Danger on the AT?

[MDSection12]

Don't get me wrong; it's still VERY fuzzy math at best... I'm just trying to take the analogy that was used and make it a bit more appropriate. Truth be told I'm still not happy with the results. There just is not enough data to really make any concrete statements.

[Karma13]

Don't get me wrong; it's still VERY fuzzy math at best... I'm just trying to take the analogy that was used and make it a bit more appropriate. Truth be told I'm still not happy with the results. There just is not enough data to really make any concrete statements.

I can make a concrete statement. According to CityData, in the town I live in (population about 40,000), in 2011 (they haven't updated the 2012 data yet) there were 4 murders, 12 rapes, 198 robberies, 153 assaults, 241 burglaries, 641 thefts, and 5 arsons.

My concrete statement is that I'm highly confident that Ii'm safer on the AT than walking down my street.

[gizzy bear]

well first of all...i did some research on AT deaths, nothing scientific...but drowning seems to be one of the problems... so maybe a UL life preserver may be helpful...and i was wondering if the cause of death was released, re: the hiker found dead in the smokies about a month ago? i hadn't heard much more about that

[TOW]

Why did that encounter scare you?

Ward is a paranoid schizophrenic that was active on the trail around the time I was out there. He most assuredly has the most thru hikes ever, in fact when I met him he was on his third thru in less than 7 months. Ward would hike to one end of the trail and turn around and go the other way, he did this for years. Ward was a confrontational character and so was I when he put his face up to mine without going into detail. After that night I consider him my friend. He was notorious for scaring the crap out of people, me included....

[canoe]

Ward is a paranoid schizophrenic that was active on the trail around the time I was out there. He most assuredly has the most thru hikes ever, in fact when I met him he was on his third thru in less than 7 months. Ward would hike to one end of the trail and turn around and go the other way, he did this for years. Ward was a confrontational character and so was I when he put his face up to mine without going into detail. After that night I consider him my friend. He was notorious for scaring the crap out of people, me included....

That is scary. More scary than any bear or some bird in the night.

[shuffle]

I hiked the trail in 2004 and as a woman hiking with a 6 foot man, I ended up with a stalker. I figure it was my fault though because I am the type who is nice to all even when they don't look like they come from the best of situations. I was nice to a guy in a town by talking to him and he ended up following me along the trail and always wanted to take me into town etc. He showed up drunk one time and wanted me to get in his car. Of course I didn't and thanks to the guys at the hostel in TN they chased him off. He reappeared in Damascus again but I managed to stay with someone all the time so he could not try to get me to go with him. I learned unfortunately that you can't always smile and talk to someone because you don't know what they really want. My hiking partner became my protector until the guy finally gave up. I always had to look behind when hiking and up ahead for the longest time. By the time I got to PA I felt safe again. It was quite an experience. I don't think a gun would have helped if my 6 foot tall partner didn't scare him away.

[rickb]

My analysis is correct. The average population of folks aattempting a thru hike in any given year is far less than 55,000. And they are only out in the woods 6 months.

In your town the 55,000 people face risk each and every year.


Its simple, about 55,000 people spent up to 6 months of their lives trying to ccomplete they hike. Five of them were killed along the way.

[HikerMom58]

I hiked the trail in 2004 and as a woman hiking with a 6 foot man, I ended up with a stalker. I figure it was my fault though because I am the type who is nice to all even when they don't look like they come from the best of situations. I was nice to a guy in a town by talking to him and he ended up following me along the trail and always wanted to take me into town etc. He showed up drunk one time and wanted me to get in his car. Of course I didn't and thanks to the guys at the hostel in TN they chased him off. He reappeared in Damascus again but I managed to stay with someone all the time so he could not try to get me to go with him. I learned unfortunately that you can't always smile and talk to someone because you don't know what they really want. My hiking partner became my protector until the guy finally gave up. I always had to look behind when hiking and up ahead for the longest time. By the time I got to PA I felt safe again. It was quite an experience. I don't think a gun would have helped if my 6 foot tall partner didn't scare him away.

I can relate to you, shuffle. Sometimes, I tend to swing wildly between always smiling & giving out TMI, to everyone I meet, to not wanting to interact much, b/c of feeling a lil vunerable. How I behave has more to do with me, than the person, themselves, upon first meeting/talking to someone. I need to learn how to strike a balance. I need to learn how to interact with everyone, more wisely, all the time.

In 2010, just out for a day hike, meeting up with the hikers I was slackpacking, was when I would meet an obviously struggling individual. We showed him some kindness and it all ended well. Whew! Good to know that your encounter ended well 2. Great that you had others around you for protection. We def. felt safer with our "numbers" as well. Including him, there were 5 of us all together.

[shuffle]

Yeah I am the type that will speak to the homeless man on the street and the person who doesn't look like they have seen a shower in a while because I want them to feel they do matter. In my career, I deal with troubled teens who have been through so much and I treat them with respect as I believe all people should be treated. It gets me in trouble many times but I really don't want to change "me" because how I act toward others makes up a big part of me. I don't want to be that person who treats others less fortunate than them like crap. Just have to make sure I have the numbers as you said.

[HikerMom58]

Yeah I am the type that will speak to the homeless man on the street and the person who doesn't look like they have seen a shower in a while because I want them to feel they do matter. In my career, I deal with troubled teens who have been through so much and I treat them with respect as I believe all people should be treated. It gets me in trouble many times but I really don't want to change "me" because how I act toward others makes up a big part of me. I don't want to be that person who treats others less fortunate than them like crap. Just have to make sure I have the numbers as you said.

You sound like an awesome person!! I like your philosophy toward the ones less fortunate. Don't ever change who you are... just be smart. Bless you in your work with the teens.

[FlyPaper]

5 murders vs how many safe thrus over 80+years?
odds of getting bitten by a shark while being hit by lightning are much higher.
do you think we can keep this in proper perspective?

in 3 separate instances last year, 3 people were killed at home watching tv when out of control cars came through their living room windows.
buy a lottery ticket.

Not that I feel unsafe on the trail, but I think it would be important to establish a baseline. How many man-hours last year did Americans spend
thru-hiking the AT, and how many man-hours are spent watching TV? The average American spends 34 hours per week watching TV, which means
there were 530 billion hours spent in front of TVs in America. Only 2000 or so attempt a thru hike, and most of those don't finish. Being generous
we could say 1000 people spend 6 months on the trail thru-hiking. Counting all 24 hours per day, that around 4.4 million man hours on the trail
thru-hiking per year. Even if the AT was as crowded over the whole 80 years as it is today, that would tally up to 349 million man hours spent thru-hiking.
A very generous assumption. Scaling things up to the watching TV so that we compare apples to apples, if people spent as much time on the AT as they
did watching TV, our 5 murders in 80 years becomes 7600 murders per year as compared to 3 people killed by cars driving into their living rooms. In doing
this rough estimate, I've been very generous in assuming the number of hours on the trail. A more detailed estimation would probably at least double the
expected number of murders.

I'm more putting this out there because I'm a bit of a nerd as well as a hiker. So anyone reading this, please don't lecture me on being afraid to hike because
I'm not.

[FlyPaper]

Not that I feel unsafe on the trail, but I think it would be important to establish a baseline. How many man-hours last year did Americans spend
thru-hiking the AT, and how many man-hours are spent watching TV? The average American spends 34 hours per week watching TV, which means
there were 530 billion hours spent in front of TVs in America. Only 2000 or so attempt a thru hike, and most of those don't finish. Being generous
we could say 1000 people spend 6 months on the trail thru-hiking. Counting all 24 hours per day, that around 4.4 million man hours on the trail
thru-hiking per year. Even if the AT was as crowded over the whole 80 years as it is today, that would tally up to 349 million man hours spent thru-hiking.
A very generous assumption. Scaling things up to the watching TV so that we compare apples to apples, if people spent as much time on the AT as they
did watching TV, our 5 murders in 80 years becomes 7600 murders per year as compared to 3 people killed by cars driving into their living rooms. In doing
this rough estimate, I've been very generous in assuming the number of hours on the trail. A more detailed estimation would probably at least double the
expected number of murders.

I'm more putting this out there because I'm a bit of a nerd as well as a hiker. So anyone reading this, please don't lecture me on being afraid to hike because
I'm not.

That should have been 7600 murders in 80 years.

[weary]

Flypaper:

You need to add to your analysis the number of tv watchers who die early because of the lack of exercise.

[hikerboy57]

That should have been 7600 murders in 80 years.

again, thru hikers are just a tiny fraction of total users of the at.

then add in all the people who were murdered in their homes.
if you compared those two numbers you would rightfully conclude home is no place to live safely.

[Chaco Taco]

yep, trail is way too dangerous. Just stay home because it is soooo much safer. Some of you never cease to amaze me with your negativity, especially about hiking and people in general.

[HikerMom58]

Instead of crunching numbers, everyone should just get out and hike. Whatever is going to happen, will happen or NOT.

You will encounter people on the trail. Be prepared for anything, surprised at nothing and be prepared to deal with everything....whatever that looks like for you- just do it.

[bfayer]

Instead of crunching numbers, everyone should just get out and hike. Whatever is going to happen, will happen or NOT...

Amen HikerMom!

[FlyPaper]

again, thru hikers are just a tiny fraction of total users of the at.

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.

then add in all the people who were murdered in their homes.
if you compared those two numbers you would rightfully conclude home is no place to live safely.

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.

[FlyPaper]

Instead of crunching numbers, everyone should just get out and hike. Whatever is going to happen, will happen or NOT.

You will encounter people on the trail. Be prepared for anything, surprised at nothing and be prepared to deal with everything....whatever that looks like for you- just do it.

I hike, I play chess, I crunch numbers. I don't see this as an either/or problem.

[Lone Wolf]

I have had a lifelong dream to thru-hike the AT. Maybe 2014, I am totally against bringing a gun during my hike. My 23 yr old son thinks I'm crazy not too. Many of his friends say they know people who have hiked the AT and muggings happen frequently. My question is to anyone who has section hiked or thru-hiked the AT. Have you ever been threatened or mudded on the AT? My son is also worried about animals, any problems with them? I told him that if I was even a little worried about meeting up with some violence I wouldn't attempt the hike. I feel there is more chance of him getting mugged in the city than me being mugged on the AT.

are you male or female? your chances of getting mugged, raped, assaulted etc. go way up if you're a female. plan accordingly