Hi all, I am new to this forum but not new to hiking or the AT. I'm a section hiker and have section hiked the AT and other trails in North and South America.
Like many of you I care a lot about the AT and the people on it. There is nothing quite like it's community. Like many of you I've been carefully studying the news, reading the official complaint, visiting vlgs and blogs, trying to understand what happened because I think it's important. It's important to the trail, important to the memory of the victims and could be really important to preventing something like this again through the acquired knowledge of facts and by listening carefully to the survivors.
I want to have a moment of silence for Mr. Sanchez, an army veteran who suffered from PTSD and also keep the un-identified injured woman, a.k.a. "Victim #2" from the official complaint in my thoughts. I also want to keep in my thoughts "Hiker #1 and Hiker #2", a.k.a. the "It's Who We Are" vloggers. What they also experienced is harrowing to say the least. For all the survivors this will likely take a long time to heal from, physically and mentally.
My thoughts are also with Odie Norman, who has had his name unfairly dragged through the mud on this, not by journalists but by people on this and other forums. He put himself in harms way trying to do the right thing and he wasn't the only one who was of the idea to get the perpetrator off the trail.
My thoughts go out to
anyone of the numerous people that the perpetrator terrorized on the trail. If you've dug deep into reports and vlogs, this touched a lot of people, caused a lot of sleepless nights and will not soon be forgotten, nor should it, by many of those on-trail or close to those on-trail. No one not on-trail can judge the actions of anyone in that situation. Full stop.
I am disheartened though a bit about what I am reading here on this forum as well as a few other places like the AT subreddit. Disheartened in two ways.
1. This thread was originally created, at face value, to broadcast valuable information about incidents on the trail so that others might be made aware and be safer for it. It quickly descended into a lot of off topic, tangential opinion or worse, mis-information and judgement. I think there is a lesson to be learned here. If someone posts something like this, something that is timely and is for the benefit of people on-trail or their supporters, the thread really needs to be kept to factual information that can help people or corroborate details. If you don't have something to say that is
useful to someone on-trail or a loved one of someone on-trail, then you're likely just spreading drama.
2. Given what happened in the following weeks culminating in last Friday's attack, it seems natural that this thread shifted from it's original topic to information regarding the subsequent fatal attack and police investigation. What seems very distasteful though is the theories that continue to be posted about 'who was who' and 'who did what' and worst of all: 'who is to blame'. None of this speculation helps keep the facts straight and none of this helps the trail or the people on it. All the information that is known is available, theorizing on things for your entertainment, which is to say spreading false info, in the face of actual available facts, is not helping anyone.
Back to the intention of this thread and I think this forum, if you haven't read the official complaint but are invested in this topic, please do so here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/4097...eral-affidavit
The news reporting in Outdoor and the New York Times, already linked in this thread are, combined with the official complaint, the most comprehensive and carefully cultivated information currently available.
peace.