Untitled Sighting

Several friends and I were riding our mtbs on the swamp route. There was about a 3-5 minute gap between each of us.  As i ascended the trail I heard a large animal moving in the forest about 20 yards off the trail. I couldn't see it but could clearly hear it in the underbrush.  As i proceeded up the trail one of my friends was in the trail looking at something.  A set of very large footprints were in the trail.  This was about 200 yards up from were i heard the noises.  The track came from off the trail onto it and proceeded down the trail about 30-50.  The subject walked a few steps the stopped and stood still moved a few more feet stopped as if listening.  It proceedded down the trail a few more yards before heading into a small meadow.  This meadow is very near the place i head the noises in the bush.  The foot prints were in very deep silty powder and were very well detailed.  I could see the lines in the sole of the foot the toes were very splayed and there was little to no arch.  total lenght of the prints was about 14-15" as I could fit my whole foot shoe and all in the print.  The track was liad down on top of the tracks of my friends who were about 5 min. ahead of us.  A couple of bear hunters came upon us and we asked them what they thought, and they had never seen such a track. After loosing the track off of the road we proceeded with our ride.  About one half mile up the road the track apeared again fromm off the road moving across the road going downhill toward the previous site of prints.  The bear hunters also found the new tracks and tired to follow it but the brush was too thick.