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It’s all a matter of direction and your sense of it when trying to navigate the 3.5-mile downtown skywalk system. For those who lack a sense of direction, it all adds up to confusion.

Downtown planners are sympathetic. A bevy of them from the private and public sectors are cooking up ways to guide the disoriented, point them on their ways onto, off of and through the skywalks.

They have demonstrated interactive electronic directories. They have designed bright and bold signs. They have identified at least 15 entry points from streets below to skywalks above that presently are poorly marked, if they are marked at all.

To date, they have not made Catherine Cownie available for tours.

Cownie is an attorney with the BrownWinick law firm, located 18 floors above the skywalk in the Ruan Center at Sixth and Grand avenues. From east – the skywalk access at Court Avenue Restaurant and Brewing Co., for example – to west and all compass points and skewed angles in between, Cownie is something of a skywalk expert. You might call her a “skywalk ambassador,” but she would blush if you did.

She has a practical need to know the obvious and not so obvious nooks and crannies along the way.

“If I have a business lunch at Django (in the Hotel Fort Des Moines) I can be there in 10 minutes,” she says as she points out a door that could lead from the skywalk to open air or, as is the case, a stairwell that leads from the Wells Fargo & Co. complex to Walgreen’s and the Financial Center and then the great outdoors.

Some of her sense of adventure might be diminished if elaborate signs directed the way. For example, she can no longer just point to an almost-hidden stairwell and say, “Take that to Sarpino’s.” A sign has been slapped on a wall that now tells one and all how to find the restaurant from above street level.

Cownie does carry at least one secret that can have a very practical use. After walking through the ultra-contemporary skywalk through Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., traveling as far west as the skywalk will take you, there is a stairway leading to the back entrance of Smokey D’s and Jimmy John’s restaurants at 12th and Locust streets.

That’s nice to know, but what’s great to know is that the door will lock if it closes. Then, you’re out on the street and looking for another pathway to the skywalks.