From: damouth@wrc.xerox.com (David E. Damouth)
Newsgroups: rec.backcountry
Subject: Re: Fear and Social Conditioning
Date: 1 Oct 92 19:36:21 GMT
Reply-To: damouth@wrc.xerox.com
Organization: Xerox Webster Research Center

Re: Am I irrational to fear the threat of harm in the backcountry, were
I to travel alone or with a female only group?

In the absence of accurate statistics, it is hard to judge
rationality.  You would be irrational (accourding to my definition, at
least) if your fear of various happenings is not in balance with the
probability of those happenings.  My guess is that the risk of a lone
woman being physically harmed by a human in real backcountry is very
small compared with the many other risks of daily life in a city.   You
are probably actually reducing your risk of harm by humans if you go
into the backcountry alone, relative to whatever else you would have
been doing in your home town. (Again - educated guesswork with
absolutely no data).  And I should add another caveat - I don't know to
what extent backcountry people differ with regions across the country.  My
experience is mostly in the NorthEast - Pennsylvania Alleghenies, New
York Adirondacks, northern Ontario and Quebec. I've spent a little time
in the Sierras and Colorado/New Mexico Rockies, but not enough to feel
I know them.

There is backcountry and semi-backcountry.  A friend who is a small
woman has been harrassed by redneck males (not physically harmed, not
even closely approached, but very scared) on hiking trails, but always
when within a short distance of a road, relatively near a town.  I
worry about such people myself, and I'm 6'3" and appear generally able
to take care of myself.  When close to roads, I try to make myself
inconspicuous, check that my knife is available, and check my escape
routes, when I see a pickup truck with the bed half full of beer cans.
When close to roads, or trails with wheel tracks visible, I put my
tentsite in as concealed a position as practical.  I'll take a bear
encounter over a small town drunk redneck encounter any day. 

Once you're really in backcountry, it changes.   As others
have said here, the people who work hard to get into the backcountry,
that is, people who are a couple of days hard physical labor away from
their wheels or horse or motorboat or whatever, always seem to be very
nice civilized people.  There are exceptions, but these are too rare to
worry about.
 
As to your specific question:  if my wife were to trek in the
backcountry alone (which hasn't happened yet), and assuming I was
comfortable that the trip was well within her physical abilities, I
believe I would be considerably less worried than I am when she does
long automobile trips by herself (which indeed does happen
occasionally).  And my main worry about her would be the same concern I 
have about myself on a solo trip - an ankle or knee injury that would prevent
traveling. Several of the most active trip leaders in our local
Adirondack Mountain Club chapter are women.  I haven't noticed anyone
worrying about whether a particular trip happened to have a big strong
male signed up.

Incidentally, for many city people it is hard to separate fear of human
attack in the backcountry from the more formless fear of the
backcountry itself, where the indigenous humans in that country take on
the fearsome characteristics of the "WILD"erness itself - "wild", as in
"dangerous".  I have two large competent male friends who are
experienced backcountry paddlers and have solo tripping canoes because
their wives won't go along.  Both wives are scared stiff to have their
husbands go into the backcountry alone, and demand that they go only
with groups.
 

/Dave
David E. Damouth
Xerox Webster Research Center
damouth@wrc.xerox.com
voice: 716-422-3186
fax: 716-265-7133