An account in Spokane County, Washington

It was fall. About 9 at night. Just getting dark. A friend and I were camping on Mica Peak in Spokane County WA. We decided to go for a quick hike just before dark. We were walking an old logging road. As we came around a right hand bend, we saw the outline of a man standing next to a small pine tree. The tree was only about 12 feet or so tall and Christmas tree shaped, but fairly sparse branches. The "man" was standing to our right of the tree. It was around 30 yards from us. At this point it was getting too dark to make out much detail of the thing, but it was about 4 feet shorter than the tree, dark and wide. The tree wasn't moving, but the "man" was swaying slowly from side to side. We backed up slowly till we were around the corner out of sight before we turned and got back to camp as fast as we could to start a fire. We were camped near a creek in a valley. That night after sitting by the fire talking and playing guitars we went to bed. While laying in the tent just about asleep, from back up near the logging road we had hiked, we heard screaching. The only thing comparable I've ever heard were chimpanzees on tv. There were 5 or 6 screaching sounds in about 10 minutes and that was it. We laid in the tent holding our pistols most of the night, but didn't hear anything else.