My name is Travis Kaufman I am originally from Mountain Home Arkansas
and I've been in Fort Collins for about five years now a little bit over five
years. I came out west for an active outdoor lifestyle the good weather
pretty much the recreation in general so getting into different new sports so
last year I really got into mountain biking also kind of around that time
trail running but also a big downhill skier some cross-country skiing so the
activities this is a great state for for just building up more and more hobbies.
So I got into trail running really about a year ago I would go out and usually do
about five miles or so at the end of workdays and I'd run in the trails,
foothills trail like around town the trails up at Lory and then also into
Horsetooth mountain space. So I was running on Monday February 4th, I was
going out starting in in Lory State Park and I was gonna do between a 12 and
15 mile run so starting from the Arthur's Rock parking lot I ran along
the south valley trails through Lory park and then ended up linking up with a
Horsetooth mountain park and from there did my first Towers run of the year. It's
actually the first time i've ran Towers i've only mountain biked it before but I
just know it's an intense hill, it's really good for for getting some hill
training in so I was a little bit nervous and jazzed up about actually
just running the hill and getting that complete. So I was running up the hill
finally made it up to the top of towers and up there I went down on a trail
through the south I think it's called pirate Trail but others just call it
West Ridge Trail and so running along West Ridge Trail I was planning on just
going to Horsetooth Rock but along the trail
there's some pretty icy conditions and I was slipping a little bit more than I
wanted to so I turned back and then I remember seeing a spur for West Ridge
they went to the east of towers and so I took that spur and then about a quarter
mile into that run I heard some pine needles rustle behind me and luckily I
was able to actually turn my head. I'd say more often than not I would turn
my head but, sometimes I wouldn't, thinking it's just a deer or a rabbit or
any sort of small woodland creature but and the back of my mind there's always
that thought that it could be something else and that's something else this time
happened to be a mountain lion so one of my worst fears is confirmed and just
kind of had like my heart sink into my stomach a little bit and threw my hands
up and started yelling and when I first turned around the cat was probably 10
feet away from me and it just kept approaching and as it got close it just
kind of lunged at me so I threw my arms up and it latched onto my wrist so I was
just kind of protecting my face so yeah lash on my wrist and then it just
started clawing along my like face and then my legs and I was just kind of
screaming the whole time doing my barbarian yell as best I could and I
tried to throw it off of me and as I tried to throw it off me like we both
left the trail because it just regripped onto my wrist and kind of tumbled off
the slope to the south side of the trail and from there is like just a wrestling
match it was thrashing and then still had my wrist locked in its jaws and I
was able to kinda get my left knee to pin down its back legs because as a
pretty new cat owner I realized that once you get a cat on
it's back legs go crazy and that little rabbit thrash and so it's pretty weary
the the back claw is actually hitting my my guts or my groin or anything like
that so I was able to pin down its back legs with my left knee and then the
front paws I... I don't actually remember what what happened with those I mean I
was kind of deflecting them with my left hand but then I was grabbing at some
sticks that were close by and I was trying to stab it in the throat with
some sticks. Unfortunately the sticks were kind of
rotten so they kept on breaking and then I was able to pick up a big rock with my
left hand and I was trying to hit it on the head with the big rock but it was
kind of a tough angle because my wrist is still in its mouth and I'm not really
getting a full swing but I was able to kind of hit it in the back of the head a
few times and I just knew that it was gonna be super effective so then I used
just a little body weight transition and got my right leg close to my wrist and
was able to finally get it on to the cat's neck and then I stepped on its
neck and then eventually was able to suffocate it and then it finally
released from my wrist. And then after the incident after I was able to finally
get it to release by unfortunately killing it I was able to run back to the
Towers trail but that whole run back I I was on a crazy high fear I don't fear
high I don't know what you call it but I was I was bookin' and I was just
realizing that all of these little rock overhangs are just like perfect lion
territory and like everything I was seeing and I was looking down and I was
seeing some tracks in the snow because I was on the the north facing side of the
mountain and I was like well these are probably lion tracks now that I look
closely enough and so the the fear was definitely tangible then. I ended up
having to run another three miles down, luckily along
the way I... I came across a trail runner probably around mile two who was running
up, so he saw my situation, accompanied me down so we jogged down the remaining of
remaining miles of towers and then ran into another couple pretty close to the
Soderberg parking lot area of Horsetooth and they had a cell phone and I don't
know if they actually contacted any Rangers directly but they followed us
down to the parking lot and then of that couple this really nice woman Rachel she
gave me a ride to the hospital while the first runner I encountered, Spencer,
he took her husband Noah to go get my truck out Lory so I was parked at
Lory which is probably six and a half miles from where the attack occurred and
then ended up on the south side so we were at Soderberg parking lot and that's
where I got a ride to the hospital. So after I got to the hospital they got me
cleaned up and then were able to kind of see the extent of the wounds. Everything
my face was just kind of a bloody mess when I first got there. So once
everything got washed out they they knew they're gonna have to give me some
stitches along my cheek so I ended up getting 17 stitches along my cheek here
and then another six along the bridge of my nose and then two over here on this
side of the cheek and then I got another three stitches in my wrist where the the
lion had latched on for the majority of the fight. Other than that it was just a
bunch of I have several puncture wounds that were just from teeth or claws so
nothing no long gashes, just a lot of small little circle sized things and at
the hospital luckily they pumped me full a bunch of antibiotics so hopefully all
those puncture wounds don't amount to an infected wound so so far I'm about a
week out and I feel great. Things are healing up really nicely.
I think it's just one of those really weird sensational stories, it's super
rare, I feel like I should go buy a bunch of lottery tickets but it's it's one of
those things where it captures the imagination just because it's a
modern-day man versus nature scenario potentially. I know there's not that much
of it we get a little bit more disconnected as as we've I come through
the 21st century so I know there's still I think a degree of aura and mystique
around that that there is certain scenarios we can still kind of have a
really dangerous and potentially deadly experience in nature. Yeah my advice for
people who would be a little bit more reluctant to go into the backcountry or
open spaces is to again just be aware that you are sharing that space with
wildlife and one of the things that I'm really glad that I did was turn my head
and I couldn't have done that if I had earbuds in so I think just to kind of
fully appreciate the sights and sounds of nature go without earbuds and if you
can go with the buddy that's something that I will be doing going forward going
and doing some of my more long remote runs with a friend and also whenever
mountain biking season comes around doing the same.
you