This is not for the faint of heart.
I’m not sure if there’s many more terrifying situations on this planet, than being face to face with a dangerous creature in the wild, and being unarmed.
All you can do is pray that the creature doesn’t attempt to attack, and if it does, you’re pretty much dead meat, because you ain’t gonna outrun a bear or mountain lion. Nor should you try…
I can’t imagine the thoughts going through one’s head in a situation like this, and it’s something I hope I never encounter at any point in my life.
With that being said, a heart-pounding video has surfaced of an elk hunter in Idaho, that recently came face to face with a mountain lion, stalking behind him in the high grass, ears pinned back and ready to attack.
As you can see in the footage, the mountain lion is sitting only a few feet from elk hunter John C. Erickson.
He points his .40 caliber Glock 27 at the dangerous creature and slowly walks backwards, but the mountain lion continues to slowly follow.
You can hear him say:
“Get back!”
You can hear the nervousness in his voice, and he’s breathing heavy, so you already know that he’s terrified (as he should).
Once the mountain lion begins to speed up in his direction, he fires the first shot, appearing to barely miss the creature as it darts off backwards a few feet.
However, it appears it wasn’t enough to scare it away completely, so Erickson fires another, which seems to be enough to keep the mountain lion away for good.
Erickson discussed the terrifying moment with Field & Stream:
“That video was about the last half of our encounter. The mountain lion had been stalking me for about 30 to 45 seconds before I got my phone out. That was my first confrontation with a predator.”
Terry Thompson, the regional communications manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, told the outlet that it appears the mountain lion was easily in attack mode:
“We haven’t had any attacks in Idaho for years. This (cat) looks like it’s kind of in stealth mode. That’s not a good sign. It’s in effect stalking him. It could have kittens back in those conifers and aspens in the background, but you’d never know.”
Needless to say, the situation could’ve been much worse.
