Leah Davis Lokan, woman killed by grizzly bear in Montana, was a biking champ who was on “an epic ride”

As authorities continue to lookup for a grizzly bear that pulled a girl from her tent and killed her in a small Montana town, more particulars are emerging about the target.

Leah Davis Lokan, 65, of Chico, California, was camped in the vicinity of the submit business and museum in Ovando when the bear fatally attacked her early Tuesday, officials mentioned. 

Lokan, who was traversing the scenic Terrific Divide Mountain Bicycle Route when she died, was an avid bicyclist. In 2015, she competed in the Mammoth Nationwide Championship Enduro and won the “Women’s Enduro 60+” classification.

At the time, Hammer Nutrition wrote on Fb that Lokan’s race was “a mix of rigorous climbs and a demanding professional downhill course in the course of 4 stages.”

“When I noticed that Usa Biking was giving females 50+ and 60+ an prospect to race this caliber of an function in their age groups, I could not go it up,” Lokan mentioned after her victory, the business stated on Fb.  

According to bio facts posted on United states of america Cycling, Lokan also won initial put in the “pro ladies” category of the 2013 Bidwell Bump, a mountain bike race in her hometown of Chico.

Lokan, a registered nurse who had labored at a clinic in Chico, “had a actually very good spirit,” claimed Mike Castaldo, president of the Chico Cycling Club.

“She always experienced a smile on her face. Often lit up when she noticed you. Generally gave you a large hug,” mentioned Castaldo, who knew Lokan for about 15 a long time. “But I believe most of her identity was, you know, outside on the bicycle, making the most of the outdoor was her matter.”

She participated in mountain bicycle races and was a highway bike owner and seasoned outdoorswoman.

“I imagine she was competitive, but that was secondary to the journey or the adventure she was on that certain working day,” he stated Thursday.

Lokan had been searching forward to the Montana bicycle trip for months, explained Mary Bouquets, a further close friend from Chico. Lokan experienced taken long-length bicycle excursions and on this one particular was accompanied by her sister and a good friend, Flowers reported.

“She was conversing about her summer options – this superb wild adventure, driving her bike on, I do not know, a 400-mile trip or a thing,” Flowers mentioned. “A woman in her 60s, and she’s executing this sort of things – she experienced a enthusiasm for lifestyle that was out of the regular.”

Another pal remembered Lokan as a free of charge spirit with a lot of good friends.

“She always greeted you with a smile. She was a person of all those men and women that was always up for an experience and generally designed you to really feel like you had been the middle of her interest at all occasions,” said Leesa Stefano, who met Lokan when Stefano moved to Sandpoint, Idaho, in 2006 and got concerned in a bicycling club to which Lokan belonged.

Stefano mentioned Lokan was the form of person who would discover a way to check in with everybody at some position to make confident friends realized they were still portion of her lifestyle.

“We were being all truly fired up for her, due to the fact we know what it intended,” Stefano stated about the bicycle ride. “We could not wait to listen to the tales. It’s thought of an epic journey.”

The Great Divide route loosely follows the Continental Divide, at situations zig-zagging in excess of it on gravel roads, filth streets and trails and some one tracks, claimed Dillon Essential, who will work at Excellent Divide Cyclery in Helena. 
 
The route is “totally magnificent” as a result of Montana, taking riders over mountain passes and through massive, open meadows, Important said.
 
“A ton of the towns on the route, tiny cities in the middle of the mountains, have a tendency to be actually welcoming to divide riders coming by,” Key mentioned. “You will find a couple farms and ranches together the way that permit riders to arrive keep with them. It is sort of a communal emotion to it. Everyone’s seriously welcoming.”  

Lokan and two other folks had been tenting when a bear startled them at 3 a.m. Tuesday in advance of wandering off, Montana wildlife officials stated. The bicyclists taken out food from their tents, stored it and went back again to slumber, officials claimed.

About 4:15 a.m., the sheriff’s office environment received a 911 connect with after two people today in a tent in close proximity to the victim’s had been awakened by appears of the assault, Powell County Sheriff Gavin Roselles explained. They discharged their bear spray, and the bear ran absent.

Lokan was “very well versed in what she was executing. She realized the dangers,” Castaldo stated, suggesting she may have permit her guard down when camping in a town, relatively than alongside the path.

“The reality that it was proper in city – which is quite messed up,” Travis Thurmond, a neighborhood fishing store operator, informed the Missoulian.

Wildlife officials invested Thursday hoping to uncover and destroy the approximately 400-pound bear, but arrived up empty for a 3rd straight day.  

Montana’s grizzly and human populations have each risen substantially because 1975, when the bears were secured underneath the Endangered Species Act, “60 Minutes” correspondent Monthly bill Whitaker documented very last calendar year.