Media Article # 299
Article prepared and posted by Matthew Moneymaker

Thursday, May 23, 2002

Did Big Foot Once Walk Through Ramona?

KFMB.com (The web site for KFMB TV in San Diego, CA)

A Ramona man has found what looks to be a footprint from Bigfoot. The giant fossilized footprint suggests the yeti could have once lived in the nearby mountains.

It's one heck of a climb to see the footprint; more than a thousand feet up a rugged mountain in the Cleveland National Forest [ San Diego County, CA ]. And James Snyder's house sits right at the bottom.

"I go out of my way to make a slip trail where nobody else has been and I was actually looking for gold," said Snyder.

That was back in February. But instead of finding gold on Gowers Mountain, Snyder found a giant fossilized footprint, at least it looks like one, embedded in solid granite.

The footprint was found in what becomes a creek bed during the rainy season. It looks as though something big crossed the creek a long time ago leaving its footprint behind.

What made it and when? Who knows. But Snyder is convinced it was a Yeti or sasquatch or Bigfoot.

"When I saw it I told my buddy, I said I found Bigfoot up there," said Snyder.

He hopes someone who knows about this sort of thing will contact him.

"But the neat thing about it to me, is most of your Bigfoots, or their casts or whatnot, come out of snow that you can't go back and check, or muddy soil, where as soon as you get a hard rain, well that's gone too. This is, well we can look at it. We can study it. We can bring scientists here," said Snyder.

But it won't be easy. The terrain at the top of Mt. Gowers looks like Mars, and it's about as hard to get to.

You can actually go see the footprint if you're prepared to walk an hour and a half, and that's only if you know where you're going. But it's certainly worth the trip. That is, if you're interested in seeing one really BIG foot."

Note #1: See photo of the rock formation in the next media article listing about the recent sightings on Mt. St. Helens.

Note #2: This footprint-shaped rock formation is most likely a natural formation and not a fossilized footprint. It was probably caused by rounded stones embedded in the granite when it formed. Other photos of this formation on Gowers Mountain show other disconnected round impressions in the granite which resemble the "toes" of the "foot" impression. The granite slab is pockmarked with these holes. Thus a cluster of these holes formed a pattern that appears similar to a bigfoot track.

Although fossilized footprints of animals and humans are occassionaly found in sandstone formations or petrified volcanic ash, one would not expect to find footprint preserved in granite rock. Granite is formed deep in the earth at very high temperatures. Footprints can only be preserved in surface soil, and only under rare conditions -- when certain types of soft soil become covered by other sediments soon after the tracks are left, and the whole thing becomes petrified over time. The fossilized tracks reappear when the overlying layer is eroded away many years later.

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