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Originally posted by GCE61:
My wife always makes a comment to me "why do you need that gun with you when we are out in the woods?".... this is why-

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Originally posted by MikeinNC:
I never leave my home w/o a pistol, neither should you.

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Originally posted by DennisM:

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Originally posted by sigfreund:

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Originally posted by DennisM:
The Appalachian Trail in particular seems to draw a subculture of marginal personalities...

Closer proximity to urban areas than similar trails? More users?
Any ideas?

You can stay "mobile" for a long time on the AT if you're essentially a drifter or predator. Long trail, a few hundred "official" trail shelters along the way and lots more campgrounds very close by the trail in state & local parks, added to lots of hostels and low-cost hotels catering to through-hikers on or nearby the trail. It's not difficult to never stay anywhere for more than a night or two, which makes it VERY easy to stay off the radar. If you're a fit-enough psychopath/sociopath to keep hiking, you can work the trail pretty much forever.

If LE wants to investigate a disappearance, the first thing they need to know is that there's BEEN a disappearance. The dynamic for this has changed a little bit with near-free and near-seamless cell coverage everywhere, but think back 10-20 years and it wasn't at all unusual that somebody hiking a long trail like the Appalachian or in a forest/park backcountry wouldn't be in touch with family for weeks, if at all, beyond an occasional postcard from a trail crossing through town. Under those circumstances, it was always WAY difficult to establish where the disappearance occurred as a starting point, much less the circumstances. NPS and trail advocates tout the "safety record," largely by glossing over disappearances that can't be strictly tied to a particular area of the trail (or to the trail at all) in the old days.

For prey, the AT has historically attracted lots of people of both sexes and all ability levels who were looking to prove that THEY could do it independently (and the system of trail shelters, caches, etc, helped bolster that myth) when they might not have been particularly well-equipped to do so. Weakened, confused, alone victims are good victims.

Doing cop work in an environment where most of your criminals AND most of your victims are completely transient (in the "in transit" sense, e.g. not rooted to the locality) can seriously stack the deck against you. Criminals know this. There isn't a single crime I've worked in more urban LE that I didn't also see in natural resources LE roles. Beyond the violent crimes, thefts of every variety were rampant also. I've investigated thefts where families literally lost everything beyond what was actually in their shorts & shirts, food & water stolen from backcountry campers, "straight out of a bad Western" campsite thefts, etc.

I would not let anyone I cared about attempt the trail without serious discussions about safety, group size & composition, contingency plans, and "equipment."