Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Mountain Lions - run, freeze, or other?

I had the fortune (misfortune??) of seeing one cat up around Tioga Peak on November 3, 2007, and some evil green eyes staring at me in Yosemite Valley that October as well. For the latter, I puffed myself up and became the aggressor, to which the critter simply stood, took three steps away, then looked back at me again over it's shoulder. I yelled at it the whole time.

Mike still swears it was a chipmunk.

The original TR used to be on Richard's board, but here's the abbreviated version.

-L

The day before, I was in the WPS at the trailhead, and this young girl who seemed to be of Doug's daughter age was tending the register, she said she was not into that hiking thing because "Mountain Lions Stalk You."

Well, I think it was Doug's kid...

Mountain Lion fears always remind me how bad most humans are at assessing risk. It is interesting to me that people will not hike due to the very very low risk of getting attacked by wild animal, yet feel comfortable getting in a car.

That said, it certainly does not hurt to be aware of risk, and prepare fort them, just in case.

Dean

Mountain Lion fears always remind me how bad most humans are at assessing risk. It is interesting to me that people will not hike due to the very very low risk of getting attacked by wild animal, yet feel comfortable getting in a car.

That said, it certainly does not hurt to be aware of risk, and prepare fort them, just in case.

I agree, I have seen a variety of wild animal while hiking, Mountain Lion, bear, bobcat, rattle snake, javalina...just asses the situation, take action and I continue to hike. Hiking is enjoying mother nature and aren't these creatures a part of mother nature. Running into any of these animals has its risk, just as walking through the parking lot at the local grocery store does.

I hope no one takes this article's advice...it's so counter-intuitive to anyone who knows anything about cat behavior, that hopefully people will see it for the bad advice that it obviously is.

Where did they get the "freeze" option anyway? That's almost as ridiculous. For a grizzly defending its territory or young, sure, but a cat that might be viewing you as a possible lunch...then you just stand there and don't move? What, so it's going to think you're dead, or a tree, or it won't see you? Fat chance. As far as I know, "freeze" has never been advised for montain lion encounters.

I forget who it was that said there are two kinds of lies...damn lies and statistics, and this misuse of statistics in the Sci-Am article is well-qualified for the term. Makes me glad I didn't renew my subscription. 8^)

I live part of the year on a piece of property where it is common knowledge to be the home of a catamount (Roommate saw it once at night). On rare occasions, I find the mostly eaten carcasses of animals and cat tracks are found towards the far reaches of the property. The overall advice given to me about responding to a catamount HAS been to not run, however, you certainly don't stand there like petrified wood, rather, like many others have said, you make yourself large, wave your arms, make lots of noise, etc., but you don't make like a deer in the headlights at night.

As far as running, the only encounter with the cat was on the gravel road in the car at night, and while driving away...the cat chased after the car.

Bee

Coming down the 600-something switchbacks from Mineral King one morning, a bear tried to out-run my Mustang. Very funny to watch a fat furball loping just in front of the left-front clip. He got out of the way. So did the deer, the fox, and the marmot.

If you want a driveable wilderness, go there. It's cozy and you won't be disappointed.

The idea is not so much not to move but to challenge the cat, make it clear you are not afraid of it and that you may in fact be dangerous to it...

A couple years ago I was on a solo JMT trip. I had to wait at Charlotte Lake for a re-supply, so I didn't get out 'til almost 3:00 and needed to get to the Center Basin Trail turn-off (just below Foresters Pass).

It was dusk as I was climbing up from Viddette Meadows when I heard something behind me... it was a herd of grazing horses coming up the trail. My joy and wonder at hiking so freely among the horses quickly turned to discomfort as they pulled away from me and I realized how vulnerable I looked - the small weak one left behind.

I was constantly looking over my shoulder for anything, and was never so happy to make camp. It was the only time I've ever been uncomfortable hiking solo.

That is exactly why I titled the thread "...or other?". The article didn't cite the conventional wisdom and I wanted a sanity check. One correction, this wasn't Sci-Am's work --- they were citing a scholarly journal.

I've never seen a cat in the wild (but once had a haunting feeling of being watched), but one would only have to watch film of cats or even observe common house cats - they move with incredible speed and quickness. Running would seem to be a repudiation of common sense.

Nor did the study mention what most did here: face it down, make yourself big, make noise, protect the back of your neck and head, keep the kids in front of you, etc.

Your comment regarding "counter-intuitive" is a good one. Another motive in these journals is "new and surprising". You don't get tenure validating old news.

These kinds of errors even show up in scientific journals. In 8/07 a Tufts University prof published a study in JAMA: he could only replicate one of 432 peer-reviewed journal articles. Miscalculation, poor experimental design, self-serving analysis, etc.

Seems like this study was one of those.

Later posts on the Sci-Am article did mirror what people said here.