High Sierra Topix

Just got back from Mineral King 5 day trip to Clover Meadow (Below Monarch Lakes), Sawtooth, Lost Canyon, Big Five lakes, Pinto lake back to trailhead. I will have a trip report up in a couple days. But, what I wanted to ask is if anyone has had this experience. While at lower Big Five Lakes, my buddy, Marc and I were at the campfire relaxing and all of a sudden Marc whips around and shines the flashlight into the woods and we see these reflective green eyes beaming back at us. We sat and stared at these eyes for minutes they stared back and moved very little and had ducked behind a log briefly and poked his head back up and continued to stare. Not knowing what it was or why it was watching, we threw a rock thinking it might be a bear or mountain lion coming for our food. Whatever it was it took off and didn't return. A friend for mine suggested we had an encounter with a Sasquach. While I was out there that hadn't come to mind but now that he has mentioned it, it makes me wonder. He had suggested and animal wouldn't have appeared to be studying us and it's behavior didn't appear animal like. He as had friends that live in the Sierras tell him about their encounters with the creature. Any thoughts or similar experiences?

All the Sasquatchs I've seen have had hazel eyes.

:-)

Andy

acorad wrote:All the Sasquatchs I've seen have had hazel eyes.

:-)

Andy

Same here. More yellow than green.

it was a deer.


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Felines have eyes that reflect green at night. You need to figure out the spacing etc to get an idea of what it is. I ran into a coyote at 2am playing with my bear can on a picnic table. Figured it out with brown/yellow eyes and about a 4" spacing...

I think that AlmostThere is probably right and it was probably a deer. The old "deer in a headlight" syndrome where if you shine a light in their face they freeze. I've had only one experience with this. Once I realized what was going on and turned off my flashlight the deer took off.

I did a quick search of the web and the opinion is that at night deer's eyes are adjusted for low light and when you shine you flashlight at them they go blind and will freeze until their eyes adjust. So that would explain why it stared at you for minutes before ducking down behind the log.

Researchers also believe that deer have poor eyesight and depend more on detecting movement. So it could be that the deer could only see the light and didn't know there were humans there until you threw the rock. So it was staring again to try to determine what was out there.

You didn't mention how high off the ground the eyes seemed to be.

Forgot to mention some specifics. It appeared to be about 3 feet for so off the ground but was tough to tell cause it was down hill from us, but looked like it could be crouched behind a log. I searched the area and found no tracks of any kind. We also took the light off of it and went back a couple minutes later possibly as many as five. When we checked back it was still looking at us.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was, and still am curious as hell to what it was. Mountain Lion, deer, coyote, bear or Sasquach, whatever it was it sure did add to our trip. It made for some good trail talk. It wasn't a scary moment or anything just a real curious one.

All the deer I have encountered at night act and look like that. Since my dog growls at every single deer every time, I see lots of green eyes hovering out there....

if you throw a rock at said target right between the two "eyes", and it throws a rock back at you, then it's not a deer; otherwise, it's probably a deer.

cool, first for me. it was fun.