Badlands and I headed to the Skokie Lagoons to go after a new geocache series in 2021. We had both just gotten new bikes and since we saw that most of the caches there were near bike trails and footpaths we decided to take our bikes and bike it as much as possible. Naturally, there were a few other caches that would require some bushwhacking. This story is about one of the off-trail geocaches that was deep in the woods.
The air was heavy with late-summer humidity when Badlands and I got to the Skokie Lagoons. We weren’t after fish or kayaking this time—we were hunting for a geocache hidden deep in the woods, not far from the water. The kind of hide that no casual hiker or fisherman would ever get near. Badlands watched his GPS, and I carried a flashlight even though the sun hadn’t dipped below the trees yet. Something about the woods in the lagoons always felt darker than it should, as if the woods themselves were holding their breath.
We parked our bikes at the end of a dirt foot path and then bushwhacked our way deeper into the woods. The sounds of traffic faded quickly, replaced by cicadas, frogs, and the occasional snap or rustle of something moving in the undergrowth. The air grew stiller the deeper we went, as though the usual chatter of wildlife was thinning out. After a while, our GPS arrows finally settled, pointing to a moss-covered log wedged between two twisted trees that seemed to lean closer than they should.
“Look at this!” Badlands said, kneeling down. He pointed to some large gashes in the twisted tree. They looked pretty fresh. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think a bear had been clawing at this,” he said. “And what’s that awful smell?” He brushed aside some leaves and pulled out the geocache. Inside was the usual assortment—trinkets, a few coins, and the logbook. While he squatted down to sign the log, I decided to document the moment. I snapped a quick photo of him signing the cache log, grinning at our find. The brush behind him swayed a little, even though there was no wind.
We replaced the cache back in its hiding place and hiked out, relieved and satisfied. Yay! Another smiley! This one definitely earned its T4 rating. We bushwhacked back to our bikes and headed off to the next cache on our maps.
But that night, while I reviewed the pictures from the day on my laptop, my stomach turned cold. There in the photo, behind Badlands, just past the heavy brush, was a figure. Ominous. Menacing. Covered in dark, matted hair. Its shoulders loomed higher than the brush, and its face—partly shadowed—was locked directly on the camera. Its eyes glowed faintly, two pale pinpricks in the gloom.
I hadn’t seen or heard a thing when I snapped the photo. Neither had Badlands. We thought we were alone out there. I remembered the deep claw marks on the tree next to where the cache was hidden.
Now, when I look at that photo, I can’t convince myself it was just a trick of the light. The eyes were too sharp, too deliberate. Bigfoot had been there the whole time, silently watching us sign the logbook, waiting in the trees of the Skokie Lagoons—and I can’t shake the feeling that we were lucky to have escaped without getting attacked.
I won’t publish the name or location of that geocache. I wouldn’t want to encourage anyone to put themselves at risk by going there.
But this new commemorative cache, in honor of that scary event, is a safe and easy place to visit.
