There's a particular standoff you learn to recognize if you drive around Durango long enough: a mule deer buck plants himself in the road and stares down your car until he's good and ready to cross. Turns out there's real research behind the swagger, and it says something bigger about how wildlife and towns end up sharing the same streets.

Fresh mountain lion tracks, discovered twice in the same town — once beneath a powerline trail in the fog, once on a mesa full of runners and mountain bikers who never knew what had passed through hours before. A firsthand look at how wild Durango really is.

Place-based skills do more than teach us how to navigate a landscape; they tether us to reality.