Large footprints found near Loch Katrine - November discovery

Apologies if this is a stretch, but I found something while hiking near Loch Katrine in early November that's been bothering me. I was out doing a solo hike, exploring some of the less-travelled paths on the north shore. There's a boggy area about half a mile from the main trail where I found what looked like substantial footprints pressed into the mud.

They were roughly 13-14 inches long, with what appeared to be a heel impression and five toes. Much larger and differently shaped than a human foot, but clearly bipedal. The prints went about twenty metres before disappearing into rockier ground. I took photos and measurements at the time, though I'm embarrassed to say I didn't photograph them brilliantly. The light was failing and I was honestly quite spooked.

I know the rational explanation is probably a large human, a bear, or something I'm misidentifying. But the gait pattern suggested something unusual - the stride was longer than you'd expect for a human of any size. And there's no established bear population in Scotland, so that seems unlikely. Anyway, if anyone's interested in looking at the photos or discussing what this might be, I'd appreciate it.

Share the photos, that's the critical thing. Footprint identification is notoriously difficult from description alone. The heel impression is interesting though - does suggest a primate gait rather than a digitigrade animal (like a big cat). If you measured the stride length accurately, that's valuable data. Do you remember the distance between footprints?

The Loch Katrine area is actually quite interesting for this stuff. There's been sporadic sightings reported in the Trossachs over the years. Most are probably misidentifications, but the consistency of the reports is worth noting. If your photos are clear, it's worth documenting them properly - measurements, landscape context, soil type, all of it.

Bog preservation is excellent for maintaining impression detail, which is good for your hypothesis. But it's also excellent at distorting prints through water movement and settling. A deer hoof print can look very different in bog mud than on solid ground. Not dismissing your finding, just saying the medium makes interpretation tricky. The photos are essential.

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't photograph them brilliantly.

Don't be. Most people don't, partly because adrenaline is going and partly because smartphone cameras don't handle low light well. Post what you've got and let people help analyse. We're decent at pulling detail from not-brilliant photos.