Couple Vanished in Washington in 2014 — In 2022 Their Remains Found in Ravine with Bare Footprints

In 2014, they went hiking in Mount Reineer National Park and disappeared without a trace.

Eight years later, a chance discovery in a remote ravine not only revealed their fate, but also raised questions that have no answers.

Questions about what they encountered in the last hours of their lives.

Because traces were found next to the remains of one of the hikers, traces of a barefoot, 47 cm long.

July 2014, Washington State.

Mount Reineer National Park is more than 950 square kilometers of wilderness, glaciers, alpine meadows, and dense, almost impenetrable forests.

For Lindy and Mark Bates from Oregon, this was not their first trip here.

They were in their 30s, both in excellent physical shape, experienced hikers who knew what it was like to hike for days on end.

They were not noviceses who would get lost in three pine trees.

They had prepared well.

They registered their route with the rangers, carried a GPS tracker and a satellite phone for emergency communications, and brought a week’s worth of provisions.

Even though they had planned the hike for only 4 days, their route was to take them through the northwestern part of the park near Lake Moitch.

This is one of the most picturesque but also most remote places in the park, accessible only by a long gravel road.

They were last seen alive on July 12th.

Another tourist, a man named David Ames, encountered them at the lake.

According to him, they were in high spirits, asking him about the trail leading to the summit of Toli Peak.

They were interested in whether there was a shortcut to cut off a few kilometers.

Ames advised them against it, explaining that the unofficial trails in the area were dangerous and led to steep cliffs.

They thanked him and he watched them head off on the standard well-marked trail.

That was around 2 RPM.

That evening, Lindy was supposed to call her sister.

It was their usual practice during hikes, just a quick message to let her know everything was okay.

The call never came.

At first, the family didn’t panic.

Sell service in the mountains is spotty.

Maybe they just couldn’t find a spot with good reception.

But when the couple didn’t come off the trail on the planned day, July 16th, and didn’t show up for work, their families called emergency services.

A large-scale search operation began.

Dozens of rangers and volunteers participated and a helicopter with a thermal imager was deployed.

They combed the area square by square based on the Bates’s reported route.

The weather was good, which gave them hope.

On the third day of the search, a mile from where David Ames had seen them, the search party made its first discovery.

Right in the middle of the trail lay a lone hiking boot.

It was a sturdy, expensive boot that belonged to Mark.

It wasn’t torn or damaged.

The laces were untied, but the boot itself was in perfect condition, as if it had simply been taken off and left there.

This was the first oddity.

No experienced hiker would leave their boot in the middle of a trail.

If he had rubbed his foot, he would have stopped and dealt with the problem.

If he had broken his leg, he would have stayed put.

Leaving your shoes behind and continuing barefoot or in one sock on a rocky mountain trail is illogical.

Near the spot where it was found, the slope dropped steeply.

The rangers noticed fresh broken branches and flattened bushes as if something large had rolled or been thrown down.

This indicated a possible fall.

Rescuers used climbing equipment to descend the slope, but found nothing.

No bodies, no equipment, no traces of blood, only traces of a descent that ended at a small rock ledge.

Beyond that, there was thick, untouched forest.

The search continued for another 3 days.

A helicopter circled over the forest and rescuers combed ravines and streams.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

The satellite phone connection was never established and the GPS tracker did not transmit any signals.

It was as if Lindy and Mark Bates had simply vanished into thin air.

After 6 days, the active search was called off.

The official version released by the Pierce County Police was tragic but simple.

An accident, probably one of the spouses, most likely Mark, fell off the slope.

The other tried to help and also fell.

Their bodies are believed to be in one of the many inaccessible ravines or crevices, and finding them in such terrain is virtually impossible.

The boot left on the trail was explained as a result of shock or panic, the case was suspended.

Lindy and Mark Bates joined the sad list of people who had perished in the mountains.

Their relatives were never able to bury them.

For eight years, this story remained just one of the tragedies of the national park.

Then came October 2022.

A local resident, an avid mushroom picker, went into the forest in the same area, but strayed significantly from the known trails.

He wandered into a deep, damp ravine with a small stream running along the bottom.

The place was remote, covered with a thick layer of moss and ferns.

Making his way through the windfall, he stumbled and to keep his balance, leaned his hand on the ground.

His fingers touched something smooth and hard sticking out from under the moss.

He rad away the leaves and saw it, a white, smooth, unmistakably human skull.

The police were called to the scene and cordined off the area.

The painstaking work of the forensic team began.

Soon other remains were found.

Several ribs and pelvic bones scattered over an area of several square meters.

Nearby, torn pieces of a backpack hung from a tree root.

A little further away were the remains of thermal underwear, decayed and embedded in the forest floor.

DNA testing carried out as quickly as possible confirmed that the bones belonged to Lindy Bates.

Mark was still listed as missing.

The initial version of the fall seemed to be confirmed.

The ravine was about 3 km away from where Mark’s boot had been found.

Their bodies had probably been lying there all these years, torn apart by animals.

But then the forensic experts began a detailed examination of the scene.

And that’s when the story stopped being simple.

One of the experts examining the damp soil under a thick layer of moss which acted as a preservative noticed some indentations.

He carefully removed the layer of moss and froze.

Underneath in the dense muddy soil were four clear footprints.

The footprints were of a bare human foot, but their size was not human.

Forensic experts took measurements.

The length of the clearest print was 47 cm.

The width at its widest point was almost 20 cm.

This roughly corresponds to a shoe size of 75.

The footprints were not smudged.

They were deep, left by something very heavy.

They led from the stream to the place where Lindy’s main remains were found.

These could not have been bear tracks.

The shape was completely different with distinct toes.

It could not have been a person wearing special shoes.

The print was clearly that of a barefoot with the characteristic curves of the arch and pads.

Upon further examination of Lindy’s bones, the pathologist discovered another detail.

There was a strange mark on one of the pelvic bones, a smooth, concentrated chip, as if the bone had been struck with something blunt, but very hard.

The injury did not resemble the marks left by a predator’s teeth or damage from falling on rocks.

It was described in the report as the result of significant kinetic force applied to a small area.

The case was officially reopened.

The new version stated that death was caused by trauma inflicted by a large animal or a fall.

Barefoot footprints were included in the report but marked origin unknown.

They could not be attributed to any known species of animal living in North America.

The case remains open, but there is no active investigation.

There are no suspects or leads.

All that remains are the remains of Lindy Bates, the missing Mark Bates, and four huge footprints in the damp earth of the ravine, suggesting that someone else was in the forest that day besides the two tourists.

Someone big, strong, and barefoot.

What really happened at Lake Moitch in July 2014? Why did an experienced hiker abandon his boot and run down the slope? And what kind of creature left footprints that don’t fit any biological framework? The answers to these questions may still be wandering through the remote forests of Mount Reineer.

The discovery of Lindy’s remains and the mysterious footprints in 2022 prompted the Pierce County Police Department to reopen the 2014 case file and reinter everyone who was involved in the search at the time.

One of those people was Jacob Reed, a former park ranger who was now retired.

In 2014, he had led one of the ground search teams.

When he was shown photos of the footprints from the ravine, his reaction was more than just surprise.

It was a kind of grim confirmation of what he had kept silent about for 8 years.

In his interview for an internal police report, which was leaked and allowed us to learn these details, Reed said the following.

During the initial search on the fourth day, his group was working in the area adjacent to the slope where Mark’s boot was found.

They were combing through the thick undergrowth, moving parallel to the dry creek bed.

It was getting dark.

At one point, one of the volunteers called Reed.

He had found something strange about 3 m above the ground, hanging from the thick trunk of a Douglas Fertry, was a piece of fabric.

It was a piece of bright blue nylon, identical to the material of the jacket Lindy Bates was wearing, judging by the photos.

But what was strange was not that, but how it got there.

There were no broken branches around it.

The tree was completely intact.

To get a jacket caught there, you would have had to either fly at tremendous speed or be lifted to that height.

But that wasn’t all.

A little further on, about 50 m from the tree, the group came across a place that looked like a bed.

It was a large area of flattened grass and ferns about 2×3 m.

Usually such beds are left by moose or deer.

But this one was different.

It gave off a strong, sharp, and very unpleasant odor.

Reed, who had worked in the park for 20 years, described it as a mixture of wet dog, rotting meat, and something musky and chemical.

He couldn’t associate the smell with any animal he knew.

At the edge of the bed, they found several long, dark hairs stuck in the bark of a fallen tree.

The hairs were stiff, as thick as fishing line, and about 30 cm long.

Reed collected them in a sample bag.

When his group returned to base camp, he reported his findings.

The piece of fabric was added to the case file.

However, the hair and the description of the smell were met with skepticism by the operation’s leadership.

They were told that it was most likely a grizzly bear.

Although their population in the area was extremely small, the hair was simply forgotten.

Laboratory analysis was never carried out, lost in bureaucratic confusion and the general belief that it was just an unfortunate accident.

Reed was sure it wasn’t a bear.

bears don’t smell like that and they don’t hang pieces of clothing on trees 3 m high.

He tried to insist on a more thorough investigation of the area, but the next day the weather turned bad, heavy rain fell and the search in that sector was called off.

Then the operation was shut down altogether.

After traces were found in 2022, the police finally sent the hair, which had been lying in the evidence archive for eight years, for analysis.

The result was discouraging.

DNA analysis was unable to identify the animal.

The report stated that the sample belonged to an unknown primate with genetic markers that did not match any known species, including humans.

This information was not made public officially.

The hair remains unidentified.

Now, let’s go back to the evidence.

We have Mark’s boot simply left on the trail.

We have a piece of fabric from Lindy’s jacket 3 m up.

There is a bed with a terrible smell.

There is hair from a primate unknown to science.

And now there are Lindy’s remains in the ravine and huge footprints next to her.

Let’s try to reconstruct the events based on these facts rather than on a convenient version about a fall.

Something forced Lindy and Mark off the trail.

Something so terrifying that they ran down a steep, dangerous slope.

Perhaps they encountered this creature right on the trail.

Imagine their terror.

They see something that shouldn’t exist.

A huge two-legged creature.

Mark, perhaps in an attempt to distract it, or simply in a panic, kicks off his boot.

It may seem illogical, but people do strange things when they are in a state of shock.

They run down into the thicket, trying to get away.

The creature pursues them.

It is much faster and stronger.

It moves through the forest with an ease that is impossible for a human.

It catches up with them.

The piece of fabric on the tree may indicate that the creature grabbed Lindy and possibly threw her or lifted her.

This explains both the height and the lack of damage to the tree itself.

The strong mechanical impact on Lindy’s pelvic bone is not a fall.

It is a blow.

A direct targeted blow of incredible force that breaks bones.

This explains why her remains were found in the ravine.

Perhaps her body was dumped or dragged there later.

But where is Mark? His remains have never been found.

Here we enter the realm of the darkest speculation.

If the creature killed Lindy, what did it do with Mark? Did it take him away? Why? This detail makes the story even more sinister.

It’s one thing for an aggressive animal to defend its territory.

It’s quite another for a creature to deliberately carry off its prey.

Another detail has emerged.

In 2016, 2 years after the bases disappeared, a group of loggers working on a contract on the edge of a national park about 15 km from Lake Moitch reported strange incidents.

At night, someone threw large rocks at their trailers.

They heard loud, guttural cries that sounded like neither a wolf’s howl nor a bear’s roar.

One morning they discovered that a heavy steel container with tools weighing several hundred kg had been overturned.

At the time they did not think much of it, attributing it to hooligans or bears.

But in light of new information, these events take on a different meaning.

A creature capable of overturning a steel container is quite capable of delivering a blow that breaks pelvic bones.

A creature that makes guttural cries and throws stones exhibits behavior characteristic of higher primates but on a much more threatening scale.

All these disperate facts, Ranger Reed’s testimony, the incidents with the loggers, and of course, the physical evidence from the site where Lindy’s remains were found are coming together to form a single terrifying picture.

There is something in the forests of Mount Reineer, something large, powerful, intelligent enough to avoid humans, but extremely dangerous when encountered.

and Lindy and Mark Bates had the misfortune of crossing its path.

Why aren’t the authorities shouting about this from the rooftops? The answer is simple and cynical.

Mount Reineer National Park is a huge source of income from tourism.

Admitting that an unknown and deadly predator is roaming the forests, hunting humans would cause mass panic and led to the closure of the park and huge economic losses.

It is much easier to write it off as an accident and sweep inconvenient facts such as the hair of an unknown primate and 47 cm footprints under the rug.

The most disturbing aspect of this story is not so much the existence of an unknown crypted as the evidence that official agencies may know much more than they are saying.

After the leak of information about the hair of the unknown primate and details from the pathologist’s report, journalists from several independent publications tried to get comments from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Parks Management.

The responses were uniform and evasive.

It all boiled down to the investigation is ongoing.

The information is part of an open case and cannot be disclosed.

And there is no conclusive evidence of unidentified species in the park that pose a threat to humans.

But one person, a former biologist who worked for the US Forest Service in the 1990s, agreed to speak to one of the researchers on condition of complete anonymity.

Let’s call him Dr.

Alan Cartwright.

Cartwright claimed that as early as the late 1990s during fieldwork in the Cascade Mountains, which includes Mount Reineer, his team repeatedly encountered oddities.

They found young trees broken in half at a height of 2 to 3 m above the ground, which would have required enormous force.

They recorded sounds on parabolic microphones that they could not identify.

low frequency hums and piercing guttural cries that acoustic analysis could not match to any known animal.

According to Cartwright, all this data was sent to higher authorities, but no response followed.

Moreover, they were strongly advised not to mention these anomalies in public reports, attributing everything to unusual bare behavior or geological activity.

The culmination came when one of his team’s field camps was literally destroyed during the night.

The tents were torn to shreds and a heavy box of equipment which had been carried by four men was found 100 meters from the camp in a ravine.

Nothing was stolen.

It did not look like a robbery, but rather an act of intimidation.

After this incident, their project in the area was prematurely shut down under the pretext of funding cuts.

Cartwright is convinced that there is an unspoken order to silence any evidence that might indicate the existence of a population of large relicked hominids in the forests of the northwestern United States.

The reason in his opinion is not only tourism, it is a question of control.

To admit that there are entire regions of the country inhabited by an intelligent or semi-intelligent species that is not controlled by humans is to admit one’s own powerlessness.

It undermines the very myth that we are the masters of this planet, that there are no more blank spots on the map.

Let’s go back to Mark Bates.

He still hasn’t been found.

Assuming that the creature killed Lindy in the ravine, what happened to it? The theory that it was carried away remains the main one in unofficial circles.

But why? One of the most terrifying hypotheses based on the behavior of some primates suggests that the attack may not have been simply an act of predation.

Perhaps it was a demonstration of strength, territorial aggression in which one person was killed and the other kidnapped.

Mark’s fate in this case is terrible and unimaginable.

He could have died later in the lair of this creature or however further speculation is pointless and only leads us into the realm of pure conjecture.

The fact remains one man died a terrible death.

The other disappeared without a trace.

So what do we have in the end? The official version which is full of holes and doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.

It doesn’t explain the boot on the trail, the piece of fabric on the tree, the monstrous footprints, the hair of an unknown primate, or the nature of the injuries on Lindy’s bones.

This version is convenient for the authorities because it closes the case and reassures the public.

And then there is a second version, a version that ties together all the strange and inexplicable details.

It suggests that the wild, vast forests of Washington State are home to a creature known from Native American legends and eyewitness accounts.

A creature that usually avoids humans, but an encounter with which is fatal.

Lindy and Mark Bates, without knowing it, invaded its territory.

They wandered where they shouldn’t have gone, and they paid for it with their lives.

This story is not about a monster from a horror movie.

It is about a real biological threat that our civilization prefers to ignore.

It’s about how the arrogance with which we consider ourselves the crown of creation can be deadly dangerous.

Somewhere out there in the shadows of Mount Reineer, undiscovered secrets still lie.

And perhaps the remains of Mark Bates, this story does not have a happy ending.

It doesn’t even have a clear ending.

It just breaks off like the search operation in 2014, leaving behind only cold, clammy fear and one single question.

Who will be next? Because the creature that left 47 cm long footprints hasn’t gone anywhere.

It’s still there.