Re: Backcountry Meetings

In my 6+ decades in the woods and hills (and deserts and tundra and glaciers etc), I have never carried a gun (or bow or crossbow) except when hunting (which I gave up in my teens after an experience when another hunter shot at me, thinking I was a deer (I had gotten my buck about an hour before and was working it back to camp). I heard about other "sound shot" incidents during those hunting days, too.

But in non-hunting areas, I have never had a bad incident with any person or animal (except the mouse or mice that got into a bag of gorp and exchanged some raisins for "processed raisins" - but that's another story). The closest I came was when I was the adult advisor for a group of scouts on a weekend backpack training for a week-long backpack, and we encountered a rather scruffy looking fellow. Although suspicious, we soon discovered that he had somehow gotten separated from his party 3 days before, and had been wandering lost (no map, no food, nothing to drink except 2 cans of Coke) during that time. He knew the name of the goal of their hike and just wanted directions. We happened to be going there and got him reunited with his companions (who had not reported him missing or done any searching - for 3 days!).

Wait! No, I have had several bad encounters! All of them were with members of my own party. Several were as the adult advisor on a Scout backpack, when one or more of the scouts rebelled against the "health and safety" "dictates" of the adult (example - "don't play Ultimate Frisbee on a 30 degree talus slope - you are likely to twist an ankle" to which the retort was, and I am not joking, "you are infringing on our first amendment rights!"). Another was on Denali when by the 3rd day out, all of us were asking each other about Crazy James (as we called him behind his back) "Who invited him on this climb, anyway?" - he came close to killing one of the other members of the party through his carelessness.

But no, I have never had a bad incident with any strangers in the wilderness. In my river running, I have never encountered a "Deliverance" situation, although several of my runs were on rivers in the Deep South. Closest to that was on a bike trip on Cape Cod. Barb and I rode into a private campground (that was open to the public) to camp for the night. The owner's dog came out snarling and snapping. We defended outselves by putting our bikes between us and the dog and yelling at the dog to go away. The owner told us we could not camp there because "You hurt my dog's feelings!" Ummm, but your dog was trying to bite us "My dog would never bite anyone!" We rode on and snuck around the gate into a state campground that had not yet opened for the season. But that's not a wilderness story.

Oh, I forgot. A marmot got into my pack and tried to steal my food once (in Canada).

No, almost universally friendly greetings and exchange of information on conditions farther along the trail. Some very exhausted folks sometimes just grunt "hello" and stagger onward under their too-heavy packs. Never any threats, no drawn knives or guns, no losses to theft, no significant losses to animals. And that includes seeing plenty of bear (black mostly, but griz in Alaska and Canada), coyote, and the occasional bobcat or lion (I'm more worried about moose than bears, frankly - they can be onery).