As far as I can remember do we not have any kind of real dangerous animals in Germany and if you take a walk in the woods you can be rather careless, because nothing really bad will happen to you. You might see a wild boar but I guess that's pretty much it. Well, it's different in Wyoming, because there are wild animals and some of them can be dangerous if the want to :-) But still, I didn't care too much during my time up on the mountain and that was probably the best thing that could happen to me. It wouldn't have helped much if I had been scared all the times when I was on the trail.

Cally

One day, everything was a little bit different. It was the day when we had to give back the leased WYO horses. Early morning, Bill and I started to bring the herd in as usual. Brandon and Jessi were off to Yellowstone and so it was on us to do all the work that day :-) Some horses didn't want to get into the corral as always and I went down into the willows to get them, when I saw a gray tail. "What is Cally doing down here that early?" I thought and approached the bush where the animal hid. I stopped when it came out of the bush and looked at me. It was not Cally, it was a coyote. Whoa, where did all the horses go? They still were close-by and seemed not to be scared at all. So, I was standing there, looking at the coyote, the coyote looking at me. What a strange situation! I was glad to know that coyotes alone were not too dangerous, only packs of them. So, I tried to get closer to the little guy but he didn't like it that much and backed up. So I stopped, then he stopped. I went on approaching him, he backed up once more. It was a kind of a game, approaching, backing up, stopping .... until the coyote disappeared somewhere in the willows and I went on bringing the horses in.

That was nothing compared to what happened later that day... Jessi and Brandon had come back from Yellowstone and earlier Brandon's friend Zack arrived. We sat in the lodge and talked for a while until we decided to go to bed. Jessi and Brandon took the truck down to the wrangler's quarters cause they had a lot of stuff to unload. Before they left the lodge I already had been on my way down to our room. It was dark and silent when I suddenly heard a noise. I stopped. I heard it again. I've never heard that noise before: It was not a horse, not a moose, an owl, a coyote or a deer.... that sound belonged.... to a cat maybe? I walked on, slowly....heard that sound again. Yes, I guess it was a cat. Later on, when Jessica and Brandon were at the wrangler's quarters as well, I asked Brandon about that sound. Yes, it was a cat. And when people here on the mountain talk about cats, they talk about big cats: Mountain Lions. Zack had heard it too and from this day on, someone had to walk me down to my room at night, because I was kind of scared. Well anyway, it was an interesting experience.

Happy Trails