Walk in the woods-walk on the street

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WIN71

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Several threads over the years put out the question "what do you carry in the woods". Almost every firearm and caliber come out recommended. Also, almost without exception one post advises that it's the two legged threat you have to worry about. I never worried about humans in the woods. I was usually there to hunt or at least shoot and was armed anyway.
I've spent thousands of hours in the woods and have never been threatened by any animal other than Yellow jackets and Bald hornets! Well, I'm getting old, the same age as the man in this article.
I have finally decided to stick a PPKS in my back pocket not only in town but everywhere else too. The attached article and crime happened about 45 minutes from my house. When bad is close to home it does impress a tad more.

http://www.redding.com/news/2014/may/20/sketch-murder-suspect-released-detectives-ask-publ/
 
FWIW: The situation in the link I hardly think having a weapon by one of the two victims would have helped much. Common sense tells me if that couple were confronted and caught flat footed so to speak. Not much maneuvering room does any victim have under those circumstances. Especially when the perpetrator of the crime has intentions of shooting his victim/s all along after he's gotten what he wants. When this bad dude is caught up with. Old school justice needs to be applied Sir. A officer or two need to see that this perpetrator gets what he's given to others. Stay safe. Thanks for the thread WIN71.
 
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Everyone needs to evaluate their own situation. I spend quite a bit of time in the woods and on hiking trails and choose to carry something anywhere legal. There have been several incidents where hikers have been targeted. This case was the biggest reason why GA has reformed carry laws considerably in recent years. Prior to this carry in State Parks was illegal and only while hunting on Wildlife Management areas. This girl was hiking through a WMA and through a small corner of a State Park. I don't know if she was a gun owner or not, but it would have been illegal for her to carry there at that time. It is now legal.

The man convicted of killing Meredith Emerson was also convicted of killing 4 other hikers in Florida and North Carolina. There have been several deaths along the Appalachian Trail in recent years too.

http://crime.about.com/b/2008/03/24/meredith-emerson-fought-hard-to-survive.htm

When in areas where 4 legged threats are not a possibility I carry the smallest gun I feel comfortable with to stop a human. Usually a G-19 or G-26, although my Kel-Tec 380 is in the mix depending on how I feel, the threat concern and how I'm dressed.

And there is a real possibility of bear incidents in many places. Within the last 10-15 years there have been 8-10 serious bear related incidents in North GA and East TN where I hike. There have been 2 killed and 3-4 injured by bear. There have been dozens of minor incidents where there were no injuries. I don't obsess over it, but in those areas I do carry something a little more suitable for a 300-500 lb bear. I'm also convinced that bear spray is a more effective tool, and have began to carry it as well, with a handgun as a backup.

Lots of good choices, but my Glock in 10mm is my choice for this. I'm still more concerned about human threats and 16 shots in a very compact gun is a decent choice. Sixteen 200 gr bullets at 1300 fps is decent bear medicine too. That will beat 357 from short barrels and come closer to 44 mags from a 3-4" barrel than most folks realize. It is not in the same league as 7-8" barreled magnum revolvers, but who carries those for SD.
 
Absent methlab cookers in national forests, the chance of a human problem is exceedingly low.

If I'm hunting with a rifle, I don't carry any other gun. If hunting with a bow or shotgun, or not hunting, I try to (but don't always) have a Taurus 94 - 9 shots of .22lr is nothing to sneeze out. Occasionally, I will be in a hurry to go bowhunt, and will just pack my normal everyday SmartCarry gun, which at the moment is an M&P Shield, because I'm going straight from my "normal life" of an evening to go hunt. At one point, for a year or so, I'd carry a 10" TC Contender in .218 Bee, scoped, when bowhunting, for piggies/yotes, but no longer do this - it was too heavy/bulky.

Now if I was on a public land which is well known for pot fields and methlabs, then something of a double-stack nature is in order. Pot should definitely be legal, but until it is, the growers tend to get kinda funny about protecting their fields (if they happen to be there when you come along, which is far less likely than the methlab purveyor to be there).
 
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20 yrs ago

About 20 yrs back there was a double homicide of 2 young women on the AT in Shenandoah NP (crime remains unsolved). The investigation was very thorough, and the resulting data concerning other murders and assaults on the AT through its multi state length was staggering.

Locally, about 15 years ago, a father and jr high age son were killed at a boat ramp on TVA along the TN River, and their truck used in a bank robbery. That case was solved.

In the past 5 years or so, a young adult couple at an observation tower at a nearby Nat Wildlife Area (Key Cave) was sexually assaulted by a suspect who confronted and compelled them at gunpoint. (unsolved)

That's three incidents I have personal knowledge of, there are many others to be certain.

Bad things do go on in the woods.
 
I'm surrounded by the Huron National Forest, but most of my walking is on road, as I walk the 2.6 mile route that follows a road off my highway and circles around my property. It is perfect for exercise, and I generally just carry my usual primary and BUG like normal. If I need or want to venture deeper into the woods, I'll swap my primary .45 ACP for 10mm, but I've yet to see anything more threatening than a fox, though dogs are primarily the biggest threat. Had a very large one run up on me and was ready to pull, when I realized he was chasing a fox. He passed a scant 10 feet from me running full-out. I was fairly nervous for the remainder of that walk. I've also seen cougar tracks, and have warned the neighbors about letting their dogs out, but have never seen one.
 
To stalkers and thieves, hiking trails are like a watering hole in the desert. A few years back my wife and I stopped with our motorcycle at a state park. We sat under a small tree a small distance from the bike, but close enough to keep an eye on it. We watched a man sit in a car for a hour in the hiking trail parking lot until a young lady in spandex running apparel drove up and went for a jog. The man got out, looked around and started to follow her until I got up and walked toward him. He then got back in his car and drove away. We reported the incident along with the license number, but never heard anything back. It certainly looked like a bad situation to me. But as I told my wife, the guy was definitely hunting and had picked a good stand.
 
I retired from the Forest Service after 30 years. I worked on 3 different forest all in the PNW in Fire Management. In my experience trail heads and remote campgrounds were places that seemed to be preferred by those with bad intentions.

Mostly, trail-head vehicle break-ins where people would leave valuables in plain sight, but not always.

I recall two kidnapping/sexual assault/attempted murder (one involved a campground employee). One sexual assault/murder. Many suspicious people reports. But this is the most chilling story of all:

There was a remote (hike in) look-out on a remote district, that was staffed by a young female employee. She did not get a great deal of visitors, but there were a few every so often.

One day she got visit from a man that that came up and looked about and then left that afternoon. Her normally friendly dog did not care for him and that made her a bit suspicious. Fortunately she made a mental note of the encounter as "something did not seem right" to her. She said he gave her the "creeps." She signed off at 1800 for the evening.

Later that night (10:00 or so), she saw someone coming up the trail with a flashlight and her dog alerted and started throwing a fit. She went outside the look-out and saw what looked like the same guy that had visited her that day. She kept her wits and grabbed her portable radio and ran down the steep side of the ridge to hide in some rocks, her dog followed.

She radioed down and finally got a hold of the fire duty officer. She was extremely agitated, but told him what was going on. At that time the intruder was searching the inside of the look-out.

The duty officer called me and told me to get a few of the fire crew up as we needed to hike up to the look-out immediately.

We met two deputy sheriffs at the trail-head about 30 minutes later and began the fastest 4 mile hike in my career. We still had contact with the look-out via the radio even though she had moved down into some very steep rocks on the backside of the ridge.

Being in the best shape, a crew member and myself encountered the guy coming down the trail and held him (I had a Pulaski) until the deputies caught up. While they questioned him, we went on up to find the look-out. When she saw us she lost it and bawled for half and hour as we took her down. I kept reassuring her and praising her courage and fortitude. I did not tell her it may have saved her life

Turns out the late night visitor had a warrant from an adjacent county for robbery, along with a criminal history including attempted sexual assault. There was no doubt what he was up to that night.

Needless to say, that was her last shift on that look-out.
 
Hiking by myself on a logging trail near my home some years ago, I had a disturbing encounter with two guys in a pickup truck. Ended up cutting about two miles, cross country, over a high ridge, to get away from them -- and I was absolutely furious the whole time I was stomping away from danger. Of course I was armed and could have protected myself physically if it came to that. But those idiots couldn't tell it by looking at me, which meant that if I hadn't been alert to what was going on, I would have had to shoot a living, breathing human being just to keep myself alive. How DARE they put me in a situation like that...

When I calmed down, I realized it was time for me to stop hiking alone. Not because I couldn't take care of myself. But because I could.

Kathy
 
I stopped worrying about carrying a "woods gun" for 4-legged critters. When I'm hiking, I carry what I normally carry - a fairly lightweight Ruger LC9 - pretty much just forget that I even have it.
 
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