This is a seemingly ordinary path.

Okay, it's rather beautiful on a sunny day in early spring, revealing hints of rain in all those surprisingly orange tamarack needles from the previous season beneath your feet and in the freshest evergreen scent you'd ever encounter.

But other than that, this could be a city park. Except it isn't.

In fact, it is here that I've found mountain-lion paw prints in the snow on more than one occasion—amidst the usual evidence of deer and squirrels along with birds of various shapes and sizes.

Whenever I walk here, I instinctively look all the way around and up into the trees. They say this lets the lions know that you see them, even though you most likely can't, considering their stealth. And so, I do.

Just in case.