I have recently been doing a lot of slideshows at libraries across the state, talking about my canoe trip across Rhode Island. My audiences are largely people who enjoy the outdoors, but who do not generally engage in overnight trips of the types that most of us are familiar with. I hope to inspire them to get out and do something like it, to challenge themselves. I try to make clear two things: 1) one does not have to be an Olympic athlete to accomplish pretty lengthy wilderness canoe trips, that such trips are accessible to nearly all ages and levels of physical fitness, but that 2) what they don't know can seriously endanger them, so take the time to read up on skills, and practice them in areas where help is easily accessible before taking off on a true backcountry trip.
Like the kids/young adults in the article, I certainly got myself into situations that I was lucky to get out of. And sometimes I still do. It is easy to sit on top of my mound of experience and shake my head at these kids and say they should never have been out there, but in their place at that age, I did some of the same things and came out just fine. Some of it is luck, and some of it is the simple fact that people do stupid things every single day and still live to tell about it. Hopefully by educating folks and encouraging them to get out and learn things for themselves we can all do our part to minimizing the death count.
-rs
