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chez
Social climber
chicago ill
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Oct 17, 2009 - 10:30pm PT
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Another time a friend was watching our daughter at mill pond which is enclosed by a chain link fence. She checked to see where our daughter was 50 feet away and another 50 feet beyond was a lion sitting insid the fence looking at the both of them. All happened rather quickly in a " now you see it now you don't" kind of way.
They are sneeky.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Oct 17, 2009 - 10:45pm PT
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Maybe it had a bicycle.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 18, 2009 - 01:25am PT
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Wow, there might be a slight chance of seeing something, just a quick messing with the brightness and contrast lets me see the tree they were under on 4 of the shots (I think I took 5 of them at the tree, and one or two before that of the first cat running into the bushes, but one has a lot of flash-illuminated grass in the foreground and the cat is way down the hill, and the other appears to be totally black even messing with contrast).
But I don't have photoshop and I certainly have no idea what I'm doing. So - how do I post the full res photos? Or if someone is good at this I can just email you the originals.
Or let me see if they will load straight here - being almost entirely black means they are smaller than normal size. An attempt for the first one:
So someone tell me if they can get the full-size jpeg off of that?
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 18, 2009 - 01:32am PT
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Looks solid black to me, both on screen and when I saved it and blew it up. Not even any grey that's visible. Sort of an ice (polar) bear in a whiteout situation.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 18, 2009 - 01:35am PT
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Here's the same photo after a little messing with contrast and brightness.
It wouldn't let me upload it into an edit of that last post, so hope this works:
edit: this one is saved at lower resolution since it's a lot smaller file.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 18, 2009 - 01:42am PT
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Greg, the first photo you posted was about 8 KB, the second about 4 KB. In other words, very low resolution, and so difficult to do anything with.
I saved both to my hard drive, blew them up, and played with contrast and such. Despite the second photo being smaller/lower resolution, when I did that I was able to faintly see green shading at the bottom, which I take to be vegetation. To some extent I can see the 'edges' of the green, but no more detail than that.
Photo-manipulation isn't my forte, but I suspect that a much higher file size photo is needed.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
Sprocketville
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Oct 18, 2009 - 02:00am PT
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wow, spooky back in there at night, no doubt.
i think i know where you were, is there a steep downhill into a waterfall area?
cuz i remember trying to pedal out of there in august and it was Not fun.
all the good ol boys (read:poachers) have died off as gilroy and san martin have grown from hog farms and migrants shacks to golf courses and wineries.
so, the food chain is a mile long, and starts at Silver Creek retirement and exteds all the way down to hollister,
before, hillbillies and vagrants back in the uvas canyon, bikers and other misfits from coyote, all those 2 percenters, they enjoyed organic meat year round.
so these cats are gettin fat.
the worst fear i have is getting spiked by a 6 pointer, couple of close ones up behing bustabello road and windy hill.
i started illegal mtn biking at night with my friend paul namm, who is now head of Romp here in the sf area, go figure.
my knees are still sore from a truck up regnart canyon with a gel cell half the size of a car battery.
but when that 100 watt halogen MR-16 flipped on, the place lit up like a frickin christmas tree, i kid you not.
but the downhill, i need good brakes with all that extra lead.
any illegal single track over here on the west side i have done.
duveneck windmill, st creek, never saw one cat.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 18, 2009 - 02:24am PT
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Cool Mighty Hiker, I didn't think that ST would save a full 1.2Mb size photo (the original).
I cleaned it up even more, now it's too big to upload the max res, but here's what it looks like:
I went through all 4 and there's nothing definite - a couple "maybe" spots but nothing solid at all. The modified ones saved at max res are now almost 8Mb each, but if anyone actually knows what they are doing with this sort of thing I can just email you the originals (all either 1.3 or 1.4Mb, the 1.2 was one with nothing I could find).
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 18, 2009 - 02:35am PT
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One thing that you'd think would be visible is reflection from the eyes, depending on the range and shutter speed.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
Sprocketville
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Oct 18, 2009 - 02:39am PT
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this is the best i could do with limited pixels,
is that him, that green thing?
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
Sprocketville
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Oct 18, 2009 - 02:51am PT
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OT: check it:
i built this back in 84,
it has a bar graph battery charge indicator,
a switch for the tail light in case you do not want tyo be seen from behind but still need a lite,
a switch that controls the 8 track/fm radio on the blackburn rack,
a voice activated "bright" switch seen under that strip of black tape,
a scr dimmer control that varies the duty ccycle with a 555 chip so you can run a 5 watt bulb at 1 watt for being sneaky, and it will last 24 hours, no restor heat,
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a 100 watt halogen for hight speed d3escents,
only thing is, if you stop moving, it will catch fire, even with the hi temp rtv and ceramic socket, so don't crash otherwise you will start a brush fire and burn yourself up.
i used to have a "on coming car" headlamp dimmer, but it was too hard to calibrate, street lamps would trip it, so i yanked it out,
you can't get a system this good, even today 25 years later.
i mean, is my sh#t together or is my sh#t together?
i stole the mount from a cateye and splice it on the back for quick release,
that knob bolts to the handlebar right next to the brake lever so you can constantly modulate the low beam, this does 2 things:
keeps you fro0m being spotted,
you will always have battery charge left at the end of Every ride,
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 18, 2009 - 03:09am PT
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Went back and tweaked the 4 images and compared side-by-side, and I'm about 90% sure that the big one (momma?) is actually visible in that last photo I posted. Here it is with the probable cat circled. Even though this is where I remember it, and even though it appears to change shape comparing between the photos, this could still just be a big downed branch. I think it's the big cat though:
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 18, 2009 - 03:14am PT
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In contrast, here's a photo of a deer about 20 minutes before running into the cats. Before, and with the same sort of tweaking. The deer was probably 20-30 yds off.
Before:
Tweaked:
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
Sprocketville
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Oct 18, 2009 - 03:21am PT
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OT:
heres my ride, 1983 Stumpjumper, the first really good mountain bike.
all i had to do was change the suntour rear to shimano, and the SRv seat post stripped the first bump i hit, so it's wearing a campy seat post now.
looks basic, but it features:
chrome dropouts, chain hanger, vertical rear dropouts, alloy sealed headset, double butted chromoly rear stays and forks, dual heavy duty water cages, motorcycle brake cable housing, bullmose ritchey outlawed cause they crack handlebars,
these punks nowadays?
they see me comin they pull over on their fancy full supension nonesense and hydralic brakes, faggy helmets and goofy lycra, cut me some slack.
and screw the clip in pedals, if you don't dab constatly, you are not a trials rider, and if you anit a good trials rider, you really can't call yourself a hardcore mtn biker, no way.
and you have to crash every time out, otherwise you are gay, i mean check the seat.
those suntour xl2 bear traps are the best pedals ever made, Period.
quick off, quick on, Bang! your feet are centered and pumpin..
experience is the whole deal, if you wire a trail 50 times, who can beat you?
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
Sprocketville
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Oct 18, 2009 - 03:41am PT
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now if you think i'm blowin hot air out the rectum, ask this guy about my chops:
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 18, 2009 - 05:19am PT
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Obviously, two long in the tooth, Cougar stalkers...
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seankirsch73
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Oct 18, 2009 - 12:07pm PT
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I've flown over Henry Coe quite a few times and have seen a couple from the air. They are definitely mtn lions and at least one of them was good sized.
They are usually fleeting moments, but it sure would be nice to get some pics from above.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Oct 18, 2009 - 12:27pm PT
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But have you ever seen three on one bike?
I think not!
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phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
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I was amazed by this sfgate article! It's really spooky that they followed the two guys back to their car.
My husband and I hike a lot in the Bay area hills, but I won't hike alone because I'm concerned about the mountain lions. I haven't seen one in the Bay area yet, but several people I know have, in broad daylight. One was in Rancho San Antonio in Los Altos Hills and the other was I think in Wunderlich in Woodside (the latter was a story Bruce Morris told me - I think he may have had more than one sighting up there.).
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