A Test of Metal pre-ride turned into a "near miss" encounter with a fully grown cougar for Pemberton resident Dean Linnell on Friday (June 10).
He and three friends were riding hard into Crumpit Woods, the last substantial climb in the 67-kilometre Squamish race, when Linnell, who was a few minutes ahead of the others, was jumped by a cougar from above.
"I was just sort of cross-eyed because we were trying to do race pace and all of a sudden in the back quadrant of my vision I see this brown thing just leap off the hillside," he said.
Luckily for Linnell, the cougar caught the back end of his bike, not touching him but sending him crashing off the trail.
"The next thing I know I'm on the ground off the side of the trail. I went over the bars, I hit a tree, [suffered] scrapes and bleeding and bruises on my legs and arms. Then I look up and right there, literally at arm's length, was this big adult cougar."
With a pretty good idea what happened, Linnell got to his feet, all the while yelling at cougar, who "looked sort of stunned" but made no effort to back or run away.
He said he expected that a cougar bold enough to attack a human would be starving or sick, but that wasn't the case.
"It wasn't scrawny, it wasn't emaciated, it was a big, adult, healthy cougar," he said. "He looked like he was probably maybe eight feet from nose to tail."
Linnell grabbed his bike to make a shield, all the while screaming and lunging at the animal.
"I wanted to make it freak out and run, but it didn't. It just stayed there."
His friends were a few switchbacks below by this point so he yelled, "cougar!" They came as quickly as possible. By the time they reached Linnell, the cougar had moved about 20 feet off the trail, but continued to survey the situation nonchalantly.
"We were tossing rocks at it and one of the rocks I threw was aimed right at its head and it didn't move, it just deked its head to one side," Linnell said.
"It was wild. It wasn't hissing, its ears weren't down it was just watching and looking."
Linnell said he expects to encounter wildlife while mountain biking in their territory; it was just the calm of the animal that unnerved him.
"It was a beautiful animal, just a little too close, that's all," he said.
Linnell and his friends contacted the Conservation Office, which brought dogs to the area to track and tree the cougar so it could be darted and moved to another area. As of press time, however, the cougar had not been located.
The experience hasn't soured Linnell on riding the Test of Metal this Saturday (June 18), but Linnell said he will never ride on his own in that area.
"I feel lucky," he said. "You're in the moment at the time and I was just concerned with being as aggressive as I could because if you run, it's going to take you down. I just made sure I stayed there, stayed big and was yelling and screaming."
Sgt. Chris Doyle of the B.C. Conservation Officer Service said seeing mountain bikers whizzing by might induce an instinctive reaction from cougars.
"We've had incidents in the past where cougars have chased mountain bikers," he said.
"Sometimes it may just be that the motion of the mountain biker going by the cougar triggers an instinctual pursuit and then at some point it may realize it's not the kind of prey the cougar is looking for."
However, he said, the Crumpit Woods area is known as cougar territory.
"There's frequently cougars in that area, so people should use caution when they're out there," said Doyle.
"There hasn't been anything we're aware of subsequent to that incident, although it looks like there might have been another sighting in Crumpit Woods, so we're following up on that.
"We'll continue to monitor the situation and if people do see the cougar, they should phone us so we're aware of what kind of activity we're dealing with."
Those who spot a cougar, bear or other wildlife are encouraged to phone the 24-hour MOE hotline at 1-877-952-RAPP (7277).
