Screaming or howling in Thurston County, Washington

I am feeling very weary of doing this since I do not see them as a threat but I have had expierences with them a few times. Once when I was nine, I was going to the orchard a mile or two away and decided to go through the woods to get there. My mother told me to keep the barbed wire fence on my right and it'll take me to the orchard. Well I didn't see a fence and went left. I walked for roughly about an hour and had a strange sensation of being watched for a while. I was watching the ground and kicking a small pebble down the trail, when I heard a snap of small branch. I looked up and the small underbrush of ferns and tall grass was moving so I went to go look at the spot thinking I spooked a deer or something. I couldn't see anything, but noticed that the moving underbrush was right next to a yellow caution tape piece in the tree. I thought nothing of it and continued up the trail. I came to a dirt hill and climbed to the top to see where I was when I fell and rolled to the bottom, twisting my ankle. I was angry that I couldn't get up yet so sat and poutted for a while, then slowly climbed back up the hill after testing my ankle. I was walking or rather crawling up over the hill to go back the way I came when I heard the brush again and felt very... not exactly scared but closer to frozen. I didn't want to see what was in the bushes and kept flashing back a few days prior to my dog getting split open by a bear. I counted to twenty before I opened my eyes and looked and there was nothing. I figured I was just being silly and to make it home as soon as possible because it was starting to get dark. I walked back slowly to the caution tape to see what I could and didn't want to see and there in the dirt was a foot print. Considering I was nine and pretty small for my age I was scared and confused. I was learning to the tracks of animals in the area and had never seen one like this. I thought it looked funny because the pinky tow was stuck out at a funny place and it was almost twice my size. I do not remember the exact time or date but I know it was early afternoon when I left home and almost dark when I got back home. But then again I also lived in and around nothing but fir trees and very liitle traffic. I did try to tell my mom when I got home what I found and that I thought it followed me to protect me, beacause I kept hearing the bushes move like there was something walking with me out of eyesight. At first it scared me and I tried so hard to ignore it but after awhile the feeling kind of toned down and I started to feel safer and not so worried about meeting the dog killing bear. It followed me right up till the time I crossed the fence to my property. When I finally started to tell my mom after many screaming panic attacks beacuse I had been gone so long and scared her so bad, she told me she didn't want to hear about my wild imagination when I was obviously so scared. But to this day I still had flash backs and feel good at that fact that I believe many years later that I was being watched and protected in a way by a sasquatch. And I am happy that they are out there.