Kevin and I had been on name for a couple of weeks, ready for the beginning gun for the race as much as the Fort Apache Reservation within the White Mountains.
There, we might meet up with Floyd Inexperienced and Larry Johnson. Floyd, the proprietor of Outdoorsmans, has a predator outfitting enterprise on the Reservation through a concession with tribal Recreation and Fish. Larry is a USDA drawback animal elimination specialist and a classically educated houndsman in his personal proper, and collectively, these two have extra hound searching expertise than simply about any pair alive.
The plan was to chase some lion tracks and attain both of two objectives: If we caught a younger cat, we might tranquilize, collar, and launch it, because the Apache tribe was occupied with finding out the inhabitants on this space for the primary time. If we caught an outdated cat, Kevin would punch his ticket.
The decision lastly got here, and at midnight on a Tuesday in January, we rolled out of Fountain Hills in Kevin’s completely souped-up Lexus GX470. Loads of windshield time and caffeine had the anticipation constructing like stage one among a self-landing rocket launch.
We arrived at our assembly level in Whiteriver a bit of after 3:00 AM and took off into the darkness on a dust street with about six inches of snow cowl. Floyd went within the different course along with his spouse, Julie. Larry jumped in with us, and we break up up and cruised together with flashlights out the open home windows. I used to be largely pretending to be in search of tracks, as I used to be too busy watching the 6’5” bear of a person work. I assumed there was no possible way we may discover a monitor at the hours of darkness from a transferring automobile, however to Larry, it was solely a matter of time.
Floyd ended up catching a monitor up the mountain a couple of miles, so we fishtailed our means up a virgin snow-covered two-track by the pines and round bends with biblical dawn vistas. His canines had been despatched to search out the goal and get it bayed up. After about 45 minutes, the entire canine symbols on the Garmin had been vertical, and the bay meter was off the charts.
We ran down into the canyon within the snow to search out six canines frantically leaping at a very massive ponderosa, scratching the bark from the underside of it with a wildness of their eyes that’s distinctive to lion and bear hounds. After we had tied them off, known as them good canines 20 occasions every, and change into accustomed to the continuous baying, Kevin and I took a glance up on the first stay, wild mountain lion both of us had seen.
We decided that she was a young-ish feminine and can be the proper topic to perform aim primary. So, with out a lot fuss, Floyd sat down and began mixing up the tranquilizer cocktail and priming the dart gun. It was as exact as snowy mountainside science will get. “Was it 100 ml or 300?” We determined to err on the facet of warning for the cat’s security.
In the meantime, Larry got here to Kevin and me with an issue. The lion was over 40 toes excessive within the tree, and it appeared that she’d both fall too far as soon as darted or soar to a different tree and bail. So, we had a snowball combat. We gently coaxed her out of that tree, throughout a niche, and down one other, and she or he took off once more to be treed once more in a safer location.
On the base of that tree, Larry got here to us with one other drawback. And a internet. Larry isn’t the kind of man you argue with a lot, so when he instructed us that we might maintain the online and catch the pissed-off lion when she jumped out of the tree, we nodded silently and assumed the place.
After a couple of minor miscalculations with the air stress within the dart pistol, we had a mountain lion in a tree with a dart in her butt. She was clearly affected, however on no account “sleepy.” One other few snowballs despatched her down the tree and off throughout the hillside. The canines and Floyd took off after her whereas we gathered up the gear. We quickly adopted and had been led to the cat by the baying of the free canines.
We arrived on the scene to search out Floyd holding three spastic canines by their collars, about 30 toes uphill of what I can solely describe as a drunk mountain lion. She was trying to face and was largely unable. Though her swiping and biting muscle tissues had been nonetheless comparatively useful. The censored model of what I used to be considering is, “What on earth will we do now?”
Larry, a person of motion, rapidly got here to us with a plan. I can’t recall his precise phrases, however they had been one thing to the impact of, “Levi, we have to get that cat as much as this flat spot the place we are able to work on her. Drag her up right here.” My solely concern along with his order was that, for my part, she didn’t seem to have been rendered protected.
As soon as once more, Larry isn’t the kind to argue with, so I made my means over to her, grabbed her behind the jowls (per Larry’s directions), and dragged her about 20 toes up the hill. I’ll always remember the sensation of the muscle tissues of her neck and my awe on the energy a 100-lb cat may generate, particularly contemplating her circumstances. She snapped and swatted her unsheathed claws, however I used to be in a position to dodge them. I discover myself nearly wishing I had a scar to recollect her by.
Once I acquired her as much as the flat spot and onto a tarp, I stepped backward, and Larry spoke a few of the most memorable phrases of my life: “I can’t consider you probably did that.” In hindsight, I feel perhaps he may consider it, however we laughed so onerous that I nearly defrosted my pants.
With a bit of extra cowboy doctoring, we acquired her settled down and collared. We then constructed a barrier between her and the creek in case she awoke and took off working into it. The temperature was within the single digits, and the semi-frozen river may not have spat her again out if she did.
That night time, we celebrated a hilariously enjoyable day at Floyd’s home and went to sleep, dreaming of one other day like that.
Day Two
Once more, we left round 2:30 AM and made our means out to a different space of the Res. Identical recreation plan, identical groups. Larry, Kevin, and I had two of Larry’s canines within the trunk, and Floyd’s crew was a couple of miles down a special street. We had been driving together with flashlights once more for an hour or so, and I used to be getting dawn-sleepy when Larry firmly stated one thing like, “KEVIN. STOP.”
We acquired out and inspected the freshly-snowed street. Larry had noticed one other monitor, and it was precisely what we had been hoping for. A four-inch-wide paw mark that plunged two toes into the snow. It had no claw marks, a rounded rear pad with three rounded lobes within the again, and the distinct rearward ankle drag mark of a cat. Not a small cat, just like the day earlier than. A giant cat.
Radio and inReach messages went out to Floyd, and he and Julie hauled again to the place we had been in his command middle truck. Garmin screens, stainless canine bins, and eight steamy noses poking out of holes within the latter.
We let the canines out, and after a couple of minutes of sniffing and encouragement from us, they discovered the path. They bombed to the underside of a 1000-foot canyon and started their chase. We patiently watched on the hand-held Garmin display, walked up and down the street, and noticed.
That they had run far. Miles. They had been nonetheless working. We would have liked to get nearer for his or her security and to be prepared in case the proper state of affairs unfolded. Kevin, Larry, and I took off up the street, and Floyd and Julie wrapped again down the hill and round to the opposite facet of the canyon.
We had a WMAT tribal biologist with us, so I jumped in with him. His rig was a late-’90s single-cab long-bed gasoline F350 with a five-speed handbook field. The one acceptable thought was, Oh boy.
The following few hours concerned chains, winches, mud, deep snow, chains, snow, whining BFGs, extra winching, extra snow, extra mud, and extra winching. We labored our means up a street that might check a automobile within the dry, however in some way we made progress. Once we lastly stopped making a lot, I acquired one other order from Larry that I’ll always remember. It left no room for interpretation or interruption.
“Levi. You gotta go discover them canines.”
He handed me the Garmin, pointed into the woods, and stated to, “Begin walkin’ that means.” As soon as once more, my intuition was to argue, but it surely was a matter of the canines’ security and the potential for Kevin getting a shot at a lion.
I took off by the snow, following each the Garmin and the tracks of an epic chase. The Garmin confirmed the canines about 4000 yards away, so I used to be hustling. It was additionally about 9 levels out, so I used to be motoring to remain heat. Following the tracks was like residing the last word CSI investigation. There have been many locations the place the cat had climbed boulders and jumped 20-foot-wide creeks. The canines’ tracks went by the water. The cat tracks didn’t.
After about an hour, I reached the underside of the primary canyon. I used to be greeted by a creek about 15 toes broad and 2-4 toes deep. I wandered up and down a bit, in search of a spot to cross, however there was no good choice. Hopping with my pack on throughout frozen boulders and the Garmin in my hand, I inevitably fell face-first into some water which may have been harmful if I had stopped transferring.
Reinvigorated, I scrambled out and trudged on down the creek, solely to search out that I had crossed a fork within the creek and I used to be now on the confluence. The one choice with out mountaineering an additional hour or two round was to cross again the place I used to be after which again once more, and it was deeper and wider than earlier than.
I crossed the primary time with little concern. It was boulder-y, slick, and icy, however momentum carried me to the other financial institution. I wandered up and down for a very long time in search of a crossable spot again to the facet the canines had been on, and I discovered one. I needed to climb and soar from a 10-foot-tall boulder to a five-foot-tall boulder within the center, then throughout to a protracted, flat one which was simply above the floor, and it was about 4-5 toes deep. Properly, I jumped, landed on the rock, and… slipped into the void. I scrambled out once more, holding the Garmin above my head.
Standing on the financial institution, I appeared down on the Garmin and again up the place it was exhibiting the canines. 2000 yards away, straight uphill.
It was a monster mountain face. Going round to the canyon they had been in appeared to be a few three-mile trek, and I nonetheless would have needed to climb, so I selected to go up and over. I swear it was a 70-degree face. It was so steep, many of the snow had slid off. I used to be holding onto bushes and doing crampon-type steps for effectively over an hour. Possibly essentially the most tough climb of my life. It warmed me again up, although! Once I acquired to the highest, I had dried out and change into soaked once more with sweat.
My garments had been frozen on the skin and like a sauna on the within. My beard was frozen, the Garmin soaked with sweat, and I had muttered so many curse phrases that my mother would have a coronary heart assault if she knew. All of the whereas, I had been following the distant sound of baying hounds and the unthinkably spaced cat tracks. That sucker had been MOVING.
Simply over the crest, I used to be greeted by one of many older canines who should have heard me swearing as I used to be falling up the hill. That was some of the welcoming moments I’ve ever skilled. Only a drained outdated hound canine named Scout who rounded me up and confirmed me the place to go.
I saved trudging by the snow between the pines for an additional 20 minutes or so. Once I got here to an enormous canyon the place my ears had been stuffed with baying, I crested the sting and was staring proper into the soul of a 180-lb lion about 40 yards away. His gaze was locked on me, and it gave me an enormous chill and a wholesome dose of primal terror. These items imply enterprise. They’re designed to kill, eat, and repeat.
A bit of additional down, I discovered none apart from Floyd Inexperienced, sitting on the base of the tree the cat was in, calmly whispering candy nothings to his canines as they tore the trunk aside, attempting to climb up and get the kitty.
I stated one thing to the impact of, “WOW, FLOYD. HOW COOL!”
He rotated and calmly stated, “Shhhhh. He’s studying our vitality, and it’ll actually assist if we keep calm.”
So, we stayed calm. I sat down and took off my puffy jacket with steam pouring out of it. I acquired again to a cushty temp and sat with Floyd for what felt like every week, simply watching, listening, encouraging the canines, and studying simply how particular his relationship with each the canines and their quarry is.
In actuality, it was in all probability just below two hours. Kevin and Larry, in the meantime, had been caught, unstuck, re-stuck, and unstuck once more in all probability a dozen occasions. The Apache biologist who had been cruising with us had damaged the four-wheel drive on his F350. That they had come round from the underside of the massive canyon and eventually met up with Julie, who was ready at Floyd’s truck.
We watched/heard Kevin and Larry cruising down and throughout the canyon to us whereas we gathered up the canines and tied them off. After they arrived, we did some recreation planning, and Kevin determined to take a shot along with his bow. It was about 9 yards, however at a 75-degree angle. Not a straightforward shot.
Kevin hit essentially the most excellent dot-shot I’ve ever seen, and the cat tumbled. He took out 6-inch branches on the way in which down earlier than thumping into the snow and taking one remaining, deadly leap into a close-by gully. Wow.
I’ll always remember this journey. All the working, effort, challenges, and what some may name “struggling” made it simply some of the satisfying days of my life.
