An account in Riverside County, California

My girlfriend and I where on vacation in Idyllwild for the week and wanted to hike up to Lily Rock to the fire lookout cabin, but we couldn't get to the main trail head due to my girlfriends fear of driving without chains up a black ice covered road, so we stuck around Hemet Lake for hiking and trout fishing due to the factor that the main roads were more recently snow plowed and grinded red lava rock laid for more traction. Plus, I had lived in Mountain Center a few miles north of Hemet Lake, so I was pretty familiar with the area and its wild life inhabitants. I've been Hiking, fishing, hunting, rock hounding, and Prospecting in just about all of California for the last 20 years, from the Cascades to Azusa Canyon. On one of the nights, I think it was the 16th of November; we wanted to go on a night walk around Hemet Lake since the whole city of Idyllwild goes to bed at 8pm and it was about 10:30 at night, so we drove the 8 mile drive from our hotel to the lake. We arrived at the lake at about 11pm and sat on the car next to some big green trash bins about 150 feet or so from the lake; when we heard something 400 feet or so breaking branches in a canyon to our backs. It sounded big and didn't seem to care if it was heard coming down the slope, so I assumed it was just a big black bear until the smell. The only way I could describe it was a dying wet dog. A feeling of discomfort came over us both as we saw nor heard any more of what we assumed to be a big black bear coming down the canyon, meaning whatever came down the canyon was hiding in the tree line 300 feet or so away from where we sat. I got a chill up my spine and had that feeling that we shouldn't be here right now. We got in the car and left to come back just under a hour later hoping what ever it was would be gone, so we could try to finally go on our late night lake walk. We pulled up and backed into to the same spot as before to notice that one of the green trash bins had been pushed over towards the lake, and that there was a 2 foot wide 4 inch deep circular dent like something big had punched it. There was no paint smear like a car had hit it. It was and had been dead quite other than the unknown thing that came down the canyon about an hour before. I had no idea what could have done that to a big steel trash bin and for years until Google Earth Mapping of Bigfoot. I saw that there had been sightings, calls, and smells reported in the surrounding area, and came to the conclusion that might make more sense being a believer in crypto zoology. I didn't check for tracks or any other signs due to the lack of info at the time, or I would have.