My Nighttime Adventure
I was feeling kind of tired when I got home from work today. I was to meet Greg and 5:15 for a night run in Whiting Ranch. We were just planning about 5 miles and were not going too "deep" inside Whiting. Whiting was the site of fatal mountain lion attack 2 years ago (in the early afternoon).
Greg had never done a night trail run before and I lent him one of my headlamps and we were off. When we first starting running and Greg was talking I remember back to the run I had earlier in the summer with Lisa. We were running on the other end of Whiting Ranch into Limestone Canyon and feeling like it was pretty remote. Lisa was making comments that day about how it was the perfect environment for mountain lions. That was not helping any. I can't remember what Greg said but it was something along those lines that was not giving me warm fuzzies. I was just doing my best to focus on the run and enjoy being out there. It was a good run and my foot didn't bother me at all which was a good sign that I didn't hurt it bad Saturday.
Anyway... It was pretty uneventful which was good until about mile 4 when we saw a large deer run across the trail. That was pretty cool. What wasn't too cool is that about 30 seconds later Greg said "there's something over there". He had seen something off on the side of the trail. We stopped and kept moving but slowly. Greg was looking ahead and I turned to look to the side. I figured if something was there I wanted to know what it was.
There I was standing on the trail looking into a clearing and about 50 feet away was a mountain lion staring back at me!!! Holy crap. I did my best to keep my calm and we kept walking. I was suddenly very quiet and Greg kept talking which was a good thing. We raised our hand in the air and kept looking back as we slowly started to run again. Fortunately we were almost out of the more secluded section of the trail.
When we got to a "safer" place I told Greg what I had seen. It was pretty intense. We finished off another mile of our run and were both pretty ready at this point to get in our cars! I certainly no longer felt tired - even after running 5 miles.
I stared a mountain lion in the face - literally and am here to talk about it. Truth is, as most of us know, they are more afraid of us than we are of them. Not only that - many of the recent attacked in California happened during the day. Sure I guess less people are out at night - but running during the day on these trails can be almost as dangerous.
Now I need to shower and go meet Kayla for a drink and a movie. In fact - I better make it two drinks :)
Happy Running,
Jessica
Wow, that's awesome and really scary!
Posted by: backofpack | 07 December 2006 at 08:37 PM
holy !*@#
wow.
glad you are safe.
Posted by: angie's pink fuzzy | 08 December 2006 at 06:56 AM
I'm still shaking in my Mizunos! Ohmygod, it freaked me out. But I was glad to be running with the cool-headed Jess while my knickers got in a knot. Icovered the fatal mauling of Mark Reynolds for the newspaper, and remember in detail the condition of his body. Poor guy. Whew!
Posted by: Greg | 08 December 2006 at 06:56 AM
OMG! You both were lucky! I don't know that I could have remained that calm. It's good you had each other because you would have been more vulnerable if alone. Thanks for the reminder to play it safe.
Posted by: Anne | 08 December 2006 at 07:15 AM
uhhhh, you know that 12 hour night run we were planning. any chance you want to fly up here instead?????
oh wait, but I run faster right? so maybe I'm ok. ha ha ;D
Posted by: miki | 08 December 2006 at 08:07 AM
I would have a had a couple of drinks, too ( and I don't drink)
Wow, be careful, really. Maybe running at night is not such a good idea - nope? That's when kitties hunt!
Posted by: steph | 08 December 2006 at 09:32 AM
That is really scary!! I don't know if I would have reacted as calm as you. I am so happy to hear you guys are safe!!
Posted by: Kim French | 08 December 2006 at 10:41 AM
Is the clearing you mentioned by any chance near Line Shack fireroad? (Did you do the "loop", or an out and back?) I ALWAYS see deer over there.
Posted by: Paige | 08 December 2006 at 02:00 PM
I had an encounter with a mountain lion too. I was hiking over off of Ortega hwy one time with a friend. It was way early in the morning and we were the only ones on the trail. I don't think I've ever ran so fast! We seriously didn't think we were going to make it back to our car.
Posted by: Kat | 08 December 2006 at 02:31 PM
Yikes! How scary! Glad you're safe. : )
Posted by: Sarah | 08 December 2006 at 03:37 PM
I have to admit that that's pretty cool. My heart would have been pumping for sure and as soon as I got far enough away and out of sight I probably would have hightailed it out of there. Glad you're safe and you have a cool story to tell.
Posted by: Rob | 08 December 2006 at 05:20 PM
Whoa, scary stuff. Remind me to only go on daylight trail runs with you.
Enjoy yourself in Lost Wages.
Posted by: darrell | 08 December 2006 at 10:43 PM
Holly crap!
On the trail!
And he didn't eat you!
What about my solo runs, now I am going to be s*less scared!
HAve a drink on me too.
Posted by: olga | 09 December 2006 at 01:55 PM
I saw one too about two years ago at Chino Hills State Park. It was a big one. I've never run there since....
Posted by: Ron Wilmoth | 05 January 2007 at 08:22 AM