Cougar Encounter in Eaton Canyon 8:40PM 6/29/12

SageUrsus · Post by **SageUrsus** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 12:05 am

Today was by far the craziest day I've ever experienced in the mountains.
I saw a cougar in the lower section of Eaton Canyon.

It all started when me and my buddy descended from Altadena and Midwick Dr. around 7:00PM. We weren't prepared for a hike and just decided to stick to the lower part of Eaton and stay in the dark as we have before plenty of times in the past. We walked around for a bit until we decided to sit in a dried up stream bed. At this point the sun is still out and we can hear a few groups of hikers leaving. An hour goes by when we start to hear bustling on the hillside where the houses are- now the sun is going down but there is plenty of sunlight. A dog starts to bark. More bustling. A man comes outside to call his dog in. At this point the bustling is progressively moving towards us and a different dog starts to bark. We think its a bear because we've encountered a couple before and it sounds like a big animal moving. The bustling is getting uncomfortably too close for us so we start to head towards the main trail towards the nature center. We continue to hear the bustling as we walk away and it seems to be following us(perhaps my friend's sweet and salty peanuts)!

By this point we are still freaked out and vigilant but we reached a comfortable distance from the bustling and stopped to look behind to see if we could spot anything but we couldn't.

We walk up past the spot where I've seen a cougar track and talk about how much better we feel further away from the original bustling when we hear MORE BUSTLING! The bustling came from a tree with a lot of brush around it. It was a very loud bustling and we had a problem because it was in the direction we needed to go in order to avoid the first large animal.

I made the decision to throw a rock at the tree and the bustling stopped. I was thinking I probably scarred the raccoon or something off. We walk passed the tree looking at it to see if we see anything and then BAM two huge glowing eyes and this huge cougar looking at us walking right next to us. We were terrified because it was so close to us and walking in our direction. And plus by this point it was dark! I took my phone out and started to record(Encountered the cougar at exactly 8:40PM). We both have a rock in each hand and start to walk the fuck out of there and start to scream "LEAVE US ALONE" "GO AWAY COUGAR". We walked and walked and turned around constantly when we saw it one more time on the trail coming toward us! We scream louder and louder hoping to just get the fuck out of there as soon as possible. We pass the first stream and I look at how long I've been recording and it's only been three minutes. The longest three minutes of my life. We get to the parking lot and I feel a little bit closer to safety but I'm still vigilant and scream at the cougar to leave me alone. We start to go up the road and hear more bustling and I'm thinking "not again..." but we just push forward and get to Altadena Dr. and feel safe.

An extremely tense night stroll through Eaton Canyon.

atomicoyote · Post by **atomicoyote** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 7:36 am

Cool you encountered one, regardless of how scared you were. You probably shouldn't have run away as that could trigger it to run after you like you were fleeing prey. I had a similar experience in Eastern Nevada a few years ago - got up in the middle of the night at a car campground, only to see a cougar standing just inside the bushes watching me as I walked toward the 'loo'. At first I thought it was the glowing eyes of a coyote (meh . . . seen plenty around car and backcountry campsites over the years looking for scraps), but then noticed its face. I just picked up rocks, stones, sticks, anything, to throw at it to make sure it knew I wasn't backing down and was aware of its presence. Pretty sure it wasn't after me, as there was a meadow/stream/small lake up the hill where deer congregate.

SageUrsus · Post by **SageUrsus** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 11:12 am

It was a pretty cool experience and I'm glad to have seen it I just wish it was brighter out.

We didn't run but rather walked out of there at a steady pace screaming at it. We didn't have flashlights and just wanted to get out of there .

Nice! How long did you stand your ground before retreating?

SageUrsus · Post by **SageUrsus** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 7:03 pm

I just had to go back today and although I only had a couple of minutes to look around I found two questionable marks on a tree the cougar walked by.

I don't know.. What do you think?

Mike P · Post by **Mike P** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 11:18 pm

What strikes me odd about this encounter is that the mountain lion was making a lot of noise as it moved in the brush. I defer to Cougarmagic's opinion on that point.

SageUrsus · Post by **SageUrsus** » Sun Jul 01, 2012 12:01 am

Yeah, I was shocked that it would make so much noise. When I went back this morning I noticed the ground was completely covered in layers of noisy oak leaves.

atomicoyote · Post by **atomicoyote** » Sun Jul 01, 2012 6:46 am

SageUrsus wrote: ↑It was a pretty cool experience and I'm glad to have seen it I just wish it was brighter out.

We didn't run but rather walked out of there at a steady pace screaming at it. We didn't have flashlights and just wanted to get out of there .

Nice! How long did you stand your ground before retreating?

Didn't retreat, just stood there for 5 minutes throwing crap at it until it left. I went to the loo and made sure the door was shut (cinderblock construction with solid, latching door and roof). When I came out I just kept my eyes open and listened for sounds, but he cougar was no where to be found. The next moring I went over to the bushes and found a few paw prints in the dirt - definately a cougar. It was in mid-October at the upper Lehman Creek campround in Great Basin Natl Park; only three occupied sites in the 30 site campground at that time.

Noises in the Eaton Canyon bushes - might have been small animals being spooked by the cougar? birds roosting in the bushes for the night, rabbits, etc. I wouldn't doubt cougars congregate in that area and around the other few water sources in the SGMtns. Deer probably show up there in the night, too, making it good hunting grounds.

cougarmagic · Post by **cougarmagic** » Sun Jul 01, 2012 7:09 am

Very exciting! It sounds similar to Hikin Jim's experience a while back:

https://eispiraten.com/f ... -asc-0.php

So, I think I just saw a mountain lion. I was coming down from Echo Mountain in Altadena around 9:30 PM tonight. I heard something big in the bushes about 30 - 40 yards away. I shined my head lamp on "boost" mode in that direction. I saw a fairly large animal. It crouched down and snarled (if that's the right word; funky noise) at me, and then bounded off. Three deer broke out of the brush to my left and ran full speed towards me and the guy I was hiking with, veering only a few feet away and sproinging up the hill.

I think I interrupted a mountain lion during a hunt. I think he was after those deer who I think were pretty freaked out when they heard the snarl or whatever it should properly be called. I've never seen a deer run towards two people before. We both had headlamps, so it's not like we were hidden or something.

I didn't get a good look at whatever snarled at us, but it was big, it freaked out the deer, and it moved very differently than the deer. My friend says he saw it and for sure it was a mountain lion. My friend was off to the left a bit whereas the animal was looking directly at me since I was shining my headlamp on "boost" at it. So, between the circumstances and my friend saying "it was a mountain lion," I think I had a close encounter of the mountain lion kind. Very interesting. Of course I left the camera at home tonight.

HJ

Sage, it seems to me the first noise you heard may have been a deer. Cougar was hunting, then you got between it and the deer it was paying attention to. It does surprise me too that the cougar was noisy, but those oak leaves are tough to be stealthy on. They can definitely do it if they have to though. The fact that it was so loud means it was not following you with intent to attack you. Just wanted to figure out how to get around you, or if you posed a threat to it.

I think the whole "It didn't run, so it doesn't have normal fear of humans" thing is kind of silly. A mountain lion in Eaton Canyon has seen hundreds of people and dogs, heard sirens, trucks, construction noises, etc. Why would it be afraid of people? The experience you had, where it sees you, seems curious, and doesn't immediately take off in a panic, is pretty standard actually, and though I haven't experienced it myself, I would consider that to be normal behavior.

The tree scratches - possible they were from a cougar, but also possible that they were from a bear, plus they are not too recent. Finding cougar scratches on trees is really super rare, and it tends to look more like a shredded scratching post, than nice clean marks like that. Bears scratch to make a visual mark to other bears, cougars do it to sharpen claws.

SageUrsus · Post by **SageUrsus** » Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:00 am

Didn't retreat, just stood there for 5 minutes throwing crap at it until it left. I went to the loo and made sure the door was shut (cinderblock construction with solid, latching door and roof). When I came out I just kept my eyes open and listened for sounds, but he cougar was no where to be found. The next moring I went over to the bushes and found a few paw prints in the dirt - definately a cougar. It was in mid-October at the upper Lehman Creek campround in Great Basin Natl Park; only three occupied sites in the 30 site campground at that time.

Noises in the Eaton Canyon bushes - might have been small animals being spooked by the cougar? birds roosting in the bushes for the night, rabbits, etc. I wouldn't doubt cougars congregate in that area and around the other few water sources in the SGMtns. Deer probably show up there in the night, too, making it good hunting grounds.

That's bold but I guess it was the right thing to do.

SageUrsus · Post by **SageUrsus** » Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:03 am

Sage, it seems to me the first noise you heard may have been a deer. Cougar was hunting, then you got between it and the deer it was paying attention to. It does surprise me too that the cougar was noisy, but those oak leaves are tough to be stealthy on. They can definitely do it if they have to though. The fact that it was so loud means it was not following you with intent to attack you. Just wanted to figure out how to get around you, or if you posed a threat to it.

I think the whole "It didn't run, so it doesn't have normal fear of humans" thing is kind of silly. A mountain lion in Eaton Canyon has seen hundreds of people and dogs, heard sirens, trucks, construction noises, etc. Why would it be afraid of people? The experience you had, where it sees you, seems curious, and doesn't immediately take off in a panic, is pretty standard actually, and though I haven't experienced it myself, I would consider that to be normal behavior.

The tree scratches - possible they were from a cougar, but also possible that they were from a bear, plus they are not too recent. Finding cougar scratches on trees is really super rare, and it tends to look more like a shredded scratching post, than nice clean marks like that. Bears scratch to make a visual mark to other bears, cougars do it to sharpen claws.

Thanks for posting Hikin Jim's experience.
The first noise that I heard was probably just a deer. I don't know if it makes a difference but we heard it near the hillside where the houses are and encountered the cougar on the opposite side. Wouldn't a cougar hunt a little closer?

When I heard the sounds the cougar was making I initially thought it was either hunting an animal at that moment, covering a kill or climbing down a tree but there really is no way of knowing now. I'll check it out again today and actually go inside where the cougar was making the ruckus.

I agree. There were actually two female hikers that passed the location of the encounter less than a minute before we did and I have no doubt in my mind that if we just kept walking without throwing a rock at in the bushes the cougar would've kept minding it's own business.