Posted on 05/07/2008 8:01:41 AM PDT by neverdem
East Brainerd resident Monica Dobbs hikes 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail every winter with friends and craves the quiet days without cell phones, television and work.
Hikers who want to leave their daily lives behind sleep next to strangers in shelters, and many trade their real names for trail names. They sometimes can walk two or three days to find a town or a phone.
While leaving society behind is refreshing, being alone in the woods also can be terrifying.
“It’s an invitation for a disaster,” said Ms. Dobbs, a 28-year-old hairdresser, who plans to take a 9 mm handgun with her on her next trek.
“I think you should be allowed to legally carry a weapon for defense purposes. If someone comes after me, what am I going to do?” she said.
Guns have been restricted from some national parks for more than 100 years, except for hunting areas. However, there is a growing interest in easing the restrictions. U.S. Department of the Interior officials have proposed bringing federal gun restrictions in line with state laws. If approved, the change would allow hikers to carry loaded concealed weapons in some national parks.
Though crime in America’s national parks has decreased in the last 10 years, 384 incidents including killings, rapes, robberies, kidnappings and aggravated assaults occurred in national parks in 2006, according to the National Park Service.
In January a 24-year-old woman, Meredith Emerson, was found bludgeoned to death on a North Georgia section of the Appalachian Trail, and the killer has been linked to other park slayings.
Since 1973, 10 killings and 10 rapes have been reported on or around the 2,176-mile-long Appalachian Trail, which comprises 40 percent national park land, 40 percent national forest land and 20 percent state land, said Brian King, spokesman for the...
(Excerpt) Read more at timesfreepress.com ...
The third left his in the car because he didn’t have the space in his pack.
Make space. And it probably shouldn't be in the pack anyway.
See? This is exactly what happens when we allow people to have guns in National parks. These pristine, safe areas soon become like shooting galleries in the Old Wild West!... Oh, wait..., you say this guy murdered 2 people on the Appalachian Trail in 1981 and was released - and decided to go hunting for people again last night? Doesn't he know it's illegal to carry any firearm in a National Park and he can be prosecuted for that? Oh, Never mind.
Colorado has great trail scenery. Especially in and around the People’s Republic of Boulder :)
Yes... but will it fit in my backpack?
When I worked for a California firm one of our employees went backpacking in the desert with friends. While they were resting in the shade at noon a dune buggy came over the top of the hill. A guy got out of the dune buggy and proceeded to empty a clip of .223 at the backpackers. Our employee was hit in the head and died. The perp was never caught. After that I always hiked armed and still do. The two legged varmints are the most dangerous.
I used to ride my trail horse in the Cherokee National Forest every weekend and always had a handgun in a holster attached to my saddle. I was approached on the trail one weekend by three drunks in a jeep. They were loud and obnoxious until they saw my gun. They moved on. A park ranger pulled up shortly after that and told me I shouldn’t be way back there alone. As he was lecturing me about the dangers of a young woman alone in the mountains his eyes slid across the gun. He never said a word about it. He just told me to be careful and have a nice ride.
I rode so far back in the mountains that the only way in was by jeep or horse. There were plenty of bear, wild hogs, mountain lions and moonshine stills. My horse always alerted me of 4-legged danger but I worried more about 2-leggers. This was back before cell phones, not that they would have worked back there anyway. I look back now that I’m older and wiser and marvel at the fact that I lived to be as old as I am. :-)
Oh I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more,
To be the man, who walked 5000 miles then fall down at your door.
I’ll go hiking with her any day. Even though I’m terribly out of shape.
I only noticed her finger was out of the trigger guard when you brought it up.
I just spent a week back packing at Cumberland Island National Sea Shore.
I encountered several young women hiking together, in pairs. They look a lot better as they are hitting the trail than after three or four days in the back country.
That’s what I’m sayin’.
I’m sure there’s plenty of guys here who would hike with her to make sure she’s safe.
Maybe he meant 10lb trigger pull?
My son and I have hiked sections of the trail for the past three years. Last year’s section was northern Maryland through central Pennsylvania. We try to time the sections so that we will run across the largest number of thru-hikers.
Thru-hikers are quite a subculture. Most are kids taking a break from school and retirees taking the trip they wanted to take during a break from school years before. Mixed in are a few hardcore hikers looking for “triple crown” success (Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide trails). They are more-or-less professional hikers (and most have no jobs and live the rest of the year with their parents - at 30 years old or so).
There is also a contingent of hikers who are basically homeless nuts. You’ll have a few on the trail every year. Last year there was one who was hiking with a series of duffel bags filled with books. He would hike one bag down the trail, leave it, and go back to get another. Every night he would burn a book in a little campfire. Every now and then you’d come across one of his campsites and you would find the remains of one of the books (I remember one was the story of the sinking of the Bismarck). Most of these folks are relatively harmless, but some are really off of the deep end. I knew of a couple of guys hiking the trail last year who other hikers were genuinely concerned about. One of them was a thief who would steal things from people’s packs while they slept. Another carried a machete (there isn’t much on the Appalachian trail that you need to hack through). Another had bizarre stories that would change from listener to listener. At least one was being sought for assault.
Then there’s the locals. A couple of times I’ve come out on trail-heads to be stared at menacingly by yokels who seem to have come to the parking area just to scare hikers (or worse). One night two years ago, we had a group of “at-risk” kids camp at a nearby site. These were inner-city kids who definitely had issues. One was up all night screaming the vilest obscenities and wacking a stick on the ground.
There are a few women hikers (probably as many as 1/5 of the hikers). Most don’t look like the one in the picture posted here, but some could be attractive. But attractive or not, you have to be pretty desperate to get past the smell that all long-distance hikers acquire over a few days on the trail. Some will attach themselves to groups of male hikers for safety. Others will hike with other women. I’ve often wondered how frightened they are out there amongst the wild-and-hairy.
All-in-all, though, most of the thru-hikers are a great bunch. We’ve enjoyed our hikes with them (although politics are definitely off limits as most of them are left-wing wackos). We all have a common bond, enjoying the outdoors - and that is good enough for me. It’s not like our more adventurous journeys in the true wilderness. It’s more like following a band of hippies on their way to a Woodstock they’ll never find.
Do Rangers normally pat you down or frisk you these days when they meet someone out in the woods?
Good catch. Had he said "a crisp" ten pounds I'd be inclined to agree. He didn't. I don't. :^)
Since two of the three of us were armed, the redundancy was unnecessary. Also, when you have a 4” wide hipbelt, it’s very hard to carry on your waist, so making space is quite difficult. His only real option would have been to purchase a leg holster, which would kind of be hard to conceal. That or carry it in the pack.
Again, when backpacking, weight is also an issue, so you reduce redundancies.
...which leads to something increasingly puzzling:
Who is the more feared in the situation - the thugs, or the government?
Why should concealment be such an imperative that one would rather not carry at all rather than risk being “made”?
Probably not, but if you were carrying open, they are law enforcement in the woods, and they would probably ask any necessary questions to ensure your carrying legally.
For 40 years I have been a firm believer in this. I have adapted them to all my clothing. Way back when, Bianchi used to make them. Now this is the only supplier in North America for this model.
http://www.c-rusty.com/pages/holsters/large/brownshoe.htm
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