Counting Cougars

Shadow cat, mountain lion, cougar, puma, panther, catamount, “Ghost of the Rockies.” As many people will tell you, this stealthy carnivore has eluded many a keen photographer, wildlife researcher and general visitor to Yellowstone or Grand Teton national parks.

Mountain lions have held my attention since I first visited Yellowstone as a young boy of 6 or 7. Following that autumn trip with my family, I brought home a souvenir from my national park experience. It was a kid’s comic book titled, Yarns of the Yellowstone. Little did I know at the time, this piece of Yellowstone history was written by my neighbor here in Gardiner, Montana, a colorful character in his own right, Mr. Bill Chapman.

Bill passed away a few years ago, but I told him many times how his creative and historically accurate comic book helped me at a young age establish a love of history, nature and Yellowstone, which helped bring me back to work in the park as an adult.

This comic book portrays a moment when a city slicker by the name of Truman Everts gets lost in Yellowstone Country many moons before Yellowstone became our world’s first national park. During a distress-filled, 37 days of peril, he encountered a mountain lion that scared him half to death and kept him up in a tree all night as the fading light of his campfire turned to coals.

Inside the small cartoon rectangle was the portrayal of the scary feline carnivore as it lurked just on the outer edge of Everts’ campfire light. That tiny image captured what I considered true wildness in my young mind.

If you were to ask my parents, they would confirm that we heard a high-pitched yowl during an intense rainstorm outside the rental cabin on our last night’s stay, just beyond the park’s East Gate. I always wondered if that eerie sound came from a passing cougar in the high country of the Absaroka Mountains …

Now, 44 years later, I find myself contemplating my current relationship with this captivating feline. At the age of 50, I’m gray around my edges, but I try to keep young in mind and soul by being physically active in this Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It’s a place that I respectfully call “my backyard.” Nestled between two large tracts of public land, the small town of Gardiner, Montana, is where I’ve happily called home for over 20 years.

I love going beyond the first ridge, off the beaten path, and down the next drainage into the dark timber to a place that might hold some interesting sign of elusive predator and prey interaction.

These off-trail excursions have opened an imaginary door that I continue to amble through during each walkabout. Once the snow starts flying in winter and the big bears have gone into their slumbering state, those of us who reside year round in Montana know that a long and bitter-cold season lies ahead. And that is when I love to walk the mountains in quiet solitude.

A well-known biologist in the world of cougar research, Toni Ruth, was once quoted in a 2003 Outside Magazine article that mirrors my thinking: “My favorite thing is simply being out in lion country, tracking a cat, thinking that around the bend I could find a kill or knowing that a cat may be watching me. I find great comfort in this.” I couldn’t agree more.

Over hundreds of miles and countless excursions, I’ve been fortunate to have observed, at the time of this writing, 35 cougars in the wild. Of course, there could be an overlap with a kitten from one sighting that became another encounter for me years later when it was an adult. But that’s not how I count the tally; each experience and sighting is unique and memorable as a single moment in wildness.

           

I wanted to recap a few of the most memorable sightings here because as I gray further around the edges and the past years begin to fade just a bit more, I hope to never forget the amazing moments I’ve shared with the wild cougar.

My mountain lion sightings started back in 2006 when I was working as a resident instructor for what was then called the Yellowstone Association Institute. One wintery day in the Northern Range, as we drove past Hellroaring Overlook in the afternoon, the parking area was overflowing with vehicles and people. The scene: a family of five mountain lions more than a mile away and clearly visible. The lions were near a cow elk carcass stashed in the snow. It was believed to be a mother with three young ones and a slightly older offspring from the same adult female that she was still tolerating.

So, my first wild cougar sighting was a rare jackpot: five at one time.

Another memorable encounter I had with wild cougars was a family group consisting of a mother and two 6-month-olds.  During a September archery hunt when my hunting partner Joe and I were focused on harvesting a Rocky Mountain elk, the family of cats came in much closer to me that I would have ever thought. We drove nine miles up a dirt road and hiked about a mile into the timber. With plenty of recent elk sign around us, Joe set up about 15 yards behind me to use vocal calls in hopes of enticing an elk toward us. Minutes passed in the quiet woods. Then a twig snapped beyond a rolling hill in front of me. I was on heightened alert with all senses tuned …. A bull elk? A cow elk? From the right, a flash of light brown streaked past. It was the color of a deer, but made no noise.

Immediately following that flash of color, in the same place the first animal disappeared, two creatures came into view and headed toward me. Walking low in a stalking stance, vocalizing to each other, two young cougars were coming right at me. I stood up and called to my friend, “Joe, cats!” He responded from his hiding spot with a slightly whispered, “What?”  I pointed and said loudly, “COUGARS!” The two cats stopped dead in their tracks, looked around briefly and retreated. In seconds, they faded into the underbrush just as their mother had. We recognized that we had called the cougars in; they thought we were a solitary cow elk or calf. They were hunting, as were we, and we were all equally surprised to see one another. I checked my range finder: The young cougars had been less than 30 yards from me.

The next encounter was with very young kittens that still had light-blue eyes and spotted coats. It was in winter, maybe February. Daylight is short this time of year and the high-plains desert of Gardiner was in mud season.  After a long day of guiding guests in Yellowstone National Park, I took my dog Sadie for a walk above the snow line to reduce the amount of dirt she would pick up. I had in mind an open grassy bowl to gain elevation quickly and get some needed exercise for us both. When we arrived, the place was loaded with elk and deer, some bedded and others grazing. I chose to conceal us in the timber to continue our hike and not disturb the animals. The wind was howling from the open grassy meadows toward us, so being downwind I knew we wouldn’t shift the herds. Halfway up the slope, I noticed a snow cornice had fallen off the top of a rock outcropping. I wondered if an animal had taken a misstep and fallen over the edge, and my curiosity got the better of me. 

As I peered over the ridge, I saw to my disbelief three young mountain lion kittens. They were emitting high-pitched cries as they meandered aimlessly below me. I quickly backed up and called Sadie, who is great off leash and doesn’t chase animals. She was unaware of the cats below us but was sniffing intently at the snow around us. I clipped the leash to her collar and we backed down the way we came up. To this day, I have no idea where the mother cougar was located. Was she stalking the elk and deer just above us? I doubt she would have heard or smelled us walking below in that intense wind. The sighting was brief but oh so memorable.

This sighting was again in winter high above Gardiner, when Sadie was able to cut the distant miles with me in the snow and when we would meander for seven-plus hours at a time. We left the house at first light and drove to a vantage point where I could scan the area with a spotting scope before going in, checking for elk or deer before walking to avoid bumping a herd from their grazing spaces or day beds. I didn’t see any animals, so I shouldered my day pack and we headed through sage-covered hills which angled toward higher trees and ridges.

We crested the steeps and were nearing the tree line when I heard a branch snap above us. I assumed we had bumped a solitary bull elk from its hidden bedding spot and we traversed away. As we entered a stand of Douglas fir mixed with Rocky Mountain juniper, I saw a big mound of snow with a female elk head sticking out from the side.

I focused on the tracks in the trampled snow around the deceased elk. It was obvious that they pawprints of a large Tom cat—a male cougar—and this was his kill site. It quickly dawned on me that the sound I just heard could have been the big cat moving back from us as we unwittingly approached his location. I took note that the resident mountain lion had

observed the elk herd moving east to west across the slope and waited in the tree line for this straggling cow to come within reach. He likely knocked her down and asphyxiated her quickly. The drag mark in the snow indicated that the Tom dragged this large elk 50-60 yards downhill to stash his kill between two juniper bushes. Sadie and I just happened upon it.

The next morning, I scanned that ridge at first light with a high-powered spotting scope. To the left of the kill was the big male cougar. He sat idle in the snow, bold shoulders ripped with muscle, just glaring down at me. Needless to say, I did not make a repeat trip up there for a few more weeks.

Nearly two years passed before my next wild cougar sighting. In late October of 2013, during the midday doldrums of a backcountry elk hunt, my hunting partner Matt and I split up to cover more ground. I sat back on a sagebrush hill and used my old but trusty Nikon 8×42 binoculars to focus on the surrounding hillsides. Lying flat on a ridge next to a fallen tree was a sleeping cougar. I texted Matt to come join me. We were able to watch this big male stretch, clean himself, resituate in his bedding spot and gaze down on his general surroundings. He eventually stood and ventured into the dense timber that separated us from him. As he disappeared from our view, we thought it best to distance ourselves from this now-meandering mountain lion.

As we shouldered our packs and rifles, we heard rocks rolling downhill below us and timber branches snapping. As we strained to look, it was unbelievable to watch the big cougar in hot pursuit of one of the biggest bull elk I have seen on public lands beyond Yellowstone National Park. This cougar was chasing a rut-weakened bull up the hillside away from us, but in plain view for us to bear witness. The cat eventually gave up the chase and disappeared back into the landscape. The bull elk stood for a moment looking over his shoulder in our direction, his chest heaving in and out, breathing hard … If he could speak, I’ll bet he would have said, “Did you just see that?” Then he was gone, over the ridge and out of sight.

In late January of 2018, I parked the truck to walk Sadie. In the recent fallen snow, no more than 40 yards off the roadside, I crossed another set of tracks from a family of cougars. They had very recently passed by, so Sadie and I eased over to a rocky cliff in hopes of seeing them below us. We listened and watched. In times past, I’ve located a cougar or kill site with the help of a chatty, black-billed magpie. When I heard a loud magpie in a juniper thicket below, I found the bird in my binoculars. Then I saw movement. It was a mother lion and three juvenile kittens. Sadie sat next to me as we watched them just 75 yards below. They were completely unaware of our presence and the young were playing with what I found out later was a piece of old elk hide. I should have had my camera.

About a month later, not far from the same spot above, I briefly followed the fresh tracks of a family of lions. It was awesome to see how they moved through the landscape, unfettered by vegetation, boulders and icy water creeks. The tracks were recently laid on the snow and I hoped that my friend Megan and I could get a glimpse of one before we retreated.

It was a perfect opportunity for such a stalk: winds were in our favor, the sound of the river would cover any noise we made, and the visibility was good enough that I anticipated we would see them moving ahead of us well before they saw us.

The cougar tracks turned away from the creek edge and worked up into the timber through knee-deep snow, still paralleling the water. As we followed, I could see that a few elk bedding sites were disturbed, and the cougar tracks led right to them. As we approached, I turned on my iPhone to document the tracks of predator and prey in the snow. Just 20 yards ahead was a dead cow elk. And just beyond the carcass, a young cougar watched us over its shoulder. The lion moved away and we saw its sibling depart the area as well.

I took a few images of the kill site and assessed that, just as they did with me back on that archery-hunt encounter (second sighting above), the cougars stalked in silently, but this time on the bedded elk. The younger lions approached directly, scattering the elk, which unknowingly ran right toward the mother who had secretly flanked them. The predator plan worked perfectly and one of the elk pair was taken 30 yards upslope. Fresh drag marks in the snow indicated that she was pulled back downhill, not far from her bedding spot. The lion family tucked her neatly at the base a juniper bush for cover. They were plucking the fur from her back and haunches as we bumped them from the feeding arena. We backed out the same way we came, thrilled at having the chance to see these “Ghosts of the Rockies” in their natural element.

One summer day inside the Northern Range of Yellowstone National Park, I found myself guiding a private wildlife tour for a couple from England.  We took a late morning excursion near Crystal Creek, across from Slough Creek Campground Road. They were both employed as veterinarians and were visiting Yellowstone for the first time.

I told them of a winter-killed bull elk carcass we could investigate. They were both interested in the off-trail walk and so we headed out. On our return from the magnificent elk carcass, we took a different path through a wooded area along the banks of the Lamar River. We were within sight of the road, but the sound of wind in the trees and the rushing waters masked our voices.

I gave out a yell before entering the woods on the chance we might bump a bear from its day bed. It didn’t work very well; we soon walked up and nearly stumbled upon a sleeping cougar. He/she was just 26 feet away from us (yes, I did pace it out) laying in a partly sunny, partly shaded spot by the river’s edge. The cougar sprang away from us, startling us as much as we did it! All you could hear was a small branch breaking as the cat leapt over a fallen tree. All three of us were momentarily speechless. I did get a chance to yell out loud, “Cougar … cat … mountain lion!” to my guests as I pointed in the direction of the running animal. It was such a brief moment in time, but one I’m sure they will never, ever forget.

In the darkness of night during November of 2023, my friend Kyle and I were returning from an elk hunt. On two separate evenings cougars crossed the dirt road, clearly visible in our vehicle headlights. One was on the east side of the Bridger Mountains north of Bozeman. It turned and looked at us as it crossed, its eyes reflecting a glowing yellow. We drove to where it had just crossed and as Kyle stepped from the passenger seat to take a closer look, he briefly saw the mountain lion creep into the dense and dark vegetation beyond illumination from the truck headlights. 

On the evening of the second sighting, we were north of the Bridger Mountains in the rolling terrain of sagebrush and grass, southwest of the Shields Valley.  This looked to be a big, bold Tom cat that let us watch it for about seven minutes as it stared back at us from the sage-filled hillside. I vividly recall it blinking slowly, like a cat often does. It was so well camouflaged in the landscape that whenever its eyes briefly closed, it disappeared right in front of us.

Most recently, in late January of 2024, I saw a lone cougar as it was lounging on a high rocky ridge overlooking the legendary Lamar Valley in Yellowstone.  As the light shifted across the sky toward the western horizon, the mountain lion gazed intently into the distance, looking well beyond the sounds of us humans down near the paved road. Then its eyes would slowly close, and its head would gently drop back to the warm grass and dirt where it rested. 

It’s been a true pleasure to be able to watch such an elusive, elegant, stealthy, curious, and talented predator on a variety of vast, protected and untrammeled public landscapes. These moments with wildness are certainly minutes I will not soon forget.

As I type this, it’s mid-February and the winds are picking up outside now that darkness has fallen. The extended weather looks to bring multiple days of snow to the region. I have high expectations of seeing more mountain lions again this winter season and have vowed to be more diligent about hiking with my digital Canon camera and telephoto lens.

Thanks for your interest in reading a little about what I like to do. Now go out there and be kind to yourself as well as the natural world that surrounds us all. 

Until the next escapade.

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