West Coast -- Mt Lassen, Mountain Lion!

We've been having a great time at the family reunion in Mt Lassen Nat'l Park. Jonathan and I hiked to Terrace, Shadow, and Cliff lakes and then on down to Lake Summit with Rick and Gail and their gang. Jonathan ran back up the trail to get the car and came to fetch those of us who wanted a bit of time at Summit Lake. What a gentleman! The next day we hiked Bumpass Hell with everyone, including Great Grandma who is 92! It was supposed to be board walks over hydrothermal fumaroles. That was somewhat true, but it ended up being quite the 2 mile trail to get out to the boardwalks. After that J and I hiked up the 1.3 mile section of the Lassen Peak trail that was open. We had with us Rick, Gail, Katie, Paul and Sheena. That night Greg and Christy arrived and it was Christy's birthday so Jonathan had made blotekakes for after dinner. So far the highlight of the trip was our wildlife viewing in the middle of the night. A mountain lion took down a deer right in front of our cabin. Christy heard the horrible sound of the deer dying and got up to investigate. She, thinking it was a bobcat, popped out to the car and fetched the binoculars. (mind you this was all happening about 20 yards from our cabin--a mere stone throw away). When she got back inside and took a closer look she quickt woke us all up to see what was going on. The lion was watching us the whole time--I'm sure he was irritated that we were shining a flashlight towards him. At some point Greg thought to try to let Mom and Dad and Paul and Sheena know, who were staying a few cabins down the row. Thinking the cat would stick by to defend his kill Greg tried to creep out towards their cabin, but as soon as he for about three steps from the cabin door the cat left its kill and started moving away, but vaguely in the direction Greg wanted to go. He quickly and wisely darted back inside and we sadly had to ditch the idea of letting the others know. The lion tried to pull the deer away, but got startled by our light and went and crouched behind a nearby log. When we could see that he wasn't going to do anything more until we left him alone, we finally went back to bed. This morning we saw the deer carcass, after it had been ... tended to, shall we say, by the mountain lion. Apparently coyotes had also come afterwards, as there were parts of the deer eaten that cats don't generally go for. It was a pretty amazing experience to go up on the trails leading into the campground and see the footprints and piece together how it all happened--where the deer ran, where the cat leaped and pounced. You could see it all right there in the tracks. Pretty astounding! The caretakers took the deer carcass away so that the cat wouldn't be lurking in our neighborhood tonight. Later today we went to Summit Lake and Jonathan ran the 11-mile hike, some people did a shorter version of that hike, and some us walked around Summit Lake and then spent the rest of the time swimming. The three girls had a blast in the water trying to get up onto an old floating log that was near the shore.