Beware of Mountain Lions and Prisoners

I started my run yesterday in the fog. I found that when they say the forest is closed,they mean it. I had a hard time finding trails to run and even when I did, the forest service and firefighters kept popping up and redirecting me. I ended up doing a run on mostly new fire roads and getting lost, as usual.

At first glance, I thought these orangle clad people were firefighters, but as I got closer, I noticed 'prisoner' on the side of their pants. They were all women, too, and exactly what you imagine they would look like. Yikes. They were calling me honey and remarking to each other about how cute I was. I found out that their job was to carry these hoses back to the trucks at Upper Oso campground. It was quite a hike for them, it was impressive. I figured it was probably better than sitting inside prison.

One very nice fire fighter showed me his map of all the new fire roads and tried to give me clear directions on getting back to Paradise Rd. I took a picture of the map(top picture) so I could look at it later. He warned me that there were several mountain lions in the area, due to the fire and that I should be very careful. This was about the fourth person who told me the same thing. Normally, I could relax and not worry too much about such things, but I kept seeeing deer, thinking they were hungry mountain lions and getting startled. Unfortunatley, his directions still didn't get me back to the right area.

I didn't mind so much being lost, but I ended up on private property and some woman scolded me. She directed me off the ranch, which put me on Stagecoach Rd., which ends at Paradise. From there, I had 8 miles of road to get back to my car. I ran out of water and was sufficiently tired when I reached the car, but loaded up on water and went out for a few more miles. I saw mountain lion tracks over my shoe prints from hours before. This freaked me out.

I took this picture from the top of the Alisos Trail. It surprised me how dry the river looked. Despite it all, the fire, the mountain lions and the lack of water, I was so happy to be out there again. I really miss the access to the trails. It's going to be very interesting exploring where the fire has been and see what new roads and trails have been made to get to the fire.