‘Go away!’ SoCal hiker captures close encounter with mountain lion on Ojai trail

For the first six miles of Cortney Rasura’s morning hike near Ojai, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

She finished listening to her podcast. She’d stayed on pace. And she had been entirely alone in the wilderness — or so she thought.

But as she approached her last two miles on the Gridley Trail in Los Padres National Forest she found herself face-to-face with an unexpected visitor: a mountain lion.

“I glanced up and that’s when I saw the mountain lion walking toward me,” Rasura, 54, said in an interview with The Times. “And it was right on the path. ... In all my years I’ve never seen one.”

She said her instinct was to record it — as an experienced hiker, she knew how rare it was to see a big cat so close. And though she was hiking alone, she said, initially she didn’t feel threatened.

“It looked curious, as was I,” Rasura said. She estimated the puma was about 15 to 20 yards away.

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SoCal hiker captures close encounter with mountain lion

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In two videos she shared on Instagram, Rasura captured the first moment she saw the mountain lion on her hiking trail.

“No! Go away!” she yelled.

After a few steps on the path, the cat diverted off the trail.

“That’s right. Go away.”

But the mountain lion circled back down onto the path. This time, it appeared to be headed directly at her — and from a much closer distance.

“It came back out of the brush and started coming toward me,” she recalled. “Then panic really set in.”

In the second video, she yells more loudly and rapidly: “No! No! No!”

Rasura said she made eye contact with the cat, but remembered not to turn, crouch or run. She said lifted her arms to try to appear big.

Then, after taking several steps toward her, the mountain lion bounds up the hillside. You can hear Rasura’s relief in the video as she mutters, “thank you!”

“You never know what you’re going to say or do,” Rasura said. “It’s amazing but it’s terrifying.”

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Rasura appeared to do several of the things that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife recommends if you encounter a mountain lion. The agency tells people to try to remain calm and, if possible, appear larger. It also warns people to never run, approach the animal or crouch down.

Fish and Wildlife also encourages people to take steps to avoid mountain lion encounters, such as hiking in groups, not hiking at dawn, dusk or nighttime, and keeping food stored properly.

According to the department, there have been a dozen mountain lion attacks on humans in the last decade in California, one fatal. Even still, the agency said such attacks remain quite rare, as humans are 1,000 times more likely to be struck by lightning than attacked by a mountain lion.

Andrew Madsen, a spokesperson for Los Padres National Forest, said he wasn’t immediately aware if the encounter had been reported. But he said it’s U.S. Forest Service policy to add signs to a trail head after a recent mountain lion sightings and leave those signs up for at least a year.

Madsen said rangers at their Ojai office would review the videos and proceed accordingly.

Rasura is determined to not let the encounter deter her from hiking, even though she said it was jarring. The avid hiker has already gone back to the trail where she saw the puma — but slightly later in the day and packing more gear.

“Now I’m carrying bear spray when I go back up there. I’m taking an air horn,” she said. “It just reminds you: Always be prepared.”