Cats in Yankee Boy Basin?

[sarahw]

My husband and I climbed Mt. Sneffels yesterday, 6/2. In upper Yankee Boy Basin I swear I smelled cat urine. On our descent, we ran across some tracks:

366E5237-ECB1-4AE7-95DC-C94EF8571A60.png (722.94 KiB) Viewed 1967 times

Does anyone know if cats hang out up in the basin?

[Jorts]

No banana placement for scale?

[HikerGuy]

My guess would be coyote.

[TomPierce]

Hmm...can't quite tell but are those claw marks from the 2 left pads? If so, not a cat, cat claws are retracted unless provoked. I also can't tell from the photo if there's the disctinctive inverted W of a big cat track. Finally, a track in snow will often expand once warmed by the sun, so it's hard to judge the actual size of the animal.

Sorry, I look at a lot of cat tracks when I'm out in the backcountry, it helps to know what's stalking me

-Tom

[Will_E]

I was incredibly excited when I saw this thread title. I’m disappointed the content is not what I expected.

[WishIWasInTheMts]

I was incredibly excited when I saw this thread title. I’m disappointed the content is not what I expected.

Glad it wasn’t just me

[sarahw]

Jorts - for some reason my scale photo won’t load...the track is about half the size of my hand. My thumbnail is barely visible on the left if that helps?

Tom, this is great info! I can’t tell if there is an inverted W, but there didn’t appear to be any claw marks.

Will_E and WishIWasInTheMts, you’ve made me curious - what were you hoping for?

[nsaladin]

A buddy and I were driving to Yankee Boy late one Friday night and got up around the top of the road around 1am just after talking to Brett Maune on his FKT attempt, we were crawling slowly up the road when a Mountain Lion walked in front of the car about 50 yards in front of us. We’re pretty sure it was stalking Brett down the road, but we got in between it and Brett (he was about 1/2 mile down the road).

[brerrabbit]

Jorts - for some reason my scale photo won’t load...the track is about half the size of my hand. My thumbnail is barely visible on the left if that helps?

Tom, this is great info! I can’t tell if there is an inverted W, but there didn’t appear to be any claw marks.

Will_E and WishIWasInTheMts, you’ve made me curious - what were you hoping for?

I think they (me included) were hoping there were some domestic cats chillin up in Yankee Boy this summer season.

[12ersRule]

It would've been pretty cool to have house cats following you up to the summit. Both peaks I did in Mexico, I had dogs follow me all the way to the summit.

Growing up, my cats just followed me to the bus stop. One of them used to bring the kiddos at the bus stop frogs and other creatures it hunted from the stream in front of our house.

[ekalina]

Personally, I was hoping someone had asked whether they could take their pet cat with them into the basin. Bonus points if they asked about leash laws.

[Wildernessjane]

Does anyone know if cats hang out up in the basin?

I can’t speak to whether that is a mountain lion track or not from the picture but you can pretty much count on the possibility of them being just about anywhere in the Colorado backcountry (and front-country, for that matter). Remember the mountain lion that was spotted high above treeline at Breckenridge ski resort? My husband also spotted one in Castlewood Canyon once and we saw one about a 1/2 mile from our house when we lived in Evergreen. I just got a notice yesterday that one has been spotted twice now near my house, which is about five minutes walk to downtown Golden. On top of that, the elementary school that I work at in Wheatridge, which backs up to a greenbelt, had to go on lockdown this last school year after a mountain lion was spotted at the edge of the property. No outdoor recess so it was a very sad day for the kids.