Here, Kitty Kitty (or, There’s Lions in Them Thar Hills) – Cypress Hills, June 8-18, 2023

A coupla weeks ago, I started to write a post entitled “The Beginning of the End?” because that’s how Road Trip 2023 was looking to me. Pai’s various medical issues were seeing me set off with a horse who wasn’t going to be up to tackling those South Saskatchewan hills, a horse who now came complete with a meds list that would rival the pharmaceutical stash of a live-fast, die-young rock star itching to get hopped up and trash some $1200/night hotel room.

But that post was depressing to write, and was depressingly boring to read.

So scrap that.

Let’s talk about cougars instead.

Back in 2015, on one of my first rides in Cypress Hills with Doug and Rob (known to all my friends as The Cowboys), their route included a trip to the Cougar Caves, and I was informed that Cypress Hills has the highest density of cougars in North America.

“Nay, nay,” thought I, “That statistic belongs to Vancouver Island.” Vancouver Island unabashedly touts itself as the cougar capital of Canada: of the roughly 4000 mountain lions in Canada, 3500 live in BC, and 800 of those live on Vancouver Island, a rock that is only a tiny percentage of BC’s land mass.  If you do the math, it works out to about 2.5 cougars per 100 km2. While these big cats will occasionally stroll into people’s back yards – and once, memorably, in 1992, into the Empress Hotel in downtown Victoria – they do live up to their rep of being “elusive”. While bear sightings on Vancouver Island are a dime a dozen, it is a rare day when you get to see a cougar.

But as it happens, the wee Interprovincial Park that is Cypress Hills actually does have a higher density of cougars than Vancouver Island, by far: at last count, it was 8.5 cougars per 100 km2. And yet, just like on Vancouver Island, they are rarely seen. Because they’re elusive.

So it is understandable that, on my first ride of the season with the boys, when we were gearing up to get back in the saddle after our lunch break, and our horses pricked up their ears and turned their heads and alerted us to a pair of approaching four-leggeds, my first thought was, “Oh! Coyotes!” Coyotes are not elusive.

Pai wasn’t with me on this ride. Before leaving Nanaimo, I had let Rob know that Pai’s soundness wasn’t 100%, and that I might join them in camp for a few days on Road Trip 2023 only to hang out and hike with the dog before carrying on east. Doug phoned me a few days before he and Rob were headed out, saying, “I hear that pony of yours isn’t sound. It’s just as easy for me to throw three horses on the trailer as two if you want me to bring you a horse to ride.” So I had been looking between the black ears of Doug’s horse  Ace rather than between Pai’s white ones, and I had just taken his hobbles off after our lunch break when the two surprise visitors appeared on the horizon.

My sluggish brain eventually re-interpreted what my eyes were seeing, and I said to Rob, who was still un-hobbling his horse, “Cats! Look Rob! Those are cats!” One cougar quickly slunk away the way it had come, but his friend paused and stared at us. I whipped out my phone to snap a photo before the cougar turned and ran and all I would have for a pic would be an unimpressive blurry ass end and a tail.

The mountain lion did not turn and run.

He kept walking towards us. Pleased, I snapped another photo.

He kept coming.

I put my phone away, not in small part because it would be just too Darwin Award-y to be found dead but in possession of an excellent close-up photo of a cougar preparing to leap.

He kept walking towards us.

Slowly. And with what looked like an alarming amount of purpose.

I let out my best animalistic roar and raised my hands above my head. (For the visual, picture trying to convince a five-year-old that you are a creepy monster and you are about to GET them, bwa ha ha ha).

He kept walking towards us. (For the visual, imagine that you tried the creepy monster pose on a fourteen-year-old bored AF kid, who is now giving you the “I bet that was embarrassing” withering dismissal).

I hollered at him to BACK OFF!!! with all the rage of a Bichon owner in pristine Louis Vitton snatching up her snow-white darling and bellowing at a muddy Labrador Retriever about to get overly friendly with the both of them.

The cougar kept walking towards us. This kitty had clearly not read the Cypress Hills tips on how he should be responding to my by-the-book cougar deflection techniques.

I stomped my foot like an angry doe and hollered a few more times.

After pausing at a distance of 10 or 12 paces, when I was out of ideas on how to repel a stalking cat and was becoming quite disturbed at how ineffectual my efforts had been, he finally turned 90 degrees and sauntered off all non-chalant towards a wooded coulee.

Doug, a few hundred feet away, had been opening a gate, and only noticed that a mountain lion was within pouncing distance when he heard my ruckus. “I think that cat growled at you,” he joked.

My grainy photos became the talk of the camp. Alas, I keep imagining how great the pics would have been had I not lost my cool and continued my photo shoot right until the point where he was eyeing me up for lunch.

The remaining 9 of my 10 days at Cypress were cougar-free and therefore comparatively ho-hum.

My time there was, as always, delightful. Cypress Hills has not only some of the most spectacular riding in Canada, but also has the absolute best camp, full of people who are old friends or soon-to-be new friends. When I rolled in, not only were Rob and Doug present, but so were Carol and Con, whom I’d met in 2015 and at least once or twice after that, and Jim and Cindy, whom I’d met at both Cypress and Spruce Woods.  Later in the week, friends Marjorie and Blair and Fay and Larry and Randy all turned up. The familiar faces of the Park staff – Marilyn and Mel – were there, as well as the new young Ranger Leanne, who happened to be the daughter of Theresa and Scotty Reesor. It was the usual Old Home Week, with gatherings at the central fire pit at night.

For most of my stay, I rode with Rob and Doug alone. We took our horses up steep hills, back and forth across Battle Creek, up to the tops of the ridges, and down into the valleys. We rode in open pine woods and in brushy spruce forest and through stands of poplar.

We rode through purple and blue swaths of larkspur, creamy white carpets of death camas, bright yellow meadows of arnica. It had rained copiously in the weeks prior, and the wildflowers were putting on their best show – the grasslands were painted by rose, vetch, buffalo beans, avens, flax, geranium, and dozens of other flowers. I counted fourteen different species in bloom at just one of our lunch spots.

As we rode, the scent of wolf willow was heavy in the air. Clouds of tiny blue butterflies would flutter up at the creek crossings. Dragonflies darted and hovered. Every so often, deer would bound across a hillside, their white tails raised like flags.

I have always admired Ace, and last year, when Doug and I traded mounts for the day, his horse and I got on well together.  It’s a rare day when I enjoy riding someone else’s horse as much as I enjoy riding my own, but on this trip, Ace more than made up for me having to leave my girl back in camp. My good (borrowed) boy – who never gets spoiled by the very business-like Doug – has gone back home with a new taste for granola bars.

And I did take Pai out for some easy rides on the flat every second day, just to be looking at the hills between those white ears again.

Perfect.

Camp Notes for Horsey Folk

I’ve described the camp at Cypress several times – the most recent article is here (scroll down to Camp Notes for links to previous posts). The price in 2023 is still $20/night.

In short, there are roughly 10 roomy pipe fence corrals, about eight small wooden corrals, and maybe a dozen or 16 tie stalls. There is a catch large catch pen fenced with barbed wire where you can either turn your horse loose, or set up an e-fence corral.

There is limited potable water for humans, and horse get watered at the creek. There is a very clean pit toilet, a central fire pit, and firewood is included. There are about 17 campsites that each have a picnic table and fire stand, but if camp is full, no one will turn you away – I have camped there when there have been 30 rigs on site.

Hay is not allowed – you must feed cubes, which are available from the Ranger station at an entirely reasonable $18/50 lb bag (on Vancouver Island, I pay around $26 for a 44 lb bag, so I consider the Cypress price to be an absolute steal).

Some of the best trails are not on the map, so if you can find someone familiar with the area to tag along with, you will get some great rides in.

The road in and out is impassible after a heavy rain.