Personal safety when hiking alone

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Replies

  • Hannahwalksfar
    Hannahwalksfar Posts: 572 Member
    I was thinking more kidnapping or assault. Didn’t even consider being murdered. Glad it’s statistically unlikely.
  • LAT1963
    LAT1963 Posts: 1,375 Member
    edited August 2019
    Hannah--get bear spray. If you had a gun you'd just hesitate to use it anyway, because in most cases you'd still be trying to calculate a way to get out of the situation without killing someone (especially in a remote area where emergency response to their gunshot wound would be delayed). With bear spray you put them in a nasty backwoods pickle, but you can get away and they probably won't die unless they do something stupid like walk off a cliff while they can't see anything.

    I understand what lilly is saying about the stats, however your personal experience is informing your fear. We don't know the nature of the creepy experience, but one thing to remember is that even as you were at the time it happened, without training or weapon, you got away and are here to post about it now. Whatever you did worked--your existing survival skills were adequate to that particular challenge.

    It makes sense to become better prepared in case the next threat is more dangerous, but take some comfort in the fact you already prevailed in one situation.

    PS: now I go back and see pepper spray is illegal where you live. In a pinch a handful of dirt can be pretty effective.

    Martial arts come in two broad flavors--striking and grappling. I suggest taking up a grappling type art because it will teach you ways to escape when someone grabs you. The problem with a striking art for us women is if we fail to deliver adequate power in a strike we'll just piss the attacker off. With a grappling art you keep escaping, he's expending much more energy than you are, and if you can make him fall one or more times then all his weight and energy are working against him when he hits the ground. Grappling arts include jiu jitsu, aikido, judo, etc---but you want to focus on situations where *you* stand and *they* fall, not wrestling around in holds on the ground.
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,816 Member
    It's not clear that bear spray is legal in Australia. I haven't seen any indication that it is or any place that seems to sell it.

    Even if it was, bear spray is NOT the same thing as pepper spray and not considered an effective defense against human attackers. It is much weaker and while it may possibly scare off a human attacker, it will not incapacitate them.
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    edited August 2019
    kimny72 wrote: »
    Lol the internet is full of Australians poking fun at all the large and/or scary bugs, animals, and plants in Australia. There's a tough crowd in here tonight.

    OP, I don't think you're over reacting. You need to do what you have to in order to feel safe and confident. I suspect the most useful strategies are the ones that make you look like a bad target, so you never get to the point where you have to defend yourself, and making sure someone knows where you are and when you expect to return. I sympathize, I have a tough time feeling safe when I'm by myself out in the world and not in a crowded place. I'll only go solo on short hikes with a quick route out, and even so I tend to bail if anything looks sketchy, probably unnecessarily.

    You get me.
  • bosque1234
    bosque1234 Posts: 60 Member
    Just get pepper spray anyway, I'm sure it's available online...I'd chose protection over being a dead victim...
  • vanityy99
    vanityy99 Posts: 2,583 Member
    So ppl are just walking around with guns just like that? Thats trippy.

    I wouldn’t go anywere where I thought I wasn’t safe. If i felt it was unsafe to the point where I was taking pictures of licence plates I wouldn’t bother. Just bring the pepper spray if it’s that serious for you.

  • slimgirljo15
    slimgirljo15 Posts: 269,440 Member
    Never mind. It’s illegal here.

    Here in Texas Monday for the first time in several decades it will be legal to possess and carry brass knuckles. Maybe that for you there?

    Nope.. brass knuckles are also illegal :)
  • aokoye
    aokoye Posts: 3,495 Member
    Diatonic12 wrote: »
    Who absorbs all of the costs for search and rescues. Ultimately, it comes down to taxpayer dollars. Should it remain a free public service. That's what many question in my neck of the woods. Who pays for the boots on the ground, the search plane, rescue or recovery.
    That isn't true in all cases everywhere. You might want to read (or at least skim) this now 5 year old article from Outside https://www.outsideonline.com/1986496/search-and-rescue-public-service-not-exactly . Never mind too that the OP very clearly isn't in the US (though I wouldn't be shocked if search and rescue efforts are paid primarily by taxpayer dollars there).