Plan B… Plan C

Plan B

The ranger looked at us, eyebrows raised in skepticism: “But it’s just the two of you.”

Pause for an expected response we never gave…

She, continuing: “There’s been some aggressive mountain lion activity in that area.”

We had driven out to Redwood National Park for a backcountry trip over 4th of July weekend. Strog picked a great route for us, and we’d filled out all the paperwork for campsites as required by the park. We were discussing getting back to our car on Monday by hiking back via a few trails when the ranger began voicing her concerns.

She continued explaining: “There’s two of them, siblings. The other night they stalked a group of hikers for a couple of hours… Seven hikers yelled at them and threw rocks, but they didn’t leave…. The lions got within 30 feet of the hikers. Do you have your flares?”

Flares? You mean sticks of fire meant to be waved about… in a dense forest… in the middle of an extreme drought? We shook our heads, no.

She: “Go to Walmart. Get some flares and maybe a little air horn. You’ve got to hit them with something different they’re not expecting. You have a Leatherman.”

This was not a question. We travel light. No, we don’t carry a Leatherman, because the chance of us needing to break out our black belt level hand-to-paw combat skills typically hovers around zero.

Us (looking a bit dazed at this point): “No.”

She gave us a sympathetic look and tried to reassure us: “Well, this one couple… He was in the lead and so was the one attacked, and his wife fought off the mountain lion with a ball point pen. She gouged out its eyes.”

Finally, a weapon worthy of the situation.

She: “I don’t want to scare you, but these two have been much more aggressive than we expect. We think the mother didn’t teach them to hunt properly. I’m not sure what they’ll do. Give me your cell phone number – though cells usually don’t work out there – we’ll try to reach you in case of another incident… and I’ll take an emergency contact number [in case you are the other incident].”

With all the paperwork filled out – save for our last will and testament – we headed back to our car like prisoners to the gallows.

We briefly discussed our new Walmart shopping list. At this point, the lions were probably expecting flares. We added to it clown costumes and ninja stars. We assessed our meager collection of ball point pens accumulated at various motels along the way. They seemed inadequate, and we added a Mont Blanc to the shopping list as well.

We did not go to Walmart. Instead, we drove straight to a second visitors center to get a second opinion. The second opinion made us feel much better. Perhaps it was that this ranger reviewed the incident report in front of us, or that she seemed fairly confident that two people together would probably be fine. Of course, she added in that she wouldn’t go alone, and that she’d prefer to be in a bigger group, but “mountain lions are supposed to be afraid of humans, right?” Right?!

We continued to drive toward the trailhead, feeling marginally better but still a bit nervous, when we realized we hadn’t filled our water bottles for the hike in. We stopped at a third visitors center on the way and decided to get a third opinion while filling our bottles.

Third ranger opinion: “It sounds like the first chapter of White Fang. I wouldn’t go out there.”

We changed plans.

Plan C

There was one backcountry camp open – the one that “always has spots available”. We told ranger number three we’d take a spot there (4pm on Friday of 4th of July weekend leaves few options). She looked at us in disbelief for choosing that camp, then shrugged as if to say, “better than being eaten by a mountain lion.”

Our new route had us climb three miles up to the first camp, a trek that was fairly easy once we completed the initial challenges. The first challenge was following the written instructions to the trailhead. Succeeding there meant completion of the only challenge. We failed. We followed signs instead. Thus, we were met with three more challenges: 1) break through the thorny thicket of hell, 2) walk past the seal carcass of putridity, and 3) cross the creek of stagnation. Seriously, we would have skipped all of those things if we’d just walked up the highway 100 yards – which seemed dangerous, but was clearly the thing to do.

The rest of our hike up that day was relatively uneventful. Much of the trail was overgrown, and holes in the trail were sneakily covered with branches leading to a few rolled ankles. However, we made it to the backcountry camp in one piece and settled in for the night. The next day, July 4th, we had a very enjoyable hike through amazingly tall redwood trees out to the beach. It’s wonderful feeling so small amidst these enormous trees that have been around for hundreds of years and will be alive long after we’ve passed. We celebrated the night of the 4th with Snickers bars – about as patriotic as apple pie (or as close as we could get).

Before we left on this three day trek, we were warned by the ranger (the one who compared the recent moutain lion incident to White Fang) of the elk herds that can sometimes be found along the beach trail we planned to walk on. We were told to 1) give them a wide berth, and 2) never turn your back to them. We added elk to our list of things not to turn our backs on: bears, mountain lions, and the ocean. (We’ve just decided to hike back to back for the rest of our trip.) Sure enough, as we worked our way along the beach trail, we ran into a herd of elk straddling both sides of the trail. We were definitely not going to be giving them a wide berth. And we had no choice but to turn our backs to at least a few of them. We nervously began an infinite loop of Jingle Bells, loud enough to let them know we were there, but not so loud as to frighten them. it seemed to work fairly well as the closer ones moved out of our way while the rest just stared at us (in fascination of our singing?). Pictures of the elk were taken at a “safe” distance, so you can’t really see them, but trust us, they were big (especially the one with the antlers).

The next stretch was filled with beautiful ocean views as we hiked through an area only accessible at low tide. We’d awoken extra early that morning to be sure we reached this section at the right time and so had the beaches (and the elk) all to ourselves.

The trail finally turned back into the forest, climbing up the bluffs through overgrown rainforest turning back to towering redwoods. We reached our camp in the early afternoon and spent the rest of the day reading our books.

Our hike back out the next day was lovely, and we got a hitch back to our car from a wonderful couple. In the end, we escaped the moutain lions of Redwood Park, and we were pretty happy with our decision to go with plan C.