Trail2Camp Magazine - Official Online Magazine of Dog Creek Trading Company

 A Stalker in the Snow

Two Weeks Alone Under the Watchful Eye of a Mountain Lion

by PHJensen

 (Part 1) 

Mt. Hood National Forest

Located in the Cascade mountain range, about twenty miles east of Portland, Oregon, the Mt. Hood National Forest (named after Oregon's largest peak) encompasses some 1,067,043 acres, including 295,917 acres of designated wilderness. It stretches south from the spectacular Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, across more than sixty miles of largely remote forest. It is host to numerous wildlife species, forested mountains, rocky river gorges, rivers, lakes and streams and extends to the Olallie Scenic Area where it borders the Willamette National Forest. It terminates to the east in Oregon's desert country.

The Mt. Hood National Forest is crosshatched with an extensive trail system for hikers, cyclists, and horseback riders. It has plenty of public access via the extensive network of Forest Service, logging and fire roads for endless hours of exploration. Since it is close to Portland, the numerous campgrounds and trails can be crowded during the summer months, especially on the weekends, when many go to take advantage of the nearly limitless outdoor recreational opportunities it has to offer. It is one of the most visited National Forests in the United States, with well over four million annual visitors. Its many campgrounds and remote campsites dot its expanse and are utilized year-round by sportsmen and outdoor recreationalists alike. My friends and I prefer the areas above the Clackamas River, where the abundance of high mountain lakes and streams offer a mixture of tranquil settings, atmosphere and wildlife viewing opportunities conducive to the regeneration of the spirit.

In the spring of 2005, my good friend Rick and I loaded up the truck with outfitter's gear, got my dog Jake (a tough Aussie/Border-collie cross) and headed out for the Mt. Hood National Forest. We wanted to get in a few good days of camping before the opening of the season. The plan was to arrive in the middle of the week to beat the crowds that were sure to converge on the area for Memorial Day weekend. How little did I know, when I got up that sunny Tuesday morning, that I was about to embark upon a series of events that would span over a four year period and change the very way I think of the outdoors.

Shellrock Creek

Shellrock Creek Campground has always been a reasonably popular destination for campers in the Mt. Hood National Forest. Getting there early would ensure that we could find a campsite on the creek with plenty of room for a couple of tents, an outfitter's kitchen and space for the dog to run. It was a great opportunity to get out of the city and back to the forest for a much needed break from business and the noisy chaos of city living.

We arrived at "Shellrock" in the afternoon, after getting a later start than we had planned. Surprised to find the campground still empty, we nabbed a premium spot on the creek at the far end. The sound of rushing water accented the picturesque setting of forested hillsides dressed in majestic Douglas firs, western cedar and hemlock; under-storied with huckleberry, mountain blueberry, moss and ferns. We set about setting-up tents, staging our kitchen area, collecting firewood and prepping the lanterns for an evening of sitting around camp with hot camp-cooked food and cold store-bought beer.

We were both more than familiar with the area, as we had favored it on numerous excursions. We would have traveled deeper into the foothills to one of the remote campsites we often used; however, because of heavy snow drifts on the roads that would take us farther in, we felt that Shellrock was a good compromise with fewer risks of becoming stuck or stranded.

While we unloaded and set-up our gear, there was a certain uneasiness in the air. The birds seemed less vocal than usual and the pine squirrels were sporadically agitated into their predator warning calls. Being early in the season, it was likely the wildlife was merely responding to our presence and that of the dog, but I mentioned to Rick that I felt it was more than that. I studied my dog, Jake, so I could try to gage the direction of a possible source for my trepidation, but I could not find anything unordinary in his behavior that would indicate an immediate threat. When we finished setting up camp, we conducted a walk-through of the campground to ensure that there was no garbage left in any of the campsites and to gather more firewood. We returned to camp, stacked beer in the cooler, made a fire and started dinner on the 90,000 Btu outfitters's stove.

As we talked at the campfire that evening, I told Rick of my plans to return to the area for a two week long winter trip. I was hoping to spur some interest from him to get him to join the "expedition". "It will be a good opportunity to catch-up on some snowshoeing and a chance to field-test survival equipment." I said. Rick just chuckled and replied, "You're crazy. Let me know how it goes, I'll be sitting at home with the heat cranked up". Although an avid outdoorsman, Rick prefers fair weather outings and the prospect of man-hauling sleds through wilderness in the middle of winter did not hold any allure for him.

As evening turned to night and the air started to cool, a light fog formed along the creek, reducing clear line-of-sight to about 25 feet. The moisture in the air formed droplets on the surrounding foliage, each reflecting the light from our lanterns, adding a Christmas-light speckled appearance to the camp's perimeter. We discussed philosophy, religion, politics and the outdoors as we heaped our plates time and again with food.

In the midst of the sea of flickering drops, two large, round lights stayed constant, fixed, unvarying in their position; their glow, forward facing like a set of dim flashlights beaming through the brush. Though, they had not gone unnoticed, their inanimate nature set us at ease as we were unable to illicit a reaction from them by throwing small rocks into the brush in their direction. That they remained unflinching, stationary for well over an hour after we first noticed them, lead us to believe they were pieces of glass we may have missed as we picked-up broken bottles (someone used as targets) from around our site when we first arrived. We finished our dinner, sharing part of our bounty of chicken with rice and sautéed veggies with Jake, and finished our discussions over a few cold beers, occasionally casting a suspicious glance at the reflections in the brush. 

Ready to turn in, I decided to take Jake for a walk to the restroom at the other end of the campground. Our regular routine would be for him to wait for me outside the door until I came back out and we would then walk around a bit more for Jake to do his business. Feeling fairly comfortable with the environment, we set out with a small flashlight that I carried on my keychain as our only light source. I shined the flashlight in the direction of where we saw the larger light reflections in the brush. Seeing nothing there but a few small pieces of glass, I shook my head and set out.

Stepping from the small trail that led to our campsite onto the roadway that bisected the campground, Jake immediately started to alert on what I presumed was a deer off in the brush, somewhere between the creek and the roadway. Not thinking much of it and certain that it wasn't making enough noise to be a bear, we proceeded toward the restroom. Jake stopped as we got about 20 more feet up the road and alerted again in the direction of the creek. This time I could hear the unmistakable sound of softly padded footfall on dry leaves, walking alongside us behind the brush. "Probably a bobcat" I muttered as we stopped so I could assess the situation. Shining the small flashlight in the direction of the sound, all I managed to do was to light-up the fog, creating a hazy white wall in front of us, while whatever was there came to a stop.

As Jake and I started walking again, so did our invisible escort. I called Jake to heal, putting myself between him and the intruder, and pulled a small lock-blade knife from my pocket. Coming to a full halt, I faced the brush, holding my arms out from my sides to help emphasize my human form, while I spoke commands for Jake to stay at heal. The footfall stopped again, but resumed as we continued up the road. The same sequence played-out a couple more times as I attempted to sway any confusion as to whether or not I was human.

It now seemed apparent that whatever was there was more than just curious. It appeared we were being stalked as prey. Being that Jake was the most likely target, I pulled him closer in, so he was leaning against my leg and raising my jacket up and open, to make my profile larger, I then took a few steps forward, shouting, "Hey! You go on now". After a short pause, the sound of the footsteps continued, unhurriedly, up toward the restroom and faded into the night in the direction of the main road. When we got to the building, I had Jake go inside with me. He sensed my concern as I stood quietly, listening for any indication that there might be something outside. After leaving the protection of the restroom, we continued cautiously back to our brightly lit camp, where Rick was visible through the fog from the roadway, gathering up cans and dishes. I briefly mentioned what had just happened, said "good night" and turned-in.

The following morning, I extended my head outside the door of my tent and looked around, carefully scanning the thicket for the shape and symmetry of a forward facing cat crouched in the brush. Jake stepped up to the door and looked around, mirroring my actions. I gave him a smile, patted him on the side and said, "Okay then". Jake stepped out of the tent, stretching as he advanced. I followed, strapping a hunting knife onto my belt as I walked over to the stove to start some coffee. I carefully surveyed the forest for any sign of movement at each step of the coffee making process and concluded all was as it should be. A short time later, Rick emerged from his tent and joined us. I told him, in detail, about the encounter of the previous evening. He suggested that after breakfast, we should hike up to the main road to see if we could find any tracks where the animal might have crossed.

Having spent most of my life in the outdoors, I have had plenty of wildlife encounters, but there was something that really concerned me about this one. I don't think it was the uncertainty of what the animal was as much as how the event unfolded. As I sipped my coffee, I thought about how it took more than a couple of efforts to chase off the intruder and that really bothered me, especially after shining the flashlight in its direction. I could see where a young, inexperienced and hungry predator, with no previous experience with humans, might run the risk of an encounter with a human to make a meal of a pet. I could even lean toward the conclusion that, confused by low visibility near the creek, a predator was merely responding to the sound and limited view of potential prey on the roadway. The fact was, that this animal, whether originally drawn to our campsite out of curiosity or not, had followed Jake and I from the well lit campsite, from within about 20 to 25 feet of where Rick and I had been talking at quite normal to elevated tones.

The Mystery Guest

Now in daylight, looking at the spot Jake had first alerted on as we left the campsite, I could see how an animal crouched behind the low growing scrub would have gone relatively unnoticed. The terrain was slightly elevated up to the roadway with a small thicket of denser brush and trees shielding our campsite from the view of the road. The height advantage of any animal on the inside of this thicket would have allowed it to pear over or through the lower scrub. Although we believed we had unwittingly noticed the reflection of the lantern light in the animal's eyes, its body was not visible as it crouched down, putting the lower growth in front of it. The sound of the creek shielded any sound it may have made, while the slight breeze coming off of the creek kept it from being detected by Jake's alert nose. Knowing, from previous experience, that bobcat, cougar and lynx were all in that area, but having seen more bobcat and bobcat sign than anything else, I figured that was our most likely suspect.

After breakfast, Rick, Jake and I walked to the main road above the restroom to look for tracks. Not seeing any sign, we continued a short distance up the road toward a turnoff leading to a small quarry near the campground. As we approached the quarry road, I looked down in the soft dirt on the shoulder. There, pressed into the soil, were several fairly fresh and perfect paw prints from a mountain lion. Rick looked a bit surprised as the tracks came into his field of view. Jake stopped and turned his nose to the ground sniffing from side to side; took a few steps forward, stopped again, sniffed the track in front of him and looked up at me. Rick and I simultaneously turned our eyes to the hillside above, watching carefully for any sign of movement while I rested a hand on the handle of my hunting knife. Though I have seen cougar tracks in the area before, and we both knew that they were around; Rick and I were both surprised to see that our mystery guest was indeed a cougar, as mountain lions rather avoid humans, not to mention the animal's proximity to our camp the night before was uncharacteristic to our experience of cougar behavior in that area. Judging by the size of the tracks, we were either looking at an adult female or a young male.

Mountain lions are solitary animals that can range several dozen square miles, depending on the abundance of prey in their core territory. They generally hunt between dusk and dawn and tend to use a central location for resting and rearing their young with an extended territory for hunting. Being that there was plenty of prey in the area; it was likely, in the case that this was an adult female, that this was the animal's hunting territory. In the case of a young male having just set out on its own, its lack of experience with humans may have lead it to explore us out of curiosity as it wandered transiently in the search of an unoccupied territory and an easy meal. Though they prefer to prey upon deer, mountain lions are largely opportunistic, feeding on a wide variety of prey. They hunt anything from small rodents to large prey species, such as elk, moose and bighorn sheep. It was most likely that the cat saw the presence of a dog in camp as a feeding opportunity and the presence of humans in camp either as the deterring factor that had held it at bay or a larger form of potential prey that required more deliberation. In any case, I felt the cat had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to evaluate the situation. It troubled me, knowing that it was only a matter of a day or so before the area would be full of weekend campers, their children and their pets.

That Friday morning, as the exodus of people began to arrive from the city, we decided to avoid the crowd and return home. We packed our camping equipment and loaded up the truck. On the way out we left a note on the bulletin board of the pay station. The message read: "Cougar Danger in area - use caution - keep track of your children and pets." We then pulled out onto the main road and headed for home.

Although attacks on humans are rare, as mountain lions do not generally recognize humans as prey, hundreds of pets are killed by mountain lions each year. Attacks on people and pets occur when a cat becomes habituated to humans or when it is facing starvation. Attacks are most frequent during late spring and summer when young, inexperienced juveniles leave their mothers in search of their own territory and are forced to fend for themselves.

In North America, between 1890 and 1990, there were 53 confirmed mountain lion attacks on humans, including cases where a single cat attacked more than one victim. This resulted in 48 injuries and 10 fatalities. By 2004, the number had nearly doubled to 88 attacks and 20 fatalities. This increase is attributed to human encroachment into decreasing mountain lion habitat, combined with increased mountain lion numbers due to relatively fewer of these cats being taken by hunters each year. Mountain lion habitat widely varies from lowland forest and swamps, to desert and grassland, to mountainous conifer forest and other locations with adequate cover and prey. If you live or recreate in lion country, remain aware of your surroundings and take steps to minimize risks to yourself, your family, and pets.

It was now only a matter of months until I would conduct a snowshoeing/survival trip into the Shellrock Creek area. The plan included pulling a sled full of equipment that I wanted to test for performance in winter conditions, into an area above Shellrock and Hidaway lakes. Once there, I would be on my own, regardless of the conditions, or what was waiting for me.

To be continued in the next issue... 

By PH Jensen