Originally Posted by
FlyPaper
To do a correct analysis that includes non thru-hikers, we'd need to know how many day hikers and section hikers are murdered on the trail.
Since I was only given the number of thru-hikers, that's the population I measured against. Also, from my experience, based on the
number of thru-hikers I meet, the total number of hours spent on the trail by thru-hikers, versus non-thru hikers is more than a tiny fraction,
although certainly less than half.
If we compared the number of people murdered in their homes, we'd have to add in all hours spent at home, not just time
watching TV. After all, it is not a matter of the total number of murders, it is a matter of the total number of murders
compared to the total amount of man hours spent. Also, a number of home murders are at the hands of estranged/angry lovers,
or the result of drug deals gone bad which are a different sort of animal in that we all know pretty well whether our odds
are elevated when compared to the general population. After all, an estranged lover would just wait until we return
from the AT to kill us, and the relative safety of the locations is irrelevant.
For most of us, the most interesting comparison would be the likelihood of being murdered by a stranger in our homes based on
our current lifestyle (not counting the lifestyles of drug dealers and other criminals of which most of us are not) versus the likelihood
of being murdered on the AT. I'd be willing to bet that most of our living rooms are much safer than the AT. But if someone has
a valid statistical analysis, I'm open minded.
But aside from all this, we can do a crude analysis based on raw numbers. There were 13,756 murders per year in the US in 2008.
And 304 million people. That means that there were 1.145 murders per million man-hours of life. If we take the 5 murders of thru-hikers over 80
years. Thru-hiking was not real popular before around 30 years ago. If we say that over the last 30 years there have been an average of 500
thru-hikers spending 6 full months on the trail (and this may be generous). Prior to 30 years ago, the hours would be negligible and can
probably be ignored based on overestimating in the last 30 years. This leads to 1.984 murders per million man hours of thru-hiking on the AT.
(If there have been 0 section hikers murdered in spite of there being lot more total man hours on the trail than thru-hikers, well that
would be remarkable and a totally different discussion. But I suspect some non-thru-hikers have been murdered too).
So this leads me to think that hiking is a tad less safe (as far as murders go) than ordinary living. And for those of us who aren't in street gangs,
nor are prostitutes, nor are married to a hot-head spouse, that would mean our ordinary life is safer than the average since we are not in a high
risk group.
). Couldn't hurt (cause I know how to handle 1 & respect it). Just don't get caught in MD without a carry permit. Martin O'Malley will have you thrown in prison for 10-15 & seize anything you have of value.
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I'm jealous of you being able to do it.. I feel like I missed out on a LOT of fun! 
