As Mr. azsugarbear says, a recent kill site is the best bet when you can't use dogs. That is not to say that finding kill sites is easy. Cougars like to hide their them, either in a tangle of brush or under a pile of leaves and needles they have scraped over top of it. Sometime the magpies will give you a hint about the location. Tracking them in the snow can be interesting, especially if you find the tracks getting fresher. You have to keep checking the trees around you in that particular case. On occasion you might find, as I have that when tracking them, you come across your own tracks with the cougars overlaid on them in which case all you need to do is wait and the animal will find you - if you have the patience. One almost sure way to find cougars is to watch a local herd of wild animals, in my case Bighorn sheep. When you see them staying in a very tight bunch as they feed in the open, with the young rams on the outside of the circle watching furtively, it generally means they are being watched by a cougar.