Oh yes! Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
I can still hear Marlin Perkins narration “while Jim wrestles the giant alligator, I stay back st the campsite to prepare the gin and tonics.”

The joke in Montana is - how can you tell the difference between grizzly and black bear scat?

Grizzly scat has the little bells in it.

@RichCC

Two cougars stalked us, Olympic National Park, July 1977

At age 24, I backpacked to Flapjack Lakes in Olympic National Park with two young men. The trail was very steep, gaining 4,000 feet in elevation over seven miles. Like climbing stairs. I carried a 40-lb. pack.

When we arrived, the lake was crowded. We quickly put up the tent, shoving our backpacks inside. I loaded a rucksack with water, food, jacket, frisbee and grabbed my dad's old Super 8 movie camera. Up we climbed on the slopes of Mt. Gladys. Heavy snow that year.

I ran ahead on the snow crust while the guys broke through.

A white wall of snow loomed ahead. "I wonder what I can see from the top," I thought. I ran up that wall, kicking steps in the ice as I went. A taller white wall loomed. Up again. Halfway up the third white wall, I heard "Kathleen! STOP!"

Turning, I couldn't get down. It was too steep and I had no brake (ice axe). So I sat down on the frisbee I was holding in my hand. I hollered "Catch me!" and pushed off. Steering with my boots, I shot down three steep, icy hills. If the guys hadn't tackled me, I would have rocketed down the river into the Hood Canal.

"You could have been killed!" the guys yelled. I ran ahead to get away from their complaining.

Suddenly a giant, tawny cat leaped 15 feet atop a boulder. I was transfixed. It was a cougar. It was less than 1/8 mile below me in a small meadow. I began filming. The cougar jumped down, walked across the snow, stopped in the shadow of the river, and I couldn't see it. It walked toward me, froze in a patch of yellow flowers, and I couldn't see it. By then, the guys had arrived at my side.

The cougar was heading up the hill toward us. We yelled and threw down rocks. It didn't stop. Suddenly it was joined by another cougar on the side. The two cats relentlessly headed uphill toward us.

"Put the camera away! We're leaving." We hurried down to the lake, staying close with me in the middle. Giant boulders overhead. A mountain lion could have easily jumped down on us.

We hurried down to Flapjack Lake. People. Safety in numbers. But was Sunday evening and everybody had gone home. Nobody went outside to pee that night.

The next day, we excitedly told the ranger at Staircase Ranger Station. He was amazed. Over 14 years, he had never seen a cougar, although he saw their footprints. "Cougar follow the deer that were driven down by heavy snow this year," he said.

@LiterateHiker -- Great story. Big animals are amazing to see.

I've never seen a lion in the wild but I know that they can be strangely confident almost to the point of arrogance.

A ranger from the Canyon's North Rim once told me a story of a lion that wouldn't leave a road. The ranger was driving somewhere and the cat was lying on a road warming itself. The ranger didn't want the cat to get hit so he tried to shoo it away from danger. But the cat wouldn't move.
The ranger tried to scare the cat with his truck and even honked his horn but it refused to leave. Finally after a half hour or so the lion casually wandered off, I guess finally annoyed.
The cat apparently knew who was in charge of the situation. Lol.

@LiterateHiker Kathleen you do have a great many adventures, you should memorialize them for your descendants, this is a gem of personal history!

@scout123456 I vaguely remember @LiterateHiker mentioning a journal at some point. I agree with you. The stories sound as if they are worth writing into a collection.

@scout123456, @RichCC

Thank you.

On my computer I keep a journal, Ecstatic and Scary Hiking Experiences. It begins at age 21 when I moved from Michigan to Washington State to climb mountains.

My brother and daughter have photographic memories. I have a clear, detailed memory for conversations and experiences that struck me.

What did you say? lol