Sunday, May 11, 2008
Attacks shouldn't dissuade campers
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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The campers were fast asleep in their bags when it happened.
In the middle of the night a maniac stole into the camp and started slashing. By the time he was done only one camper was alive, having escaped during the mayhem by rolling in his sleeping bag into the woods.
It's was a scene straight out of a Wes Craven horror film. Unfortunately, this crime really happened in the rural county in Southern Oregon where I grew up.
I can't remember how old I was but I was old enough that my parents weren't able to keep the news from me.
I never let on, but the crime haunted me for years, and was always in the back of my mind when we headed out on our many camping adventures.
It's hard not to get a little wigged out when something horrible and random happens to someone like you doing something you love to do.
Which is why some outdoors enthusiasts in our region may be feeling a little uneasy after what happened in Giles County on Tuesday, when two trout fishermen were shot and wounded in a seemingly random attack at their campsite along Dismal Creek.
The suspect was Randall Lee Smith, who, in a chilling twist, was convicted of killing two hikers on the Appalachian Trail in 1981. That murder occurred just a short ways from the site of Tuesday's shooting.
Smith, who was seriously injured as a result of a one-vehicle accident, died on Saturday while still in custody.
Still, the "if it could happen to them, it could happen to me" fear is playing out in some peoples' heads.
In fact, a co-worker told me yesterday that news of the crime has left his wife spooked about camping.
But the simple fact is this shouldn't spook us.
Although Craven might have us believe otherwise -- and Thursday's front page picture of tents surrounded by police tape might reinforce the concern -- the odds of being randomly attacked in the woods are miniscule.
Since the first known murder along the AT in the early 1970s, fewer than a dozen hikers have been killed along the route. That's too many, of course. But considering that the trail has more than three million visitors annually, the number is statistically tiny.
In fact, one could argue that the reason violent crimes against campers, hikers and other outdoor recreationists get so much media attention is because they are so rare.
Driving that media coverage is public interest. Such crimes morbidly fascinate us because of the contrast between the serenity of the outdoors and the horror of the violence.
It's why directors of slasher flicks so often have their maniacs target campers, who are pretty much the perfect victims.
We go camping, hiking, fishing and canoeing because we want to escape from the stress of daily life. We want to take it easy, let our guard down. And by letting our guard down we make ourselves vulnerable.
That vulnerability is part of what's great about being out there. It allows us to forget to at least some degree about our daily stresses, and even to bond with people we've just met because, outside the trappings of everyday life, we're all on the same plane.
Then, every once in a while, someone does something that shatters that serenity and gets us thinking about how safe -- or not -- it really is out there.
The murder of an AT hiker in Georgia earlier this year has spurred recent discussions in the outdoors community about how to best protect ourselves in the outdoors. Tuesday's shooting will now become part of that debate.
Some people believe that a legally carried firearm offers a sensible and reasonable level of protection.
My dad, for one, always carried a little revolver in his pack when we camped. He said it was for snakes, but I kind of doubt that. And I admit it made me feel a bit more at ease.
Others preach the importance of awareness, a sensible goal to be sure but one that naturally conflicts with that devil-may-care, relaxed attitude many of us want to take when we head afield.
The worst approach is avoidance.
The simple truth is we have a much higher chance of meeting an unexpected end during our everyday lives than we do out in the woods.
When people do die suddenly in the woods, it's almost always because of an accident.
But we don't let fear of a fatal fall or drowning or being struck by lightning keep us home, and we shouldn't let any other fear keep us home.
