On the Trail of a Cougar

By: Filip Tkaczyk

Tracks the size of my palm lay at my feet. I felt a thrill at seeing them here in this forest. Their trapezoidal, “m – shaped” main pad and tear-dropped shaped toe pads identified their maker. Her trail padded smoothly from the fern-enveloped forest edge onto this human hiking trail. Snow had fallen a foot deep over the past two days, and laid thick in the forest but had melted and gotten compressed on the human path. She walked down this path for only short ways, stepping hind foot into the place her front foot had been. Moving in an energy-saving manner known as a direct register walk. Then her tracks turned and crossed again into the forest on the opposite side of the trail.

I paused, listening and watching. The land was very quiet, with only the beautifully measured calls of a northern pygmy owl carrying through the trees. Toot, pause, toot. The call was single, clear, whistled note that was timed precisely, about 1 call every two seconds. The sound resonated through the forest like a single note sounded on a some mysterious, chambered instrument. It hung in the air each time, as if time slowed slightly to prolong the note.

I felt the deep sense of invitation, the pull of this string of tracks moving sinuously through the undergrowth of the wildwood to places unknown. Tracking is not merely recognizing signs left by animals through their movements, but an opportunity to engage with a language older by far than the human species. The language of the animate world, of bodies on bodies. Of many sharing breath and moving together in the grand family of wild beings. Tracking is about engaging with the unfolding stories all around us, and knowingly stepping into them. Of learning to not just recognize who is there living their lives and sharing their stories, but doing so as part of a journey of remembering and re-membering. Stepping back into the wild as a member, a conscious participant.

I took a step off the human path, and plunged into the snowy depths of the ferns. This long-tailed, furred ghost was pulling me to follow. She was stepping carefully through the forest, staying unfailingly in her careful walking gait. She moved fluidly, gliding under this fallen log and that deeply bowed vine maple. Then up and over larger logs, walking along them where she could, to get a better view and avoid the deeper snow among the ferns.

In contrast, my own body felt heavy and rather uncoordinated moving through this undulating landscape. I would trip on hidden branches, sink deeply into hidden cavities under the snow and get slapped in the face by low hanging branches. At this point, I was being reminded of how ungainly bipeds can be moving through a dense forest. Especially with the added obstacle of snow, making every step an unknown. My struggles disturbed several pairs of Pacific wrens in the undergrowth, and they were quick to chew me out with their rapid kip-kip alarm calls.

At one point, I decide my clumsy movements reached a peak of rudeness and disturbance. So, within sight of two wrens I slowly sank down onto my ankles and sat down in the snow. I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing and apologized to the wrens and the forest for being such a disturbance. I imagined all of my bodily tension, discomfort, attachment and desire for outcome leaving my body and sinking down into the soil to be metabolized by the fungi and tree roots. Within a short time, the wrens slowed their agitated calls, then stopped. One started a meandering feeding route towards me, and ended up about 2 feet from my knee. I peaked at them through my nearly shut eyes, and the looked like that were pondering whether to hop up into my lap. I could feel their curiosity and their shinning little eyes peering at me. Their presence was rapid, excitable and vibrating kind of alertness.

Then the wren moved on, and foraged further on into the forest past me. I let a few minutes pass and then got up as smoothly as I could. The tracks of the cougar awaited, directly ahead of me. The shadowed areas pressed in by the pads of the passing cat’s feet stood out in the brilliant snow. I could feel a shift now, and having more properly re-established my presence in this moss and snow laden forest, I continued on. The wild forest was quieter now, and so was I.

I found myself falling into sync with this wild feline queen. As I followed her trail, up onto logs, and through ephemeral vernal pools I no longer struggled as much. Without conscious thought, I found myself pausing where she had paused and looking careful around. Only to then notice her tracks indicated she had done the same thing. She seemed to be searching the area for her favorite prey: deer. Several times her trail crossed the trail of a deer, and once she deliberately investigated a well-worn deer bed that had been used to the point where the snow had been cleared out. As I followed in her footsteps, I found myself losing my sense of where the human path was. The feline huntress circled several times in a small area, at one point even squeezing her large body under a dense set of vine maples the lowest of which was barely 14 inches from the ground.

Her circling trail led me to a spot where I ended up stepping into my own tracks. I continued to follow her and she then popped out onto another human trail. I was feeling a lithe, flowing gracefulness in my body now. My senses were on high alert. I was no longer tripping, falling or getting slapped by branches. I could feel the cat in my body, and a deep connection to her. This wasn’t transcendence. This was embodiment. Not a movement up and away, but a dropping in and being with. This was a remembering my wholeness as human, as wild being. The true relatedness that isn’t in the head, but in the body and in the heart. Sometimes when you follow the trail of an animal, you feel that. You feel that bubble of imagined boundaries dissolving. You and the land are no longer separate, and you are not just in your head. You are really settled in your body, moving with the world.

The trail moved in a direct register trot and walk straight down the length of the path, and I followed. At one point, I felt this electric zing in my body when I heard the alarm calls of distant Pacific wrens. I stopped and looked around slowly. Then I saw that even though her tracks continued to lead down the path, much fresher tracks cut back directly towards me and then sharply cut of the trail near where I was standing. The alarms continued, and there were 3 different wrens all calling about 150 or so feet off the path.

Now a very curious thing happened, as two opposing thoughts arose at once. In my mind was the desire to follow and see her. To close the distance. But loudly in my body I felt and heard a clear “NO.” It was clear to me that if I pursued her from here, I was going to push her out of her hiding spot. I might glimpse her dashing out of there, but it would have been an act of deep disrespect. It would have taken the gift of deep connection she had given me through her trail and dishonored it. I could clearly see how my colonized mind wanted to turn this final part of the experience into an accomplishment through which I would gain something. To commodify this moment into a concrete end I could extract and claim as a success. A form of domination, where seeing the cougar at the trails end meant I had achieved something. My body clearly said to show her respect and walk away.

How would it serve her and honor the gifts of her trail by pushing her, making her feel fear at my presence? So I stood there listening for a long while, then slowly walked away in the direction I thought was least disturbing to her. My body hummed from this experience, as my feet carried me away. There was a buoyancy in me and a renewed sense of aliveness. Above the forest canopy, I heard the distinct cutting swish of the wings of a raven.