Colorado Cryptid

As far back as 1920, there are reports of a fearsome cryptid lurking in the Colorado mountains, the slide-rock bolter. The creature has a large head, small eyes, and a gaping mouth with razor-sharp teeth. The tail is dolphin-like but with hooks to help it latch onto mountain crests and ridges where it sits downwards at a 45° angle. The creature is 100 ft long and weighs 250 tons.

The slide-rock bolter or macrostoma saxiperrumptus, takes out anyone who ventures into its territory. After an attack it climbs back up with its hooked tail. This cryptid eats anything in its path including large forest animals and tourists. Luckily it only needs to eat about once a month or so. Local rumor has it that it eats up to 10 tourists per year. 

Although there haven't been any confirmed recent sightings, you can tell that the mountain whale has been around because it razes entire forest areas, pulling trees out by the roots or cutting them clean down. 

In the small town of Rio locals speak of the destruction caused by a forest ranger who decided to take one of these creatures out. He placed a dummy tourist dressed in clothing and filled with gunpowder at the foot of a hill. The resulting explosion flattened half the buildings in Rio. (Although skeptics say that Rio simply fell into disrepair after a silver bust caused an economic shift.)

Some think the slide-rock bolter has evolved to become more rock -like and lies dormant, biding its time. Others claim that the story comes from environmentalist Mr. William Thomas Cox, a state forester who published a book in 1910 describing the fearsome critter, but that he was simply trying to scare off loggers. 

So is this an urban legend or a unique and rare cryptid?