Cat Eyes

In March, three weeks after the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar officially extinct, I got on the phone with a man named Joe Kennedy to talk about the cougar he saw in the Catskill Mountains, in upper New York State. Kennedy was, in fact, the twenty-ninth person I’d talked to who claimed to have seen the fabled Catskill cougar. The incarnations were cryptic. Here was the big cat flitting about in summer grass. There, racing across roads, alighting in backyards with tail quizzical and bouncy. Or, disappearing into the darkness, leaving only the certainty of the vision. Always the sightings were recalled with awed delight and a hint of conspiracy – a secret had been made flesh.

The cougar, in these parts called the mountain lion, would not be uncomfortable in the thousand square miles of the Catskills. The mountains are forbidding in the backcountry, the boreal peaks rising to 4,000 feet, capped with tangled balsam fir forests that gather heaps of snow and ice in winter, in spring dispersing the run-off into streams and waterfalls off craggy ledges and down into abysmal hollows where the fur-bearing mammals come to drink. The locals say that God made the earth in seven days and on the eighth he threw rocks at the Catskills. The stony soil of the high country offers little chance for crops, but there is much to eat for a cougar: White-tail deer fill the woods, noisy packs of coyotes have moved in from the north and the west, and there is a surfeit of fox, badger, porcupines, rabbits, and beaver, all of which a cougar will stoop to eating when deer aren’t on the table. In summer, the understory in the hardwood forests at the lower elevations, where man long ago abandoned logging and tanning, turns thick and difficult, choked with thorny brush and blowdowns. In places the forest is boggy and mosquito-infested and dark and full of mists – places in which to get utterly lost. This wilderness is abutted by the little towns and villages where the majority of the humans in the Catskills prefer to live, while a good portion of it, about 40 percent, is protected in the Catskill Forest Preserve, under the auspices of the New York State Department of Conservation , better known as the DEC, which counts among its mandates the tracking of wild animal populations.

Joe Kennedy did not have kind words for the DEC, though it was a sister agency to his own employer, the Department of Environmental Protection , or DEP, which is tasked primarily with protecting the reservoirs that provide the “champagne” drinking water for New York City. The reason for the enmity was that the people at DEC laughed at him – a colleague in government service! – for claiming to have seen a mountain lion.

Green Cascadia: Badger Creek Camp - March 2011

Badger Creek Wilderness is located on the eastern flanks of Mt. Hood, ending just before the sagebrush desert begins.  The area is unique due to this strange mingling of zones, part desert, part fir and pine forest.  The result is an odd hybrid, containing a mix of both, as well as strange stunted scrub oak forests, miniature trees small even at maturity.  Sometimes even the sagebrush creeps in, nestled under the pines. The timing of our backcountry camps has to coincide with the seasons.  The higher elevation places simply aren't accessible without snowshoes or dog teams for a lot of the year, so I have learned to locate a place for all seasons.  Somehow, we manage to find a different Badger Creek camp each year, each with it's own unique opportunities for getting to know the land. My good friend Mark, owner of the Oasis Resort in Maupin (and mighty fine fly fishing guide) usually hosts our Badger Creek campouts.  In fact, every Father's Day Weekend, Mark hosts the legendary Deschutes River RendezVW, dedicated to VW bus owners and their families.   Look no further for memorable guided fishing trips on the famous Deschutes River! I can imagine no other place that I'd rather be than out in nature. I have been fascinated with the natural world from a very young age, spending much of my youth in local forest preserves and wild places. In my 20s I traveled much of the country in search of these forgotten places, exploring and camping with family and friends. Ever since, I have been introducing individuals, groups and families to the miracle places for over 20 years, be it camping trips, backpacking, or day trips into our marvelous backcountry. Since 2005 I have been a volunteer for the US Forest Service - Clackamas River District. Work includes trail and habitat restoration, recovery of historic sites, and locating and documenting fading history that still pulses with a lifeforce in our woods. I am a certified guide for the US Forest Service and am a registered guide for the state of Oregon. I also possess Wilderness First Aid training from the American Red Cross.

Badger Creek Wilderness

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