Miner reports pre-dawn road crossing near Silverton witnessed in San Juan County, Colorado

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This incident happend in southwest Colorado in early spring/late winter 1989. I worked at the Gladstone mine North of Silverton Colorado and lived in Montrose Colorado. I usually car pooled with another individual at the time and we took turns rotating driving every other day I.E. we took my truck one day and his the next. We did this four days each week for two weeks on day shift and two weeks on swing shift. Anyway to get to the story and sum it up. I ended up driving to work by myself that particular day because my car pool did not show up in time making me a little late or behind our normal time of leaving. Whoever was driving in the morning had to be alert and wide awake because of all of the deer and elk along the road and crossing the road that early in the morning. The commute south on 550 from Montrose to the mine took about one and half hours which is about seven miles north and west of Silverton CO. I had just come over Red mountian pass going south bound on 550 and just south of the Ophir Pass 4 wheel rd turn off about two miles and north of the east turning curve towards Silverton about one and half miles. As I was approaching what is known as the slide area I was on a relative short stretch of straight away and approching some S curves now at the time you could see across these S curves to the other side in which the road on the other side is in line with the first straight away and continues for a short way before a slight curve to the left that starts downhill. I had my head lights set slightly higher and wide, then stock on that 1985 Toyota 4x4 with rectangle Halogen headlights so that my truck would have a better chance of stopping or avoiding any collisions with a deer or an elk. DID I HAVE ADIQUATE LIGHTING? YES. Anyway as I am on the first straight away I could clearly see across to the second straight away when I saw movement up on this high embankment to the left on the second straight away about fifty feet above the highway and moving down the almost eighty foot tall and almost vertical embankment. What i saw was not clear until it came directly into the path of my head lights which were on bright by then. It was standing upright and took about four steps from the embankment to the other side of the 2 lane highway and paused slightly in front of a 12 foot or taller big yellow diamond shaped sign that warns of the slide area ahead. it appeared that this creature was slightly blinded or confused by my head lights and paused with two small quick shuffeling steps and a slight glance in my direction before it dropped over the steep embankment on the west or right side of the highway. when that thing stood in front of the yellow sign on that white post at first I thought it was a huge bear and then relized that bears do not travel around on 2 legs and 10 to 11 foot tall bears are not in exsistence in that area. I saw the glare of its eyes at least three times. It walked upright the whole time. Because of its height, gait and posture, slightly slouched forward above mid back, and its dark multi coloring I always believed that I saw a bigfoot. I tried to confide to a couple of friends what I had seen later that morning at work but I was met with a skeptical attitude. Therefore I began to keep it to myself and only have discussed it with close people and still have met resistance in talking about it. The time of day was early morning about 5:30 in the morning, dark and little or no moon. The weather was clear and tempurature mid 30 degrees. I did slow down at the crossing site and looked over the west side of the road as best I could briefly but hurried off in fear. After work I drove back by the crossing site and stopped. I noticed 5 or 6 large indentations, all in a row coming down the east embankment. It is very steep, with gray shale and dirt. The trail was at a slight angle at about 5 oclock. These appeared to be heel marks like a human would leave descending a very steep slope but much much larger, disturbing the earth around them in a downward sliding motion around each track. I was and still am an avid rifle and archery hunter as well as an experienced tracker and outdoorsman and have hunted and camped excessivly in south western Colorado and the san juan mountains. To me it would be a great relief to have it proven to the world that these creatures exist and should and could be studied with great restraint so as not to disturb them too much. I believe that it will be just a matter of time befor their exsistence is proven to the world.