BIGFOOT SIGHTINGS LOCALLY

Bigfoot legends around the Sedona/Verde Valley area go back over a hundred years. Basque sheepherders would not drive their sheep through 33 mile long Sycamore Canyon to summer pasture on the 12,000 foot San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff because of "the Giant Hairy Men" that lived in Sycamore Canyon. This was in the 1800's. One story has it that a Basque went into Sycamore with his sheep and was never seen again.
This is not likely just simply folklore because there have been a number of rather recent Bigfoot encounters in this general area. There was a rash of close-up Bigfoot incidents in the Payson area about ten years ago. Payson is 60 miles from Sedona and is at 7,000 feet on the Colorado Plateau.
There are many abandoned mine shafts near Payson and a lot of them are not vertical, but go horizontally into the mountains.
Same with Jerome 20 miles from Sedona. In the last couple of years there have been a least two incidences where a Bigfoot was standing at the side of the highway and just seemed to be enjoying watching cars going by. This was on highway 89A on the switchbacks going up Mingus Mountain. The road here has almost vertical cliffs at the sides so drivers were too busy keeping their cars on the road to stop. In both cases the Bigfoot was less than ten feet from the witness.