Weddingbee Blog

This is only marginally wedding related, and it’s long. But if you’re in the mood for a story, this one’s about me almost being killed and eaten last night.

A couple of months ago, I took up a new sport: trail running in Sabino Canyon, a popular hiking site about a minute from our house. I’m fairly consistent about exercise, but I was having total gym burnout. Gym burnout is the last thing I need, four months from the wedding. Well, the beautiful trails and scenery of the canyon were just the motivation I needed. I was hooked on this heavenly switch from the crowded gym:

Now, in the past few years, there’s been an increase in mountain lion sightings in the canyon. The cats are demonstrating what wildlife officials term “aberrant behavior”: being active in daylight, showing no fear of humans, and yes - even stalking and attacking humans. Most at risk are children and smaller, yummier looking people.

Every time I go running, believe me, I think about it. And I have a HUGE primal fear. But I’m so addicted to it, to the challenge and fun of it - to the way the rough and rocky path really jars me out of my stress and forces me to think about something other than the wedding - that I push these thoughts to the back of my head. I also ignore these very intimidating signs, which are posted throughout the canyon:

I also actively ignore the reason trail running by myself is so dangerous: running triggers the big cats’ chase instinct. And believe me, I’m right up in their turf, off of the main road, because that’s where the really fun, craggy trails are. I also run with headphones on, which is highly discouraged. Well, I’m sorry, but I absolutely cannot run without tunes.

So late yesterday afternoon, I strap on these new puppies…

I’m about to leave for the canyon when I get a last-minute case of the nerves. Maybe I’ll just hop online real quick, I think. Brush up on my mountain lion safety. I can’t remember if you’re supposed to yell and stomp if you come upon one, or back away quietly. Throw stones? Growl? Apologize? I jump on my laptap and a minute later I’m looking at Mountain Lion Language, which is like a Terror Alert System for mountain lions, explaining how much danger you’re in based on the cat’s position:

This doesn’t help my nerves, but I go to the canyon anyway. It’s 5:15, almost dusk. I run for about half an hour. (Note: the area I run in at Sabino is actually the less crowded “Bear Canyon,” which sits right on the river.) There aren’t many people around, and it’s starting to get dark.

I decide to do one more “lap”, but on the main road. I jog along down to the road and the adjacent the river bed, and realize, wow: the sun is setting. I gotta get out of here. Mountain lions are nocturnal, after all. I turn, and winded, I start walking back the way I came.

When I see it, my vision is so bad and I’m so surprised that at first I don’t realize what it is. My nanosecond reaction is, jeez, that’s a weird looking deer. It’s walking across the road, maybe a hundred feet in front of me. Crossing my path - the only path. It sees me and stops, looking straight and calmly at me, its huge body in profile. As soon as I register what it is, I’m struck by two realizations: one, that this thing is not in the slightest bit fazed by me, and two, I’m completely on my own out here.

I’m terrified. I don’t know what to do. It just gazes at me, as if deciding something. I realize it’s probably just woken up, and is hungry.

Finally, it turns and slowly walks the way it’d been going: into the smallish hill that I’d come jogging through and around. It glances back at me as it disappears into the bush. I look around desperately. I don’t have a phone with me. A rest room without doors sits just off to my left. Hide in there? Wait? It’s getting darker by the second. I weigh my options. I can go further into the canyon, back onto the trails in the opposite direction for a twenty-five minute hike up to the main road and another thirty minute walk back to the visitor center. But it will be a long, dark hike, and I’ll have no idea where it is. If it’s stalking me.

I have to go back the way I came. It’s the fastest way out. I have to skirt the hill the lion is on, staying as far to the edge as possible. I have to risk him following me, because it’s my best route out, considering. And I have to move quickly, if I’m going to have any chance of keeping an eye on it in the fading light.

I raise my arms above my head, trying to look bigger. I walk slowly along the road. I break a small branch off of a tree and brandish it, feeling pathetic and helpless. Every once in a while, I growl or make loud, deep noises. Under any other circumstances, it would have been hilarious. I pray to run into another stupid, reckless hiker like me. Let him be male, I thought. And big.

The whole time, I’m shaking like a leaf. I scan the hill for movement as I walk. All I want to do is run, but I know I can’t. I keep glancing behind me to make sure he doesn’t cross the road and sneak up from the other side.

I could make the story really poignant, say something about how it was the vision of my wedding day that kept me going, but the truth is, it was just pure, blind terror for ten minutes straight.

Just when I’m about to hit the dirt path leading to the parking lot, I run into another jogger. A guy, and a big one at that. I start crying with relief, tell him the story, and we quickly make our way out of the canyon together. I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my life. Except for Mr. Lovebug, when I got home two minutes later.

I know that the mountain lion probably didn’t follow me, and probably wasn’t very interested in me at all. Probably. But here’s the thing. If instead of coming back along the main road, I’d used the trail - and run - and if it had been thirty seconds later when the cat was back on the trail - I might have run right up into/by it. Triggering a chase and an attack.

I’m never running there alone again. I’m never going there anywhere near dark. And I’m so bummed about it, because it was a workout that had really clicked for me.

So, um, anyone else almost get killed and eaten in the middle of planning a wedding?