What to do if attacked by a mountain lion?

Last night I went backpacking with a friend. We hiked about 10 miles into the wilderness before finding a nice spot to pitch tents right around dusk. Made a fire, ate dinner, all the good stuff. I walked to the creek nearby (75 ft) to get some water. And as I lean down to fill up a bag my flashlight points upwards. Out of the corner of my eye I see something bright. Centered my flashlight on it. Dang mountain lion across the creek maybe 50 feet away. I calmly decided not to get water and walked back to my friend pretty slowly where our tents were. Figured better to avoid a mountain lion attack w/ him present, and I have a little trick for hostile cats that I'd left there.

He'd already doused our fire and our hopes of relighting that were dim. So we sat there shining flashlights into the surrounding bush like sentries for awhile. We saw eyes a couple times but the vegetation was pretty heavy around us. Eventually we stopped seeing eyes. And we were planning a simple in-n-out. Plenty of batteries for that, but not enough to run flashlights all night long.

We eventually decided to call it a night. I had a lot of trouble sleeping. Every twig snapping, every little noise, kept me up. An hour and a half later I heard steps on the ground outside my tent. And then suddenly the cat meowed. I kinda poked my head up to look through the mesh screen on my tent and there's a mountain lion 5 feet away from me. Separated from me by lightweight tent fabric. I slowly laid back down and grabbed my knife and flashlight. It eventually went away. An hour later it came back and wandered around our campsite again, meowing occasionally. I didn't bother to look that time.

I know they say to get big and mean and try to scare mountain lions away, but what do you do when they're 5 feet away? That ship has already sailed. If I'd tried to scare it away it would've savaged me. My only thought was to try to aim for the throat and if that target didn't present to bury the knife in its torso. But that doesn't really save me if it decides to attack.

Pretty fearsome night. I didn't get much sleep with 3 very close (50 ft, 5 ft, could hear footsteps on grass and meowing) encounters with a mountain lion. Got a few hours of shut-eye around 9am and made the hike out. What do you do?

2013-04-14T19:56:29Z

That's good to hear. I figure we probably camped pretty close to its den and its checking us out and wandering around our camp throughout the night was more of a curious cat thing than an "I'm going to eat you" thing. But man, I've never been more scared.

2013-04-14T19:57:42Z

So, me not jumping out of my tent and trying to scare the thing off was probably a good move? I know that's what you're supposed to do when one is stalking you a little ways off, but it seemed like a bad idea that close.

?2013-04-14T20:11:52Z

Favorite Answer

Dear Elias, You express yourself very well. You have been given good advice by the previous responder. I would agree that the mountain lion seemed more curious than anything. They say to always wear some kind of jacket or sweater. By opening it to make yourself look larger and shouting, you can scare it away. Mountain lions are not usually confrontational. Hope this helps.

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ocularnervosa2013-04-14T19:52:23Z

Unless threatened a mountain lion won't attack you. If one attacks you go for the balls, eye or otherwise.

?2013-04-14T20:26:05Z

Is it a Mountain Lion or Mountain Cat?