REKER
09-30-2005, 08:15
First off, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Rob, im 23 years old and I hike/backpack much of VA. My backpacking experience is limited to about 3 years and I hope to do the AT in the next 2 years.
Secondly, During my recent trip this past weekend (9/23-25), I beleive I had an encounter with not one, but two Cougars. Hope you enjoy my story.
Our hike back down Rockytop in SNP was a breezy, wet and lightly foggy one. About half way back down to the parking area, we heard a loud "double-growl" type noise. We stopped in our tracks b/c we werent exactly sure if we heard the growl of cats or if it was other people on the trail further ahead that were being loud.
As we stood there, looking around and trying to listen up, there we spotted in the thicket of some trees off the trail what appeared to be two light brown Cats roughly 15 yards away from us. The smaller of the two was perched on a log, the other was much bigger in size and was standing in front of the smaller one, both were staring at us. (Comparing to a dog, im going to assume the big one weighed somewhere close to 90 or so lbs.)
We observed for about a minute or two longer before we started to slowly back ourselves away from them and back down the mountain; The bigger cat even "hissed" at us as we started back down.
To my knowledge, I know that SNP has a decent amount of Bobcats, and that sightings of these cats are not to rare. Ive also heard that Coyotes live here as did Cougars many many years ago.
Though Ive only seen pictures, In my mind, I knew for sure they werent bobcats b/c bobcats have black spots on their body and have short tails with a black knot of hair on the end as well as having little sticks of black hair pointing off the tips of their ears.
The cats we saw defnitely were solid brown and had long brown tails and short ears.
I also threw out the idea of them being coyotes b/c everyone knows coyotes share some of the same facial features as dogs.
Anyways, The last animal we narrowed it down to was that they were in fact, Cougars.
When we returned to Loft Mountain, we asked the camp store keeper what kind of cats were in the park. He assured me that we saw bobcats.
After arriving home from the trip, I immediately got on to the computer and looked up info/pictures of both bobcats and cougars. I even found some growl/snarl sound clips of both cats. After reading a few things about both cats, I later found that bobcats are around 25-30 lbs and cougars are 100-125 lbs. The bigger of the two cats was defnitely up there around 100 lbs... not 30!
Finally, I listened to the sound clips... The growl we heard was 100% the growl of a cougar.
Sorry for the long story, but I couldnt wait to share this information with anyone who is interested. I never ever thought I would get to see a cougar in SNP, but im 100% convinced that is what we saw.
Has anyone else seen a Cougar in any of the VA mountains? I heard they are extremely rare to see one, let alone two, in SNP.
Secondly, During my recent trip this past weekend (9/23-25), I beleive I had an encounter with not one, but two Cougars. Hope you enjoy my story.
Our hike back down Rockytop in SNP was a breezy, wet and lightly foggy one. About half way back down to the parking area, we heard a loud "double-growl" type noise. We stopped in our tracks b/c we werent exactly sure if we heard the growl of cats or if it was other people on the trail further ahead that were being loud.
As we stood there, looking around and trying to listen up, there we spotted in the thicket of some trees off the trail what appeared to be two light brown Cats roughly 15 yards away from us. The smaller of the two was perched on a log, the other was much bigger in size and was standing in front of the smaller one, both were staring at us. (Comparing to a dog, im going to assume the big one weighed somewhere close to 90 or so lbs.)
We observed for about a minute or two longer before we started to slowly back ourselves away from them and back down the mountain; The bigger cat even "hissed" at us as we started back down.
To my knowledge, I know that SNP has a decent amount of Bobcats, and that sightings of these cats are not to rare. Ive also heard that Coyotes live here as did Cougars many many years ago.
Though Ive only seen pictures, In my mind, I knew for sure they werent bobcats b/c bobcats have black spots on their body and have short tails with a black knot of hair on the end as well as having little sticks of black hair pointing off the tips of their ears.
The cats we saw defnitely were solid brown and had long brown tails and short ears.
I also threw out the idea of them being coyotes b/c everyone knows coyotes share some of the same facial features as dogs.
Anyways, The last animal we narrowed it down to was that they were in fact, Cougars.
When we returned to Loft Mountain, we asked the camp store keeper what kind of cats were in the park. He assured me that we saw bobcats.
After arriving home from the trip, I immediately got on to the computer and looked up info/pictures of both bobcats and cougars. I even found some growl/snarl sound clips of both cats. After reading a few things about both cats, I later found that bobcats are around 25-30 lbs and cougars are 100-125 lbs. The bigger of the two cats was defnitely up there around 100 lbs... not 30!
Finally, I listened to the sound clips... The growl we heard was 100% the growl of a cougar.
Sorry for the long story, but I couldnt wait to share this information with anyone who is interested. I never ever thought I would get to see a cougar in SNP, but im 100% convinced that is what we saw.
Has anyone else seen a Cougar in any of the VA mountains? I heard they are extremely rare to see one, let alone two, in SNP.