The death of a solo hiker in Colorado believed to involve a mountain lion is unfolding alongside a separate recent encounter on the same trail system, highlighting how quickly authorities and wildlife experts move when a fatality is suspected. Colorado Parks and Wildlife said the woman’s body, found Thursday on the Crosier Mountain trail, had injuries “consistent with a mountain lion attack.” An autopsy is scheduled for next week, and the coroner’s office is expected to determine the cause of death and publicly identify the victim afterward.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials also described an ongoing search and removals aimed at figuring out which animal—among multiple mountain lions in the area—may have been involved. Wildlife officials tracked down and killed two mountain lions, with one killed at the scene and another nearby. A necropsy is intended to determine whether either of the animals attacked the woman and whether they had neurological diseases, including rabies or avian flu, officials said.
At the same time, officials said they continued to look for a third mountain lion reported in the area. Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Kara Van Hoose said nearby trails remained closed while the hunt continued, and that circumstances would determine whether that third animal is also killed. The investigation remains focused on matching the animal(s) removed in the search to the circumstances of the death.
The case has also drawn attention to an earlier incident weeks before, involving a man who reported a mountain lion encounter on the same general trail on Nov. 11. Gary Messina, of Glen Haven, Colorado, said he was running along the Crosier Mountain trail on a dark November morning when his headlamp caught the gleam of two eyes in nearby brush. He told The Associated Press he took a quick photo with his phone before the mountain lion rushed him.
Messina said he threw the phone at the animal, kicked dirt and yelled as the lion kept trying to circle behind him. He said the fight lasted several minutes until he broke a bat-sized stick from a downed log and hit the lion in the head with it, after which it ran off. Messina said he was later scared for his life and reported the encounter to wildlife officials days after the encounter, prompting warnings that were posted on trails in the Crosier Mountain area and later removed.
Van Hoose said the last suspected fatal mountain lion encounter in Colorado was in 1999 and that earlier fatal incidents also occurred in 1997 in Rocky Mountain National Park, where a 10-year-old boy was killed and dragged away while hiking. She said two hikers saw the woman’s body on the trail at around noon from about 100 yards away on Thursday and threw rocks to scare away a mountain lion nearby. A physician among the hikers attended to the victim but did not find a pulse, she said.
Kara Van Hoose said mountain lion sightings east of Rocky Mountain National Park are common, in part because the area offers suitable habitat, including remote forest cover and rocky outcroppings with elevation changes. She said that despite the frequency of sightings, attacks on humans are rare, and she noted that Colorado has an estimated 3,800 to 4,400 mountain lions that are classified as big game species and can be hunted.
The Mountain Lion Foundation, a California-based advocacy group, provided additional context on the broader pattern of encounters and what officials and the public can do during an interaction. Byron Weckworth, the group’s chief conservation officer, said “As more people live, work, and recreate in areas that overlap wildlife habitat, interactions can increase, not because mountain lions are becoming more aggressive, but because overlap is growing.” He said the foundation recommends reducing risk by traveling in groups, keeping children close, and avoiding dawn and dusk when lions are most active.
Weckworth said that during an encounter people should maintain eye contact, make themselves appear larger, and back away slowly rather than running. The foundation said the killing on Thursday would be the fourth fatal mountain lion attack in North America over the past decade, while also noting that not all deaths have been confirmed as mountain lion attacks. The foundation said most attacks occur during the day and when people are active in lion territories, and that about 15% of attacks are fatal.
The investigation will rely in part on the necropsies of the animals killed as well as the autopsy of the victim. Coroner’s office officials said Rafael Moreno of the Larimer County Coroner’s Office scheduled an autopsy for next week and expected to provide a cause of death following that work.