Nature and Spirituality

Originally Posted by BigJohn

JustASimpleGuy,

When you are hiking, what precautions do you take for safety?

What I am really interested in is what my 'voice' brought to my attention yesterday. This dealt with rabid animals and in our area, really bad people.

Our area has had recent cases of rabid animals and of course our usual run of the mill drug smugglers and human traffickers. You have previously mentioned, I believe, your Ruger. Do you keep 'her' easily accessible or how? Just curious.

I never carried such things on hikes but I have planned two hikes in the future were precautions might be in order.

Walking stick and a Kershaw sheath knife with a very, very sharp and pointy blade. Couple of years back I made a new walking stick and the tip I got for it has a cap with a rubber foot for normal trails and it unscrews, revealing an ice spike.

https://treelineusa.com/large-chrome...ing-stick-tip/

I was just digging through some old pictures, adding to a new album, and found this picture from 1990 of me and a friend getting ready to head out on a 6 day backpacking trip into the Siamese Ponds Wilderness in the Adirondacks.

https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared...k9lK0jv10d1Ofc

Sadly my friend was killed some years back on his motorcycle on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway on Long Island. A drunk driver plowed into him.

[Starman]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

JustASimpleGuy,

When you are hiking, what precautions do you take for safety?

What I am really interested in is what my 'voice' brought to my attention yesterday. This dealt with rabid animals and in our area, really bad people.

Our area has had recent cases of rabid animals and of course our usual run of the mill drug smugglers and human traffickers. You have previously mentioned, I believe, your Ruger. Do you keep 'her' easily accessible or how? Just curious.

I never carried such things on hikes but I have planned two hikes in the future were precautions might be in order.

I have experienced more than once, being in a deep silent meditative state while camping in the remote outdoors, and a bear looked at me intently and then went its own way. I once opened my eyes after sitting against a tree meditating and two wolves, that were only a few yards from me, were there looking at me; they then turned and went there own way. More frequently I have had deer come over and eat from my hand, or birds land on me, my head, shoulder, or legs, while I was in a meditative state.

Animals react to our thoughts and our emotional state, and being quiet inside has saved me from many dangerous situations, even in the city. But I do carry Alaskan Bear Spray with me, and sometimes a stun gun, when I go camping. Those are good for human predators as well. Once I saw this elderly couple hiking and a mountain lion jumped out of the bushes and clamped down on the elderly mans arm with its teeth, the elderly woman with him had an umbrella, and she beat the mountain lion with it until it let go of the man’s arm. A lot of other hikers and campers ran to their rescue but the lion run off before they got there. The man needed medical care but he was okay.

The only time I encountered drug dealers was when I accidentally camped in and area that was and illegal marijuana growing field, and the drug dealers wanted to shoot me dead for being there. Again, being quiet and centered inside saved me, but I was told if I said anything about the growing of marijuana in that area, they would find me. I promised I would say nothing and I left the area. In Northern California Federal DEA helicopters are announced on the radio as “snooping around” when they come to certain areas out in the boondocks where marijuana is a cash crop for many of those very small towns.