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Thread: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

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    United States Avalon Member mojo's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Best wishes Bill, also know that you will capture other possibly interesting wild critters and maybe make a detailed enough image for a nice photo but if you end up with a Wawa well all I can say will be wow wow...

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    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Well, that was an anticlimax, I'm afraid. There was nothing at all.

    I'd set it to video mode — see the discussion in the last few posts — and I got a whole bunch of videos over a 5 day period of blowing grass, with the camera shaking around quite vividly. Although the tree I fastened it to was totally solid, there were clearly storm winds up there that moved everything around violently and triggered the sensor each time. No animals whatsoever.

    But it seems that I must have misunderstood how the camera works. The videos I got — all very clear — were only daytime movies. I was expecting night-time IR videos, too, but now I understand those are only when in photo mode. I may well have missed all the nocturnal action.

    So, I brought it back down to experiment more. This afternoon I'm going to take it up the river here — where it's still pretty wild, but really not too far from the house — and set it to what's called 'hybrid' mode: that's video and photos together. That activates both the IR sensor and the motion sensor. Then I can check it out literally every other day and see how best to toggle all the different settings.

    This is the tree I fastened it to. The winds must have been very high... the cam was rock solid on the tree, and all the videos were shaking around as if they were hand-held.



    So here's what it's like just up the river from where I am. The altitude is lower, and the ecosystem is very different, but it's still quite a jungle. All this is just about 30-45 mins away.

    I've never seen any large animals apart from deer, but as most of you experienced in the wilderness will know, if you get to see just 10% of what's watching you, you're doing pretty well. I do know there are predators there, as I once came across a fresh deer carcass that had been mauled and eaten by something pretty big.



    Last edited by Bill Ryan; 26th October 2017 at 21:07.

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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Thanks for the gorgeous photos! Hope you have better luck next time!

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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    ... wonder how far away the camera photo will still work? If motion sensor it must be about 100 feet less? It was a great idea to move it nearby and figure out the best settings, and how crazy would it be if he was near your home?

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  9. Link to Post #145
    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Hello, Everyone — a general update, with a few end-of-year thoughts.

    In the last couple months (November-December) I've been on quite a few more high-altitude hikes, mostly in the western area of the park. Some of them have been long ones, venturing into some very remote places. I have a bunch more good photos... but after a while there seems no point in posting them all!

    But here's what I've found myself thinking. And these really are new thoughts.

    I'm sure the Wawa Grande reports are for real. One unfortunate hiker, 20 years ago, was hospitalized after a direct physical encounter with one:
    But here's the rub. I do know these mountains really quite well now. I know the ecosystem, the weather and the environment.

    There's just nothing there. Nothing for a large animal to eat, unless it's a llama (which grazes) or a puma (which eats llamas).

    Wild llamas are very quick and nimble up there. My dog Mara can't catch them, and it's hard to imagine anything on two legs that could. (Pumas, though, can run very fast indeed for short periods, like lions or cheetahs.)

    It's biologically almost impossible to imagine a 300-500 lb humanoid creature finding anything at all that it could live on. It'd be starving within a week. It'd have to make regular raids on farms and villages outside the park for livestock. And if that was happening, with what biologists call "a breeding herd" (i.e. a sizeable family group, allowing them to procreate and survive in small but stable numbers), one would think this would definitely be regular local news.

    Some domesticated horses and cows are set loose into the edges of the park to graze freely on the lower mountain slopes. But if they were getting routinely picked off, the farmers surely just wouldn't do that.

    It's a mystery. It seems impossible for them to exist. But the sighting reports seem to be real.

    So — I'm just daring to start entertaining the thought, which I'd previously always dismissed out of hand, that just possibly these creatures may somehow be interdimensional. Or, something like that. Appearing, and disappearing, and re-appearing. Not based here... but visiting here, in remote places, very occasionally. So to encounter one, one would have to be very very lucky — if that's the right word!

    Many of the places I've been offer wide-ranging, crystal clear views from high viewpoints. I can see llamas half a mile away (and so can Mara!). I've seen puma scat quite a number of times now. And it's often very muddy, down near the many rivers, lakes and streams... but there's not one single footprint of a large bipedal creature.

    Go figure.
    Last edited by Bill Ryan; 26th December 2017 at 16:24.

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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Funny thing, how this relates to one of my very first paranormal experience's

    i can remember was when I was about 4 or 5 years old.
    Lights out and I was going to sleep, but before I went into sleep I noticed a blacked out silhouette of something just beside my bed ,It was so close so I could have reached out my arm to touch it. but I was booth paralyzed and petrified!

    I asked (In my mind) who are you? and the answer was "I'm vava " or "wawa" (same word phonetically) , then I can't remember anything more of what happened.

    It was such a scary incident so I had to sleep in my parents bedroom for weeks after it happened, and I had to sleep with lights on, for years after.

    but that name stuck into my mind forever "I'm vava "
    Maybe this is irrelavnt to the thread, but I just couldn't shut up about it.
    Last edited by Rawhide68; 8th April 2018 at 00:57.

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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    For anyone who hasn't seen the gorgeous photos on this thread.....you're missing a Real Treat!!

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    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Quote Posted by Foxie Loxie (here)
    For anyone who hasn't seen the gorgeous photos on this thread.....you're missing a Real Treat!!
    Well, thank you! I have to say, it really is fantastic up there. I never take any kind of vacation, but every few weeks I do head up to the mountains for a day. That really is food for the soul, and it's really all I ever need.

    I've made a number of further trips since my last major post here, and I've continued to explore the very remote high wilderness. Mara (my dog) and I are getting to know it all really quite well. We can travel fast and light, and cover a lot of ground.

    Here's a nice panorama from a trip we made just a couple of days ago. You can just see Mara standing like a mountain goat on the ridge to the high left.


    Hi-res image: http://projectavalon.net/June_2018_hike_panorama_lg.jpg

    No signs of any Wawa Grandes, of any kind. Not a single footprint in the mud (and there's often quite a lot of mud down in the valleys, especially near water), not a single broken tree branch. And almost nothing for them to eat, except deer and wild llamas.

    (They'd be a great food source, of course, but you have to catch them first: no easy task for anything with only two legs. Mara chases llamas for miles, when she sees them, but they always outdistance her quickly. And she's a lot faster than Usain Bolt. )

    Of minor interest though, we did see a rabbit, ridiculously high... at 13,850 ft (I checked it on Google Earth when I got home). Has to be a world record. I just managed to snatch this hilarious photo:


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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Only just found this thread, thank you so much Bill. I am quite envious of those stunning landscapes, the pictures are wonderful. I'd hike them with you any day.
    "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Cute rabbit & Mara picture!! What an amazing panorama picture!!

    Please DO take a day off to refresh your soul as needed!

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    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    I thought I'd mention this story here. The media in Ecuador is following an intensive local rescue effort closely every day, the biggest for many years.

    A local hiker, Wilson Serrano, experienced and well-equipped, who knew the area well and has climbed all over South America, failed to return from a solo hike 10 days ago. Since then, here's been a huge co-ordinated search for him, and they can't find him anywhere. He's completely disappeared.

    The most comprehensive story of the rescue effort is here: (in Spanish)
    ... and this is a pretty good Google translation of the page.




    Here's Wilson Serrano, the missing hiker. He looks like he could survive well, but after 10 days of very cold nights up high he'd be in a lot of trouble now, unless he had good equipment with him or has somehow found a dry natural shelter.



    This is VERY interesting for me because anyone who's been following this thread from time to time knows that I regularly go on long, high solo hikes in this area with my dog Mara, and I've got to know the mountains pretty well myself. It's wild, rugged and remote, and in all my trips I've never once seen another hiker. It's a genuine wilderness.

    But I always carry emergency gear to survive a night out, and always leave a route map on the Avalon server which I don't deviate from. It's probably also a lot easier to find a hiker in trouble if they had a dog with them!

    What is also interesting, and kind of grimly reassuring, is that the local authorities clearly have the means to launch a major rescue effort, though the area is too high for most helicopters. (They use small drones with cameras instead.)

    When I'm up there myself, I often consider what I'd do if I found myself injured, like with a broken leg or a badly twisted ankle. There are large boulders in some places, leaning together and with person-sized spaces beneath that could offer a makeshift shelter from wind and rain. A little lower, there are patches of dense quinoa forest where one could also make a kind of shelter — maybe. The problem then is if one gets stuck there, hiding not only from the elements, but also from the rescuers.

    I took a psychic 'look' at him yesterday, and felt that I could perceive him under one of these rock shelters, drifting in and out of consciousness. Still alive, but maybe only able to make it for another day or two. I did NOT know where it was, but I could 'see' him. And I still can, this morning.

    24 hours ago I placed a kind of 'psychic beacon' there to draw the attention of any nearby rescuers to the spot. I 'painted' it with a lot of intention, as well. But sadly, I do think the odds of him being found alive are pretty low.

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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Please, DO be careful, Bill when you are out alone....we would hate to lose you!!

    Let us know if Wilson is found.

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    Ecuador Honored, Retired Member. Warren passed on 2 July, 2020.
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    The problem with the newspaper accounts is that there is a lot of unconfirmed 'information' about Wilson Serrano. I read that he used his cell phone to call for help. Yet I wonder if such a phone would even work up there. Yet there is no information on his state of health at the time of the calls - if it ever happened. Why did he not make some kind of visible marker and stay there? Most likely, he was wandering about for the first few days. I read that he had no compass nor map. What an expert! Why not follow water downhill to get out. He is supposed to be an expert mountaineer. Why not bring some kind of fire starter? I always carried two kinds of fire starter when in the mountains of Colorado, Utah and others. If he had fallen and broken a leg, then why did he not report this when he made those calls? Perhaps most of what has been written of this man and his situation is a combination of BS and hysterics.

    I do wish Wilson the very best and hope they find him alive. According to my dowsing, he is alive right now. My dowsing just now tells me that he has been stuck in a crack for seven days. If so, then that would explain a lot.

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    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Quote Posted by wnlight (here)
    The problem with the newspaper accounts is that there is a lot of unconfirmed 'information' about Wilson Serrano. I read that he used his cell phone to call for help. Yet I wonder if such a phone would even work up there. Yet there is no information on his state of health at the time of the calls - if it ever happened. Why did he not make some kind of visible marker and stay there? Most likely, he was wandering about for the first few days. I read that he had no compass nor map. What an expert! Why not follow water downhill to get out. He is supposed to be an expert mountaineer. Why not bring some kind of fire starter? I always carried two kinds of fire starter when in the mountains of Colorado, Utah and others. If he had fallen and broken a leg, then why did he not report this when he made those calls? Perhaps most of what has been written of this man and his situation is a combination of BS and hysterics.

    I do wish Wilson the very best and hope they find him alive. According to my dowsing, he is alive right now. My dowsing just now tells me that he has been stuck in a crack for seven days. If so, then that would explain a lot.
    Yes. I 'tuned into' Wilson as well... but I picked up that he'd injured his ankle or leg (a fracture, most likely: a sprain would be better after a few days, and the remedy for a sprain is to keep walking on it anyway, and just not stop) — and for shelter, he'd crawled into a kind of little open 'cave' between, or underneath, a couple of large boulders. (Some boulders up there are as large as small houses, and many of them are overhanging on one side by quite a long way.)

    I also picked up he was still alive, but was drifting in and out of consciousness, and might not hold out for too much longer. For some reason, he's barely able to move, and his position is one that could only be seen if the rescuers were right there on top of him. Poor guy... that's a very tough position to be in.

    But there'd have to be a really bad overlap of circumstances for him just not to be found. If he'd injured a leg or ankle, and couldn't walk, he could still crawl downhill to the valley bottom, where (a) there'd be water, and (b) he'd be FAR more likely to be seen and rescued. He may have tried to do that, but if he was up high in a steep rocky area, he might have hurt himself AGAIN while trying to get to the valley floor.

    He'd not have gotten lost. I always carry a compass up there, but have never once used it, or needed to. And there are no maps worth the name. But if he knew the area, he knew the area. In any serious emergency at all, as long as you can move, you just follow the valley — any valley! — down and out. If you can walk, and are in reasonable shape, unless there's a bad storm or it's dark, you can get yourself to relative safety from anywhere there at all within about 6 hours, certainly 8.

    But if I'm all wrong about that, he might have had a heart attack or a stroke, and that'd be very serious or probably fatal. Even if he'd tripped or slipped and hit his head on a rock, he'd have recovered enough to move again within half a day, even if he'd been concussed and knocked out cold.

    And as I mentioned, with a sprained ankle (not a broken one) the thing to do is lace up your boot as tight as possible, keep walking and just not stop. If he needed a crutch or a walking stick (or even a splint!) there's usually enough wood near the valley floors below 12,500 ft for him to have been able to improvise something. So something happened that really conspired against him, assuming he was experienced (as he was reported to be) and knew what he was doing.

    Re the cellphone call, he might have tried to make a call, but failed. Someone might have picked up on him, but heard nothing, or the call maybe just cut out. There are places where that might be possible, depending on where he was and how high he was. Usually, though, one can send an SMS when a voice call can't quite be made, and that didn't happen.

    Rather like flight MH370, the worst thing would be if he's just NEVER found. It has to be said, that's entirely possible. If he died up there in a remote place, even after hanging in there for a couple weeks just hoping, a puma would find him long before any person might possibly stumble on his body years later.

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    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    An interesting, but rather grim, update. The huge search for Wilson continues, now in its 12th day. Meanwhile, wnlight (Warren) and I have been following this closely, and we're also reasonably experienced Remote Viewers... maybe not military grade, so to speak, but each definitely after a fashion and also with quite a few successes to our names.

    Last night, we both agreed that he was alive, but very weak, and stuck somewhere where he was unlikely to be found easily. Warren felt he was physically stuck, while I felt he was immobilized because he'd broken something. Otherwise, we were 'seeing' exactly the same thing.

    This morning, we both independently 'saw' that he'd not survived the night. He was somewhere with very little or no water, and that was the factor. If he'd been able to move, he'd definitely have made his way down to water of some kind, even if he had to crawl, where the rescue team would certainly have been focusing their efforts.

    They're still looking, but I think they'll soon call off the search. They'll know that as he was evidently nowhere near water, he'd be unlikely to have survived this long.

    His body may never be found. Even if his location was known to within one grid square (a square kilometer), 20 people searching every day for a week still might not find him. It's that kind of terrain. It's a reminder, if anyone needs it, that mountain environments can turn from attractive, stimulating companions to life-threatening enemies in an instant of a bad decision, or just one bad step.


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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Please dowse the vicinity, in the hopes that even the poor man can be recovered. Are there any more dowsers out there, or remote viewers who can help? Thanks so far to Bill and Warren for all your efforts. I remember that man who cut off his own arm whilst being trapped https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston
    Terrible things happen to adventurers, so hopefully the missing can be found soonest.
    The love you withhold is the pain that you carry
    and er..
    "Chariots of the Globs" (apols to Fat Freddy's Cat)

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  33. Link to Post #157
    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Quote Posted by avid (here)
    Please dowse the vicinity, in the hopes that even the poor man can be recovered. Are there any more dowsers out there, or remote viewers who can help? Thanks so far to Bill and Warren for all your efforts. I remember that man who cut off his own arm whilst being trapped https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston
    Terrible things happen to adventurers, so hopefully the missing can be found soonest.
    It's almost hopeless.... really. Although I truly hate to say that.

    There are no maps worthy of the name to dowse from. The best map of that area that I know of is this one (which is only useful because you can see the general shapes of the lakes and the directions of the rivers and streams). Heights are in meters, so it all goes up to about 14,500 ft. The lakes themselves are at about 13,500 ft. The grid lines shown are 5 kilometers apart. The red thing is the nearest road.



    Detailed topo maps, like UK Ordnance Survey maps, are unavailable except to the military, and the terrain is VERY rough, complex and difficult: to traverse it is tricky even in good weather when one's in good shape. And it's certainly a worst-case nightmare to search for someone there. There are no trails; and someone could be 50 yards away from you, unconscious or injured, and you'd just probably never know unless you heard them.

    They don't appear to be using dogs, though. If so, I don't know the reason why.

    This little video shows the exact area Wilson was going through when he failed to return. He could be anywhere (or even 10 miles away from there, trying to get down). It's all hauntingly beautiful, called the Enchanted Lagoons. But as I mentioned above: if one's hurt, and the weather turns bad, and one's on one's own, then it can become a battle to stay alive REALLY fast. If one makes a bad call, the gorgeous natural environment can quickly morph into a deceptive, dangerous enemy.

    Do watch the short video. See if in high-definition if you can. Highly recommended. It's a very, very wild place.

    Sometime this next week, I'm planning to go up there myself with Mara the to look around. As I always do, I'll be taking adequate equipment with me as a safety backup. (Just to reassure everyone!) I do know what I'm doing, and I'll be sure to report back. I'll keep my eye open (and so will Mara), but the odds on stumbling over Wilson are way less than tiny. I do have to say, though, if I did happen to pass near him, I'd be fairly confident that I'd sense it strongly.


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    United States Avalon Member Foxie Loxie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Do be careful, Bill!!

    It really IS such gorgeous country! So sorry about Wilson....just hope he didn't have any prolonged suffering.

    I'm sure we'll all be watching for your posting upon your return! Have a good "refresher"!!

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  37. Link to Post #159
    United States Avalon Member James Newell's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Say Hi to Mara and Wawa for me and Susi...

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  39. Link to Post #160
    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bill's searches for the Wawa Grande (Ecuador's Bigfoot)

    Quote Posted by James Newell (here)
    Say Hi to Mara and Wawa for me and Susi...
    I will!

    Here's the Google Earth image for The Enchanted Lakes, the area where Wilson disappeared and where Mara and I will head up to as soon as the weather looks stable. The co-ordinates are 2°46'6.35"S, 79°17'39.16"W. (Just paste exactly that into the search bar.)

    Interestingly, they're known as 'The Enchanted Lakes' because the locals claim there's a tradition in that area of strange experiences and weird phenomena, even (apparently) a UFO once seen to appear out of the largest lake. The locals call these kinds of apparitions las brujitas, which translates as 'little witches'.

    There have been many of them over the years, all over the region. Combine that with the Wawa Grande, the topic of this thread, and this entire mountain range becomes very interesting indeed.


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