forest suddenly stops breathing. No birds singing, no squirrels running on dry leaves. Even the wind whistling through the canyon ceases. It is not peace. It is holding one’s breath. It is a sign that an apex predator is present in the area, and every small creature is shrinking back to avoid detection.
I was sitting in the loader cab trying to force down a dry ham sandwich when the radio crackled again. “Boss, I can’t take it anymore.” Cody’s voice sounded like he was about to vomit. “That smell, it’s getting stronger. I swear I smell burning hair and rotting meat.” I looked through the dusty glass. Cody was standing on the valley floor, holding his nose tight through his mask, eyes darting up at the sheer cliffs surrounding us. Truth be told, I didn’t need his report. I was smelling it too. Even though the cab of the Caterpillar 988F was fairly sealed, and the AC was running at max, the stench seeped through the vents. It no longer smelled like the geological sulfur gas I had intentionally invented to calm Cody earlier. It was a horrific organic smell. It smelled like a burning bow-waste dump mixed with the pungent musk of a skunk, but a hundred times stronger. It was a primal scent awakening the deepest fears in the reptilian part of the human brain.
“Focus on the work, Cody. You get paid to set chokers, not to smell,” I barked into the mic, but my left hand quietly reached for the Nikon binoculars on the dashboard. I lowered my seat a bit to stay in the shadows, then raised the binoculars. I scanned along the tree line where the towering furs met the gray scree slope. At first, I saw nothing—just rock, ash, and dead trees. But then I saw an anomaly on the 45° slope where even mountain goats would struggle to stand. Rocks were moving—not rolling down with gravity. They were moving sideways. I adjusted the focus. My heart skipped a beat. About 300 yards from our position, on a protruding ledge, a gray-black rock the size of a refrigerator suddenly stood up. That wasn’t a rock. That was a creature. It stood upright on two legs, towering and massive, estimated to be nearly 9 ft tall. Its fur was ash gray, thick and matted, blending perfectly with the volcanic rock of Gford Pincho. Only when it moved was that natural camouflage broken. It wasn’t standing there sightseeing. It was watching us. Its arms, longer than its knees, were crossed over its chest—a gesture incredibly human, showing thought and evaluation. Its rugged head was cocked to the side, deep-set eyes under a heavy brow ridge, staring intently at the Medil yarder.
And then I realized it wasn’t alone. I moved the binoculars 50 yards to the left. Another smaller dark shape was crouching behind a manzanita bush. I moved to the right. Yet another shape was standing hidden behind a burnt pine tree. They were surrounding us in a semicircle formation. They were studying us. They were watching how the cables moved, how the excavators roared, and most importantly, they were looking for the weak points of these iron monsters. They weren’t running away in fear like deer. They were calculating.
“Boss, do you hear me? Oil pressure dropped.” Cody’s scream over the radio snapped me back to reality. “I hear you,” I whispered, my voice dry, my eyes not daring to leave the alpha on the cliff. “Cody, listen to me. Don’t look up at the cliffs. Just keep working normally, but move closer to my loader right now.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Don’t ask. Just do it. Move slowly.” Through the binoculars, I saw the massive creature slowly lower its arms. It turned its head, signaling something to the others with a sharp jut of its chin. Then all three dark shapes simultaneously stepped back. They didn’t turn and run. They backed away step by step, eyes still locked on us, then dissolved into the deep woods as silently as smoke. Their disappearance was more terrifying than their presence. I knew they hadn’t left. They were preparing to act.
The clock on the dashboard read 1:45 p.m. The heat outside was peaking, and the patience of the old woods had run out. Only 15 minutes left until disaster would strike. The clock on the dashboard read exactly 2:00 p.m. The 110°F heat had turned the valley into a veritable pressure cooker. The air seemed to thicken, shimmering with heat haze. The dark figures on the cliffs were gone. But the invisible pressure they left behind still weighed on my chest—like a boulder. Cody was still working below, slow and fearful, trying to hook the choker cable onto a massive felled Douglas fir. It was an old-growth giant, nearly 6 ft in diameter, 40 ft long, and estimated to weigh about 25 tons. Up on the ridge, the Medil 172 yarder was roaring at full capacity. Its 12-cylinder Detroit diesel engine was straining against gravity.
I heard a screeching sound. At first, it was as faint as a mosquito buzzing in my ear, but within seconds, it turned into the earsplitting shriek of metal grinding on metal. As a mechanic of many years, I knew exactly what that sound was. The main drum bearing was seizing up. The lubricating grease had been vaporized by the searing heat, and now steel was grinding directly against steel. I should have stopped the machine to apply grease. I should have followed the maintenance protocol, but greed and time pressure had blinded me.
“Keep pulling!” I muttered, gripping the radio tight—just a few more turns. The 1.5-inch diameter skyline cable stretched taut like a giant violin string. It vibrated violently, shaking off flakes of rust that drifted into the air. Cody finished setting the choker. He scrambled away from the bite, the danger zone, and hid behind a large rock. “Go ahead,” Cody shouted into the radio. The yarder operator up top yanked the lever. The Medil let out a horrific roar, belching thick black smoke into the blue sky. The 25-ton log shuddered, then slowly lifted its nose off the ground. The entire valley echoed with the crank, crank of the pulley system under extreme load.
And then it happened. No warning, no time to correct. Bang! A massive explosion rang out louder than a cannon shot, rupturing my eardrums. The load-bearing steel cable snapped right at the connection point with the tower. It was basic physics but brutal. When a steel cable under hundreds of tons of tension snaps, the stored potential energy is released instantly. The 2,000 ft cable whipped back. It was like the lash of the Grim Reaper. It flew through the air at the speed of sound, slicing the tops off three young pine trees before whipping hard into the east slope—the place we called Devil’s Spine.
The geological structure of Gford Pincho is loose volcanic ash. It had sat there quietly for decades, but the lash of the heavy steel cable shattered that fragile cohesion. The ground shook. First came the dust. A cloud of ash gray dust exploded at the impact point. Then came a deep rumbling roar like a train running through a tunnel. An entire section of the mountainside began to slide. Earth, rock, ash, and dead trees were swept along by the flow of gravity, forming a dry landslide barreling straight toward the narrow valley floor.
“Cody, run! Run to the loader!” I screamed into the radio, but the roar of the fire drowned out everything. I saw Cody running for his life. He was lucky. His position was outside the main flow of the slide. But something else wasn’t so lucky. The 25-ton Douglas fir log that had just been lifted, now bereft of tension, fell freely back to earth. Slam. It crashed onto the valley floor, bounced once, and then rolled with inertia, plunging straight into the cloud of dust where the mountainside had just collapsed. It bulldozed everything in its path like a giant steamroller. Volcanic ash rose in a blinding cloud, obscuring my vision. The entire valley was plunged into the gray gloom of an apocalypse.
I sat frozen in the loader cab, my hand still on the useless joystick, my heart pounding against my ribs. “Cody, Cody, you still there?” I shouted into the radio. “I cough, cough. I’m okay, boss.” Cody’s coughing voice came through. I took cover. I exhaled in relief. But that relief lasted exactly 3 seconds. From within the swirling dust in front of my loader, a sound emerged. Not a growl, not a machine noise. It was a high-pitched, sharp scream full of pain and terror. It sounded like a human child getting their hand slammed in a door, but the volume was much louder. Goosebumps erupted all over my body. That wasn’t a bear. A bear would roar or moan. That wasn’t a deer or an elk.
I flipped the windshield wipers on to clear the thick layer of dust. As the dust settled slightly, I saw the crash site. The giant Douglas fir log lay across a pile of landslide debris. It had stopped, but beneath it, pinned between the log and the hard bedrock, was a hairy arm flailing desperately, and a small face covered in soft light brown fuzz, looking up at the sky with eyes wide in horror. A baby Bigfoot—it had been hiding in that brush to watch us. And my greed, my negligence had just brought the mountain down on its head. I hadn’t just destroyed their home. I had just declared war on them.
The volcanic ash rising from the landslide was so thick that the afternoon sun couldn’t penetrate it. The entire valley was plunged into a ghostly gray gloom, visibility dropping to less than 10 ft. I gritted my teeth and slammed on the accelerator. The Caterpillar 988F loader roared, its massive tires crushing the scree as it charged straight into the blinding dust cloud. Reason screamed at me to turn back. Only a madman would drive into the epicenter of an unstable landslide. But the high-pitched screaming, “Eek! Eek!” of that tiny creature echoed in my head, urging me to do something. I am not a murderer. I am a logger. I cut trees, but I do not kill children, regardless of what species that child belongs to.
As the nose of my log grapple pierced the dust veil, the accident scene appeared dimly. The 25-ton Douglas fir log lay tilted at a 45° angle, pinned tight by tons of earth and rock. Beneath it, a small, hairy arm was flailing weakly. I intended to lower the grapple to find a leverage point to lift the log. But right at that moment, a massive dark shadow lunged out from the gray mist. It didn’t run on four legs. It ran on two with long, powerful strides like an Olympic sprinter, but with the weight of a bull. It was the alpha. At this close range, I saw his full terror and majesty. He stood at least 9 ft tall. His fur wasn’t jet black, but speckled with silver-gray on his back and shoulders, a sign of age and authority. A long scar ran from his forehead down his left cheek, making his face look even more ferocious. He didn’t throw rocks. He didn’t growl from afar. He charged straight at me.
In his eyes, I and this yellow machine were the Grim Reaper. He thought I was the cause of the landslide, which was true. And now I was approaching to use the iron grapple to crush his injured child, which was false. He was desperately protecting his bloodline. Slam. The entire 50-ton loader shook violently as if it had hit a concrete wall. I was thrown forward, the seatbelt cutting painfully into my chest. That monster had used his shoulder to ram straight into the side of the log grapple. His muscular strength was illogical. He couldn’t tip the machine over, but the impact was forceful enough to shock the hydraulic system. Before I could regain my composure, he jumped. He grabbed the maintenance railing and climbed onto the engine hood as agilely as an ape. Instantly, his black, furious face appeared right in front of the cab windshield. His hot breath fogged up the glass, his amber eyes burning with hatred locked onto me.
He raised a fist. That hand was the size of a sledgehammer, black and hard as rock. “Wham!” He punched the windshield hard. The double-layer tempered glass designed to withstand flying rocks and tree branches cracked into a spiderweb pattern right at the point of impact. Wham! A second punch landed. Small shards of glass began to rain down inside the cab, scattering onto my lap. He was trying to break through the protective shell to drag me out and tear me apart. Primal fear took over me. My trembling right hand left the joystick and grabbed the Ruger 44 Magnum revolver I kept on the passenger seat. I pointed the dark muzzle at the screaming face behind the broken glass. My finger rested on the trigger. Just one light squeeze and the hollow-point bullet would blow his skull apart at this range.
“Back off! Back off, you beast!” I screamed, even knowing he didn’t understand human speech. My voice cracked with panic. The alpha froze. He saw the gun. Perhaps he knew what this weapon was, or instinct told him of the lethal danger from that black hole. He didn’t punch anymore, but he didn’t back down either. He stood there gripping the cab frame, his chest heaving violently. We fell into a deadly Mexican standoff. On one side was the furious muscular power of nature. On the other was human technology and firepower. Between us was only a shattered sheet of glass. Time seemed to stand still. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, drowning out the idling diesel engine.
If I shot, I would kill him, but his pack would tear me and Cody apart right after. If I didn’t shoot, he would smash my head in 3 seconds. And right at the moment my finger began to tighten on the trigger, a sound cut through that extreme tension. P! A weak cry echoed from beneath the rubble. The alpha’s burning eyes suddenly wavered. He glanced down at where his child was trapped, then looked back at me. The murderous intent in his eyes dropped by half, replaced by extreme anxiety. He didn’t want to die. He needed to live to save his child. And I also suddenly realized I was pointing a gun at a father who was desperately protecting his own. My finger trembled on the trigger of the Ruger 44 Magnum. Through the shattered windshield, the alpha’s hot breath hit my face. His amber eyes still burned with fire, but his ears were twitching toward the faint crying below.
A eek. It was the sound of a life fading away. I slowly lowered the gun barrel. It was the most reckless act of my life. If he wanted to, he could reach through the broken glass and snap my neck like a dry twig before I could blink. But I bet on his intelligence. A creature that knew how to disassemble machine safety pins would certainly understand the concept of surrender or ceasefire. “I’ll help you,” I said, my voice raspy, knowing he didn’t understand the language. “I’ll lift the tree, but you have to move.” I raised both hands high, palms open to show him I was no longer holding a weapon. Then I pointed at the hydraulic joystick and then down at the rubble where his child was trapped.
The alpha stared at me, his eyes narrowed, calculating. He looked at the gun lying on the seat. Then he looked at my hand resting on the joystick. He understood. He slowly released his grip on the cab frame, dropping to the ground with surprising grace for such a massive body. He backed away about 15 ft, standing in front of the mother Bigfoot, who had rushed out of the bushes, but his eyes remained locked on every movement of the loader. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. I grabbed the joystick. This was when the skill of a 40-year veteran operator spoke up. The Caterpillar 988F is a brutal 50-ton machine, but if you know how to feather the hydraulics, it can become as dexterous as a pair of chopsticks.
I revved the engine slightly. The diesel rumble deepened. I maneuvered the log grapple closer to the rubble. The difficulty lay here. The 25-ton Douglas fir log was resting on an unstable rock structure. If I clamped and lifted forcefully, the rock pile could collapse and crush the baby underneath. I had to clear the path first. Using the tip of the grapple, I gently nudged the loose boulders aside. Volcanic ash dust rose again in a cloud. Suddenly, the alpha rushed in. He didn’t attack me. He attacked the rock pile. He realized my speed was too slow. With insane muscular strength, he used his bare hands to grab rocks the size of microwave ovens and toss them aside like pebbles. We were working together. On one side was 500 horsepower hydraulic strength. On the other was the wild strength of nature, but we hit a major snag.
There was a wedge-shaped keystone the size of a dining table jammed tight between the log and the cliff face. It was the only thing stopping the log from rolling down and completely crushing the child, but it was also pressing on the kid’s leg. My grapple was too bulky. It couldn’t slide into that narrow gap to pluck the stone out without touching the baby. I stopped the machine, shook my head, signaling helplessness to the alpha. He looked at the rock, then at me. He let out a short grunt, then did something that stunned me. He squeezed himself into that dangerous narrow gap. He turned his back to the keystone, legs spread wide, and dug deep into the ash. He positioned his broad shoulders and massive black arms against the underside of the rock. He intended to use his own body as a hydraulic jack. He looked up at me, bared his white teeth, and nodded. The signal was clear. Lift it.
I gritted my teeth, pulling the joystick back. The log was hoisted into the air. Instantly, the mother Bigfoot darted in like a black lightning bolt. She reached into the hole, grabbed her child, and dragged him out. The baby’s right leg was snapped, dangling painfully, but he was alive. As soon as the mother and child were safe, the alpha let go. He rolled out just before the keystone crashed down, smashing the spot where he had just stood into dust. He lay panting on the ground, his chest heaving violently. Then he slowly stood up, brushing the volcanic ash off his silver-gray fur. He turned to look at me through the shattered windshield. No more hatred, no more murderous intent. In those amber eyes, I saw recognition—the recognition between warriors who had just walked through death’s door together. He gave a slight nod. I nodded back, my hand relaxing from the joystick, sweat soaking through my shirt. We had won, but the joy was short-lived.
A loud explosion rang out from behind me, followed by a wave of searing heat hitting the back of my neck. I turned to look in the rearview mirror and realized with horror the real war was just beginning. The brief joy of victory was instantly extinguished by an earsplitting explosion. Boom! The ground beneath my feet shook even harder than during the landslide. A column of fire, orange mixed with pitch black, erupted violently less than 50 yards upwind from our position. I spun around and instantly realized the cause. My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. The landslide earlier hadn’t just buried the Bigfoot child. The rocks dislodged from the slope had rolled down into the supply staging area. A sharp-edged boulder the size of a television had smashed into the auxiliary fuel tank. It was a steel tank holding 500 gallons of red diesel—the specialized fuel for heavy equipment. The impact tore the steel shell open. Fuel sprayed out like a fountain, drenching a pile of dry brush and, more importantly, spraying directly onto the glowing hot exhaust manifold of the industrial generator running at full capacity nearby.
Heat met fuel. The result was an instant firebomb. This wasn’t a normal forest fire. Natural wildfires are yellow and smell of wood smoke. What was rushing toward us was a chemical monster. The flames were dark red, rolling violently. The smoke was jet black, thick as tar, and full of toxic fumes. The air temperature skyrocketed from 110°F to over 1,000°F in mere seconds. “Cody, run! Leave everything!” I screamed into the radio, but the roar of the fire drowned out everything. I saw the Bigfoot family panic. No matter how brave and intelligent the alpha was when facing machines, against fire, the primal fear instinct of an animal took over. He roared short bursts, urging his mate and child back. The mother Bigfoot clutched her broken-legged child tight to her chest, eyes wide with terror, the fur on her body starting to singe from the radiant heat. They were trying to run up the slope to escape. “No, don’t go up there!” I yelled, banging my hand against the shattered cab glass to get their attention. Up the slope was upwind. The diesel fire was climbing that way with the speed of a race car. Running up there was suicide.
The alpha seemed to realize it. He froze, staring at the wall of fire rising before him, blocking the only road leading back to the main camp. We were surrounded. In front was fire. Behind was the sheer cliff leading down to the dry, jagged rocks of the Lewis River. On both sides were steep slopes full of loose rock. “Boss, fire blocked the road. We’re dead!” Cody emerged from the dust, face covered in soot, coughing as he ran. He was sprinting toward my loader as a final lifeline. But I knew this Caterpillar 988F loader couldn’t save us. It ran on rubber tires. Four massive tires, each worth $5,000, were a fatal weakness in this situation. The ground temperature was melting the rubber. Driving over hot coals for just a few yards would blow the tires, turning the machine into an immobile pile of scrap metal in the sea of fire. I scanned around looking for a glimmer of hope, and I saw it.
Sitting about 20 yards away, covered in a thick layer of ash, was the Caterpillar D8R bulldozer. It was an R-series model equipped with steel tracks and an enclosed cab with an air filtration system. It was old, slow, but it was armored all over, and most importantly, it had no rubber tires to melt. It was a literal tank. “Cody, get to the D8. Move!” I kicked open the loader door and jumped down. The heat hit my face like someone had opened a broiler oven. My eyebrows and sideburns curled instantly. The acrid smell of burning oil hit my lungs, making me cough violently. I ran toward the dozer. Cody had already climbed up. The Bigfoot family was huddled at the cliff edge, trapped and desperate. They looked at the fire licking closer to their feet, then turned to look at the deep abyss behind them. Jumping was death. Staying was burning to death.
I climbed onto the dozer tracks and cranked the engine. The sound of the engine firing up, “Rum! Rum!” rang out with authority. I stuck my head out the door and whistled loud, a sharp sound piercing through the roar of the fire. The alpha turned to look at me. I pointed to the empty space behind the dozer, then pointed down the narrow goat trail along the cliff—the only escape route that only steel tracks dared to traverse. “Follow me. If you want to live, stick to this iron tail!” I shouted. The alpha looked at the fire, then at the clunky yellow bulldozer. He nodded. He pushed the mother and child behind the dozer while he stood rear guard, face to face with the fire to shield his family.
I lowered the blade low, shifted into first gear. The 40-ton machine shuddered into motion. We began our journey on the razor’s edge, racing against the chemical death snapping at our heels. The Caterpillar D8R bulldozer let out a dry roar, spewing a column of black smoke that blended into the burning sky. I shifted into first gear, released the parking brake. The 40-ton mass of steel shuddered, steel tracks grinding into the scree, making earsplitting clang-clang sounds. We began to move—not running. With a top speed of only about 6 mph, a dozer cannot run. We were crawling. We were crawling along the line between life and death.
“Cody, watch the coolant temp for me!” I shouted, drowning out the engine and the roar of the fire. Cody was curled up in the passenger seat, gripping the door frame tight, eyes glued to the gauges. “Water is at 220°F, boss. We are in the red.” “Screw it. Unless the engine seizes, we don’t stop.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. The scene behind was like a tableau of the apocalypse from the Bible. The wall of fire created by the diesel and dry timber stood over 100 ft tall. It rolled and roared like a fire dragon, swallowing everything in its path. My 988F loader, once my pride, was now just a black silhouette against the red flames—four rubber tires burning furiously like four rings of death. And right in front of that wall of fire, three dark shapes were moving. The Bigfoot family was following right at the tail of the dozer. The alpha was last. He was walking backward. That’s right. He was walking backward. His face faced the fire. His back faced the dozer. He was using his massive body as a living shield to protect his wife and child from the intense radiant heat. Every time the flames lashed out, he roared, swinging his fists at the air as if trying to fight the fire itself. The fur on his body had begun to singe, smoking heavily, but he did not flinch.
In front of him, the mother Bigfoot limped along, clutching her child tight. The baby had passed out from pain, head resting on her shoulder. They were betting the lives of their entire clan on a machine built by humans—the very beings they considered sworn enemies just 15 minutes ago. The road we were on didn’t deserve to be called a road. Locals called it the goat trail. It was essentially a narrow strip of land hugging the sheer cliff of the canyon, created by natural landslides centuries ago. To the left was a vertical scree cliff. To the right was an abyss over 300 ft deep leading straight down to the dry, jagged rocks of the Lewis River. The width of the trail was only about 12 ft. The width of the D8R blade was 11 ft. That meant I only had about 6 in of clearance on each side of the tracks. One small mistake, one oversteer, and we would tumble into the abyss.
The temperature inside the cab had reached an unbearable level, even with the air filtration system running at max. The old yellow paint on the hood began to blister in large patches, popping like frying fat. The soles of my boots started sticking to the floor as the rubber melted. But the scariest part was the ground. The volcanic ash under the tracks was unstable. It was slippery as marbles. Every time I nudged the throttle, the dozer slid slightly sideways. The tail fishtailed. “Boss, on the right. Too close!” Cody screamed, his face drained of blood. I looked down. The edge of my right track was crushing the rocks at the very edge of the cliff. Rocks fell into the abyss without a sound. “Shut up. Don’t look down. Look straight ahead.” I roared back, gripping the joystick so hard my knuckles turned white. I had to feel the road—not with my eyes, but with my seat.
That’s right. Veteran dozer operators drive by the seat of their pants. We feel the vibration, the tilt of the chassis transmitted through the seat to know if the ground below is hard or soft, about to slide or not. And right now, my seat was screaming, “The ground is sliding. The ground is sliding.” Suddenly, a gust of wind from the fire blew hard. Flames licked the alpha’s back. He roared in pain, leaping forward, bumping into the mother Bigfoot. The whole group of man and beast bunched up right behind the dozer’s tail. “Faster, boss. They’re going to get cooked!” Cody wept. I gritted my teeth, pushing the throttle up another notch. The D8R lunged forward, but right ahead, about 50 yards away was the biggest challenge. A section of the trail had severely eroded due to the aftershocks of the cable snap earlier. The road surface there narrowed to less than 8 ft. A large boulder had fallen away, leaving a semi-circular bite mark deep into the path. To get past, I had to drive with one track clinging to the cliff wall while the other track hung halfway in midair. It was the walking the edge technique that only the craziest operators dared to attempt.
“Hold on tight,” I shouted. I raised the blade high to avoid hitting rocks, shifting the center of gravity back. The dozer entered the kill zone. The left track ground against the cliff wall, sparks flying. The right track began to teeter over the edge. The whole machine tilted at a 20° angle. Cody squeezed his eyes shut, muttering prayers. I held my breath. Sweat stung my eyes, but I didn’t dare blink. Suddenly, clunk. A dry sound came from the undercarriage. The ground under the right track collapsed. The dozer slid violently to the right. The nose dipped toward the abyss. The right track lost its footing completely, spinning uselessly in the air. The entire 40-ton machine was hanging precariously on the edge, held only by half the surface area of the left track. The engine roared, but it was hopeless. We were stuck, and behind us the fire had caught up.
I looked in the rearview mirror. I saw the alpha stop. He looked at the teetering dozer. He looked at the fire licking his fur. Then he looked down into the abyss. In that moment, I thought he would abandon us. I thought he would jump over the dozer to save himself. But no. He turned back, roared a command for his wife and child to back up against the cliff wall. Then he did something that I nor 10 of my future lifetimes would ever forget. He didn’t run. He rushed toward the edge of the cliff. He jumped down to the most dangerous position right next to my spinning track in midair. What was he doing? Was he going to push us off? No. His amber eyes looked straight at me through the window glass. That look said, “Live together or die together.”
In that moment, time seemed to freeze. The 40-ton Caterpillar D8R bulldozer was hanging precariously over the abyss. Its center of gravity had passed the tipping point. The laws of physics were screaming in my face. “You’re dead, Frank.” The right track spun uselessly in the air, desperately seeking purchase. The left track was slowly sliding on the scree foundation. The tail began to drift out. The nose dipped down. Cody let out a blood-curdling scream, clutching his head, waiting for the free fall into the 300 ft drop. But that fall didn’t come. A massive impact shook the entire chassis. Slam. Not an impact from below, but from the side. I turned my head to look through the right window toward the abyss. And that scene burned itself into my retinas forever.
The alpha. He didn’t jump over the dozer to save himself. He had jumped down onto a tiny rock ledge barely 2 ft wide, jutting out just below the crumbling road edge. It was a suicide position. If that ledge gave way, he would fall into the void before we did. He stood there back to the abyss, facing the right corner of the dozer blade. He was doing something insane. He spread his legs, digging his claws into the rock crevices for leverage. He placed his broad shoulders and massive black arms under the bottom edge of the steel blade. He intended to use his body as a wedge. He looked up at me, bared his white teeth, and nodded. The signal was clear. Lift it.
I gritted my teeth, pulling the joystick back. The log was hoisted into the air. Instantly, the mother Bigfoot darted in like a black lightning bolt. She reached into the hole, grabbed her child, and dragged him out. The baby’s right leg was snapped, dangling painfully, but he was alive. As soon as the mother and child were safe, the alpha let go. He rolled out just before the keystone crashed down, smashing the spot where he had just stood into dust. He lay panting on the ground, his chest heaving violently. Then he slowly stood up, brushing the volcanic ash off his silver-gray fur. He turned to look at me through the shattered windshield. No more hatred, no more murderous intent. In those amber eyes, I saw recognition—the recognition between warriors who had just walked through death’s door together. He gave a slight nod. I nodded back, my hand relaxing from the joystick, sweat soaking through my shirt. We had won, but the joy was short-lived.
A loud explosion rang out from behind me, followed by a wave of searing heat hitting the back of my neck. I turned to look in the rearview mirror and realized with horror the real war was just beginning. The brief joy of victory was instantly extinguished by an earsplitting explosion. Boom! The ground beneath my feet shook even harder than during the landslide. A column of fire, orange mixed with pitch black, erupted violently less than 50 yards upwind from our position. I spun around and instantly realized the cause. My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. The landslide earlier hadn’t just buried the Bigfoot child. The rocks dislodged from the slope had rolled down into the supply staging area. A sharp-edged boulder the size of a television had smashed into the auxiliary fuel tank. It was a steel tank holding 500 gallons of red diesel—the specialized fuel for heavy equipment. The impact tore the steel shell open. Fuel sprayed out like a fountain, drenching a pile of dry brush and, more importantly, spraying directly onto the glowing hot exhaust manifold of the industrial generator running at full capacity nearby.
Heat met fuel. The result was an instant firebomb. This wasn’t a normal forest fire. Natural wildfires are yellow and smell of wood smoke. What was rushing toward us was a chemical monster. The flames were dark red, rolling violently. The smoke was jet black, thick as tar, and full of toxic fumes. The air temperature skyrocketed from 110°F to over 1,000°F in mere seconds. “Cody, run! Leave everything!” I screamed into the radio, but the roar of the fire drowned out everything. I saw the Bigfoot family panic. No matter how brave and intelligent the alpha was when facing machines, against fire, the primal fear instinct of an animal took over. He roared short bursts, urging his mate and child back. The mother Bigfoot clutched her broken-legged child tight to her chest, eyes wide with terror, the fur on her body starting to singe from the radiant heat. They were trying to run up the slope to escape. “No, don’t go up there!” I yelled, banging my hand against the shattered cab glass to get their attention. Up the slope was upwind. The diesel fire was climbing that way with the speed of a race car. Running up there was suicide.
The alpha seemed to realize it. He froze, staring at the wall of fire rising before him, blocking the only road leading back to the main camp. We were surrounded. In front was fire. Behind was the sheer cliff leading down to the dry, jagged rocks of the Lewis River. On both sides were steep slopes full of loose rock. “Boss, fire blocked the road. We’re dead!” Cody emerged from the dust, face covered in soot, coughing as he ran. He was sprinting toward my loader as a final lifeline. But I knew this Caterpillar 988F loader couldn’t save us. It ran on rubber tires. Four massive tires, each worth $5,000, were a fatal weakness in this situation. The ground temperature was melting the rubber. Driving over hot coals for just a few yards would blow the tires, turning the machine into an immobile pile of scrap metal in the sea of fire. I scanned around looking for a glimmer of hope, and I saw it.
Sitting about 20 yards away, covered in a thick layer of ash, was the Caterpillar D8R bulldozer. It was an R-series model equipped with steel tracks and an enclosed cab with an air filtration system. It was old, slow, but it was armored all over, and most importantly, it had no rubber tires to melt. It was a literal tank. “Cody, get to the D8. Move!” I kicked open the loader door and jumped down. The heat hit my face like someone had opened a broiler oven. My eyebrows and sideburns curled instantly. The acrid smell of burning oil hit my lungs, making me cough violently. I ran toward the dozer. Cody had already climbed up. The Bigfoot family was huddled at the cliff edge, trapped and desperate. They looked at the fire licking closer to their feet, then turned to look at the deep abyss behind them. Jumping was death. Staying was burning to death.
I climbed onto the dozer tracks and cranked the engine. The sound of the engine firing up, “Rum! Rum!” rang out with authority. I stuck my head out the door and whistled loud, a sharp sound piercing through the roar of the fire. The alpha turned to look at me. I pointed to the empty space behind the dozer, then pointed down the narrow goat trail along the cliff—the only escape route that only steel tracks dared to traverse. “Follow me. If you want to live, stick to this iron tail!” I shouted. The alpha looked at the fire, then at the clunky yellow bulldozer. He nodded. He pushed the mother and child behind the dozer while he stood rear guard, face to face with the fire to shield his family.
I lowered the blade low, shifted into first gear. The 40-ton machine shuddered into motion. We began our journey on the razor’s edge, racing against the chemical death snapping at our heels. The Caterpillar D8R bulldozer let out a dry roar, spewing a column of black smoke that blended into the burning sky. I shifted into first gear, released the parking brake. The 40-ton mass of steel shuddered, steel tracks grinding into the scree, making earsplitting clang-clang sounds. We began to move—not running. With a top speed of only about 6 mph, a dozer cannot run. We were crawling. We were crawling along the line between life and death.
“Cody, watch the coolant temp for me!” I shouted, drowning out the engine and the roar of the fire. Cody was curled up in the passenger seat, gripping the door frame tight, eyes glued to the gauges. “Water is at 220°F, boss. We are in the red.” “Screw it. Unless the engine seizes, we don’t stop.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. The scene behind was like a tableau of the apocalypse from the Bible. The wall of fire created by the diesel and dry timber stood over 100 ft tall. It rolled and roared like a fire dragon, swallowing everything in its path. My 988F loader, once my pride, was now just a black silhouette against the red flames—four rubber tires burning furiously like four rings of death. And right in front of that wall of fire, three dark shapes were moving. The Bigfoot family was following right at the tail of the dozer. The alpha was last. He was walking backward. That’s right. He was walking backward. His face faced the fire. His back faced the dozer. He was using his massive body as a living shield to protect his wife and child from the intense radiant heat. Every time the flames lashed out, he roared, swinging his fists at the air as if trying to fight the fire itself. The fur on his body had begun to singe, smoking heavily, but he did not flinch.
In front of him, the mother Bigfoot limped along, clutching her child tight. The baby had passed out from pain, head resting on her shoulder. They were betting the lives of their entire clan on a machine built by humans—the very beings they considered sworn enemies just 15 minutes ago. The road we were on didn’t deserve to be called a road. Locals called it the goat trail. It was essentially a narrow strip of land hugging the sheer cliff of the canyon, created by natural landslides centuries ago. To the left was a vertical scree cliff. To the right was an abyss over 300 ft deep leading straight down to the dry, jagged rocks of the Lewis River. The width of the trail was only about 12 ft. The width of the D8R blade was 11 ft. That meant I only had about 6 in of clearance on each side of the tracks. One small mistake, one oversteer, and we would tumble into the abyss.
The temperature inside the cab had reached an unbearable level, even with the air filtration system running at max. The old yellow paint on the hood began to blister in large patches, popping like frying fat. The soles of my boots started sticking to the floor as the rubber melted. But the scariest part was the ground. The volcanic ash under the tracks was unstable. It was slippery as marbles. Every time I nudged the throttle, the dozer slid slightly sideways. The tail fishtailed. “Boss, on the right. Too close!” Cody screamed, his face drained of blood. I looked down. The edge of my right track was crushing the rocks at the very edge of the cliff. Rocks fell into the abyss without a sound. “Shut up. Don’t look down. Look straight ahead.” I roared back, gripping the joystick so hard my knuckles turned white. I had to feel the road—not with my eyes, but with my seat.
That’s right. Veteran dozer operators drive by the seat of their pants. We feel the vibration, the tilt of the chassis transmitted through the seat to know if the ground below is hard or soft, about to slide or not. And right now, my seat was screaming, “The ground is sliding. The ground is sliding.” Suddenly, a gust of wind from the fire blew hard. Flames licked the alpha’s back. He roared in pain, leaping forward, bumping into the mother Bigfoot. The whole group of man and beast bunched up right behind the dozer’s tail. “Faster, boss. They’re going to get cooked!” Cody wept. I gritted my teeth, pushing the throttle up another notch. The D8R lunged forward, but right ahead, about 50 yards away was the biggest challenge. A section of the trail had severely eroded due to the aftershocks of the cable snap earlier. The road surface there narrowed to less than 8 ft. A large boulder had fallen away, leaving a semi-circular bite mark deep into the path. To get past, I had to drive with one track clinging to the cliff wall while the other track hung halfway in midair. It was the walking the edge technique that only the craziest operators dared to attempt.
“Hold on tight,” I shouted. I raised the blade high to avoid hitting rocks, shifting the center of gravity back. The dozer entered the kill zone. The left track ground against the cliff wall, sparks flying. The right track began to teeter over the edge. The whole machine tilted at a 20° angle. Cody squeezed his eyes shut, muttering prayers. I held my breath. Sweat stung my eyes, but I didn’t dare blink. Suddenly, clunk. A dry sound came from the undercarriage. The ground under the right track collapsed. The dozer slid violently to the right. The nose dipped toward the abyss. The right track lost its footing completely, spinning uselessly in the air. The entire 40-ton machine was hanging precariously on the edge, held only by half the surface area of the left track. The engine roared, but it was hopeless. We were stuck, and behind us the fire had caught up.
I looked in the rearview mirror. I saw the alpha stop. He looked at the teetering dozer. He looked at the fire licking his fur. Then he looked down into the abyss. In that moment, I thought he would abandon us. I thought he would jump over the dozer to save himself. But no. He turned back, roared a command for his wife and child to back up against the cliff wall. Then he did something that I nor 10 of my future lifetimes would ever forget. He didn’t run. He rushed toward the edge of the cliff. He jumped down to the most dangerous position right next to my spinning track in midair. What was he doing? Was he going to push us off? No. His amber eyes looked straight at me through the window glass. That look said, “Live together or die together.”
In that moment, time seemed to freeze. The 40-ton Caterpillar D8R bulldozer was hanging precariously over the abyss. Its center of gravity had passed the tipping point. The laws of physics were screaming in my face. “You’re dead, Frank.” The right track spun uselessly in the air, desperately seeking purchase. The left track was slowly sliding on the scree foundation. The tail began to drift out. The nose dipped down. Cody let out a blood-curdling scream, clutching his head, waiting for the free fall into the 300 ft drop. But that fall didn’t come. A massive impact shook the entire chassis. Slam. Not an impact from below, but from the side. I turned my head to look through the right window toward the abyss. And that scene burned itself into my retinas forever.
The alpha. He didn’t jump over the dozer to save himself. He had jumped down onto a tiny rock ledge barely 2 ft wide, jutting out just below the crumbling road edge. It was a suicide position. If that ledge gave way, he would fall into the void before we did. He stood there back to the abyss, facing the right corner of the dozer blade. He was doing something insane. He spread his legs, digging his claws into the rock crevices for leverage. He placed his broad shoulders and massive black arms under the bottom edge of the steel blade. He intended to use his body as a wedge. He looked up at me, bared his white teeth, and nodded. The signal was clear. Lift it.
I gritted my teeth, pulling the joystick back. The log was hoisted into the air. Instantly, the mother Bigfoot darted in like a black lightning bolt. She reached into the hole, grabbed her child, and dragged him out. The baby’s right leg was snapped, dangling painfully, but he was alive. As soon as the mother and child were safe, the alpha let go. He rolled out just before the keystone crashed down, smashing the spot where he had just stood into dust. He lay panting on the ground, his chest heaving violently. Then he slowly stood up, brushing the volcanic ash off his silver-gray fur. He turned to look at me through the shattered windshield. No more hatred, no more murderous intent. In those amber eyes, I saw recognition—the recognition between warriors who had just walked through death’s door together. He gave a slight nod. I nodded back, my hand relaxing from the joystick, sweat soaking through my shirt. We had won, but the joy was short-lived.
A loud explosion rang out from behind me, followed by a wave of searing heat hitting the back of my neck. I turned to look in the rearview mirror and realized with horror the real war was just beginning. The brief joy of victory was instantly extinguished by an earsplitting explosion. Boom! The ground beneath my feet shook even harder than during the landslide. A column of fire, orange mixed with pitch black, erupted violently less than 50 yards upwind from our position. I spun around and instantly realized the cause. My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. The landslide earlier hadn’t just buried the Bigfoot child. The rocks dislodged from the slope had rolled down into the supply staging area. A sharp-edged boulder the size of a television had smashed into the auxiliary fuel tank. It was a steel tank holding 500 gallons of red diesel—the specialized fuel for heavy equipment. The impact tore the steel shell open. Fuel sprayed out like a fountain, drenching a pile of dry brush and, more importantly, spraying directly onto the glowing hot exhaust manifold of the industrial generator running at full capacity nearby.
Heat met fuel. The result was an instant firebomb. This wasn’t a normal forest fire. Natural wildfires are yellow and smell of wood smoke. What was rushing toward us was a chemical monster. The flames were dark red, rolling violently. The smoke was jet black, thick as tar, and full of toxic fumes. The air temperature skyrocketed from 110°F to over 1,000°F in mere seconds. “Cody, run! Leave everything!” I screamed into the radio, but the roar of the fire drowned out everything. I saw the Bigfoot family panic. No matter how brave and intelligent the alpha was when facing machines, against fire, the primal fear instinct of an animal took over. He roared short bursts, urging his mate and child back. The mother Bigfoot clutched her broken-legged child tight to her chest, eyes wide with terror, the fur on her body starting to singe from the radiant heat. They were trying to run up the slope to escape. “No, don’t go up there!” I yelled, banging my hand against the shattered cab glass to get their attention. Up the slope was upwind. The diesel fire was climbing that way with the speed of a race car. Running up there was suicide.
The alpha seemed to realize it. He froze, staring at the wall of fire rising before him, blocking the only road leading back to the main camp. We were surrounded. In front was fire. Behind was the sheer cliff leading down to the dry, jagged rocks of the Lewis River. On both sides were steep slopes full of loose rock. “Boss, fire blocked the road. We’re dead!” Cody emerged from the dust, face covered in soot, coughing as he ran. He was sprinting toward my loader as a final lifeline. But I knew this Caterpillar 988F loader couldn’t save us. It ran on rubber tires. Four massive tires, each worth $5,000, were a fatal weakness in this situation. The ground temperature was melting the rubber. Driving over hot coals for just a few yards would blow the tires, turning the machine into an immobile pile of scrap metal in the sea of fire. I scanned around looking for a glimmer of hope, and I saw it.
Sitting about 20 yards away, covered in a thick layer of ash, was the Caterpillar D8R bulldozer. It was an R-series model equipped with steel tracks and an enclosed cab with an air filtration system. It was old, slow, but it was armored all over, and most importantly, it had no rubber tires to melt. It was a literal tank. “Cody, get to the D8. Move!” I kicked open the loader door and jumped down. The heat hit my face like someone had opened a broiler oven. My eyebrows and sideburns curled instantly. The acrid smell of burning oil hit my lungs, making me cough violently. I ran toward the dozer. Cody had already climbed up. The Bigfoot family was huddled at the cliff edge, trapped and desperate. They looked at the fire licking closer to their feet, then turned to look at the deep abyss behind them. Jumping was death. Staying was burning to death.
I climbed onto the dozer tracks and cranked the engine. The sound of the engine firing up, “Rum! Rum!” rang out with authority. I stuck my head out the door and whistled loud, a sharp sound piercing through the roar of the fire. The alpha turned to look at me. I pointed to the empty space behind the dozer, then pointed down the narrow goat trail along the cliff—the only escape route that only steel tracks dared to traverse. “Follow me. If you want to live, stick to this iron tail!” I shouted. The alpha looked at the fire, then at the clunky yellow bulldozer. He nodded. He pushed the mother and child behind the dozer while he stood rear guard, face to face with the fire to shield his family.
I lowered the blade low, shifted into first gear. The 40-ton machine shuddered into motion. We began our journey on the razor’s edge, racing against the chemical death snapping at our heels. The Caterpillar D8R bulldozer let out a dry roar, spewing a column of black smoke that blended into the burning sky. I shifted into first gear, released the parking brake. The 40-ton mass of steel shuddered, steel tracks grinding into the scree, making earsplitting clang-clang sounds. We began to move—not running. With a top speed of only about 6 mph, a dozer cannot run. We were crawling. We were crawling along the line between life and death.
“Cody, watch the coolant temp for me!” I shouted, drowning out the engine and the roar of the fire. Cody was curled up in the passenger seat, gripping the door frame tight, eyes glued to the gauges. “Water is at 220°F, boss. We are in the red.” “Screw it. Unless the engine seizes, we don’t stop.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. The scene behind was like a tableau of the apocalypse from the Bible. The wall of fire created by the diesel and dry timber stood over 100 ft tall. It rolled and roared like a fire dragon, swallowing everything in its path. My 988F loader, once my pride, was now just a black silhouette against the red flames—four rubber tires burning furiously like four rings of death. And right in front of that wall of fire, three dark shapes were moving. The Bigfoot family was following right at the tail of the dozer. The alpha was last. He was walking backward. That’s right. He was walking backward. His face faced the fire. His back faced the dozer. He was using his massive body as a living shield to protect his wife and child from the intense radiant heat. Every time the flames lashed out, he roared, swinging his fists at the air as if trying to fight the fire itself. The fur on his body had begun to singe, smoking heavily, but he did not flinch.
In front of him, the mother Bigfoot limped along, clutching her child tight. The baby had passed out from pain, head resting on her shoulder. They were betting the lives of their entire clan on a machine built by humans—the very beings they considered sworn enemies just 15 minutes ago. The road we were on didn’t deserve to be called a road. Locals called it the goat trail. It was essentially a narrow strip of land hugging the sheer cliff of the canyon, created by natural landslides centuries ago. To the left was a vertical scree cliff. To the right was an abyss over 300 ft deep leading straight down to the dry, jagged rocks of the Lewis River. The width of the trail was only about 12 ft. The width of the D8R blade was 11 ft. That meant I only had about 6 in of clearance on each side of the tracks. One small mistake, one oversteer, and we would tumble into the abyss.
The temperature inside the cab had reached an unbearable level, even with the air filtration system running at max. The old yellow paint on the hood began to blister in large patches, popping like frying fat. The soles of my boots started sticking to the floor as the rubber melted. But the scariest part was the ground. The volcanic ash under the tracks was unstable. It was slippery as marbles. Every time I nudged the throttle, the dozer slid slightly sideways. The tail fishtailed. “Boss, on the right. Too close!” Cody screamed, his face drained of blood. I looked down. The edge of my right track was crushing the rocks at the very edge of the cliff. Rocks fell into the abyss without a sound. “Shut up. Don’t look down. Look straight ahead.” I roared back, gripping the joystick so hard my knuckles turned white. I had to feel the road—not with my eyes, but with my seat.
That’s right. Veteran dozer operators drive by the seat of their pants. We feel the vibration, the tilt of the chassis transmitted through the seat to know if the ground below is hard or soft, about to slide or not. And right now, my seat was screaming, “The ground is sliding. The ground is sliding.” Suddenly, a gust of wind from the fire blew hard. Flames licked the alpha’s back. He roared in pain, leaping forward, bumping into the mother Bigfoot. The whole group of man and beast bunched up right behind the dozer’s tail. “Faster, boss. They’re going to get cooked!” Cody wept. I gritted my teeth, pushing the throttle up another notch. The D8R lunged forward, but right ahead, about 50 yards away was the biggest challenge. A section of the trail had severely eroded due to the aftershocks of the cable snap earlier. The road surface there narrowed to less than 8 ft. A large boulder had fallen away, leaving a semi-circular bite mark deep into the path. To get past, I had to drive with one track clinging to the cliff wall while the other track hung halfway in midair. It was the walking the edge technique that only the craziest operators dared to attempt.
“Hold on tight,” I shouted. I raised the blade high to avoid hitting rocks, shifting the center of gravity back. The dozer entered the kill zone. The left track ground against the cliff wall, sparks flying. The right track began to teeter over the edge. The whole machine tilted at a 20° angle. Cody squeezed his eyes shut, muttering prayers. I held my breath. Sweat stung my eyes, but I didn’t dare blink. Suddenly, clunk. A dry sound came from the undercarriage. The ground under the right track collapsed. The dozer slid violently to the right. The nose dipped toward the abyss. The right track lost its footing completely, spinning uselessly in the air. The entire 40-ton machine was hanging precariously on the edge, held only by half the surface area of the left track. The engine roared, but it was hopeless. We were stuck, and behind us the fire had caught up.
I looked in the rearview mirror. I saw the alpha stop. He looked at the teetering dozer. He looked at the fire licking his fur. Then he looked down into the abyss. In that moment, I thought he would abandon us. I thought he would jump over the dozer to save himself. But no. He turned back, roared a command for his wife and child to back up against the cliff wall. Then he did something that I nor 10 of my future lifetimes would ever forget. He didn’t run. He rushed toward the edge of the cliff. He jumped down to the most dangerous position right next to my spinning track in midair. What was he doing? Was he going to push us off? No. His amber eyes looked straight at me through the window glass. That look said, “Live together or die together.”
In that moment, time seemed to freeze. The 40-ton Caterpillar D8R bulldozer was hanging precariously over the abyss. Its center of gravity had passed the tipping point. The laws of physics were screaming in my face. “You’re dead, Frank.” The right track spun uselessly in the air, desperately seeking purchase. The left track was slowly sliding on the scree foundation. The tail began to drift out. The nose dipped down. Cody let out a blood-curdling scream, clutching his head, waiting for the free fall into the 300 ft drop. But that fall didn’t come. A massive impact shook the entire chassis. Slam. Not an impact from below, but from the side. I turned my head to look through the right window toward the abyss. And that scene burned itself into my retinas forever.
The alpha. He didn’t jump over the dozer to save himself. He had jumped down onto a tiny rock ledge barely 2 ft wide, jutting out just below the crumbling road edge. It was a suicide position. If that ledge gave way, he would fall into the void before we did. He stood there back to the abyss, facing the right corner of the dozer blade. He was doing something insane. He spread his legs, digging his claws into the rock crevices for leverage. He placed his broad shoulders and massive black arms under the bottom edge of the steel blade. He intended to use his body as a wedge. He looked up at me, bared his white teeth, and nodded. The signal was clear. Lift it.
I gritted my teeth, pulling the joystick back. The log was hoisted into the air. Instantly, the mother Bigfoot darted in like a black lightning bolt. She reached into the hole, grabbed her child, and dragged him out. The baby’s right leg was snapped, dangling painfully, but he was alive. As soon as the mother and child were safe, the alpha let go. He rolled out just before the keystone crashed down, smashing the spot where he had just stood into dust. He lay panting on the ground, his chest heaving violently. Then he slowly stood up, brushing the volcanic ash off his silver-gray fur. He turned to look at me through the shattered windshield. No more hatred, no more murderous intent. In those amber eyes, I saw recognition—the recognition between warriors who had just walked through death’s door together. He gave a slight nod. I nodded back, my hand relaxing from the joystick, sweat soaking through my shirt. We had won, but the joy was short-lived.
A loud explosion rang out from behind me, followed by a wave of searing heat hitting the back of my neck. I turned to look in the rearview mirror and realized with horror the real war was just beginning. The brief joy of victory was instantly extinguished by an earsplitting explosion. Boom! The ground beneath my feet shook even harder than during the landslide. A column of fire, orange mixed with pitch black, erupted violently less than 50 yards upwind from our position. I spun around and instantly realized the cause. My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. The landslide earlier hadn’t just buried the Bigfoot child. The rocks dislodged from the slope had rolled down into the supply staging area. A sharp-edged boulder the size of a television had smashed into the auxiliary fuel tank. It was a steel tank holding 500 gallons of red diesel—the specialized fuel for heavy equipment. The impact tore the steel shell open. Fuel sprayed out like a fountain, drenching a pile of dry brush and, more importantly, spraying directly onto the glowing hot exhaust manifold of the industrial generator running at full capacity nearby.
Heat met fuel. The result was an instant firebomb. This wasn’t a normal forest fire. Natural wildfires are yellow and smell of wood smoke. What was rushing toward us was a chemical monster. The flames were dark red, rolling violently. The smoke was jet black, thick as tar, and full of toxic fumes. The air temperature skyrocketed from 110°F to over 1,000°F in mere seconds. “Cody, run! Leave everything!” I screamed into the
