Great post with a lot of wise responses. I agree that the 'rare' odds are incorrect in that they aren't factoring the actual odds of people who engage in activities where there are mountain lions running around at night. The Cahuilla have a lot of stories of people being attacked by mountain lions which suggests that people who spend a lot of time outdoors face a fairly high risk. I have known way too many people who have met up with them in the wild, including myself (it followed me, which was really really frightening) to be fearless about it. I definitely would not sit out at night in a canyon where you saw a lot of scat--I don't think that would be sensible even from a sanguine point of view. I think the chances of attack in that situation are actually fairly high--who knows how high, but more than none. Even if it's 'only' a two percent risk, that means two times out of a hundred it will attack. I carry a small airhorn sometimes as I am told they are effective in scaring off bears--remains to be seen whether it would work with a mountain lion especially since they usually attack sneakily from behind. People in Southeast Asia sometimes wear face masks on the back of their heads while working in the fields to fool tigers. I met someone on Skyline once hiking who was doing this with a Halloween mask. Looked a bit crazy but made him feel better, which is perhaps the point of these security blankets.
I remember a while ago someone on here posted about camping up near Round Valley and in the middle of the night, very close, hearing what they thought was a blood-curdling woman's scream--they later googled it and found that it is actually the sound of a mountain lion scream. It makes me shiver just to think of it.
O yeah, almost forgot--guy named Rob who used to camp on SKyline in a tent told me that one time, while he was sleeping at about 5k, he was awakened in the night by *something* attacking the tent--shaking it, trying to get in, etc. He was a very placid guy so basically he just ignored it and it went away. In the morning he found some tears in the tent. Who knows what it was but I don't think it was a cute fuzzy little rabbit.
Q: How many therapists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change ...