Sarah Haas, Peak to Peak.   Before Kenny Collins moved to Estes Park in 2010, there was no talk of monsters. Instead, in the summer, when 4 million tourists came to town, people would talk about the bugle of the elk and the view from the top of Rocky Mountain National Park. More or less, people were satisfied with the mysticism inherent in the landscape and let nature inspire their awe and their belief in whatever divine force is capable of creating such beauty. But when Kenny Collins arrived, he looked at the same land as everyone else and said something different, even if only to himself.

“There is more to this place than meets the eye. Bigfoot lives in these hills.”

It’s hard to say why no one saw Bigfoot until Kenny came to town. Maybe because Bigfoot didn’t exist or maybe it didn’t exist because no one was looking for it. Either way, it took a lot of courage for Kenny to see what others could not, to keep looking for something everyone wrote off as impossible.

“There were times when I would come search for Bigfoot every day after work,” Kenny says. “But I didn’t tell anyone what I was up to, not even my wife.”

It’s not that he didn’t want to be honest, just that he’s a seeker and, not wanting to spoil what he sought, Kenny thought it best to keep his pursuits private. After all, for Kenny, it was as if he was seeking God. And so, when he went to search at his favorite sites just West of town, he’d wrap his expeditions in requisite secrecy and ritual.

Kenny began by cleansing the sites, removing debris, trash and junk left behind by campers, and by putting up signs asking people to keep it pristine. In the process, Kenny got to know the land in all its nooks and crannies, becoming so familiar with its details that he’d notice tiny little changes like a twisted branch or a new footprint in a field. Having thus readied the land and reconciled his mind with the landscape’s, he doubled down on his investigative ambitions.

From his first search and on every search since, Kenny has started by saying a prayer, something like, “Please let them respond today. Let them trust me. Let them not be afraid. Please come on out, come on out and enjoy us.”

Armed with nothing but a camera and a recorder he’ll head off into the woods, wandering in and out of trees, on and off of paths, interacting with bushes and trees that catch his attention.

“I don’t want to walk like the hikers do,” Kenny says, straightening his posture and speeding up his tempo in pantomime. “I don’t want to go so fast, to be so focused on a destination that I miss the world around me.”

Instead, Kenny walks slowly and softly over the earth, bending close to the ground as if he was leaning in to hear its whispered secrets. Every once in a while, he’ll hold his camera behind his head and take a picture, wondering what it is that is around him that he cannot see but only sense in a more intuitive way.

He explains his “I want to believe” mentality as a pioneering spirit that’s always lived inside of him. Ever since he was a kid, Kenny has wondered about the origin point of our species and wondered about what our unique dispositions predisposed us to know about the world. And, coming from a long line of ancestors known for pioneering in unknown depths of the world, Kenny felt empowered to follow the lead of his intuition. At last, in 2012, he saw what he’d been looking for.

“I saw him (Bigfoot) from across the meadow,” Kenny says. “He was perched behind some far away rocks, all sneaky like. And we just looked at each other for a minute. And then what did I do, after all those years of looking?

“I lost myself in that moment and I started to back away and I walked away, all the way back to my truck. I couldn’t believe that I did that, even in the moment, asking myself, “why am I not out there chasing that thing?” But I needed to let it go. I needed to get better prepared. I needed to step away in order to do it right the next time.”

Luckily for Kenny he didn’t have to wait long for a second chance and in 2013 he met three Bigfoots in that very same spot. He got pictures, found big footprints nearby and, with evidence in hand, he finally told his wife what he’d been up too for all those years. His sighting was written up in newspapers and Kenny was in the media whirlwind. Kenny was put in touch with paranormal investigators, specifically the Bigfoot Research Organization (BFRO) who came to check out his claims. But, as you may have already guessed, BFRO didn’t arrive at a conclusion for they, like any outsider who listens to Kenny’s story, can either choose to believe him or not.

Undeterred, Kenny continues on in pursuit of his hitherto unprovable Bigfoot, searching, collecting evidence and conglomerating other seekers who can help each other to learn about these mysterious beasts. At the Safeway Fuel Station he manages, Kenny has installed and maintains a Bigfoot Wall, a large display of Bigfoot sightings and clues that he, and others, have collected over the years.

“People come in from all over the world to tell me their Bigfoot stories,” he says. “Finally, I feel like I’m beginning to connect the dots, like we are beginning to move the needle and like we might actually be able to find our Bigfoot.”

Although Kenny hasn’t been able to provide cold, hard proof of Bigfoot, he has inspired a shift in what people believe possible. And now, eight years after Kenny moved to town, you cannot walk the streets of Estes Park without seeing Bigfoot in window hangings and on tee-shirts and in the coffee shop talk of the day. And even though Bigfoot remains a fabled beast, it’s downright remarkable how much Kenny’s pursuits have expanded the capacity of the human mind.

Mountain Folk Tales is a weekly column about locals living along the Peak-to-Peak. To suggest someone for a profile please email Sarah at mountainfolktales@gmail.com.

(Originally published in the November 15, 2018, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)