Who has been stalked by a cougar?

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 61 - 80 of total 107 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

TomCochrane

Trad climber

Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay

Jun 10, 2012 - 11:39pm PT

Neighborhood Watch in the Santa Cruz Mountains:

Hi guys,

Gayle asked me to pass on that she saw a mountain lion early
this morning. If you let your pets outside remember,
predators are most active within 2 hours of dawn and dusk, and that
mountain lions are less likely to attack than coyotes and we've got plenty
of them around.

Cheers,
^..^
( )
-----------------oo--oo

zBrown

Ice climber

mercenario de merced

Jun 11, 2012 - 12:22am PT

Wow Anne that was an amazing encounter. If I counted correctly the cougar approached you six times without attacking and was close enough that it could have easily killed you. So many unanswerable questions. Was it defending something rather than attacking? We encountered one here in the San Diego mountains, nothing like yours.

I'll pass this on the the folks who are attempting to document all mountain lion "encounters' in the U.S.

Stay safe. Other than avoiding their territory, bear spray appears to be the safest form of preventing attacks.

BuddhaStalin

climber

Truckee, CA

Jun 11, 2012 - 04:08am PT

Got followed by a kitty in 1994 in Tuolumne. I was going down from Snow Flat by May Lake from volunteer camp, starting down the snow creek trail at sunset. In my infinite stupidity, I was going to drag my mtn bike down there. I started riding down, and it quickly turned too soft to ride and was hike a biking way earlier than I thought I would have to.

I decide to bag the bike, as it was clear I was going to carry it all the way down to the valley. So I turned round and started motoring back up to dump it at snow flat and burn back down the trail. About 30 paces back up the trail were large kitty prints on top of mine. These were minutes old footprints.

So after my butthole grabbed my underwear, I hiked the hell out of there fast holding my bike as if I might try to stuff it in his mouth if one attacked. Never saw kitty, but the prints were scary as sh#t.

Of course I hiked right back down after without my bike but ran ass thru the first part of snow creek towards the switchbacks, and again thru the part as it comes in towards mirror lake, where the kitty signs are. I was puckered. But I made it to the gf's in curry village for sexytime. Ahh to be young and stupid again.

BluntMan

Gym climber

Wild Omar, CA

Jun 11, 2012 - 09:48am PT

In March, a couple of us took a hike up to Sitton Peak in the Santn Ana Mountains (SoCal). Definitely not a very impsosing peak but it offers great views and a decent 9.5mile/2500 foot gain workout. On the way back, we came to the top of an incline and ~200yds ahead, we saw a mountain lion cruising down the trail walking the same direction as us. We continued to follow it for about a 100 yards until it heard us. He/She turned around and eyed us for about 10 seconds and then sprang about 8 feet in the air and disappeared in the bushes. Because there have been dozens of sightings (and several attacks) over the years, it wasn't a surprise but still, it was my first "wild" encounter with one. Pretty cool stuff.

FinnMaCoul

Trad climber

Green Mountains, Vermont

Jun 11, 2012 - 10:12am PT

15 years ago a friend and I were elk hunting up near Estes Park, Colorado. We were scouting a long wooded ridge line to see if elk had been moving through the area. We were out at first light and split up, me moving below the ridge line and my friend going up the spine.

We'd had a half an inch of snow the night prior so conditions were ideal for tracking. We scouted for a few hours not seeing any sign that elk were moving through the area. I made a circuit clear around the ridge and started up the spine to connect with my buddy. I'm following his tracks when about halfway up the ridge I find mountain lion tracks on top of his, clearly fresh and clearly tracking him.

I had seen plenty of cats over the years from the car or at the house but this was the first time that there was a real chance of engagement. Up until that point big cats were a cool idea but having grown up in the East I don't think I ever seriously contemplated the reality of interacting with them in the wild.

I was carrying my brush gun, a Marlin lever action .35 carbine and had a .44 on my hip. I was VERY happy to have them and immediately started paying a lot more attention to my surroundings. At the very least I had the tracks in front of me. It was really my friend that I was worried about, knowing that he was very likely coming back up the ridge line and the lion was heading his direction.

We never did see the cat. I saw where his tracks diverged from my friends shortly before I connected with my partner. We contemplated tracking the cat for all of two seconds and then pretty quickly exited the area our hackles up, knowing that he was very likely watching us.