Hiker’s Terrifying Cougar Encounter Captured in 6-Minute Viral Video
“Dude, I don’t feel like dying today.”
A hiker’s extremely intense encounter with a protective mother cougar was captured in a video that’s currently going viral. Kyle Burgess, 26, recorded his scary six-minute ordeal in Slate Canyon near Provo, Utah.
An understandably panicked Burgess rattles off a host of expletives in the first seconds of the clip, when the wild cat first approaches him at brisk speed, at times lunging and snarling at him.
“You see the two cubs and one kind of runs off, but then I didn’t notice mom was right there and that’s when I knew it was not a good situation to be in,” he later told CBS News.
Throughout the video, Burgess can be heard roaring and desperately begging the cougar to leave as he’s backed several yards away from the site of the initial contact.
“Go away!” he says in the video, adding, somewhat unconvincingly: “Please, go away. I’m big and scary.” The mountain lion evidently didn’t agree, as she eventually charged at him with her claws out.
“Dude, I don’t feel like dying today,” Burgess says during the video. “Go with your babies. This is scary. My heart is racing.”
The terrifyingly tense incident was brought to an end when Burgess finally manages to throw a rock that sent the menacing cougar scrambling away from him back up the trail.
Kate Remsen, who works with the Living with Lions, told CBS News that despite appearances, the animal was was not stalking Burgess, but driving him away from her cubs. She added that such encounters rare, as “mountain lions are not going to actively attack a human being unless they need to defend themselves or they’re scared.”
“Holy cow,” Burgess says into his camera at the viral video’s conclusion. “Yeah, not going back that way.”
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