The Encounter.
It was a nice sunny June morning, with a forecast of about 28 degrees as a high - Monday, June 9, 2025.
I had my camping permit booked for Garibaldi Lake, and headed out to Rubble Creek trail head for what was supposed to be my first back country hike-in camp of the season. Little did I know, that this day would provide the worst hiking experience of my life, and one of the worst experiences of my life in general.
When I got to the trailhead I couldn’t stop thinking about how out of shape I am in the spring, and how the previous season; I had barely done any “tougher excursions” due to life circumstances. So, I was nervous about how I’d hold up for a 9km uphill battle with my pack, for the first time in a while. Then I got to the trailhead and saw - a cougar sighting notification. This was the first time that I’d ever seen a cougar sighting notification on a trailhead, so it took me aback for a moment. I read all the instructions for how to behave in an encounter to polish up my knowledge, did a practice-grab (or two) of my bear spray to be sure it’s not stuck, and scanned the parking lot. The lot was about 2/3 full on a Monday morning, at 10:15 am. Knowing how rare it is to see a cougar, and weighing the odds against the amount of people already seemingly on the trail - I decided to continue on, but in hyper vigilance mode, and prepared with the tools and knowledge I needed in the case of an actual encounter. I figured sightings are so rare, and these animals are so elusive and wanting to avoid us, that the likelihood of another encounter was low.
Boy was I wrong.
The first kilometre of the hike felt alright, there were a few ppl coming up and down the trail, and I figured I’d likely be surrounded by hikers most of the day on this very busy trail, which helped my mental state. The further up the trail I got, however, the more I realized that nobody was really hiking at a similar pace to me. They’re either way behind me, or they’re blowing by me because they aren’t carrying a solo load of overnight gear on their backs! I spent the first several kilometres of the hike smashing my trekking poles together every few minutes to make noise, and stopping every once in a while to *just listen*, and to scan the trail backwards and forwards for my own sanity. I kept telling myself the facts and stats of encounters, and reminding myself that I’ve been doing this stuff solo for several years, on way lesser-trafficked trails, to ease my anxiety.
Eventually, after a few kilometres, I found my stress easing a bit. My pack weight was starting to settle in, my body was adjusting, and though my hiking socks were too thick (and causing me to overheat!) I was feeling good about nearly reaching the halfway point of my uphill battle. I was looking forward to unpacking Ginny (my tent) on one of the tent pads at the lake. I hadn’t been up to Garibaldi Lake in nearly two decades, after all, so I was excited.
And then it happened.
I was at approximately the 4km mark, and had just rounded another switchback when another solo hiker with a day pack passed me heading down. Here I am - struggling uphill at a slow pace under the weight of my pack, as a day hiker is heading down at a quick pace with their light bag. It makes me a little jealous in this moment!
I trudge on, and perhaps a minute later - I hear a loud voice down on the switchback below me. My skin crawls a bit as I stop to listen. I look through the thin trees to the portion of the trail below me, and I see the hiker who’d just passed me, standing with his bear spray out and loudly speaking to “something”, to stay back and get away. I knew immediately that this was not a black bear. Partly because of the trail advisory, but also because I had only just passed this hiker moments ago, and this type of energy and taking out your bear spray so immediately, is not the reaction you have to a simple black bear just wandering the trail. My heart sank before I even saw which animal it was that he was speaking to.
And then I saw it.
A cougar, sneaking off the trail to the hiker’s left - and heading uphill, towards me.
I start yelling at it and waving my trekking poles in the air to look as big as possible, screaming “heyyyyy you get outta here, go away go away” as loud as I can, to ward it off. This does absolutely nothing except to draw it further towards me.
And then I see it - the second cougar. My heart sinks even further.
This cougar, the second one, looks even larger, and it too is slinking up the hillside through the trees, towards me. I step onto a large boulder to my left to make myself as big as I can (at 5 feet tall), since the animals are downhill from me, so this will help, right?!
It doesn’t.
Now I am officially in “oh shit, this is exceptionally bad” mode, and I am full-blown fearing for my life, knowing how rare and dangerous this scenario is. I grew up in cougar territory, and being told endlessly about these animals, so I know enough to know this is extremely fucked. This is worst case scenario for a solo hiker, and here I am in the thick of it. At this point the hiker below me on the trail is starting to move towards me, up the trail. There is a good minute or two here where I can’t tell you how much time passed, it’s a blur of chaos, but eventually it was the two of us hikers side by side, making ourselves as big as possible and trying to fend them off. Both cougars were heading uphill towards us despite our noise, but the larger one was slinking, crouched on the ground, and slithering under fallen trees towards us, at a quick jaunt, and completely unafraid.
The closer they got, the more my mind told me “it’s over for you, this is how it ends”, “I can’t believe it’s come to this”, and “just do everything you know to do, and fucking try”. The other hiker (Damien), now on my left, took my trekking poles while yelling “I’m sorry if I break them!” (Lol) and starts banging them together to make noise. I whip out my bear spray, since they are so god damn close to us now, and we are both screaming at them and making as much of a scene as we can.
The animals both continue to advance regardless of our behaviour.
At this point Damien starts grabbing large rocks and throwing them at the larger cougar’s face. They bounce off the ground directly in front of it, flying towards its face, and it is completely unflinching. In the face of our screaming (especially mine, because it’s as blood curdling as I can muster), rock throwing, trekking pole flailing, ad infinitum…they are both unfazed and advancing. We are also keeping constant eye contact with the animals as best we can. Now the largest cougar is about 8 feet away, and still moving forward, crouched down as if ready to pounce, and there is nothing left to do but discharge our bear spray. Mine is held out in front of me, just waiting to be emptied, but I know the range is short on these cans, and I’m unsure of how long to wait to deploy it, which is just adding to my layers of dread and anxiety.
I let out the most shrill and insane shriek that I can, and the larger animal in the front starts to trot to the right of us on the trail and around a corner, where we can’t see it. It’s only been a few minutes (though time is truly warped in my mind by this point) and we decide to start moving down the trail towards potential safety. We can’t just stay here, and moving up the trail means moving further away from safety. At this stage of the encounter, and not being able to see the second cougar anymore, it actually didn’t feel like an intuitive decision to move “down”, because “down” meant closer to the animals (even though closer to safety) rather than further away from them. I can’t stress enough the confusion and insecurity in decision making in this moment of existing in pure survival instinct and dread. Some of it is a blur.
So we start moving (shuffling, really) downwards on the trail, having one of the cougars in sight, but not the other one. This feeling of not having the second animal insight is dreadful. I am heading down while Damien stays to my left, and we are yelling out in opposite directions while also keeping eye upwards and downwards on the trail. The animal still within our sight is to our left, and we are screaming directly at it and keeping eye contact with it, while shuffling down the trail past it at about a 6 foot distance. This cougar is crouched down alongside the trail and staring at us as we approach it to pass it, and I shudder just writing this. We still can’t see the second cougar anymore, which sounds like a relief, but it actually quite the opposite. As we pass the cougar who is on the side of the trail, it is so close to us that yet again I think to myself “this is it, this is so bad, and this is how it ends”.
But alas, it allows us to pass, so close to it that we can see its muscle definition and eye colour, and though its clearly unafraid of us - we shuffle further down the trail while screaming and facing all directions at once. I am trying to spot the other one, which I fail to do, and which only increases my anxiety (if that’s even possible). It’s at this point that other hikers coming up the trail start catching up with us, to our indescribable relief. Joined by what was eventually an additional 8 (I think) hikers, we continued making as much noise as possible, while moving back down the trail. Most of the hikers who joined us, if not all, had no bear spray or knowledge of how to respond in an encounter, which I remember really shocked me.
As a group we made our way down the trail, warning other hikers coming up, of what we’d just experienced. We asked them if they had spray, if they knew how to act, and expressed our opinion that they should not continue, especially for solo hikers, and smaller unprepared groups. Most (though not all) seemed utterly unprepared, and somehow unafraid, despite our encounter story. A lot of them continued on up the trail.
We hiked down the last 4km of trail together as a group, and for the first while that we headed down - the two animals still followed us, despite us being this large of a group. As we moved down the trail I was still yelling at the top of my lungs, seeing and knowing that they were actually still following us. The hikers who had joined up with us (and who were also now heading down with us) seemed mostly to feel awkward in the presence of my continued yelling. I realize that they hadn’t just experienced what we had, but they seemed to feel too socially awkward to join in the yelling to ward the animals off, despite my encouragement and explaining how important it was for our safety. This really stands out in my memory, because I couldn’t help but think that our social conditioning has us worrying more about “how we sound to others”, than our safety. I remember how frustrated this made me feel in the moment.
Eventually we make our way down the trail far enough that the cougars do in fact give up on us, after what felt like an eternity. We spent that hour or so awkwardly making jokes and laughing, in the midst of our insane adrenaline rush that had yet to start wearing off. We also passed many a hiker who continued up the trail despite our warnings, and I spent most of this time thinking about them, and how a group of ten was still stalked by these two animals despite what should have been seen by them as our “advantage” over them. If a group of ten doesn’t ward them off, what will?
We make our way back to the trailhead and Damien calls the conservation office to report our encounter. At this point I am still so shaken up that my hands are trembling, but I am in relatively good spirits feeling incredibly lucky, and we are standing around as a group, making jokes and sharing our thoughts. Some of the hikers that had passed us going up the trail are at this point starting to come back down, having had second thoughts about their motivations for the day. We are very happy to see that! I am clapping my hands together for some of them!
After a little while of sharing thoughts and answering questions from some of the hikers we’d encountered, it’s time to head to our cars and go home, which feels almost wrong to me in this moment.
As we say our goodbyes and head to our vehicles, I can feel the emotions starting to catch up to me, now that my nervous system is recognizing that I am finally in relative safety. As I approach my car and am about to finally unload my heavy pack, I start completely unravelling emotionally, and can’t even get into the drivers seat before the tears and sobs are pouring out of me. I’m pretty sure that I also lock the car doors when I get in, even though I am now in a parking lot full of cars and people.
I sit there for a long while, and leave a hysterical-sounding, sob filled voice clip to a friend, because I need to get off my chest what just happened, to someone close to me. I know that I can’t contact my family in this state of emotions, because they worry enough as it is about all my solo adventuring! After this I start the car, and head down the road from the trailhead back to the highway. While driving out - I let out a probably-insane-sounding scream, while also crying, and try to just let it all out as best I can, without shame. I’m feeling like both the luckiest yet unluckiest person on the planet, am grateful for running into my solo hiker partner-in-crime who helped me fend these animals off, and am worried about future adventuring and my mental state, all in equal parts.
And I feel all of these emotions in those same equal parts, for a full week afterwards, while doing news interviews and telling the story to others countless times.
Today I am one week out from the experience, and it is still consuming my mind 95% of the time.
Life is wild. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And I am in awe of the human bonds that can happen with total strangers in the rarest of circumstances, and that is the beautiful silver lining of this experience!
Photo courtesy of Damien Bernard. Permission required.
