Some years ago, probably around 1995, if memory serves, a buddy of mine was indulging in one of his outdoor hobbies: collecting shed elk and deer antlers. On one fateful day, he was walking back to his truck down a hiking trail in the Flattops Range just as the sun was drawing low in the sky and shadows were getting long. He had a five-point elk antler in one hand and a folding knife in his pocket.
Suddenly, all the hair on the back of his neck stood up. “I knew something was watching me,” he told me later. When he turned and looked behind him, there, on the trail, maybe thirty feet away, was a big, full-grown tom mountain lion, crouched, its tail lashing back and forth.
My friend grabbed his folding knife, opened it, and began waving the elk antler over his head and shouting. Found out, the big tom considered him for a moment, then stood up and walked away. My buddy never again…
