Whether someone’s a rockhound searching for rare gems, minerals or fossils, a forager exploring for mushrooms, a beachcomber looking for rare shells or a paranormal investigator on the lookout for signs of Sasquatch, the second annual PNW Wilds festival in Chehalis has something to offer Saturday, March 7.
General admission to the vendors is free, though VIP packages are for sale for $70 and include speaker presentation access and a beverage token for the Bigfoot Beer and Beverage Garden. Proceeds benefit both the Lewis County Historical Museum and Nature Nurture Farmacy.
PNW Wilds will start at 10 a.m. on March 7 at The Loft, located at 547 NW Pacific Ave. in downtown Chehalis. Aside from featured speakers, the event will also have local vendors, authors and artists along with the Bigfoot Beer Garden.
Speakers throughout the day include:
• Craig Romano, a self-described, “award-winning guidebook author, outdoors writer and photographer, ultra-runner, ardent conservationist, and Northwest trails and hiking expert,” who has hiked over 35,000 miles in Washington state alone and penned over 26 guidebooks for trails throughout the Pacific Northwest. His book, “Columbia Highlands: Exploring Washington’s Last Frontier,” was recognized as a Washington Reads book by former Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed and former Washington State Librarian Jan Walsh for its contribution to the state’s cultural heritage in 2010. Romano also writes for multiple magazines
• Alison Jean Cole, a professional rockhound who runs a Portland-based backpacking business taking others looking for gems, minerals or fossils on guided rock collecting trips in Oregon and Nevada, and who also was the founder of the Green River Rocks festival in Utah
• Marc Myrsell, a land surveyor and paranormal investigator known for his in-depth research and analysis of the the Ape Canyon incident in 1924, where five prospectors reported being accosted throughout the night by seven-foot-tall ape-like creatures who threw rocks at their cabin and banged on the walls
• Shane Corson, a paranormal investigator and member of the Olympia Project, Project Zoobook and co-host of Monster X Radio according to his Instagram profile
• Representatives from the Westport Aquarium, Washington state’s oldest public aquarium which focuses on local Pacific Northwest marine life found on the beaches and just off the shores of the local coast
The event will be emcee’d by Tyler Bounds, a paranormal investigator who has been interviewed by National Geographic, the BBC and Huffington Post about his Bigfoot research, and is a self-described “Cascadian dirtbag treehugging punk nerd with a Bigfoot festish,” according to his Threads profile.
VIP tickets to PNW Wilds can be purchased online at https://tinyurl.com/5xza82uj, or at Nature Nurture Farmacy, located at 403 N. Market Blvd., unit 1, in downtown Chehalis.
For more information, visit the PNW Wilds Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/bdd8a8a3.
