Beyond the Beyond: The Ape Men of St. Helens

Beyond the Beyond: The Ape Men of St. Helens

Yes, the Pacific Northwest has always been a magnet for the weird and the strange. Maybe it’s the weather, the urban legends of both settlers and Native Americans, or maybe people have too much caffeine running through their veins. There’s a Bandage Man of Cannon Beach, a wrapped-up ghostly figure who jumps out at cars as they pass by at night. There’s a whole haunted town called Fort Gamble, where the ghosts of old prospectors are said to make the floors creak as they walk through old Victorian homes. Mount Rainier is where Kenneth Arnold had his UFO sighting, which some credit as popularizing the modern UFO craze. And there are a LOT of sightings of Big Feet—or is it Big Foot? Let’s just call them Sasquatch for now.

In the summer of 1924, long before the term cryptid came into existence, five men were prospecting for gold along the flanks of Mount St. Helens. The men—Fred Beck, Marion Smith, Roy Smith, Gabe Marion, and John Peterson—were deep in the wilderness, prospecting for gold in a very narrow gorge later named Ape Canyon because of what ended up happening. They built a cedar cabin there, and in the daytime, they dug, panned, and blasted. Nights were spent sitting around the fire, eating, smoking pipes, and telling stories until their eyes grew heavy and it was time to retire to the cabin for sleep. For weeks they did this without incident. Then, one night, they had… visitors.

In the mornings, they started noticing tracks in the volcanic ash near their site. They weren’t bear tracks but rather looked human. Stones were arranged along the banks of a nearby river, piled up several feet in the air, and several trees had been stripped of their bark eight feet up. They initially blamed each other and wrote the incidents off as friendly pranking, but soon that light-hearted spirit would change, as two of the men noticed a dark, hair-covered figure watching them one evening in the moonlight from several hundred feet up the mountain. That night, the wind seemed to stop, and the insects grew eerily silent.

Just after midnight, a rock hit the side of the cabin. Then another, and then several more. The men were jolted awake, scrambling for their rifles as the cabin shuddered under the sudden barrage. The pounding grew louder, closer, as if dozens of heavy fists were drumming against the logs. As if the sky had ripped open and rained down hailstones the size of fists.

Through the cracks between the boards, Fred swore he could see silhouettes—big, broad-shouldered figures moving just beyond the edge of the firelight, their eyes catching the glow like burning embers. Inside, the prospectors held their breath, listening to the guttural grunts circling the cabin. They were surrounded, and every time they thought the creatures had left, the barrage of rocks and then fists would return, rising and falling in some terrible rhythm.

It continued for hours: pounding on the walls and door, more stones being hurled, and something—or some things—on the roof, trying to claw their way in. A heavy object came down on the roof, bending the rafters and filling the cabin with dust. The men fired through the cracks, each shot muffled by the howling coming from outside the cabin. But just before dawn, everything stopped. The forest fell silent again, and as dawn crept in birds and insects could again be heard from outside the door.

Still terrified, the men gathered up their supplies and abandoned the cabin. But as they turned the corner on the trail atop their horses, one of the creatures stood slightly up ahead, blocking the way. Fred fired at it, and it toppled down into a nearby ravine. The group reached the ranger station by mid-afternoon, shaken and weary from their experience.

The story exploded, and soon newspapers were calling the so-called creatures “Mountain Devils.” The men faced ridicule but stuck by their story. Skeptics dismissed the tale as campfire exaggeration or a hoax meant to scare away other prospectors, even though other such sightings were reported by other people in that area the same summer.

To this day, the experience of these men has yet to be verified. People still venture to the cabin each year, although now it has been buried under a century of debris. Maybe the men were attacked by other people out there in the woods and exaggerated the event. Maybe it was completely fabricated to keep others from the area, although it seemed to have the opposite effect. Or maybe the Pacific Northwest holds mysteries that watch us from the tree line, much closer than we realize. If hunting cryptids isn’t your bag, you may want to steer clear of places called Devil’s Den (Arkansas), Goblin Mountain (Utah), Troll Falls (Alberta), Skookum Meadow (Washington), Ogre Creek (Montana), and of course… Ape Canyon.

Have you had rocks hurled at you by a tribe of Sasquatch? Message @beyondthebeyond1 on Instagram.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Eastern Sierra Now. Readers are encouraged to conduct further research and consult with relevant experts or professionals before making any decisions or taking any actions based on the information provided in this article.

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TM Rush