Last Friday my friend Ken encountered a mountain lion in El Morro Canyon. This is what he had to say about it:Never, in all the years I’ve spent riding and exploring El Morro Canyon had I ever before seen what I did last Friday. And that is a lot of years.
I might just be the first person to ever ride a bike in the canyon, beginning as a teenager back in the early 1980’s, when I lived in the trailer park at the base of the canyon and would take my trusty 12-speed road bike back up along the hardened dirt road. Back before mountain bikes were invented. Before the state took ownership of the land from the Irvine Company. Before they inadvertently lost one of the r’s in El Morro. When I’d see no people up there at all, only cows.
On Friday it seemed like a trip back in time as I rode my bike along the canyon road in peace and quiet, far from the weekend crowds. Once I was halfway back I didn’t see another soul. I rode just shy of the rim and turned to come back down, coasting along most of the way.
I passed the steep section, where a sign advises cyclists to dismount, and continued just a bit further along when I came around a corner and saw an animal on the trail about 50 yards ahead. It was about as big as a medium-sized dog, but muscular with short hair and was lumbering along seemingly at ease. The animal hadn’t spotted me as I approached, and my initial instinct was that this actually was somebody’s dog. But where was the owner? And what was this dog doing up here in the canyon?
I hit my brakes and the animal was startled by the noise, looking back at me for the first time. It sized me up and then walked around a bend. At this point I began to suspect that it was something else entirely. I stopped on the trail and waited. Was this a mountain lion? And if so, did I want to continue around this bend? I gave it a few minutes and began to approach the bend tentatively. I was 30 yards away when I saw it coming back toward me. Yes, this was indeed a mountain lion. No mistaking it now. About 60 pounds, three feet long or so, with a two to three foot tail.
The mountain lion climbed ten feet up the hillside beside the road and stopped. It stared at me. I stared at it. Except for the long tail twitching angrily in the air, neither one of us moved for a good 60 seconds. I decided to egress. I slowly walked back another ten yards. It didn’t move. Ten yards more. Still nothing but the twitch of that tail. Finally after another half a minute it slunk off into the brush. I remounted my bike, zipped on past the spot and continued down to report my sighting to the park rangers. I always wondered if there might be mountain lions around in our park, and yep, now I know.
