A very tall figure in Nevada County, California

My dad, my brother and I were deer hunting just north (about 1/2 mi.) of Donner Lake, CA along the utility road running east-west. They left me, with my dog (a Beagle), on a large boulder while they went east along the road in the pickup truck. They were going to try to flush some deer out of the brush and have them run towards me in the clearing under the utility lines. They must have driven several miles, because all was quiet until I looked up towards the top of the ridge behind me and to my right (towards Donner Lake) and saw a tall (between 8 and 9 feet tall) apelike creature, sandy brown in color, rather lean and especially gracefull in stride, walking smoothly and rapidly down the top of the ridge towards the utility road, crossing the road aboat 40 yards from where I sat on top of the boulder (which was about 8 feet tall), with a loaded 30-30 rifle across my lap. My dog, Tippi, ran off barking at the creature, disappearing in the pine trees about 30 yards north of the utility road. I was scarred stiff, but knew that I was downwind of bigfoot and he apparrently did not see me. I had no thought of shooting him, as I did not have any confidence that I could stop him with my 30-30. I could hear my dog--barking for a long time--10 or 15 minutes--, all the time getting furthur away, I waited for about an hour and 30 minutes before the dog finally returned, and my Dad and brother returned about 30 minutes later. I never told anyone about this until many years later--I thought they would think I was crazy. I had never heard of bigfoot at the time, and did not become aware of other sightings until several years later.