State Cryptids: The Slide Rock Bolter
You’re driving along a beautiful mountain road in Colorado enjoying the trees and beautiful, towering mountain tops. You suddenly slam on your breaks to avoid running into the debris left by a landslide that cut the road in two. Natural occurrence? Maybe. But according to legend, it could be something else. Something bigger. Something that could swallow you whole. Welcome to Colorado.
For the better part of the 19th and 20th centuries, lumberjacks have reported seeing a creature they dubbed the Slide-Rock Bolter. They told stories of a large, finless, land whale with small eyes, a massive mouth, and hooks at the end of its tail. They say it uses the hooks to hang from the tops of the mountains. When food presents itself it releases the hooks and slides towards its prey leaving devastation in its wake.
Reports say it uses the power of gravity to slide down, lubricated with grease that drips from its mouth. Once it reaches the bottom the momentum takes it back up the other side to another mountaintop. Once there it hooks its tail and waits for the next unsuspecting hiker.
But this legend is not without a hero. Stories claim a forest ranger ended the Slide-Rock Bolter’s reign of terror by blowing it up. He planted a dummy tourist at the bottom of Lizard Head a summit in the…
