I chose a route that would take me to the far western part of the lake trail,
where I realized there were no people because all of the cabins were deserted
and several up for sale. The cottonwood was out and was making my sinuses act
up and at the farthest edge of my hike I sneezed explosively. I heard a deep,
terrifying snarl and slowly glanced upwards. On a ledge ten feet above me and
about as many feet away lay a cougar, baring his teeth and hissing. He must have
been about 8' long as he lay stretched out and he didn't move. He had huge blue
eyes, a white muzzle, tawny fur, a long tail and enormous paws. I'd never seen
one in the wild before.
I'm a Viet Nam veteran, have lived through tornadoes and childbirth with my wife and can safely say I was literally scared to death. I thought my heart would stop and through sheer force of will made myself break the stare I was frozen into and just kept walking. I didn't make any sound, and at the point I did this, a jeep came over the hill towards me; there had been no traffic for about an hour. It was the security patrol, and he later said I was as white as a sheet. When I looked back to where the cougar had been he was gone, and he hadn't made a single sound when he left. I have very sharp hearing and I never heard a rustle or twig crack but maybe I was so scared I just didn't notice. I still have to force myself to drive calmly past this area 4 years later because it's on the way to my cabin. I view it sort of as "getting back on the horse" after getting thrown off. I have to go up there alone often to do maintenance on the cabin, cut the grass, haul off limbs from the trees, weed-eat, etc. and this is the only sighting I've made in the 12 years I've had a cabin there.
This was written 11/28/2005 05:42:40, published here with very minor editing
This took place about
25 or 30 miles west of Hinton, Oklahoma. I think I had just read a publicized
account (Reader's Digest) of a young man jogging up in the hills somewhere in
Colorado and he made the mistake of continuing to run after the cougar spotted
him and sprang (but I can't blame him; he was totally alone on a mountain trail
and the animal continued to attack, let him get away, attacked him again, etc.)
That is why I didn't run, from reading that story. I don't know what I would have
done, though, if it had sprung from the ledge since it would have only been a
distance of 10 or so feet high and as many long.
I didn't pay attention to gender; I'm arbitrarily choosing "he" (I was pretty freaked). It was about 3:30 pm and the sun was behind the ridge he was reclining on, so there was no glare and I got a clear view of him. It was a beautifully balmy day (Mother's Day, May, 2001); I'm thinking he was snoozing and my sneeze rudely awakened him. At the time I was 46, 180#, 5'10".
I could swear his eyes were blue, and he was NOT a juvenile by any stretch of the imagination unless juvenile can mean a big, strong healthy animal with enormous blue eyes. It looked almost exactly like the one you sent me [upper photo on this page] on the website!! The inclusion of the big cat [on this page] is beautiful; the one I saw had darker blue eyes and its fur was darker, like a cocoa brown. My sighting was published in the newsletter sent out to all property holders at the lake at that time with the admonishment to call security as soon as it was seen again. It never was reported again.
This was written 11/28/2005 10:23:59 & 12/01/2005 3:45:13, published here with very minor editing
