Backpacking in VA around 1992 or so. I was on the AT about two nights from the closest road. Walking down the trail I see a sign on a tree, from the forest service stating that a few nights earlier a woman had been violently assaulted and ***** at the very trail shelter I had just slept at, stating the suspect was still on the loose and advising hikers to get off the trail as soon as possible.

i was only fifteen or so and only had a Ka Bar knife as a weapon. I immediately turned around and walked all day and through the night to make it back to a road where I hitched a ride to Damascus, VA. That was hands down the most scared I have been in the woods. Of all the hazards, running into the wrong people worries me the most. I know lots of people say over and over again that those kinds of things are rare, but the truth is it happens, and its pretty much a crap shoot as to whether you become the one targeted.