There have been many mountain lion hunters out in the area that I walk. Sometimes they stop and ask if I've seen any and I say I've never seen them. Occassionally I see tracks but that has mostly been down the road to the dam and not where I usually walk. I have seen two separate sets of tracks down there so I believe there is a breeding female with cubs around. Then a couple of weeks ago one of the logging truck guys told me a big lion walked right up to a logger lower down the gulch. Surprised him, I'm sure.
I don't worry too much about lions when I am with the giant marshmallow. I think that's probably why I never see them, though I am sure the lions are watching us pass by. A couple times the marshmallow has frequently watched behind us so I think we have been paced by a lion for a couple of miles, but still I've never seen one.
Then Sunday on our way back I thought I smelled one. Perhaps it was off in the woods or up on the rocky hillside and I couldn't see it. Yet this being a holiday weekend there were many hunters out and I spoke to several looking for sightings. Still I've never seen tracks where I walk and then it snowed Sunday night. As we walked around the big corner yesterday I saw a man's tracks come down the logging road and head up the hill ahead of us. This I rarely see so I assumed it was a hunter tracking a lion in the new snow. Not long later a truck came by with clearly two hunters in blaze orange caps. As I rounded the hill and headed down to the cattle guard this truck came back by, along with another truck driven by a man we usually call the foreman, as he drives by checking on the logging progress pretty much daily. He was very happy, something unusual since I've never seen him smile much.
On I walked and once past the gate I noticed where the foreman had pulled off the road and ran up the hill. Then, on the opposite side of the road I saw the lion tracks. He must have been tracking that lion and I must have really smelled it the afternoon before! On the way back, sure enough, two sets of truck tracks led up the logging road where the footprints came down. I'll bet they got that lion.
I saw quite a few deer again yesterday. That's something you don't see when there are lions in the area. And the birds were singing yesterday too.
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