Fwd: Re: [pct-l] Mountain Lions

[pfreiman at UCSD.Edu (pfreiman@UCSD.Edu)]

A friend and I were hiking mid-day in the middle of Cuyamaca State Park, just 
west of Mt Laguna.  We stopped at this road junction and a couple from Austria 
passed us.  After starting up again we were soon about to pass the couple when 
they showed us what they had just finished filming with their camcorder.....a 
male cougar.  The next week a lady named Iris was killed by the lion a few 
hundred yards from where we had seen it.

We also came across a dead male in the middle of the Anza-Borrego desert.  They 
have been eatting the bighorn and we also find bighorn radio collars.  The cat 
had a chipped fang.

Now I'm not too scared of bears, but when I saw a female lion cross the trail 
ahead of me in the Lagunas I almost wet myself.  I wouldn't go back to that 
area for a year (by Lake of the Woods).  I put my hands over my head to make 
myself look large, but stayed silent.  I took a couple of steps forward on the 
trail, but when the lion made an intercepting step I stopped and walked 
backward (not wishing to turn my back on the beast)until I was hidden by brush, 
then turned and ran back to the lake.

Captain Bivy



Forwarded Message:
> To: <kgreen@camelbak.com>, <pct-l@mailman.backcountry.net>
> From: "Sharon & Chuck Chelin" <chelin@teleport.com>
> Subject: Re: [pct-l] Mountain Lions
> Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 19:00:11 -0700
> -----
> Good evening, Marmot,
> 
> Thanks for the great cougar story.  Your story, and all of the other reports
> of cougar sightings, makes me green with envy.  I have been tromping around
> the mountain West for more years than I care to admit ... actually since the
> Eisenhower Administration ... and I have yet to see a wild cougar.   I have
> seen kills in various stages being consumed. I have heard what believe could
> only have been a cougar screaming. Once I even crawled into a cave of sorts
> formed under a gigantic slab of rock beneath a cliff where I found a bed
> that held what looked like pieces of hair from a yellow Labrador retriever.
> I have seen many tracks, mostly in the snow, but after all of that I still
> have never seen where the tracks end.
> 
> When I watch Squatch's excellent documentary DVD, WALK, I am reminded of
> when I probably was the closest to seeing one of the big cats.  In WALK, one
> of the hikers ... maybe it was SoFar ... said he liked to try to identify
> other hikers by their footprints in the trail.  26 Aug. 2000 I was PCT NoBo
> and had just crossed highway at Chinook Pass on the funny little footbridge
> that forms the entrance portal to the Mt. Rainer NP.  Mid-morning, and about
> three miles upgrade north of the highway, I stopped at Sourdough Gap to
> frisk my pack for some peanut M&Ms when a through-hiker, who's name I do not
> remember, came chugging up the trail behind me.  After greetings he said,
> "You must be Mr. Brooks."  When I said my name isn't Brooks, he pointed to
> my tracks where we could see the very clear and sharp half-inch high word
> "Brooks", the name of the running shoes that I was wearing at the time. The
> dust in that area keeps a very sharp image.  He said he amused himself by
> trying to determine characteristics of other hikers by their tracks; such
> things as size, weight, speed, gender, load, hiking experience, etc.
> 
> Soon he continued up the trail and I started behind him not more than 10
> minutes later.  As I watched his footprints I began to try to rationalize
> what I saw with what I knew about him.  Within less than a quarter mile,
> however, I quickly lost interest in that game when his footprints were
> covered by a sizable set of cougar tracks.  I quickly looked up the trail
> but could not see either the hiker or the cat.  I compared the cougar tracks
> to the span of my fully open hand and judged that they were about 5 inches
> across, and being very fresh the detail was superb.  I followed them out
> that relatively flat, sharp, ridge, for 300-400 yards until the cat tracks
> disappeared, but didn't see a hair.
> 
> About mid-day I passed that same hiker while he was relaxing with some
> lunch, and he said he had no idea that he had been followed.  We were both
> disappointed.  The area where that occurred was not exactly remote.  It is
> just outside the NP, and just before entering the Norse Peak Wilderness, but
> it is fairly close to the highway, close to Park traffic, and on the head of
> a drainage where there is a resort area and other human settlement.
> 
> I expect I have been watched, or even followed, hundreds of times by the big
> cats, but there is no way of knowing for sure.  Many, many times I have had
> the somewhat academic thought that, "Gee, this would certainly be a good
> place for a cougar to relax in the rocks and watch the country", but only
> one time did I have the very distinct feeling that not only was a cougar out
> there, but he was also reading the menu.  I was on the PCT south of The
> Three Sisters, in Oregon, near Stormy Lake when I got that sudden, creepy,
> hair-raising-on-the-back-of-the-neck feeling of being watched.  I don't
> believe in that kind of thing, I deal in senses not intuition, but in that
> instance I also got the rush of about a cup of adrenalin.  I did a quick 360
> deg. inspection but there was no incoming fur-ball, no menacing snarl from a
> tree, or no tawny flash heading out of site.  I moved up and down the trail
> trying to improve my prospective and see some movement, but with no luck.  I
> continued on the trail without a sighting and without joining the cat for
> dinner.
> 
> I have a pretty good article on a PDF file about cougars that I will send to
> anyone who asks.  I downloaded it from somewhere on the Internet but now I
> cannot find where I got it so I don't have a URL.  I don't want to post it
> because it is 16 pages in a 1.4 meg. file.  It is mostly focused on
> Washington and seems to be a well-balanced discussion of cougars'
> interaction with us two-leggers.
> 
> Steel-Eye
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Keith Green" <kgreen@camelbak.com>
> To: <pct-l@mailman.backcountry.net>
> Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 9:09 AM
> Subject: [pct-l] Mountain Lions
> 
> 
> > "Earlier, thru hiker Load took some outstanding photos
> > of a cougar not far south of Kennedy Meadows.  He and
> > another encountered it eating a deer, approached "too
> > close" before it sensed them and ran off.  After some
> > minutes passed, they noted it circling behind them,
> > and made their exit."
> >
> > I was the other hiker with Load that day. We had left the town of Mojave
> > mid-morning and came across the cougar as it sat lounging over a recently
> > killed deer.
> 
> > Marmot
> > CA - 2002
> >
> >
> >
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