Now you see me, now you don’t

I walk the mountain road past my property every morning, usually just as the first light begins to reveal the world. I’ve followed this ritual for decades, and one of its pleasures is seeing wildlife. Animals tend to be more active in the low light of dawn and dusk, and there’s always something to watch if you pay attention.

Just this morning, I watched a muskrat swim along the riverbank and a bald eagle, beautifully colored in the early light, launch itself from a tree beside the road. I’m alert to movement in the woods—a rabbit darting through the brush, magpies squabbling in the trees, mule deer moving between the trunks. I watch for ripples on the river that might signal a rising trout, or the telltale signs of a beaver at work. And somewhere in the back of my mind is the remote possibility of seeing something bigger. A bear, perhaps. Or a mountain lion.

Mountain lions are part of life in this canyon. Neighbors see them throughout the year, and folks around Red Feather post photos and videos every so often. Two winters ago, Dave Bliss had one in his yard, just a mile down the road from me, near the Roaring Creek trail. Last summer, a man doing some tree work for me told me that he’d been mountain biking down that same trail the day before when his dog suddenly bristled and barked. He turned to see a mountain lion beginning to chase them.

I’ve heard the stories. I’ve seen the pictures. But in more than 60 years of spending time here, I’d never seen a mountain lion up close and personal. Until this week.

That morning, I turned left to head up-canyon. Something was standing across the road, perhaps 40 yards away.

A deer? No. It was too low to the ground, though its coat was a similar tawny brown. I stopped and looked. There was no traffic, no other sound to distract me. The animal began to cross the road, and then I saw its long, black-tipped tail.

A mountain lion.

It hadn’t seen me. At least, I don’t think it had. For a few seconds, I watched as it moved across the road. It was a substantial animal, and I had no desire to get a better look. The encounter was brief, but that was enough. I turned around and headed home, abandoning my walk for the morning.

The feeling was a curious mix of exhilaration and unease. I’d wanted to see a mountain lion for years, at least in the abstract. Now that I’d seen one, I wasn’t so sure I wanted a repeat performance.

But the encounter left me thinking about something beyond the animal itself. I know mountain lions live here. I’ve known that for as long as I can remember. Still, some part of me had come to believe they kept to the deeper woods, away from the road and the places I walked. When I hike these hills, I’m usually with someone else. We talk, make noise, and perhaps give wildlife reason to move away before we ever know it’s there.

For 66 years, I had spent time in these mountains without seeing a mountain lion. I’d taken that absence as evidence of something: that they were rare, perhaps, or that our paths seldom crossed.

But what if our paths had crossed all along?

The thought settled in. With every reason to believe otherwise, I’d probably walked this same stretch of road many times while a mountain lion watched from the trees. It might have stood in the brush while I passed, or crossed the road minutes before I arrived. It might have seen me on mornings when I saw nothing at all.

I’d mistaken my good fortune for their absence.

Their great advantage isn’t strength or speed, at least not in an encounter like mine. It’s stealth. They can be present without announcing themselves, sharing the same ground without ever letting us know. We see what they allow us to see, and often not even that.

The next morning, I set out again as the light began to break over the canyon. The road was the same. The river was the same. The woods looked much as they always had.

But I was looking at them differently.

This time, I carried a canister of bear spray.

Just in case.