Yesterday was a beautiful, clear blue, 70 degree day so I thought I would go off and explore the Foothills Preserve a bit more after our lunch time teaser hike on Tuesday. I hiked up Steep Hallow trail and the air was filled with the fresh scent of lilac bushes blooming in all directions, just delightful.
I was enjoying myself so much I decided to keep going up over the ridge and back down into the next Valley. About an hour later I made it to a large creek and found a man playing with his two dogs and I asked him what to expect if I kept going further on the trail. He said I was half-way done so I thought, “Great, another hour and I’ll be back at the car”. I ascended the steep trail up and up and up. Finally I could see that I was getting to the top, I thought to myself, “I must be near the car”, after all it was 6:45 and the evening light was fading. To my surprise I came across a sign that said “3.4 miles back to the Steep Hallow trail”. Oh no, I was 3.4 miles away and I didn’t know if it was the start of the trail or the end of the trail. I had about a minute of panic. I didn’t want to head back out onto the trail, because it was getting dark and well, there were critters in there and big critters from all the mountain lion warning signs I had passed. I saw a car on a road in the distance so I thought, “Worse case scenario, I can hitchhike if it gets too dark”. So I walked down to the road, down and down and down. About 7:45 I made it to the park entrance, thank god! I had been walking for 4 hours and it was just about dark and I knew they closed the gate to the park so I didn’t want to be stuck inside. About 100 feet into the park I saw the park ranger pull up, and since I still had another mile to get to my car, I thought, “Yay! He will give me ride to my car”. No such luck! All he said was, “You can probably still make it to your car in time before we shut the gate.” I even tried to throw in a pitiful, “I’m cold” remark, but he wasn’t giving into my poor trip planning dilemma. So I started to run. And running while 6 months pregnant has got to be one of the most uncomfortable and awkward things I can remember doing. For all you men out there, imagine running frantically through the airport with your two allowed carry-on bags and the extra one you managed to sneak through… And amidst this frenzy to get to the car, I couldn’t pass up the chance to shoot this deer who was standing near me so I got out my phone and snapped a quick shot.
The last know image of this deer alive.
And then that is when I saw it, on the top of the ridge just behind the deer, a large animal – moving slowly and moving like a cat, a very, very big cat. “OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG.” They say not to run away from a lion, but I ran faster than any pregnant woman should and I wasn’t looking back. It was 5 minutes of feeling like I was in shark infested waters and wondering if I was going to make it to the car. And then there it was, My Savior, my beautiful black Passat. I kissed the bumper, jumped in and got the heck outta there.
Was my mind playing tricks on me? I don’t know, but I swear that wasn’t a house cat or a cow or a deer. Upon returning home, I googled “Mountain Lion + Palo Alto” and scared myself with all the stories. Brendan is convinced it was a squirrel.
