Puma / Mountain Lion Sighting on Winiger Ridge

About a week ago, I saw a trail of blood drops that I followed for at least half a mile, on the Winiger Ridge trail, near the power line. The drops were associated with a set of tracks that I thought might be coyote tracks.

However, yesterday at about 4 PM, I found out who the tracks really belong to - a mountain lion!  This is the first time in 15 years that I've seen a mountain lion on Winiger ridge. 

But wait, there's more... I also saw two nearly grown mountain lion cubs that where about 50 feet ahead of "mom."

I was glad that the animals were at about 100 yards away, because even at that distance it's evident that these are not animals you'd want to get close to.  Besides, they can climb trees!

I only had my smart phone along, so the pictures of the mother are unfortunately somewhat grainy.  She stopped for about 10 seconds to get a good look at me and then disappeared into the northern wooded slope, following her kids.

The paw print was taken where the track crossed over the trail that runs along the top of Winiger Ridge.  The tracks crossed the trail about 200 yards east of the power line.

Winiger Ridge runs more or less parallel to Magnolia Road from about mile 5 to mile 9 on the south side. 

Plants survive 26 degrees F.

In the early morning hours of September 12, the temperature got down to 26 degrees Fahrenheit.

All the grasses and aspen were covered with a thin layer of ice and snow.

As of today I'm happy to report that everything seems to have survived that very definetly freezing temperature.

In other news, I'm getting a lot of wood ready for a one day push with the wood splitter.There are over 3 cords piled against the outside back wall. 

The picture was taken the morning of September 12, 2014.  Grasses are hiding under the white snow at the bottom of the picture.

Skybow

Circular rainbows are quite rare:

I took this picture at my home in the outskirts of Nederland, Colorado at about local solar noon today. It was bright and sunny at the time, although I waited for a passing cloud to mute the sun a bit.

An hour after I took this picture it was raining hard.  I suspect there was rain blowing through the air from the approaching storm, thus the rainbow.

Later in the afternoon, the sun came out again, and this meant I also got to see a "regular" rainbow at about 6:30 pm MDT.

I went for a hike with my friend Chris to Forsythe Falls today.

These falls are in danger of being flooded if the Denver Water proposed expansion of Gross Dam goes through.

It would be a shame to loose this scenic beauty in the name of "progress."

I finally got to meet the new local moose

Moose have been edging closer to my neighborhood for over a decade now.  Last fall, I saw a moose in the outskirts of Nederland.

In the last few weeks I talked to a number of people that saw a moose and her yearling in the neighborhood.  While taking my cat Chloe for a walk, I saw a moose droppings 200 yards from the house.

But this afternoon, while walking on the trail on Winiger Ridge, I came face to face with momma moose and her yearling.  She was by a grove of aspen, only a hundred feet away.

Right after I stopped to watch, a jogger and her 2 dogs came up the trail too. It was a tense stand off between the moose and us for about a minute.  Then, momma moose decided to back off and head deeper  into the north sloping woods.

That's a good thing, because moose are even a bit bigger and more imposing than elk.  The same moose went chasing after a friend who was on a mountain bike, on the same trail. Don't mess with a momma moose.