Mountain lion standoff in Grand Canyon: Lessons Learned

As you may or may not know, last fall when I was hiking the length of the Grand Canyon, a mountain lion came into my camp and we had an hour long standoff!

I mentioned the experience briefly on social media, but never shared the full story.

Until now.

Last week, I started reading Over the Edge, a book which chronicles all known accounts of death in the Grand Canyon. (Highly recommend!)

It got me thinking about the importance of debriefing our experiences so that we can learn from them. This is something I’ve always found value in, whether we’re talking about experiences in the backcountry, business, or life in general.

So, I (finally) recorded a video talking about my mountain lion encounter in the Grand Canyon last fall and shared a few of my take-aways.

Watch my grand canyon mountain lion debrief here:

I hope you find it helpful or, at the very least, entertaining.

If you have a chance to watch, let me know what you think.

If you want to dive deeper into animals encounters and safety in the backcountry, check out the Stay Safe in the Backcountry course I co-created with Heather Anderson.

3 Replies to “Mountain lion standoff in Grand Canyon: Lessons Learned”

  1. I’m not a hiker and only know about the GC b/c my sister does the rim2rim.

    Your story is OM freaking G!!

    My first thought was, “didn’t you bring bear spray?”

    But my next thought, “how much worse bear spray would have made the situation b/c a mother mountain lion would berserk at the spray.

    It’s a quiet Sunday morning, I’m drinking coffee, everything is chill. Then I listened to your story and my heart is beating 100 miles a minute!!

    Thank you for sharing!

    Wendy

  2. Epic story! Don’t know how I would have reacted in such a unique situation but your excellent lessons learned will help. Thanks for sharing.

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