Cougar sightings reported at Mount Spokane

PREDATORS — At least two parties have reported seeing a mountain lion at Mount Spokane State Park in the past two weeks.

Normally elusive, a cougar was seen and photographed in daylight outside the Quartz Mountain Lookout .

Joe and Gail Madsen were renting the lookout for the night and saw the cat when they woke in the morning.

” Well she is 7’ nose to tail, 180 lbs and has now circled the lookout twice!” Joe posted on Facebook at 9:15 a.m. on July 30.

On Thursday night, Spokane Valley pastor and photographer Craig Goodwin sighted a cougar after he’d worked his way up to the top of Mount Spokane to photograph meteor showers in the night sky.

“My Perseid meteor location didn’t work out but I did come across a young mountain lion on the road,” he said Friday.

“It was right by the intersection of Mount Spokane Park Road and North Summit Road. I don’t have any pictures but I have no doubt about the ID. I’m guessing it is a juvenile based on the size.”

There’s no way to know if the two sightings involved the same cougar.  However, regular sightings of a mountain lion in the same vicinity would be cause for park visitors to be wary.

• By coincidence, shortly after making this post a family in Idaho fended off a cougar trying to carry off a child from their campsite.

Earlier this summer, a Spokane man captured a trail cam photo of what is likely a gray wolf on Mount Spokane.

Bears, coyotes and other predators are known to be on the mountain, along with the most unpredictable critters in the park — moose.

Remember, the main state park road is closed to motor vehicles this summer for construction, but the trails are open to hiking and mountain biking.