Report 5623: Teens find footprint in abandoned strip mining area near Pittsburg

In the early summer of 1981 when I was 13, my cousin, his small nephew, and I were exploring some of the wasted slag heaps left over from the strip pit mining days located around a mile behind my aunt's house. The slag heaps undulate as they go, rising upwards near twenty-five feet and then dropping back down again like a series of small hills. Great for mountain biking. In between these small hills are small pools of collected water from rainfall, which serve as excellent locales for frogs and tadpoles to live or other animals to drink from. The hills themselves are composed of clay with broken shale serving as small spines sticking out from the surface, not a place you want to walk barefoot through, which I have, only to have my feet sliced open time and time again. Anyhow, as we were walking though these hills, I came upon a large footprint, which I would estimate to be at least 18 inches long and 7 inches wide. There was only one print and it had been made in the soft mud of one of the small frog ponds, as if whatever had left it casually walked by and stepped one foot into softer ground. I did not stop to look around for any others, but I did realize that it was very peculiar for anyone to be walking around barefoot a mile from nowhere along ground that would quickly cut your foot. The sheer size of the print led me to immediately believe it was none other than bigfoot.