Is the AT dangerous?
I think it is becoming more dangerous.
Why???????
Originally Posted by TOW
Less dangerous; the older I get the less days I lose to a premature AT fatality.
No.
Elaborate please?
Statistically speaking, the world has never been safer.
The drive to a trailhead is statistically far more dangerous than walking the trail itself.
Life is dangerous.
I feel safer on the trail than I do not on trails. Except for snakes. Especially here in TX. Lots of venomous snakes.
https://tinyurl.com/MyFDresults
A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. ~Paul Dudley White
Lots of reptiles too! <rim shot>
You're more than correct!
Because I have no life, I periodically calculate the odds of getting killed by a wild bear in the East vs the odds of dying in a car accident while driving 100 miles to a trail head.
My first such calculation found that you're more likely to get killed in a car accident involving a Yugo. Then so many Yugos disappeared from the U.S. that I had to re-calculate, and I found you're more likely to get killed in a car accident involving a car that can run on 85% ethanol (ie, "flex-fuel"). As this was done based on 2017 figures, I'm sure I'll have to re-calculate again some day.
Probably becoming more well-known
''Tennessee Viking'
Mountains to Sea Trail Hiker & Maintainer
Former TEHCC (AT) Maintainer
You may be the victim of watching too much cable news...
ouch.
no, I don’t think the AT is getting more dangerous.
The only aspect of the AT that has been more dangerous than my everyday life is encounters with unleashed or uncontrolled dogs. A lot of idiot dog owners somehow think that when they step foot on a trail it's ok for Fido to run free. I've already had to spray one and poke at several others.
It is what it is.
More people with cell phones and GPS locators than at any time in history. 20 years ago, if you broke your leg, your options were 1) stay put and wait for someone to come along and find you 2) hope that people might notice you're missing and send a search party, or 3) drag yourself to the nearest road crossing and see option 1).
Of course, this doesn't make the trail "safer" but it does mean that some of the dangers that hikers dealt with in previous years are not as big of a danger now.
"I am learning nothing in this trivial world of [humans]. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news." --John Muir
That might depend on your definition of 'dangerous'. For example, the odds of becoming lost or suffering a physical injury.
I was on a Yellowstone NP group recently and the issue of bear safety came up. Someone wanted to know if they were staying in developed areas of the park, is bear spray necessary. Response after response rolled in saying that you will certainly die without out it (or some other such dire warning).
In this case, there were some reliable data to do the calculation (so I did).
from the NPS web page: https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/injuries.htm
For people in developed areas, roadsides, and boardwalks the chance of getting attacked by a bear is 1 in 59.5 million visits (I'll round of to 1/60 mil)
From NPS stats you can find that the average visit to YNP is about 1.5 days: https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/Reports/National
This pushes the bear attack probability to 1/90 million per day = 1.11x10-8 attacks/person/day
Form The National Safety Council (https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-ve.../introduction/), we find that there were 5.4 million cases of people needing medical attention from an auto accident injury in 2021. If we assume that every person in the US rode in a motor vehicle every day that year (an OVER estimate) and there were 322 million people in the US in 2021 (Google) and 365 days per year, this works out to 5.4/322/365=4.59x10-5 auto accident injuries/person/day.
Dividing the two rates we find (4.59x10-5) / (1.11x10-8) we get that the chance of getting an injury that requires medical attention in a car accident is 4135 times more likely than getting attacked by a bear at a developed area of Yellowstone NP.
So is XXX dangerous? I hate the question because the answer you usually get is the childishly simplistic answer "If something bad CAN happen, then it is dangerous". Two things are ignored by these fear mongers. One is the probability of the bad thing happening while doing XXX. If it is so low as to be negligible, then you can legitimately label it a NOT dangerous. But even more importantly, how does doing XXX affect other dangers?. If doing XXX prevents keeps you from using a motor vehicle (such as hiking), then your overall risk actually drops. In such a case, labeling it as "not dangerous" is an understatement. In reality is is the opposite of dangerous, but I don't think we really have a word for that.
Yes, Yellowstone is mostly in Wyoming. If you look up causes of death in Wyoming, animal encounters are so rare that they are not even listed. It's a few per decade, and lately victims have been YNP employees and professional guides, not hikers or tourists.
Is the AT dangerous? Yes, you might trip and fall. That is truly the greatest danger you face.
Or you can lose your heart….
Love this analysis, Odd Man Out. Thank you.
I live just North of Yellowstone. All my backpacking is in grizzly county, and has been for the last 25 years. I don’t give it much thought other than to keep a clean camp, hang my food, and pack bear spray. Sure I’ve had bear encounters. Dangerous? Hardly. Nor is the AT.
Gonna go with a different outlook. Let's say it is more dangerous. Let's say I am killed by a psychopath with a rocket launcher on the trail(more likely than a bear). Still better than dying in a nursing home.
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