Casting Guide

Casting Sasquatch Footprints in the Field — A Complete and Comprehensive Step-by-Step Guide

You have found what you believe to be a genuine Sasquatch footprint. Your heart is racing. Your mind is spinning. Your hands may be trembling ever so slightly. And somewhere beneath the overwhelming excitement, the profound disbelief, and the very human and entirely understandable urge to simply stand there in stunned silence and stare at what lies before you, a more practical and considerably more urgent thought is beginning to slowly but insistently take shape in the back of your mind — the thought that this evidence, this extraordinary, potentially historic, and almost certainly irreplaceable physical record of the creature's passage through this specific place at this specific and unrepeatable moment in time, will not wait patiently or indefinitely for you to collect yourself and decide what to do next.

The natural world is already working against you with quiet and implacable efficiency. Rain may be coming. Wind may be picking up. Other hikers, hunters, or curious animals may pass this way within the hour. The soft, obliging substrate that has so perfectly and so generously preserved every detail of the impression before you — the precise outline of each toe, the subtle contours of the midfoot, the dermal ridge patterns that could prove more valuable than anything else in the entire evidence record — may begin to dry, crack, and crumble at the edges within hours or even minutes depending on conditions. Whatever you are going to do to preserve this evidence, you need to do it thoughtfully, methodically, patiently, and with the kind of focused deliberate attention that the moment demands — and you need to begin doing it now.

Fortunately, the late Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Ph.D. — whose loss the entire Sasquatch research community continues to feel with profound and genuine depth — spent the better part of his remarkable academic career and countless hours of hands-on field time in exactly this situation. Crouched over extraordinary footprint evidence in ancient forests, along remote creek beds, in mountain meadows, and on the rocky slopes of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, Dr. Meldrum developed through years of painstaking, methodical, and hard-won field experience a casting methodology that is at once rigorously and uncompromisingly effective in its ability to capture and preserve the maximum possible detail from a Sasquatch track impression, and yet remarkably and deliberately accessible to researchers at every conceivable level of experience, training, and equipment budget. This is not a methodology that requires a laboratory, a university affiliation, or an expensive collection of specialized scientific equipment. It is a methodology designed for the field — for the moment of discovery, for the researcher standing alone in the wilderness with a racing heart and a finite window of opportunity — and it is presented here in its complete and unabridged form as both a practical guide and a lasting tribute to the man who spent his career making exactly this kind of rigorous, evidence-based field research possible for the broader Sasquatch research community.

What follows is Dr. Meldrum's complete and definitive field guide to Sasquatch footprint casting — the same carefully developed and extensively tested methodology he shared generously and without reservation with the research community through his writing, his university teaching, his public presentations, and his direct personal mentorship of field researchers across decades of active engagement with this work. It is, in every meaningful sense, a gift from one of the finest scientific minds this field has ever been privileged to claim — and it deserves to be read, studied, practiced, and applied with the seriousness and the respect that it was given.

Your Field Kit — What to Bring, Why It Matters, and How to Pack It
The single most consistently and emphatically repeated piece of advice that Dr. Meldrum offered to aspiring field researchers over the course of his career — the piece of advice that he returned to again and again in his writing, his teaching, and his personal conversations with researchers at every level of experience — was deceptively simple and yet profoundly important in its practical implications: prepare your field kit before you go into the field, and prepare it properly. The moment of discovery — the moment you are standing over a fresh Sasquatch track in the fading afternoon light with the temperature dropping and a bank of clouds building on the horizon — is emphatically not the moment to be improvising your materials, wishing you had remembered to pack something, or debating whether the container you brought will be adequate for the job. That moment demands your full attention, your methodical focus, and your calm confidence that you have everything you need — and the only way to arrive at that moment with that confidence is to have assembled, checked, and packed your field kit carefully and completely before you ever set foot on the trail.

A properly assembled Sasquatch track casting field kit needs to accomplish several distinct and equally important functions simultaneously — it needs to be comprehensive enough to handle any casting situation you might reasonably encounter in the field, from a single clear print in ideal damp soil to a partial track in loose dry substrate or a beautifully preserved impression in fresh snow, while simultaneously being compact enough and light enough to be carried comfortably on an extended backcountry expedition without becoming the kind of burdensome logistical liability that discourages researchers from bringing it on every single outing. Achieving that balance requires careful thought about what to include, why each item earns its place in the pack, and how to organize the kit for maximum field efficiency. Here, in the precise detail that Dr. Meldrum himself provided, is everything your kit should contain:

Casting Materials
Gypsum cement or patching compound — This is the core and most essential material in your entire field kit, and it deserves careful selection before you head into the field. Gypsum cement or patching compound — both of which are widely and inexpensively available at virtually any hardware or home improvement store — has proven through extensive field testing to be significantly more practical, more reliable, and more consistently effective for Sasquatch track casting applications than traditional dental stone or plaster of Paris, both of which have been used historically in the field with more variable results. Gypsum cement sets reliably across a broader range of ambient temperatures and humidity levels, produces a harder and more durable finished cast that is better able to withstand the rigors of transport out of the backcountry, and is available in quantities and packaging formats that make it practical to carry meaningful amounts on extended expeditions without excessive weight penalty.

Snow impression wax — This is a specialized and absolutely essential supplementary material for any researcher operating in environments where Sasquatch tracks may be encountered in snow — which, given that some of the most compelling and most extensively documented track evidence in the historical record has been found in snowy conditions in the mountain ranges of the Pacific Northwest, describes a very significant percentage of serious field researchers. Standard casting compound poured directly into a snow impression will generate heat as it cures — a consequence of the exothermic chemical reaction involved in the setting process — and that heat, if not properly managed, will melt and distort the snow impression before the compound has time to fully set, destroying precisely the fine surface detail that makes the cast scientifically valuable. Snow impression wax, applied carefully to the track surface prior to pouring casting compound, creates an insulating barrier that prevents this thermal distortion and allows the casting compound to set against a stable, undisturbed impression surface — preserving detail that would otherwise be irretrievably lost.

Containment and Mixing Equipment
Two-inch wide plastic strips cut from a bleach bottle, a round plastic jug, or any similar round plastic container — These strips, when paperclipped together into a circle of appropriate diameter and pressed firmly into the substrate surrounding the track, serve the critical and non-negotiable function of creating a clean, contained pouring boundary that keeps your casting compound where you want it — in the track — and prevents it from spreading outward into the surrounding substrate where it would be both difficult to recover and potentially destructive to any adjacent tracks that may be present.
Paper clips — Small, lightweight, and easily overlooked in the packing process, paper clips are nonetheless an absolutely essential component of the containment system described above. Pack more than you think you will need.

• A mixing container — The good news here is that you almost certainly already own something that will work perfectly. A cut-off bleach bottle, a piece of Tupperware, a large heavy-duty ziplock bag — all of these will serve the mixing function admirably and can be carried at essentially zero weight cost as part of a well-organized field kit.
• A measuring cup — Achieving the correct and consistent water-to-compound ratio is one of the most important factors in producing a cast of maximum quality and structural integrity, and attempting to estimate this ratio by eye in field conditions — particularly under the time pressure and emotional intensity of an active discovery situation — introduces an unnecessary and easily avoidable source of error. A simple lightweight measuring cup eliminates that error entirely.
• A wire whisk — For achieving a smooth, thoroughly combined, lump-free compound mixture with the minimum number of mixing strokes and the minimum introduction of unwanted air into the mix.

Cleaning and Preparation Tools

A one-inch soft paint brush — The first tool that will make contact with your track evidence, and one whose quality and appropriate use are of genuine scientific consequence. A soft-bristled brush of approximately one-inch width provides the optimal combination of cleaning effectiveness and gentleness for removing loose debris from within a track impression without disturbing the substrate or compromising fine surface detail.

Tweezers — Dr. Meldrum's own personal addition to the standard casting kit, and one that experienced field researchers consistently endorse as genuinely invaluable in practice. For removing individual leaves, individual grass blades, individual pine needles, and other discrete pieces of organic debris from within a track impression — particularly from the detailed areas around the toe impressions and the ball of the foot where fine surface detail is most scientifically significant — tweezers provide a degree of precision and control that no brush, regardless of quality or softness, can match.

Cheap aerosol hair spray — Perhaps the most counterintuitive item on this list, and yet one of the most practically important. A light, even application of ordinary aerosol hair spray over the entire interior surface of the track impression, applied from a sufficient distance to avoid disturbing the substrate with the pressure of the aerosol spray itself, creates a thin stabilizing film over the impression surface that serves two important functions simultaneously — it helps to consolidate and stabilize loose or friable substrate particles that might otherwise be disturbed during the casting process, and it creates a subtle release layer between the substrate and the casting compound that can help preserve fine surface detail in the finished cast. Dr. Meldrum's specific recommendation of cheap aerosol hair spray — as opposed to any specialized or expensive product — reflects the practical reality that the active ingredient doing the work here is ordinary polymer resin, which is present in essentially identical form in every aerosol hair spray regardless of price point.

Latex gloves — To be worn throughout the evidence collection and casting process, serving the dual function of protecting the researcher's hands and preventing the introduction of human biological material — skin cells, oils, DNA — into the track evidence and casting compound, which could complicate subsequent laboratory analysis.

Documentation and Recovery Tools

• A camera or smartphone — Comprehensive photographic documentation of the track evidence is not a supplementary step to be completed if time permits — it is a mandatory and foundational component of responsible field evidence collection that must be completed before any other step in the casting process is initiated. Your photographs are, in a very real sense, the permanent scientific record of the evidence in its original and unmodified state — the record that will exist regardless of what happens to the physical cast during transport, storage, or analysis.
• A tape measure — For recording the precise dimensions of the track — length, width, stride length if multiple tracks are present, and depth at various points within the impression — as part of your comprehensive documentation record.
• Flagging tape — For marking the location of the primary track, the boundaries of the track series if multiple prints are present, and any other points of interest in the immediate area that merit return attention.
• A trowel — For carefully and methodically excavating around the perimeter of the fully hardened cast and prying it gently upward from the substrate during recovery — a step that requires patience, a light touch, and the kind of deliberate care that distinguishes responsible evidence recovery from careless destruction of a potentially significant scientific specimen.
• Light plastic sheeting — For protecting the cast and the immediate area of the track site from unexpected precipitation during the casting compound's setting period — a precaution that costs essentially nothing in terms of pack weight but that can mean the difference between a perfect cast and a ruined one if conditions change unexpectedly during the setting process.
• Paper grocery bags and newspaper — For wrapping, cushioning, and safely transporting completed casts out of the field in a manner that protects both the physical integrity of the cast and the fine surface detail preserved within it.

The Casting Process — A Complete Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1 — Document Everything Before You Touch Anything
This instruction cannot be emphasized strongly enough or repeated too many times — before you introduce any tool, any material, or even your own ungloved hand into the area of the track impression, take comprehensive and thorough photographs of everything. Overhead shots from directly above the track. Oblique angle shots from multiple compass directions that capture the full three-dimensional depth and structural character of the impression. Wide establishing shots that document the track in the context of its surrounding environment — showing the substrate type, the vegetation, the terrain, and anything else that provides scientific context for the evidence. If a track series is present, photograph the full series and document the stride length, the step width, and the overall pattern of locomotion. Record the precise dimensions of the individual track with your tape measure, and note in writing — or verbally on a video recording if that is more practical in the moment — the date, the time, the GPS coordinates or detailed location description, the substrate type and condition, the ambient weather conditions, and any other environmental details that might prove relevant to subsequent analysis. This documentation record is, in the most literal sense, irreplaceable — and it is every bit as important as the physical cast itself.

Step 2 — Clean the Track with Meticulous Care and Patience
Don your latex gloves, take a breath, and begin the careful and methodical process of cleaning the track interior. Using your soft paint brush in long, gentle strokes working from the outer edges of the impression toward the center, remove any loose debris — leaves, twigs, grass blades, pine needles, small stones, insect matter — that may have fallen into the impression after it was made or that was present in the substrate at the time of the impression. For any discrete pieces of debris that resist gentle brushing — individual leaves pressed flat against the impression surface, small twigs embedded in the substrate, grass blades crossing the impression — use your tweezers to lift and remove them with the precision and care that the situation demands. Work slowly. Work patiently. And work always with the foundational principle that Dr. Meldrum returned to throughout his career — that the purpose of this step is exclusively to remove material that does not belong in the impression, never to modify, enhance, or alter the impression itself in any way. Once the track interior is clean to your satisfaction, apply a light and even coat of aerosol hair spray across the entire impression surface from a distance of approximately twelve to eighteen inches, allow it a moment to dry, and proceed to the next step.

Step 3 — Establish Your Containment Border
Paperclip your plastic strips together into a circle of sufficient diameter to surround the entire track impression with a comfortable margin of at least two to three inches on all sides, and press this containment ring firmly and evenly into the substrate around the track, ensuring that it makes complete and gap-free contact with the ground along its entire circumference. The integrity of this containment border is critically important to the success of the pour — any gap or weakness in the border will allow casting compound to escape the track area during pouring, potentially creating a cast of insufficient depth at the point of the breach and making clean recovery of the finished cast significantly more difficult.

Step 4 — Mix Your Casting Compound with Precision
Following Dr. Meldrum's specific and carefully considered recommendation, begin by adding your measured quantity of water to your mixing container first — then add the casting compound to the water gradually, rather than adding water to dry compound. This sequence, which is the reverse of what many people might intuitively attempt, makes achieving a smooth, thoroughly combined, lump-free consistency significantly easier and more reliable, and reduces the risk of dry compound pockets in the finished mix that can create structural weaknesses in the cured cast. Using your wire whisk, stir — stir deliberately and consistently, but do not whip or beat the mixture aggressively, as vigorous whipping introduces air bubbles into the compound that will create voids and weak spots in the finished cast — until the mixture achieves a consistency roughly equivalent to pancake batter. The specific water-to-compound ratio recommended on your particular patching compound's packaging should be followed as closely as field conditions permit, but as a reliable general guideline a ratio of approximately two parts compound to one part water will typically produce a working consistency appropriate for most casting applications. Once your mixture is thoroughly combined and at the correct consistency, tap the mixing container firmly against the ground five to ten times — this simple step encourages any air bubbles trapped in the mix to rise to the surface and escape before the compound is poured, meaningfully improving the structural quality and surface detail resolution of the finished cast.

Step 5 — Pour with Patience and Deliberate Care
Begin pouring your casting compound into the track slowly, gently, and with complete deliberateness — starting at one end of the impression and allowing the compound to flow naturally across the track under its own weight rather than directing a concentrated stream onto the center of the impression, which can disturb fine surface detail in ways that are impossible to correct after the fact. Continue pouring in a slow, steady, controlled flow until the compound has filled the entire track impression to a depth and volume that reaches the top of your containment border. Pay particular attention to the areas of finest detail — the toe impressions, the ball of the foot, the heel — ensuring that the compound has fully penetrated and filled every part of the impression without trapping air pockets against the impression surface.

Step 6 — Set, Label, and Wait
With your compound poured and your containment border in place, your most important task now is to exercise patience and resist the temptation to check, prod, or disturb the setting cast before it has fully hardened. Setting time will vary considerably and sometimes dramatically depending on ambient temperature — cold conditions slow the setting process significantly, while warm dry conditions accelerate it — as well as humidity levels and the specific substrate characteristics of the ground in which your track is contained. As a practical planning guideline, expect setting to require anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes in optimal warm dry conditions to an hour or more in cold, damp, or high-altitude environments. While the compound is still in its early setting phase — firm enough to hold an impression but not yet fully hardened — use a stick, a twig, or a similar tool to inscribe the date, location, and any other relevant identifying information into the upper surface of the cast. This practice, which Dr. Meldrum particularly and repeatedly recommended, is especially important for researchers fortunate enough to be working a site with multiple track specimens, where the potential for confusion between specimens during transport, storage, and subsequent laboratory analysis is both real and easily avoided through this simple precaution. Once the compound has achieved full hardness — test by pressing gently on the edge of the cast, not the center — use your trowel to carefully excavate around the perimeter and pry the cast gently and evenly upward from the substrate.

Step 7 — Wrap, Transport, and Clean
Wrap your recovered cast immediately and carefully in multiple layers of newspaper — using as many layers as the size and apparent fragility of the specimen warrant — and secure the wrapping to prevent shifting during transport. The cast requires a minimum of forty-eight hours of continued drying and curing time before it is sufficiently stable to withstand detailed examination or cleaning — a patience-testing but scientifically important waiting period that allows the compound to achieve its maximum structural strength and hardness. After that curing period has been completed, the cast can be gently and carefully washed with clean water and a soft brush to remove any remaining substrate material clinging to the impression surface, gradually revealing the full and precise detail of the track impression preserved within — the ridges, the contours, the toe impressions, and potentially the dermal ridge patterns that could prove to be among the most scientifically significant evidence you will ever hold in your hands.
You are now, in the most literal and most meaningful sense of the phrase, the proud and deeply responsible custodian of a potentially extraordinary piece of physical evidence in one of the most important, most enduring, and most consequential scientific investigations in the history of our understanding of the natural world.

Modern Technology in the Field — 3D Scanning as a Powerful and Practical Complement to Traditional Casting
Traditional gypsum and patching compound casting remains, as Dr. Meldrum consistently and emphatically affirmed throughout the full arc of his career, the unequivocal gold standard for Sasquatch footprint evidence preservation — producing a three-dimensional physical artifact of the track impression that can be held, examined, measured, cross-sectioned, and analyzed with laboratory instruments in ways that no purely digital record, however high its resolution, can fully replicate or substitute for. The physical cast carries with it a chain of custody, a material reality, and a scientific credibility that digital captures, however technically impressive, have not yet achieved in the evidentiary standards of mainstream scientific publication.

However, the practical and often unforgiving realities of serious backcountry field research — the strict weight and volume constraints of extended multi-day expeditions into remote terrain, the considerable logistical challenges of safely carrying liquid casting materials and heavy finished casts through rugged wilderness, the acute time pressure of working against deteriorating weather conditions or fading daylight — have always created categories of field situations in which traditional casting methods are genuinely and simply not feasible, however much one might wish otherwise. It was with exactly these real-world field constraints clearly and practically in mind that Dr. Meldrum took the time during a Sasquatch Syndicate podcast conversation in February of 2017 to discuss the emerging and genuinely exciting potential of portable 3D scanning technology as a complementary field tool for Sasquatch track documentation — a conversation that introduced many members of the broader research community to possibilities that, even as recently as a decade ago, existed only at the expensive frontier of professional scientific instrumentation but that are now becoming increasingly accessible to serious independent field researchers.

The most compelling and practically significant advantages of portable 3D scanning technology for field use — as Dr. Meldrum outlined in that conversation and as subsequent developments in the technology have only served to reinforce — are its extraordinary pack weight efficiency and its remarkable battery life performance in field conditions. A quality portable 3D scanner, used actively and continuously in scanning mode, can sustain four or more hours of operation on a single charge — and in standby mode between active scanning sessions, can extend that operational window to more than one thousand hours, a figure that translates in practical terms to the ability to carry a fully operational 3D scanning capability on an extended multi-day backcountry expedition without the battery anxiety that plagues so many other field electronic devices. When combined with the scanner's dramatically lower pack weight relative to the plaster, mixing containers, and recovery tools required for traditional casting, this battery performance makes 3D scanning a genuinely practical complement to traditional casting for researchers operating in demanding backcountry environments.

The structural quality of the scanner hardware itself is also worth noting. A well-engineered portable 3D sensor is constructed around a frame of high-quality anodized aluminum — a material chosen specifically for its ability to maintain thermal stability across the range of ambient temperatures encountered in field use, providing the precision optical components housed within the frame with a consistently stable thermal environment that helps maintain scanning accuracy even as external temperatures fluctuate. Device compatibility has expanded considerably since Dr. Meldrum's 2017 discussion of the technology — while iPad and iOS device compatibility via the Apple Lightning connector was the primary use case discussed at that time, driver support for Android devices, Windows computers, Linux systems, and OS X has since been confirmed and expanded, making quality 3D scanning capability accessible across a much broader range of devices and platforms than was the case when this conversation first took place.

It bears emphasizing that 3D scanning, for all its exciting potential and its genuine practical utility in field situations where traditional casting is not feasible, is best understood as a complement to traditional casting rather than a replacement for it. When conditions permit traditional casting, cast. When they do not — when the pack is already at its weight limit, when the weather is closing in faster than a casting compound can set, when time or logistics make carrying plaster simply impossible — a high-quality 3D scan of the impression represents a meaningful and scientifically valuable alternative that preserves far more information than a photograph alone and that may prove more than adequate for the analytical purposes at hand. The goal, always, is to capture the best possible record of the evidence that circumstances permit — and having both tools available, and knowing when to use each, is the mark of a truly prepared and truly effective field researcher.

Let us know your favorite casting material, your preferred field kit configuration, or your own hard-won field experiences with track casting and 3D scanning in the comments below.

BELIEVE
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Written by Chuck Geveshausen, Founder — Sasquatch Syndicate Inc. — Covered under our Terms of Use.
Contributor the late Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Ph.D. Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology, Idaho State University