On a warm summer night in 1997, local Bigfoot researcher and part-time gold-mining enthusiast William Allen Barnes was plunged headlong into the world of cryptozoology. (Barnes dislikes using the term Bigfoot due to its exploitation by those who have tried to capitalize on, or trivialize the phenomenon, preferring to use the term North American ape/hominoid.)Barnes was camping alone near Greenhorn Creek, southeast of Grass Valley. He was asleep in a small pup tent with the rain flap up when a loud noise woke him sometime after midnight."About 1 or 2, I heard this thing coming down the canyon and I …