A New Portland Cruise Tracks Bigfoot Through the Columbia River Gorge

If seven hours of tape-recorded conspiracy theory doesn’t thrill you, the boat trip through the Gorge is likely to offer a fascinating view of wildfire recovery.

(Portland Spirit)

Portland is a city of proud nerds, and now there's a cruise specifically for Bigfoot seekers.

Starting June 15, Portland Spirit will be taking boatloads of Sasquatch hunters through the Columbia River Gorge to track down the mythical cryptid.

"Bigfoot is the hide-and-seek champion of the world," writes Aaron Greene, Portland Spirit's marketing director, in a description of the cruise. "With the help of Cliff Barackman from, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot, we will try our best to find him."

The seven-hour-long trip starts in downtown Portland and ends 140 miles down the river at Cascade Locks, playing recordings of Barackman's accounts of Bigfoot sightings and theories the entire way.

Barackman, a former Deadhead, claims in Finding Bigfoot that he found Bigfoot on a camping trip with his former wife in 2000 in California, and that it "snapped a gigantic tree in half" to scare them.

If seven hours of tape-recorded conspiracy theory doesn't thrill you, the boat trip through the Gorge—with a stop at The Locks Grill for "signature Bigfood bites"—is likely to offer a fascinating view of wildfire recovery, with new growth beginning to emerge after 2017's Eagle Creek Fire.

The cruise passes under Portland's bridges, by Rooster Rock State Park and Multnomah Falls and under Bridge of the Gods. It will run all summer through September, and cost $98 per person, or $78 for groups of 15 or more.

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