[pct-l] Re: trail noise (was radios)

[siltyclay@earthlink.net (scott thompson)]

>  Steve writes:

>>  Belcher writes:

>>  you're frightening off wildlife that you may have had=20
>>  the chance to see, had you not given the warning with the radio.

>  besides the fact that other (read: bodily) nosies=20
>  probably scare off wild animals as well,  the sole
>  purpose of the a.m. radio is to detach one's self
>  from nature and get back to civilization for a short
>  while.  for me, this includes NO DEER AND NO MARMOTS !!!!!


Or a noise may help locate wildlife:


I was somewhere north of Hwy. 58 - maybe Hamp Williams Pass area, I'm 
not certain - having headed up the trail shortly behind another 
hiker. I followed his fresh footprints that afternoon and into the 
next day. At some point, his prints were modified by even fresher 
bear tracks, headed the same direction we were. It appeared to be a 
larger bear and a smaller bear together.

I figured I probably couldn't be more than a few hours behind the 
hiker up ahead, and was probably  a lot closer. These prints were 
fresh :). Hmmmm, I says, maybe I don't want to surprise momma and cub 
coming around a corner or as they move through the nearby brush. So 
at regular intervals I started calling out, "Hello Mrs. Bear!" or 
singing some piece of a song hoping to give them a chance to hear me 
coming and stear clear.

After a while the tracks headed off into the brush, but I was 
habituated at that point and kept right on being a loudmouth. So I'm 
walking along making my periodic outbursts - kind of a controlled 
Tourette's, if you will. I make my periodic call to the wilderness 
and I get a response: the most terrifying growling just off the trail 
to my right. I had a hair-standing-on-end, hope-I-didn't-soil-myself 
moment that I may never forget. I stop dead, look up the hill and 
about 60 to 70 feet away is a full-grown mountain lion. It appears 
he/she has been sunning and/or napping and I've been a bad neighbor 
and wakened it. It growled just like a Mercury Cougar commercial (go 
figure) as it stood up stretching and blinking. One look at me and 
off it went up the hill away from the trail.

I suspect that without my excess noise, I would never have had the 
opportunity to see the lion so close. It may have seen me, but I 
wouldn't have known it.

That said, I am not advocating making noise in hopes of seeing 
wonderful things. I am just sharing the good that came from my 
paranoia of confronting a momma bear.


scott t.