None but the Brave: Trail Bikers Revisit Scene of Cougar Attacks

Nils Magnuson shook his head in disbelief as he waded into the shoulder-high brush to reconstruct the most terrifying mountain bike ride of his life.

The last time he was here, on the Cactus Hill trail at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in South County, Magnuson was frantically looking for rocks to throw at a mountain lion that attacked a young woman, dragging her down a steep, brushy canyon.

Magnuson didn’t think twice about returning to Whiting on Tuesday, the first day the park was open to the public since Jan. 8, when a mountain lion killed Mark Reynolds and seriously injured Anne Hjelle hours later.

In fact, Magnuson’s third child was due to be born Tuesday. But he had planned to return to the scene as soon as possible.

“I can’t wait to go back,” he said at the trailhead of the main gate in Foothill Ranch. “I have to retrace my steps.”

In an e-mail to her fellow Christian riders in the Trail Angels, Hjelle expressed thanks for their prayers and support. She said she believed that God had protected her and that her story would inspire others.

“Let me tell you ... my life was protected! I am in awe of God’s grace,” she wrote.

On Tuesday, other avid bikers, hikers and runners who consider Whiting Ranch their own outdoor playground also returned to reclaim the trails that snake through the rugged foothills. They trickled in, usually in pairs or groups. Many acknowledged that the attacks have made them more aware of wilderness dangers. Some said their confidence had been shaken.

Jeff Young, 28, of Irvine was one of the first back inside the park. When he got to the main gate at 9 a.m., two hours after it opened, no other cars were in the parking lot. He had second thoughts about riding alone, but found no one to go with him.

Young, who looped the trails for 16 miles, said he didn’t see another rider. Having the park to himself is something he usually treasures. But Tuesday, Young said he would have felt better if there had been at least one other rider out there.

At one point, Young said, he saw a pair of deer and froze, then felt something brush his leg. He took off immediately. But it was only the strap to his backpack.

“It was definitely a little bit eerie,” he said after his ride. “When something like this happens, you almost have to force yourself to get out there again.”

Magnuson, 33, of Long Beach, thought he was going to have to ride alone. But he was able to recruit two of Hjelle’s fellow Trail Angels at the last minute.

And after a short prayer at the main gate, they were off on a five-mile ride that would take them to the scene of the attacks.

“This is where it all started,” Magnuson said after the group arrived a few miles later at Four Corners, a popular meeting spot where he had come across Hjelle and her riding partner, Debi Nicholls, shortly before he came to their rescue.

Magnuson pointed out where he spotted Reynolds’ Canondale bicycle propped up against a bush at a bend along a downhill section of the narrow Cactus Hill Trail. The trio agreed that it wasn’t a spot where an experienced rider like Reynolds would have stopped.

And contrary to reports by investigators, Magnuson told the women that the chain on Reynolds’ bike was not broken. He theorized that another rider must have come through before he did and picked the bike up off the trail.

Magnuson then led the way about 40 or 50 yards down the trail where the lion had attacked Hjelle, dragging her down a steep canyon thick with cactus, thorny bushes and tall brush.

The landscape was not what either of the Trail Angels accompanying Magnuson had imagined.

“This is freaky,” said Elaine Gold of Rancho Santa Margarita, one of Magnuson’s companions.

“This is not how I pictured it at all.”

Gold’s friend Jacke Van Woerkom of Lake Forest initially said she hadn’t intended to return to Whiting, and especially the Cactus Trail, so soon. But she reconsidered after talking to Magnuson and Gold on Tuesday morning.

Magnuson said he felt a bit of anxiety as he approached the scene, but that he wasn’t going to let fear stop him from mountain biking. He said he still thinks about Reynolds and is glad he was able to help Hjelle.

Gold and Van Woerkom said seeing everything made it even tougher to comprehend the terror of Jan. 8.

“I wanted to come to the park as soon as it opened,” Van Woerkom said. “Not as a statement, just for my own personal self.”