I drove up Mill Creek Road to Tiger Creek Road (also called Tiger Canyon Road) and stopped at Skyline Campground (formerly squaw springs campground). I live in western Washington but grew up in Walla Walla and love the Blue Mountains. I’m an avid hiker and love to enjoy the outdoors. When I get the time I like to make a hiking trip. I hadn’t been to this particular site before but I had heard some of the Sasquatch stories coming out of the Tiger Canyon area. I had driven up Tiger Canyon a couple times before, including a few weeks prior in late June when the road was still blocked by snow. I thought this campground would be the perfect place to stay the night and hike the area. A friend of mine had been with on the trip when the road was blocked, but he too was busy this week so I went alone to scout out the area alone, stay the night and drive back to western Washington the next day. I had first been intrigued by the idea of Sasquatch when I found some info online while searching for hiking sites. As a kid some local friends had told me stories, but I’d never been sure what to make of it. I also had read a book about Blue Mountain Bigfoot that Vance Orchard had wrote. I wasn’t totally convinced that these creatures existed and did not think I would find anything about them because I figured that if there were encounters, they were very rare. I arrived at the campground at about one o’clock. An older couple was there reading, enjoying the campground. I picked an area and began set up my tent. As I was pounding the stakes in I felt something hit the ground behind me. I turned around and I didn’t see anything. I looked over at the couple and they were still sitting at their campsite. Whatever it was had caused a very strong vibration in the ground behind me and it couldn’t have been anyone at the camp. A little bit later I started to hear a weird noise. At first I thought it was the antifreeze bubbling in my car because it was a hot day and my car was steaming a little. My car overheats a lot. The sounds were like a low rumbling growl. It was a sustained sound that lasted for just a couple seconds. However I seemed to hear it in regular intervals. The sound also seemed to kind of echo like the sound of something hollow or the sound of water down a drain which is why at the time I thought it was my car. I decided to explore the area; I walked by the two other campers and said hi. They had a poodle that barked at me little. I wanted to see if I could look over Tiger Canyon at the valley from where we were so I crossed over to the other side if Kendall Skyline Road. I couldn’t see much through all the trees so I decided to head the other way. I brought a GPS device with me that had topography maps loaded on it. It showed a trail into the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness that I wanted to follow. As I started in that direction I noticed a very large track just to the right of a pool of water in some soft mud. It didn’t really look to me as something authentically Bigfoot because the foot seemed thin. I told myself it couldn’t be a footprint of a Sasquatch because I had read some stories a few weeks earlier and thought I could just be imagining it. I came back and looked around the area behind the camp where I had felt the thump. I had heard something knocking on a tree so I tried to make noise like I had done when I was hammering the tent posts. I had a little pattern of sorts that I thumped onto the ground with a rock. It seemed like at one point whatever it was mimicked the pattern of my thumps. I explored the area I thought it was coming from, but only saw a deer, so I figured maybe it was just my imagination getting the best of me. The noises stopped and I felt relieved. “It was all just in my head” I thought. It was now somewhere between 1:30 pm and 2 pm, and I started down towards Squaw Spring. I noticed some more prints as I walked but I still didn’t believe what I was seeing. I found some that seemed to continue on further but I did not follow them since I had planned to go a few miles into the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness and didn’t want to waste time. It also looked like there was a foot impression on a log that had fallen across the spring. This all seemed too surreal to me because there were lots of prints everywhere even some that appeared smaller, possibly a juvenile animal, but they were just thin outlines. I had never seen prints like these in person so I was unsure what I was even looking at. I kept walking and came to a clearing on the side of a grade where I found a print that was about 3 inches deep and well defined. I could see the big flat foot, the toes and heel. Suddenly I thought wow these prints are for real. I now had a feeling one of these creatures could be around any corner. I got to the top of one of the mountains to get a nice view of the wilderness area and then made my way back to camp. When I got back I was pretty tired from hiking. The two other people at the campground left in their pickup shortly after I got there and I went to relax in my tent. I was the only one at the campground now. About an hour later I heard the same low rumbling growl sound from earlier. I realized that my car had now been off for 3 or 4 hours, and there was really no way it could be the car. I was hearing more knocking and like I had earlier. It sounded like someone was smacking a branch against a tree. I realized whatever creature this was; it must be the same one that came by before because the knocking and the low growl started at the same time after being silent for so long. It sounded like it was in the same area behind my campsite where I had heard the thump earlier. It was now about 7 pm, about 2 hours until dark. Being there by myself made me very nervous, especially with the growling noise and tree knocking apparently being directed toward me and my campsite. I got out of there as fast as I could. I got back to town and felt very paranoid. I spent time walking downtown Walla Walla calming myself down and recounting the events. I had never been so scared of the outdoors. People noticed I looked visibly shaken though I had not mentioned the incident. It was hard to even tell anyone in fear of them thinking I was crazy.