Wolf Creek Rd, Veneta, OR.
The night before this picture was taken I was driving home in a dense fog on a winding road in a pretty rural part of Oregon. As I came around a pretty tight turn I saw movement on the side of the road and brought my car to a stop. A mountain lion jumped out from the gulley on the side of the road and stared at me for several seconds. When I went to grab my camera she took off into the woods. I drove down the road a bit and circled back hoping for an opportunity to catch another glimpse.
This morning I went out to the same spot hoping to catch some low lying fog in the valley with the trees breaking though (see below). I turned off the main road onto a logging road approximately a mile from where I'd been the night before.
I'd once heard Nick Page say that whenever he's in a place where there might be cool wildlife he drives with his longest lens on his camera ready to go. This is advice I've taken to heart and I credit it with almost all the wildlife shots I've gotten.
As I turned off the road I saw a group of three mountain lions about 100 feet down the road. I grabbed my camera as two of them took off into the woods. The third stood up and walked into the road and stared me down. She walked across the road then looked back at me again before meandering into the woods. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to see such a majestic animal even once. To have encountered a group of them, something nearly unheard of as they are solitary cats, within 24 hours of my initial sighting was truly surreal.
Wolf Creek Rd, Veneta, OR