So, when I first (the only time) went on the A.T., I thought I felt pretty comfortable with the place, and the safety aspect. I'm an east coaster, from Quebec, I'm perfectly bilingual, I'm white, I blend in as a chubby American.
I'm a pretty big guy, AND I knew consciously that the A.T. was very non-violent, and that I would generally be very safe, AND that the area I was going into did not really have natural predators... Bears in MD and PA being few and far in between.

But I still brought a 'small' (heavy AF) foldable Gerber knife I thought was very nice, and a tiny pepper-spray canister. On top of my Victorinox Spartan knife, and of course my Victorinox Classic SD knife.

Honestly, I think that the 'visiting the US' factor encouraged me to bring the spray. In fact, over just some 130-150 miles, I got asked numerous times whether I was carrying a gun... (what??)... and got told that they would not ever hike like that without a gun. Holy moley. Man, guns scare the hell out of me, and I would never want to own one even if I could...

Today, though, I seriously think that I would go with ONLY the Victorinox Classic SD. I think that the only features I'd be missing are the can opener and the wine bottle opener. The first being EASILY replaced with a super light-weight army opener, and the second being totally useless, as anybody offering me wine will have one, lol.

In fact, one of the most stressful aspects of my hike was feeling like I had to dispose of the bloody dog spray before getting on the train back to Canada, in NYC. I ended up tossing it into a garbage bin on advice of port authority officers, and I felt really, really awful doing that (what if it pops? what if someone takes it and assaults somebody? urghhh!).

I would like to know how you people feel about safety, then. There was one night when, and I feel really stupid for it, I told two people I'd judged to be weird rednecks (they were just two nice people day-hiking with little gear, lol) that I was thinking of camping at that shelter (alone) and hiking faster to catch up with some trail friends the next day. That whole night, I kept getting paranoid and thinking that maybe they were coming back to kill me or something. I discovered that I have a big, irrational fear of being alone in the woods... I always knew I was afraid of the dark woods, but that night really made it all very concrete.

How do you deal with safety, AND, HOW do you deal with being alone in the woods, especially on a trail where others can find you?

Thank you
-A humble and very open Spork