Mountain lions

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oldranger
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Re: Mountain lions

Post by oldranger »

balzaccom wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 11:34 pm Mike--the best set of puma tracks I have ever seen was in Sugarloaf Valley...nice a big, right on the trail
Never saw any sign of one in Sugaroaf except for that one year and never any reports except that year.
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balzaccom
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Re: Mountain lions

Post by balzaccom »

Hi Mike

Image

This was taken right at the top of Kanawyer Gap. The tracks were going out of Sugarloaf Valley as we were walking in...but we could see them for about a mile on the trail. That's a size 11 hiking boot next to it...

P
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Lumbergh21
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Re: Mountain lions

Post by Lumbergh21 »

Balzaccom,
That looks just like what I saw a month later on September 2, 2016, while hiking out of Roaring River, headed to Twin Lakes.
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mschnaidt
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Re: Mountain lions

Post by mschnaidt »

The only encounters I've had with Mountain Lions have been in Emigrant Wilderness. In '05 I was at Pingree Lake and heard a deer being taken by a lion down canyon at sunset. That was eerie as the deer screamed for about 10 mins. That was unforgettable. There were also 2 recent deer carcasses/kills on the use trails around Pingree and Big Lakes. I was with my brother and we didn't wander off solo on that trip.

Last July I was solo for the first night of a trip and was camped at Powell Lake as I had gotten a late start out of Gianelli. The next morning I went down to the lake to get water and there were fresh lion tracks in the muddy bank where I had swam the night before. I didn't see the lion though. A few weeks earlier a friend of mine was camped a few miles from this spot. At daybreak she looked out of her tent and saw a lion watching her. It stayed for 15 mins and then moved off when the other members of the party started stirring in their tents. She didn't see it again after that.

Lions typically don't worry me much but when solo it does cross my mind and am on guard when the trail goes through areas of tall foliage like the ferns around Pingree and Big lakes.
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hurricaniac
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Re: Mountain lions

Post by hurricaniac »

Never seen one, but have seen a lot of bobcats at lower elevation valleys early in the morning, e.g. Potwisha campground in Sequoia.
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TahoeJeff
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Re: Mountain lions

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My one and only mt lion encounter happened just last summer. My son and I went to Poore lk north of the Hoover Wilderness out of the Leavitt Meadows TH. We saw deer sign all the way up to the lake. After a very windy day of fishing and arrowhead hunting we were turning in late after a camp fire less evening. It was well past sundown and full on dark as I went to a tree I had previously scouted to hang our food. As I turned my headlamp from the ground up to the tree limb, I stopped to see a pair of large glowing eyes about 50' away from me. It took me a split second to realize I was in the presence of a big kitty. Needless to say the hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up. My headlamp wasn't strong enough to illuminate the cat, but I could tell what and how big it was by it's glowing eyes.
I told it "I see you cat, and I'm going back to my camp now" just to let it know that I didn't consider myself prey. It's common knowledge one is not supposed to turn and run from such an encounter, so I backed up slowly, alternating my headlamp from the cat to the ground so I didn't trip and fall. Luckily the cat just stayed put.
My son and I had separate tents on this trip. When I got back to our tents, I debated on what to tell my son, as I was relatively certain that the cat was out for deer and not us. I ended up telling him what I saw and said maybe he should move his tent closer to mine. "Forget that" he said as he grabbed his sleeping bag and pad and made my one man tent in to a two.
Before we zipped up the fly, we both shined our headlamps in the direction of the cat and could still see its glowing eyes about 150' away. My son said he would have trouble getting to sleep, but I reassured him that we were probably more of nuisance to the cats deer hunt than anything else.
We slept incident free that night. The next morning I went to the spot where I had first seen the cat hoping to get a pic of its prints. I couldn't find its prints, but there was a deer trail with their prints that looked more like a deer freeway than a trail. I think if I had gone to hang our food 30 minutes earlier or later, I would never have seen the cat...
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Crosswise
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Re: Mountain lions

Post by Crosswise »

Until I read this thread, I guess I had mistakenly filed away into my mind that Mt lions would basically mostly get runners n bicyclers, as they were like a little domestic cat attracted to the movement.
After this recent rain I saw 4" tracks, with no claws, in low elevation southern Sierra. I looked the tracks up online, and the small difference in the print from the lion's, has me guessing Bobcat. There have been sitings of bobcats in the area before, and never of a lion. It's amazing to read that bobcat's paws are the same size as a lion, despite the huge weight difference. Your thoughts? Thanks.
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phoenix2000
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Re: Mountain lions

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Crosswise wrote: Wed Jan 23, 2019 12:35 am
It's amazing to read that bobcat's paws are the same size as a lion, despite the huge weight difference. Your thoughts? Thanks.
You got me curious. I too had heard this, namely that their feet are large to help them travel across snow but when I see them on TV or in videos online they don't look that big. So I googled mountain lion vs bobcat track size and all of the results stated that bobcat tracks were roughly half the size of mountain lion tracks.

https://www.wildernesscollege.com/cat-tracks.html states

"Bobcat tracks are generally larger and more robust than those of feral cats. They measure out at 1 3/4 – 2 3/8” long by 1 3/8 – 2 1/2” wide for fronts, and 1 9/16 – 2 3/8” long by 1 3/16 – 2 1/2” wide for hinds."

"Cougar tracks are very exciting to find in the wild. They are very large animals, with good sized cat tracks. These creatures are also called mountain lions, pumas, and sometimes panthers. The tracks measure out at 2 3/4 – 4” long by 2 7/8 – 4 7/8” wide for fronts, and 3 – 4 1/8” long by 2 9/16 – 4 7/8” wide for hinds."

"Canada lynx are cats of the deep snows, and are generally found in high mountain areas as well as in the northern boreal forests. Although lynx are similar in size to bobcats, their feet are actually much more similar in size to the feet of cougars! Their tracks measure out at 2 3/8 – 4 1/4” long by 2 3/8 – 5 5/8” wide for fronts, and 2 1/2 – 4 1/8” long by 2 1/8- 5” wide for hinds. Domestic dog tracks are frequently confused with the tracks of cougars."

So it sounds like it's the Canada Lynx and not the Bobcat (Lynx Rufus) have paws as big as mountain lions. I tried googling where Canada Lynx can be found and the best result was from https://defenders.org/canada-lynx/basic-facts which states.

"Lynx can be found throughout much of the boreal forest of Alaska and Canada. The southern portion of their range has historically extended into the U.S. into the northern Rocky Mountains/Cascades, southern Rockies, Great Lakes states and the Northeast. Today, in the Lower-48 states they are known to have sustained breeding populations in Montana, Washington, Maine, and Minnesota and have been reintroduced to Colorado. They also occur and sometimes breed in Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but their population status is not well known in these areas."
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Yakov38M
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Re: Mountain lions

Post by Yakov38M »

And what kind of tools would you recommend to chase away mountain lions? Bear mace? Torches? Being loud and waving a stick? I've asked a couple friends, who say they just carry a gun with them. No matter what my opinions about guns are, I'm not an US citizen so it's not an option for me.
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sparky
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Re: Mountain lions

Post by sparky »

The only time I have truly seen one was a mountain lion that had jumped in front of our car on main divide road in the Ortega Mountains. It lept up the 15' cliff on the other side of the road like it was nothing.

Another encounter was in the San Jacinto mountains. I was day hiking alone, down to the waterfalls at Caramba. On my way back, I suddenly encountered a baby deer leg laying in the middle of the trail. It didnt cause alarm, I wasnt thinking mountain lion at all, but I was puzzled my it, and it definitely wasnt there on my way in. I kept going and a few minutes later I heard a great commotion to my left, and I saw 5 or 6 deer running at full speed, crossed the trail, and continued into the bushes. Now I was alarmed, it was clear they were running from a predator. I kept going and not long after I got "the vibe". I was being stalked. I had a long way to go to my car. I could feel it, and occasionally I could hear it. I would stop and posture, showing I wasnt prey. This went on for a good hour or more, and finally "the vibe" past, and I hiked the rest of the way to the trailhead without worry.

Another time we accidentally stalked a mountain lion! It was early season hike out of hetch hetchy hoping to get to Tilden lake. After jack main canyon, there was patchy snowfields and everything was flooded. Hiking along we noticed "bear tracks" in the snow. It was clear the tracks were very fresh....we were right behind it. So finally we get to a stretch that is flooded as far as the eye can see. The tracks just ended there. There was also a very large boulder right next to the trail. We decided to take a break, snacked, and discussed turning around as we were tired of wading the flooded areas. I was looking at the tracks and suddenly realized the tracks had no claw marks. No idea how we totally missed that! So now we realize we have been on the heels of a mountain lion, and so now where is the lion? Did it swim for it? Did it climb up the cliffs? Or is it on top of the boulder next to us??

I have seen tracks at +11k' following the unnammed pass I was using between bench lake (the one on the north side of university peak) and the upper reaches of the kearsarge lakes basin. I was alone and a little nervous until I got to the uppermost kearsarge lake and saw a deer with a broken leg. I figured that deer would be lunch before me.

My final "encounter" story was in Yosemite. I was attempting to use Le Conte gully to lost lake then come back down to happy isles on the trail. I had scrambled up to cliffs on the NW side of grizzley peak. I was satisfied with my elevation, and began to traverse left. I picked up a "use trail" and started seeing scat. It was clearly mountian lion. I just kept going, seeing more and more some very fresh, then there began to be a general terrible stench. Not dead rotting carcass, but urine and poo. My brain went to defcon 3, on alert but I wasnt getting "the vibe" so wasnt too worried. I came around a bend, and the stench got really strong and there was scat all over the place. There was a colleciton of boulders and it was obvious this was a mountain lions home. I still didnt have "the vibe". I assume this thing heard me coming a mile away and bounced out. So I just keep going on my way.

So finally I get to the base of Le Conte Gully, and I just didnt feel comfortable with it. I turned around and went back the way I came.

Remembering the "den" or whatever that was, I descended a gully to what I thought was well below the elevation I found the den before I made my traverse toward the cliffs of grizzley peak. I started my traverse, and things got really tricky. I was scrambling lots of large boulders. Finally I got to some boulders covered in leaves, so it was slippery and a difficult scramble. Finally I sat and contemplated a difficult move onto a sloping ledge of leaves with ugly consequences. I was pretty committed at this point, so went for it, and once I made it, I just kept my momentum going and bounded down a descending series of steps with a final big jump onto the dirt below. Right as I made the final jump I saw and smelled what was below me. I jumped right into the mountain lion den. What I couldnt see before was a large overhanging boulder that I had just jumped off the side of. I saw bones, fur, poop everywhere, and it smelled horrible. I still never got "the vibe" but some of those poos were very fresh. Some looked like they were still warm. Needless to say I didnt stay long
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