Untitled Sighting

This is my granpa's story, He said at about 9 p.m at night well he was gathering ore samples for a possible future mining sight which he was going to have assayed, while it was dark on a late March night said he heard footsteps on the earth near him. there was about 1 foot of snow. he said at first he thought It was circling around him but he couldn't tell anyhow, he said later he saw a large black shadow, which was about 40 feet away. It spooked him so he ran over to his three wheeler which had a rifle strapped to it so he fired a 38 special at the shadow or black image which by then had disappeared. this was north of Bear Valley. In the Tuscher (Word possibly mispelled), Mountains, So on this happened back about in the 1970's it is a story my grandfather tells alot. Maybe it was a Sasquatch, he said the footsteps were heard like that of a human being walking but heavier.