Bigfoot Feet

1980 cast from Stillaguamish River

What is a Bigfoot foot like? Well, we can make some very basic assumptions. For one, since they go barefoot, the souls must be very keratinized and tough. 

These feet (above) belong to an indigenous person who has never worn shoes. Without boxing the feet into shoes at a young age and throughout life, the foot has splayed wide in the upper foot. This makes balancing the weight over the ground easier. 

a person who work high heels all their life

The foot also must be flexible to conform to stepping on stones, limbs, and other. This limber foot is likely to create a most interesting print compared to us high-arched humans in hard-soled shoes. 

Imagine a stiff sole atop a pile of pebbles pushing off-making contact with just the edges of the pebbles that meet the hard flat sole. Now, imagine pushing off of pebbles with a pliable foot in which every surface of the exposed rocks meets the foot. The large area surface of the foot and rock combo for push off is a different process to the tiny surface area of the sole meeting the sharp points of rocks only. It would also develop a very bulky leg and hip musculature.

The big toe is splayed away from the other toes. This is once again for balance and weight distribution and also to help the foot conform to all the shapes on the ground with an almost gripping quality. As well, you will find a life-long barefoot is going to develop a tough callused protrusion in the ball of the foot from that very conforming of the foot to what it steps upon.

Karl Sup and I put together a hypothesis on Bigfoot locomotion that involves a horizontally dynamic foot versus a vertically dynamic one like we have. Our foot pushes off on the ball of the foot, a fragile way to step for a being who ways several times our weight a much more musculature. But, a horizontally dynamic foot allows the foot to slide and shift with walking, distributing an taking the load of the heavy weight and also creating a non-bobbing head which is indicative of true Bigfoot video captures. Think in terms of speed skater or cross-country skier.

The paper on our theory is HERE.

For there to be less chance of frostbite on bare feet, these people adapted to high mountainous regions. The souls of their feet would be extremely tough and hard to penetrate, might even produce oils that help protect from weather. Interestingly, many BF prints on wet roads show a strange beading where they walked on the wet surface. Their capillaries would not be on the surface like ours so less blood flow to that region would keep it from frostbite, as well as giving the skin a dusky gray "cadaver" coloring which is often reported.

Their feet would need to be horizontally dynamic. As our feet are vertically dynamic, we step on the ball of the foot to push off. In their case, the foot could "inch worm" or "snow shoe" across the ground with a glide. That glide would cause the bunching that is often referred to as "midtarsal break" by those who believe they are chasing apes. This is a necessary adaptation for mountainous terrain and snowy conditions, as well. Let's look at some prints - 

In this comparison, a human foot on the left and a print from a cave where "Massey Man" resides. The heel almost seems like a separate entity as the plantar fascia ligaments on the bottom of the foot would be powerful mechanisms to allow spread over surfaces and snap back for moving along. 

The print above shows the width of the forefoot. The area around the toes is spread quite wide. This is almost like wearing one's own snow shoes.

In this print (above) you can see the toes to the far left, but the bottom of the foot has a very smooth look to it as if the plantar fascia ligaments are very band-like and powerful, with the ability to work the foot in a horitontally dynamic way. Just think about those exercise bands we used for resistant training. 

It goes without saying that Bigfoot feet need to be incredibly flexible, durable, tough, and weather proof. It is not padded like a bear's paw, it is exceedingly tough-skinned. I have seen prints where they stepped on a rock and the foot conformed all around where the rock is jutting out. That means all the flesh had to spill over around the rock and press into the ground. That says a great deal about their ability to walk on any terrain and not even inflict an injury.