Report 7658: Hiker encounters large footprints

This is a very belated report.  The early spring of 1976 I was living in a small log cabin on the banks of Tumalo Creek approx 10 miles into the foothills of the Central Oregon Cascades outside of Bend, Oregon.  I took my water out of the creek and had an outhouse.  One day I was hiking cross-country up the hillside up from my cabin when I came upon some extremely large, flat-footed footprints in the soft dirt of the Ponderosa Pine forest.  They were exactly like the ones I have since seen on your website.  There was a logging road that switched- backed up the hillside.  Other than occasional logging trucks, no one else used that road except for occasional hunters in the fall.  I was very surprised, to say the least.  I had never heard any mention of Bigfoot sightings in that region before that but went to the library and found out indeed there had been some.  It struck me that it was very unlikely to be a hoax as no one would expect anyone to be out walking in that area, so an unlikely place to place bogus footprints.  The footprints were coming up the hillside from the area of my cabin and at first it frightened me to think I was sharing an environment with such a powerful creature.  As I read about them I realized that it posed me and my infant son no harm and also I felt special to think that there is a good possibility that it had had probably observed us even though I never saw it.