“Oh man, you have to just stare at this thing,” he said, describing how he “didn’t even blink” while he watched. Root, who first watched Burgess’ video early Monday, said it’s one of the most “emotional” and “terrifying” videos he’s ever seen of a mountain lion encounter. “So hopefully she’s moved on,” Root said. Root said DWR officers were notified of the encounter late Saturday night and came to the area Sunday morning to look for the mountain lions. “You did great,” Scott Root, DWR’s conservation outreach manager for central Utah, told Burgess on Monday, where they met at the Slate Canyon trailhead. Officials with Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources had nothing but praise for him.
Some viewers criticized him, others commended him for staying relatively calm and not running away. Burgess posted the video on Instagram where it received thousands of likes. 12, 2020, at cellphone video he took of his encounter with a mountain lion while on a run in Slate Canyon near Provo. His phone continued to explode with notifications. As of Monday afternoon, it had been viewed over 240,000 times. Now Burgess is dealing with the fallout of posting the six-minute video on Instagram. “My emotions were a jumbled mess,” he said.
During some of her pounces, Burgess said he was so sure she was going to attack, he squinted his eyes, bracing for pain. He said his heart and mind raced while he did his best to avoid an attack. He recounted how strikingly “beautiful” but also how powerful and “scary” the lioness was while he kept his eyes locked on hers. On his way back down, there was no sign of the cougar and her kittens. When he showed them the video recording on his phone, they realized he wasn’t joking. At one point, some other hikers came up the trail, and when he asked them if they’d seen a mountain lion, they laughed at him. So he waited about 30 minutes before trying again, this time holding a stick and rock in his hand. “Honestly right now it still feels like a dream.”īurgess, who was almost done with a 10-mile loop when he came across the mountain lion family, had to keep headed toward the Slate Canyon trailhead, or else he’d be facing a 7-mile run back. “Wow, that just happened,” Burgess recalled thinking after she finally took off. It nailed her, and that’s when she took off running back down the trail. Kyle BurgessĪfter those six minutes of terror and pure adrenaline, Burgess was finally able to pick up a rock and hurl it at the mountain lion. A mountain lion is seen stalking Kyle Burgess in cellphone video after he came upon it and a couple of cubs on a trail in Slate Canyon near Provo on Saturday, Oct. I don’t feel like dying today.”īut Burgess, who recounted the terrifying encounter to reporters at the mouth of Slate Canyon on Monday, got away without a scratch. “OK, this is when I (expletive) die,” he says. He pleads with her to turn back and “go get your babies.” Her powerful hind legs kicked up dust and gravel. With each pounce, her front paws and claws flared. “Go! Go! Go!” Burgess yells at her a minute into the video recorded encounter.īurgess said every time he took his eyes off her or tried to stoop down for a rock to throw at her, the mountain lion lunged at him, hissing.
He cursed, yelled, growled and grunted while she continued to follow him, flashing her teeth at him, her ears pinned, her tail swishing. The 26-year-old from Orem did everything he could think of to ward the mother cougar off.
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