Hole in the Wall Mountain Cat

Maybe you think I'm talking about a big, yellow, ferocious cougar. They do inhabit our area, but no, a Hole in the Wall Mountain Cat is a lot smaller, black, furry (especially in winter), and short tailed. It's not ferocious, unless you don't get his can of salmon open quick enough at dinner time.

Of course I'm talking about Stick Tail, our cat. Stick started life as a city cat near Los Angeles then moved north as we did. Now he comes up to our float cabin. On his first and second visits he was quite the fraidy cat, but he did venture out on the float and even underneath to see if there were any mousies down there.

Right now the lake level is very low allowing several floating logs to touch shore. Stick was uncharacteristically brave and leaped over the water to reach one of those logs. He then scampered to little beach that's now exposed. We felt fairly confident he wouldn't leave that gravel shelf, but to our shock and horror he started climbing narrow ledges up the rock wall. Now mind you, this wall is about 100 feet high and leads to an inaccessible forested area. If Stick went up, there would be no way to reach him. What should we do?

While we were thinking, Stick scrambled up a vertical section of rock about five feet high. You could hear his nails grappling for a hold, but he made it. To reward himself, he stopped to eat some grass. Wayne got some rocks to throw against the cliff above his perch. On about the fifth throw, one hit the mark. Stick turned tail, ran down the cliff, over the beach, across the log, leaped over the water and zipped up to the cabin door. Once he was inside I don't know who was more relieved, Stick or us.

We fashioned several fences to block Stick's access to the beach, but after his close encounter with the cliff's rock monster he was content to stay close to home, and that was just fine with us. -- Margy