Los Gatos Frios

Kevin and I were on call for a few weeks, waiting for the starting gun for the race up to the Fort Apache Reservation in the White Mountains.

There, we would meet up with Floyd Green and Larry Johnson. Floyd, the owner of Outdoorsmans, has a predator outfitting business on the Reservation via a concession with tribal Game and Fish. Larry is a USDA problem animal removal specialist and a classically trained houndsman in his own right, and together, these two have more hound hunting experience than just about any pair alive.

The plan was to chase some lion tracks and accomplish either of two goals: If we caught a young cat, we would tranquilize, collar, and release it, as the Apache tribe was interested in studying the population in this area for the first time. If we caught an old cat, Kevin would punch his ticket.

The call finally came, and at midnight on a Tuesday in January, we rolled out of Fountain Hills in Kevin’s perfectly souped-up Lexus GX470. Plenty of windshield time and caffeine had the anticipation building like stage one of a self-landing rocket launch.

We arrived at our meeting point in Whiteriver a little after 3:00 AM and took off into the darkness on a dirt road with about six inches of snow cover. Floyd went in the other direction with his wife, Julie. Larry jumped in with us, and we split up and cruised along with flashlights out the open windows. I was mostly pretending to be looking for tracks, as I was too busy watching the 6’5” bear of a man work. I thought there was no real way we could find a track in the dark from a moving vehicle, but to Larry, it was only a matter of time.

Floyd ended up catching a track up the mountain a few miles, so we fishtailed our way up a virgin snow-covered two-track through the pines and around bends with biblical sunrise vistas. His dogs were sent to find the target and get it bayed up. After about 45 minutes, all of the dog symbols on the Garmin were vertical, and the bay meter was off the charts.

We ran down into the canyon in the snow to find six dogs frantically jumping at a particularly large ponderosa, scratching the bark from the bottom of it with a wildness in their eyes that is unique to lion and bear hounds. After we had tied them off, called them good dogs 20 times each, and become accustomed to the non-stop baying, Kevin and I took a look up at the first live, wild mountain lion either of us had seen.

We determined that she was a young-ish female and would be the perfect subject to accomplish goal number one. So, without much fuss, Floyd sat down and started mixing up the tranquilizer cocktail and priming the dart gun. It was as precise as snowy mountainside science gets. “Was it 100 ml or 300?” We decided to err on the side of caution for the cat’s safety.

Meanwhile, Larry came to Kevin and me with a problem. The lion was over 40 feet high in the tree, and it seemed that she’d either fall too far once darted or jump to another tree and bail. So, we had a snowball fight. We gently coaxed her out of that tree, across a gap, and down another, and she took off again to be treed again in a safer location.

At the base of that tree, Larry came to us with another problem. And a net. Larry is not the type of guy you argue with much, so when he told us that we would hold the net and catch the pissed-off lion when she jumped out of the tree, we nodded silently and assumed the position.

After a few minor miscalculations with the air pressure in the dart pistol, we had a mountain lion in a tree with a dart in her butt. She was clearly affected, but by no means “sleepy.” Another few snowballs sent her down the tree and off across the hillside. The dogs and Floyd took off after her while we gathered up the gear. We soon followed and were led to the cat by the baying of the loose dogs.

We arrived at the scene to find Floyd holding three spastic dogs by their collars, about 30 feet uphill of what I can only describe as a drunk mountain lion. She was attempting to stand and was mostly unable. Although her swiping and biting muscles were still relatively functional. The censored version of what I was thinking is, “What on earth do we do now?”

Larry, a man of action, quickly came to us with a plan. I can’t recall his exact words, but they were something to the effect of, “Levi, we need to get that cat up to this flat spot where we can work on her. Drag her up here.” My only issue with his order was that, in my opinion, she did not appear to have been rendered safe.

Once again, Larry is not the type to argue with, so I made my way over to her, grabbed her behind the jowls (per Larry’s instructions), and dragged her about 20 feet up the hill. I will never forget the feeling of the muscles of her neck and my awe at the power a 100-lb cat could generate, especially considering her circumstances. She snapped and swatted her unsheathed claws, but I was able to dodge them. I find myself almost wishing I had a scar to remember her by.

When I got her up to the flat spot and onto a tarp, I stepped backward, and Larry spoke some of the most memorable words of my life: “I can’t believe you did that.” In hindsight, I think maybe he could believe it, but we laughed so hard that I almost defrosted my pants.

With a little more cowboy doctoring, we got her settled down and collared. We then built a barrier between her and the creek in case she awoke and took off running into it. The temperature was in the single digits, and the semi-frozen river might not have spat her back out if she did.

That night, we celebrated a hilariously fun day at Floyd’s house and went to sleep, dreaming of another day like that.

Day Two

Again, we left around 2:30 AM and made our way out to another area of the Res. Same game plan, same teams. Larry, Kevin, and I had two of Larry’s dogs in the trunk, and Floyd’s team was a few miles down a different road. We were driving along with flashlights again for an hour or so, and I was getting dawn-sleepy when Larry firmly said something like, “KEVIN. STOP.”

We got out and inspected the freshly-snowed road. Larry had spotted another track, and it was exactly what we were hoping for. A four-inch-wide paw mark that plunged two feet into the snow. It had no claw marks, a rounded rear pad with three rounded lobes in the back, and the distinct rearward ankle drag mark of a cat. Not a small cat, like the day before. A big cat.

Radio and inReach messages went out to Floyd, and he and Julie hauled back to where we were in his command center truck. Garmin screens, stainless dog boxes, and eight steamy noses poking out of holes in the latter.

We let the dogs out, and after a few minutes of sniffing and encouragement from us, they found the trail. They bombed to the bottom of a 1000-foot canyon and began their chase. We patiently watched on the handheld Garmin screen, walked up and down the road, and observed.

They had run far. Miles. They were still running. We needed to get closer for their safety and to be ready in case the perfect scenario unfolded. Kevin, Larry, and I took off up the road, and Floyd and Julie wrapped back down the hill and around to the other side of the canyon.

We had a WMAT tribal biologist with us, so I jumped in with him. His rig was a late-’90s single-cab long-bed gas F350 with a five-speed manual box. The only appropriate thought was, Oh boy.

The next few hours involved chains, winches, mud, deep snow, chains, snow, whining BFGs, more winching, more snow, more mud, and more winching. We worked our way up a road that would test a vehicle in the dry, but somehow we made progress. When we finally stopped making much, I got another order from Larry that I’ll never forget. It left no room for interpretation or interruption.

“Levi. You gotta go find them dogs.”

He handed me the Garmin, pointed into the woods, and said to, “Start walkin’ that way.” Once again, my instinct was to argue, but it was a matter of the dogs’ safety and the possibility of Kevin getting a shot at a lion.

I took off through the snow, following both the Garmin and the tracks of an epic chase. The Garmin showed the dogs about 4000 yards away, so I was hustling. It was also about 9 degrees out, so I was motoring to stay warm. Following the tracks was like living the ultimate CSI investigation. There were many places where the cat had climbed boulders and jumped 20-foot-wide creeks. The dogs’ tracks went through the water. The cat tracks did not.

After about an hour, I reached the bottom of the first canyon. I was greeted by a creek about 15 feet wide and 2-4 feet deep. I wandered up and down a bit, looking for a place to cross, but there was no good option. Hopping with my pack on across frozen boulders and the Garmin in my hand, I inevitably fell face-first into some water that might have been dangerous if I had stopped moving.

Reinvigorated, I scrambled out and trudged on down the creek, only to find that I had crossed a fork in the creek and I was now at the confluence. The only option without hiking an extra hour or two around was to cross back where I was and then back again, and it was deeper and wider than before.

I crossed the first time with little issue. It was boulder-y, slick, and icy, but momentum carried me to the opposite bank. I wandered up and down for a long time looking for a crossable spot back to the side the dogs were on, and I found one. I had to climb and jump from a 10-foot-tall boulder to a five-foot-tall boulder in the middle, then across to a long, flat one that was just above the surface, and it was about 4-5 feet deep. Well, I jumped, landed on the rock, and… slipped into the void. I scrambled out again, holding the Garmin above my head.

Standing on the bank, I looked down at the Garmin and back up where it was showing the dogs. 2000 yards away, straight uphill.

It was a monster mountain face. Going around to the canyon they were in looked to be about a three-mile trek, and I still would have had to climb, so I chose to go up and over. I swear it was a 70-degree face. It was so steep, most of the snow had slid off. I was holding onto trees and doing crampon-type steps for well over an hour. Maybe the most difficult climb of my life. It warmed me back up, though! When I got to the top, I had dried out and become soaked again with sweat.

My clothes were frozen on the outside and like a sauna on the inside. My beard was frozen, the Garmin soaked with sweat, and I had muttered so many curse words that my mom would have a heart attack if she knew. All the while, I had been following the distant sound of baying hounds and the unthinkably spaced cat tracks. That sucker had been MOVING.

Just over the crest, I was greeted by one of the older dogs who must have heard me swearing as I was falling up the hill. That was one of the most welcoming moments I’ve ever experienced. Just a tired old hound dog named Scout who rounded me up and showed me where to go.

I kept trudging through the snow between the pines for another 20 minutes or so. When I came to a big canyon where my ears were full of baying, I crested the edge and was staring right into the soul of a 180-lb lion about 40 yards away. His gaze was locked on me, and it gave me a big chill and a healthy dose of primal terror. These things mean business. They are designed to kill, eat, and repeat.

A little further down, I found none other than Floyd Green, sitting at the base of the tree the cat was in, calmly whispering sweet nothings to his dogs as they tore the trunk apart, trying to climb up and get the kitty.

I said something to the effect of, “WOW, FLOYD. HOW COOL!”

He turned around and calmly said, “Shhhhh. He’s reading our energy, and it will really help if we stay calm.”

So, we stayed calm. I sat down and took off my puffy jacket with steam pouring out of it. I got back to a comfortable temp and sat with Floyd for what felt like a week, just watching, listening, encouraging the dogs, and learning just how special his relationship with both the dogs and their quarry is.

In reality, it was probably just under two hours. Kevin and Larry, meanwhile, had been stuck, unstuck, re-stuck, and unstuck again probably a dozen times. The Apache biologist who had been cruising with us had broken the four-wheel drive on his F350. They had come around from the bottom of the big canyon and finally met up with Julie, who was waiting at Floyd’s truck.

We watched/heard Kevin and Larry cruising down and across the canyon to us while we gathered up the dogs and tied them off. When they arrived, we did some game planning, and Kevin decided to take a shot with his bow. It was about 9 yards, but at a 75-degree angle. Not an easy shot.

Kevin hit the most perfect dot-shot I’ve ever seen, and the cat tumbled. He took out 6-inch branches on the way down before thumping into the snow and taking one final, fatal leap into a nearby gully. Wow.

I will never forget this adventure. All of the running, effort, challenges, and what some might call “suffering” made it easily one of the most enjoyable days of my life.