I would imagine that anyone in the IR&DA section has read a fair bit about the structure of sasquatch foot, and is well used to the drawing of human v sasquatch foot.

The theory of course, is that a sasquatch print 'creates' an arch or ridge of sorts in the print by the pressure when it moves onto its toes and steps forward.

Up until now, I accepted that without question, but this morning, my car wouldn't start, so I walked the couple of miles across farmland to my office - I had my huge walking boots on - as you know, I have a size 15.5 US foot, so these boots measure about 15" from toe to heel.

because it was slipery, and because of my size, i tend to walk 'sasquatch' like across slippery ground - ie, i don't lock my knees - partly because its slippery, and partly because I have an old rugby injury, which hurts my knee when it locks sometimes.

what I noticed was that whilst walking like this, you don't actually tend to step forward onto your toes as much - more, you lift the entire foot, and move it forward.


Any ideas ?

Keep in mind, sasquatch are a different animal than human or apes. They are built different, with a different muscle attachment points to the bones, different ligements , tendons ... so thier manner of locomotion differs from that of a human, even a human whos trying to walk in such a manner of a sassi. Hence, the prints left on the subtrate are going to act/look different from that of a human being.

Because of these differences, they have a higher level of leverage than human, and therefore have a lower caloric burn rate, or a more fuel effecient body than us humans. Especially when you consider the wieght vs energy unit consumption to movement.

I personally think they are a better suited animal to the enviroment than humans. We have made up for our lackings by haveing a higher intelligence (fire, tools, use of animal skins for warmth). Needless to say, i am a great admirer or our big furry friends

Paul my question would be,whats your average stride length over this distance ?shorter because of the ground conditions or normal because of the way you were walking ?I would guess part of the difference would be in the measurement of the stride vs.how the heel/toe structure of the foot allowed for movement.but then again I'm not you and from all reports you're substantially larger than I am. and probably have a lot different walking motion than i do anyway.

Excellent question ! - the 'cross country skiing' method lets call it CCS from now on produces an almost identical stride - the main difference is that you walk slightly less erect, but this isn't unusual in larger men anyway.

Oddly enough, I couldn't sleep last night, so sat down on watched the Princess Bride on DVD - I noticed that Andre the Giant also seems to walk in this manner - slightly hunched, and carefully picks up each foot and moves it forward, rarely locking his knee - go and take another look

The big difference between large man -v- Sasquatch walk is the placement of the foot - humans tend to leave footprints that point away from the line of travel, and where the left and right feet run in parallel, whereas Sasquatch prints tend to point stright ahead, and run in an almost stright line - the foot in the patterson film appears to almost rotate in order to get it back in place - this is very 'unhuman' - more so than the CCS locomotion.

Also, large humans tend to pronate - ie, walk slightly on the outside of their foot, and leave footprints that are deeper on the outside than the inside. - take a look at the soles of your sneakers and you will probably find very uneven wear.

The main problem with the current theory is this....



If the Sasquatch is CCS, then that foot should be picked up more, not rocked forward onto it's toes like the human foot on the right - we can't compare like-for-like. - the picture above looks right, but the motion of picking the foot up surely wouldn't case the 'ridge' of earth to be pushed up.

One other thing I noticed,at least about myself, and my own walking motion.Is particularly different when I'm in "stealth mode" or sneaky or whatever you want to call it.I walk almost exclusively on the b*lls of my feet and toes.(less area to make the crunching noses on palm fronds/pine needles)Looking at you illustration above,and the ones here in "bigfootprints" I'm wondering if given the body mass/weight distribution would allow them to even walk in this manner.You've obviouisly studied this more thoroughly than I have.Call it Linebacker running, I think I picked it up in my football days.But I always felt I could move and pivot quicker and with less effort this way.So I guess my next question would be,Could a BF walk in this manner when trying activly to avoid making noise ?I'm wondering if it could be used to explain some of the more unusual 'half' formed prints I've seen in some places.or some of the unusual scuffmarks I've found recently that I can't determine what made them.Possibly a bear but they look a little funny for it to be one.

Didn't DR Krantz base the majority of his (weight and balance) studies on the Bossburg, WA print?

That in itself is a bad foot to start out with so-to-speak, chuckle. I mean Ivan Marx was too close to the action...

Take Care
Ben

Aye Ben, that he was, Ol' Ivan. But to counter that, Rene Dahinden, co worker of John Green was on site. He was bothered as well by the presence of 'Ol Ivan. So he set out to see for himself on a ton of tracks in the snow, fresh and leading out from a lake. There were over l000 tracks to look at!!!!!!!!!! After spending a significant amount of time, he came saying, ok. They are real.
I believe that they were as well. Regarding Krantz, I think he is off on behavioral aspects especially considering he was an anatomy guy.
Regarding Ivan, whoa hee whoa hee and regarding Rene Dahinden, that guy was pretty smart regarding looking at evidence and going after it.
Its too bad guys like that didn't have what we have.... better communication. The question is... will we share and will we take advantage of it. As I look around and read the crap on some of the posts in many of the competitive websites, I really really wonder.