[pct-l] Newbie - 'alone in the dark' freak outs on the trail

[Mark Liechty]

On Jul 11, 2012, at 9:28 AM, Scott Bryce wrote:
> On 7/10/2012 2:23 PM, Mark Liechty wrote:
>> I am so ugly and smell so bad
> 
> That describes all of us after about 200 miles.
#######

I start out much uglier than most of you and smell bad just a few miles off the trail.  Wonder if I could fix that and be attacked by a swarm of beautiful women from time to time...... nahh to old to change now.

I think the point of this discussion is that all of us have, or have had some kinds of fear of being alone in the wilderness.   We have dealt with it in various way and over time it becomes less of an issue.  

The weirdo\nutcase\psycho fears for me were solved on this (or similar list) a few years ago when someone pointed out that the nutcases wanted to be around crowds where they could get easy access to targets that would be less likely to fight back.

That audience is not the one we find on the trails.  And when we look at those cases where bad has happened it seems almost all of them are along the road or in the towns and such where there are lots of people.

It was recently brought up that there was the nutcase in Yosemite that killed a bunch of people a few years ago but again, that was in the valley with lots of people and easy targets.   Had the guy been messing with most backpackers he would have had a hiking pole stuck up his ..... and left by the trail marker as a warning to any other idiots who may have wandered by.








Mark "Blankie" Liechty