Is the AT dangerous?

[soilman]

You may want to look up stats on homeless populations. No one chooses to be homeless and all homelessness causes mental and physical health issues. Wouldn't being hungry or thirsty cause hunger or thirst? Being homeless causes inevitiable problems which affect basic mental and physical well being.

I did a quick look and the numbers I found range from 25-33% of homeless have a mental illness. Far from 100%.

[High-Milage Hiker]

I did a quick look and the numbers I found range from 25-33% of homeless have a mental illness. Far from 100%.

You're correct. The homeless population is not 100% mentally ill. It's closer to 30% as you indicated. However, I didn't say mental illness. I said "mental health issues". There's a difference between mental health and mental illness. Everyone exists on a spectrum of mental health and obviously not everyone is mentally ill.

https://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/q-and-a...mental-illness

[Montana]

When I gave up my lease and spent 6 months hiking the AT in 2008, I was actually and technically homeless. If 100% of homeless have "mental health issues", then I can only assume that you think wanting to live outdoors for 6 months gives you "mental health issues". I call BS.

[High-Milage Hiker]

When I gave up my lease and spent 6 months hiking the AT in 2008, I was actually and technically homeless. If 100% of homeless have "mental health issues", then I can only assume that you think wanting to live outdoors for 6 months gives you "mental health issues". I call BS.

Just the opposite Montana, and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I think wanting to thru-hike (or hike in general) is posssibly our subconscious desire to tap into our programmed need to be nomadic, which likely stems from biologically-based behavioral epigenetics. Hiking (for me) is healthy for the mind, body and spirit in a modern-day sedintary lifestyle rought with endless sources of unhealthy negative external stimuli.

As my ancestors would probably say, "Walking...good."