Movin' Back to NI

[Transplant]

I have been on the PCT in various spots but never more than 20 or 30 miles at any given time. And that was in my younger and dumber days. It is like 2500 miles in legnth so choose your start/stop points.

I always wanted to do the Centennial Trail because it is only 900 miles long http://parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/recreation/idahocentennialtrail.aspx (900 miles...I ain't even drivin' 900 miles let alone walkin' it).

I was up in the local mountains camping last week with my 8yo son and a bear came through camp. My 13yo son opened his tent at the same spot last year to find a bear looking in which had to be chased away. People like to train the bears to come to campgrounds to feed. So good reason to stay away from built up campgrounds and get out there further.

[ChuckMcB]

....I always wanted to do the Centennial Trail because it is only 900 miles long...

(bold for emphasis)...ok, now you are starting to annoy me 

[suspectmonkey]

Whilst backpacking in Scotland I met a young American from Georgia who had walked a fair bit of the Appalachian Trail.  He said the Appalachian isn't quite so bad for bears as they are mainly black bears which you can generally scare off.  After a bit more research I was more worried to read this:

The Appalachian Trail is relatively safe. Most injuries or incidents are consistent with comparable outdoor activities. Most hazards are related to weather conditions, human error, plants, animals, diseases, and fellow humans encountered along the trail....

...Violent crime, including murder, has occurred on the trail in a few instances. Most have been crimes by non-hikers who crossed paths relatively randomly with the AT hiker-victims...

...Nine homicides have been documented on the trail since the first reported homicide in Georgia in 1974. In 1981, the issue of violence on the Appalachian Trail received national attention when Robert Mountford Jr. and Laura Susan Ramsay, both social workers in Ellsworth, Maine, were murdered by Randall Lee Smith. Another homicide occurred in May 1996, when two women were abducted, bound and murdered near the trail in Shenandoah National Park. The primary suspect was later discovered harassing a female bicycler in the vicinity but charges against him were dropped, and the case remains unsolved.

On May 6, 2008, Randall Lee Smith, the killer of Mountford and Ramsay in 1981, shot two fishermen from Virginia near the trail in Giles County, Virginia, not far from the site of his 1981 murder; he then stole their pickup truck but crashed it and was imprisoned. The fishermen survived, but Smith died in jail four days later, most likely from an acute pulmonary thromboembolism incurred when he crashed the pickup truck...

I'm sure its all just fear mongering... right?

Still, I'd love to spend a load of months "thru-hiking" in America.  Would be just the tonic! 

[ChuckMcB]

....Nine homicides have been documented on the trail since the first reported homicide in Georgia in 1974.....

That's better odds than Belfast on a Saturday night...

[Transplant]

OMG, sounds like something outta Somalia, Congo or Darfur not the States!!! That is hillbilly country where the family tree has no branches. Deliverance was filmed there too...

[suspectmonkey]

....Nine homicides have been documented on the trail since the first reported homicide in Georgia in 1974.....

That's better odds than Belfast on a Saturday night...

Yep, I kinda thought that the figures are actually pretty low when you consider how long its been open and the vast distance it covers.  I said exactly the same thing as you to Kat - you would be at more risk sticking a rucksack on your back and walking through Belfast on a Saturday night!

That is hillbilly country where the family tree has no branches. Deliverance was filmed there too...

  Love it!

[SAMD]

[/quote]


Absolute cracker