What To Do If You Encounter A Mountain Lion While Hiking?

Backpacking, Camping
From Wikipedia — This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: NaturesFan1226

There are a few questions people, who don’t backpack, often ask me. For one, most ask, “How many miles did you hike?” In a way, this is kind of amusing to me as I wrote in How many miles did you hike? To be fair to those who ask the question, it is a part of our nature and intelligence to quantify things around us — something that separates us from all other creatures on the planet.

The other question I get is, “What about mountain lions?” Then a series of “what-if kind of questions.” Often bears or rattlesnakes are substituted for mountain lions.

So let’s examine what one should do if they encounter a mountain lion on a backpacking trip or even a day hike.

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Ford Motor Company’s $19.5 Billion EV Bust

Technology, What's Up With That?

What’s Up With That?

In the news . . .

From the Wall Street Journal (Dec 15 2025):

Ford Motor said Monday it expected to take about $19.5 billion in charges, mainly tied to its electric-vehicle business, a massive hit as the automaker retrenches in the face of sinking EV demand.

Ford, which has lost $13 billion on its EV business since 2023, said it would bolster its lineup of gas-powered vehicles while shifting to hybrid and so-called extended-range electric vehicles that include onboard gasoline engines. 

I warned my readers 3 years ago.

Continue reading Ford Motor Company’s $19.5 Billion EV Bust →

I added an Astrophotography Image Gallery to PopUpBackpacker

Astrophotography, Camping

Given that astrophotography is something I do on most of our camping trips and that many astrophotographers go camping, I decided to add an Astrophotography Image Gallery of my deep sky pictures to PopUpBackpacker.

One great thing about this gallery is I can upload high resolution images that are normally too large to email, text, or even post on the internet. Plus I think they can be downloaded (I haven’t tried).

In addition to the link above, you can also reach the gallery via the Menu Bar