Dan's Outside

Mountain Lion Stories

A few have come to my attention this week:

• There is the story of the couple who were hiking in a northern California park when a mountain lion appeared from nowhere and attacked the man. His wife managed to get the lion to let go of his head (by using a log and then standing her ground when the lion turned its attention to her), and they made it to a nearby road where they got assistance.
• My brother, who lives in a semi-rural part of the greater Seattle area reports that he was out for a pre-dawn walk recently when he heard the characteristic “whistle/scream” of one of the big cats. He decided to head back the way he came, but on the way back heard a rather violent confrontation between a couple large animals, one of which must have been the cat.
• Recently I was hiking at Uvas Park south of San Jose when I noticed some rather large prints in the dust on the trail… and they were not boot prints. I suspected a mountain lion had made them, and I confirmed this by checking them against a sign back at the start of the trail. In such a situation I hope that the reports that these big cats are somewhat shy are true, but I pay extra attention to my surroundings and am prepared to wield a log, tripod, or rock if it comes to that. It never has.

Despite hoping that I’ll see a mountain lion some time, so far I’ve seen nothing larger than a few bobcats.
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January 31, 2007 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | Comments Off on Mountain Lion Stories

Snowshoe or Ski?

(An old article – posted here so as not to lose it during the site transition.)

I know how I would answer that question.

Tom (at Two-Heel Drive) returned from a recent trip to Yosemite waxing rhapsodic about snowshoe hiking. (But somewhat less rhapsodic about cold, wet socks… you’ll have to visit his site to read about that.)

I have cross-country skied for more than 30 years (yes, since I was 2 years old… or maybe I meant 20? ;-) and more recently done some telemark skiing. I did try snowshoeing a several years ago when we took a large group of high school and middle school kids on a winter hike up the road to Donner Pass near Lake Tahoe. I had never tried snowshoeing before because, compared to magically gliding through the woods on skis (hey, it is possible to get the waxes right once in awhile… ;-), snowshoeing seemed so, well, plodding. But I decided to give it a try.

It did feel like plodding. I can’t say that I really enjoyed it much at all. I’ll admit that it is an effective and practical means of getting out and about in snow country, but there didn’t seem to be much poetry in slogging along on giant loose-fitting “shoe extenders” – at least not compared to cross-country skiing. For me the downhill sections were especially bad – I wanted to take advantage of all of the gravity equity I had built climbing the hill, and enjoy a good schuss back down the hill. Contrary to the photos I see in outdoor magazines, the downhill was not faster than the uphill – and if anything is less exciting than slogging uphill it is slogging downhill.
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January 29, 2007 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | Comments Off on Snowshoe or Ski?

Busy Weekend – Mostly Indoors

(An old article – posted here so as not to lose it during the site transition.)

No posts for the past several days as I was in Southern California – doing indoor activities at UCLA and other places. While I did do some photography there, it doesn’t really seem right for this web site. (Shots of the campus and so forth don’t really seem like the usual hiking, wilderness, etc. fare.)

January 29, 2007 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | Comments Off on Busy Weekend – Mostly Indoors

Strange… or Fun?

An interesting idea from Trailcraft:

Backcountry Cooking Party.

I’ve always been a bit nervous about trying new recipes on the trail. I guess it’s because I don’t want to go hungry and I definitely don’t want to pack extra food for every meal.  For several years when I first started backpacking I stuck exclusively to the freeze-dried, pre-packaged meals because they were easy and I knew they were edible.

And then a few years back I came up with the idea of getting together with friends to experiment with backpacking recipes in the safety of my backyard.  Now it’s an annual tradition, The Backcountry Cooking Party!

[Trailcraft]

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January 24, 2007 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | Comments Off on Strange… or Fun?