Last week, Kyra Kopenstonsky was hiking in Colorado and bumped into a mountain lion. It stalked her for about twenty minutes, after which Kyra employed a last resort: singing opera. That’s right, after waving branches to make herself look bigger, the mountain lion wasn’t fazed; and so she went for louder. “I just started singing opera really loud,” said Kyra.

I think the question we all want to know is: what did she sing?? My first guess was instinctively something from one of the Valkyries, or maybe the Queen of the Night. Wouldn’t it have been amazing, though, if she broke out into the Doll Song in front of a mountain lion? Or “Va! laissez couler mes larmes!”, all Werther-dramatic in the woods. Or even “Je veux vivre” because that’s funny. I’m also well aware that it’s a good chance that Kyra just sang some loud, opera-ish notes and didn’t actually break out into aria. But these are the things that I think about when I read the news.

See, this is why I felt safe in Banff. Apparently a safe way to hike is doing it while surrounded by opera singers.