Footprints in Pima County, Arizona

In mid November of 1975 I was attending the Fenster school in the north part of Tucson, off Sabino Canyon . I would routinely skip a class on occassion or have a class cancelled, so I would hike the surrounding area in the time frame I had. Usually from an hour to two hours. I would look for indian aritfacts and watch the local wildlife, occassionally seeing coyote, mule deer or javelina. I can't forget, like it was burned in my mind, as I was poking around the old corral that was north of the campus at least a good half mile or more. First thing that bothered me was my hair stood on end, then a pungent smell hit me. then I heard it. I saw through the creasote brush a large grayish/brown hairy creature crouched over a gopher den, digging at it. I was perhaps 50 yards away and stood in total fear and shock what seemed like an eternaty, watching it dig with what looked like its hands, it then started to turn towards me. Thats when I bolted and ran as fast as I could run back to the campus, across open ground (a former polo field crossed by an abandoned airfield for light aircraft). I kept looking over my shoulder as I panic ran to see if I was being persued. I wasn't. When I got to the office, I immediately reported what I saw to the school secretary, even drew a quick sketch what I saw. She said she'd report it to the authorities. I told a few others what I witnessed...most thought I was nuts, that Bigfoot lives in Canada. I refused to return to that area for months, not venturing far from campus, and especially with someone along. I would later gain enough courage to go into Sabino canyon, especially with others. saw nor heard nothing. later in the spring of 76 I was again looking solo for artifacts, east of the campus when I found in a wash large footprint shaped depressions spaced a good 5 feet apart crossing the wash, later walking along. I looked around immediately as fear rapidly creeped again. But heard, smelled nor saw nothing. I took branches and covered up 5 of the tracks and returned to campus. This time I told a teacher of mine, John Yavonovich, what I found. The next day took him to the site, a good 45 minutes to an hours hike. Showed him the tracks. he too felt something big and upright walked that area. We discussed it with a few others, all felt that "it was a prank clearly". Why would anyone go to the effort to make such tracks so far out and so unlikely to be found? Its been 25 years and I still get goosebumps thinking about it.