How dangerous is solo backpacking? I live close to Appalachia and any time I talk to someone about going on a solo trip people talk schitzo-tier about how I'm going to die, disappear, or worse.Not even because of the nature specifically, but because of le paranormal, inbred mountain people, cannibals, accidentally stumbling upon illegal operations in the mountains (heard this one specifically a lot), etc. You get it, the list goes on.Anyways, is there any truth to the danger or is it just the average small-town tall tales and superstitions? Seems unlikely to me as I feel like if it was so dangerous you'd be seeing a lot more of it in the news.
>>2872584redneck hands typed this
>>2874497a "no" to to the first question is favorable, dumbass
>>2872583It depends on where you live in Appalachia. Some people set up stils or grow operations on public land, that's the most dangerous thing you can encounter. Mountain lions have made their way back into the mountains as well but they are rare. Black bears are unlikely to hurt you, deer are even less likely. You could step on a poisonous snake (I almost have). There are also ground bees that can swarm you. Being attacked by yellow jackets on a hike sucks, it has happened to me a couple times. The possibility of any one of these things hurting you is extremely low, what is much more likely is that you will be walking and will decide to do something that is stupid and you will fall or have something fall on you. You're more likely to die as a result of your own poor judgement than any external factor.
>>2881175Rapid weather changes could happen but assuming you don't go in shorts and a tee the worst that's gonna realistically happen is you'll spend a night on a mountaintop in a storm/snow shivering, wet and cold, but won't die or will die if you are utterly retarded.
Less dangerous than the drive to the trailhead
With some predictions showing a decrease in human population in the coming decades does this mean there will be large swaths of land with no human activity or will corporations fill it all with taxpayer-funded robot cities or something.
>>2881073>>2881192We can already reduce human population just by running an accurate census on countries where statistics are extrapolated, untrustworthy or both.
>>2881072>corporationsclaude will own the entire planetwe will live inside a ultra-hi-tech hunter gatherer society
>>2881073Dysgenic breeding unchecked by harsh Darwinian selection pressures suppressed by technological innovations found in compute complex civilisation assures civilisation will collapse once sufficiently intelligent people are too few in the population to sustain these technologies. Food chain and disease control collapses, billions die. Already happened in the past. This is a cycle.
>>2881072That will never happen because then line will go down which is bad for muh economyThey will just import millions of the nigerians or whatever other country is predicted to have population booms to fill in the gapsReally is a shame, overgrown cities would be such unique ecosystems. You already have 50 year old soil crusts on parking lots in NYC which now grow xeric plants like cactuses. I can imagine little lizards climbing into the cracks of pavement and overgrown lawns looking like praries.
>>2883349There will be plenty of abandoned cities. It's cheaper to bulldoze a field or forest flat than it is to destroy old buildings or roads.
details to follow
Bad news op.Pic relatedI go in the woods like this, your move nancy.
>>2883199I'm at the top of a really steep hill. By the time you reach the top you'll be so exhausted and unable to stand that my pit weiners will have no problem knocking you over and watching you roll down the hill. armor has a movement penalty
Also. that's a really nice cod piece on that armor. Only thing is it should be buffed more so that it's the shiniest thing on the entire suit
My ex had a dog like that. Pretty chill dog ngl. Anyway. There were some Russian dudes that used to train dogs to sic balls by using tennis balls as their toy incentive. Then they put the balls in a sock and tied it to a belt around the bite suit. You know you’re doing it right when your dogs letting out those high pitched yips. That deep guttural bark is more of a defensive fuck off posture. You want prey drive not defensive drive. A lot of that’s genetic though. They have it in them or they don’t.
>>2883253DESU it'll probably drizzle my suit will rust and I'll need some guy with a horse and cart to move me back to the castle, guess trebuchets it is.Weiner dogs are pretty amusing little guys btw.
Would this work in a self-defense situation innawoods?
>>2880138Literally like 1 in 4 white men to half of all white men in the mountain states of the western USA carry a pistol concealed or openly on a daily basis. 5 of 8 of those states are constitutional carry states, and all 8 of 8 are open carry states, and 7 of 8 of those states allow the legal open carrying of swords and spears. There's a 3-5 second rule for concealed carry citizens where you have to be able to clean draw and put a bullet on target within that amount of time to intercept a hostile crackhead/bear before it can reach you. The advantage of concealed carry however, is the hostiles underestimate you because they don't think you're carrying a gun because they cannot see it. So literally as long as you train and are aware of your surroundings, a daily CC pistol is all you need. However, most CC'ers also typically also carry a pocket knife as well, but the gun is typically your first option.
>>2883259Also in Arizona, it is also legal to conceal carry *swords* if you are over 21 years old. Both open and concealed.
>>2881513>Melee weapons are useless against bearsa saber can split an elephant in two, you have no fucking idea what you're talking about
>>2883197Most of plains states are CC states. It's only parts of the midwest, east coast, west coast plus NV, and CO-NM that are faggot states. 2bh however, some of the southern states are also run by faggot retards in their gun laws even though they have CC. Pretty much Illinois is the only serious faggot commie state in on the actual plains. If you're a felon or an immigrant, well you're shit out of luck regardless.
have we gone so far that people don't know a sharp stick, let's dub it spear maybe
Post YouTubers you wanna go /out/ with
>>2883080Sir you dropped your hat.
>>2873550S A W C
>>2874026I don’t like her
>>2883189people with tattoos are nature-haters that want national parks turned into a parking lot for some disney world / mall shit your reaction is understandable, she's a walking graffiti that reminds you of the ones in concrete fuck concrete worshipers
>>2883329This. If you have no self respect how can you respect nature?
the debate that tore /out/ in half...
>>2882037>if they wear socksumm sockbros?...
>>2882491imagine the stink
>>2882123we're so back
>>2882036My mountains are full of forests.My forests are full of mountains, hills, flats, plains and impossible shit to get stuck in and spend hours trying to get back out of.
>>2883320This is a gay thread now, stay on topic.Who would you fuck?
Every single axe I have ever used that looks like picrel has the head start coming loose after only a few weeks. Every single time. It's retarded that I can't buy a wood handled axe that is made correctly out of the box. Even with premium brands like Gransfors, while the heads may not come loose, they are hung crooked half the time, and there's no store where you can pick out a straight one in person. I don't have time for these shop projects to fix these issues myself, an axe should just be fucking made right.
>>2878300How's this for endurance and patience?
>>2867623>Every single axe I have ever used that looks like picrel has the head start coming loose after only a few weeks.Hang it yourself. Jeets and mexicans hang all the stuff in stores>It's retarded that I can't buy a wood handled axe that is made correctly out of the box.Correct but it be how it do>Even with premium brands like Gransfors, while the heads may not come loose, they are hung crooked half the timeIt literally doesnt matter>I don't have time for these shop projects to fix these issues myselfIf you don't have 20 minutes or less to fix a loose axe properly you're probably also fat>an axe should just be fucking made right.To be fair they are, you probably live in a different climate than where they came from. I live in an increadibly humid location and I have never had a head come loose on me, however if you are in a dryer environment than me you may have to deal with wood shrinkage
>>2870940Ebay and antique malls. All of the best axes I own are unmarked heads from under $30 and from 2-5lbs. The marked ones I resell to people who will never use them but think they're cool.>>2871022Not him but I buy heads and handles, restore them and then resell for profit. The ones that I keep i take with me innawoods or for projects aroubd the house. Various patterns of bits and angles of edges are good for various types of wood when it comes to chopping/splitting.>>2873991I haven't tried that but just because it's less pretty to look at
>>2881737Nta, but the sudden stops absolutely hurt your wrists. Buying a log splitter was a dollar well spent. Wrangling logs into position is still work, but the soreness after is exercise pain and not damage pain.
>>2878300Is this good enough to match your level of craftsmanship faggot-kun?
Rank US States (or regions in your country) based on natural beautyhttps://tiermaker.com/create/us-states-36606
>>2883180>>2881337>>2881335etcsome janny ban this butt hurt arizona loving faggot already.>hurr durr my desert state has mountains and there's white stuff on it.touch grass and fuck your mother, fagget.
>>288324550-60% of Arizona, an area larger than Pennsylvania is temperate forest, plains, and mountains. An area larger than Pennsylvania and Ohio is all public land and wilderness in Arizona with less humans living on it than in the state of Wyoming. Read the date in pic related filename.
>>2883247
>>2883248350-390 feet two tier vertical drop, 1,350-1,400 feet full rim to canyon bottom water course cascades btw. Probably not even in the top 10 for Arizona.
>>2858928damn is michigan really that much better than kansas? maybe I should move
Any other commercial anons in here? Yes, I know we have plenty of threads about bass and the three 8” trout you caught. This is a thread for current and former commercial guys. Longline, troll, seine, gillnet, pot fisheries, trawl, all welcome. Tell your stories here. Me? I was 20k halibut, 10k black cod and pic related.
>>2882790>running a shitload of sport rodsSorta.. we bounce ball, dodger hoochie trains. when they get set up right, the rods get a rhythm to them, so it easy to pick bites. over time you learn where hali's congregate to mate, basic shit like, look at the tide knowing that they line up, and they face into the tide to eat. we do runs up and down the depth lines. it's surprising how productive it is for the active swimmer males. Later we do chunks of humbolt, salted mackerel, herring & sardine. Power drifting over the same warmer flats & our usual waypoints for larger females. The rockfish we get are not deepwater rockfish. usually in under 150' along with a number of other rcg complex, they all go in pressure tanks. This is mainly for the chinese market. They want them alive. we dont do processed rockfish because the per # rates are far too low to daily operate. Our money grab as a smaller company is the holiday market. Live dungeness, we got a permit for direct sales (live & cooked) to the public. It has been a great thing for us. Like farm to table. Keeps the company afloat around the thin times. Again it was a up and down rollercoaster for us, two different partners who were good friends, a divorce. CG thought we were running shit up and down, constantly being sweated. we had a major turn around during covid.
>>2882860Cool. I imagined a boat with 20 stubby rods, all strapped into rod holders, and a couple guys sprinting across the deck when a rod tip went crazy. I can imagine keeping shit from getting all tangled up is a challenge, assuming you have to vary weight sizes, drift, or somehow keep things going in a set direction. We just did a standard longline and would either snap on when setting or snap on as we baited and send it out a chute. Set one, set another, set a third, then run back and pull the first assuming they’d soaked long enough. Sand fleas were a problem, so you didn’t want things in for too long.We’ve got some direct market crab folks here, some do dungies, but mostly it’s gold and red. I do miss the days when the local processors were cooking, you could get tails for nearly nothing. We never targeted rockfish, but were allowed a certain % as bycatch. I remember one year we got more per # for the yellow eye than we did for the halibut. We set over a pinnacle on accident and had so many they looked like red corks and floated damn near 10fa of ground line if we let it slack. Weird rules now with rockfish, I guess they’re super old and you have to release them with a special tool that sends them back to depth, not certain if that’s for commercial too or just sport.
>>2882892yeah. the rcg regs can get nuts, because they switched up depths and capped time for all of us. Now every year it's the same for our crabbing, early testers go out on a dfw survey and the grounds are full of whales. so they hold season back which kills a lot of business for the big boats. some now dont even go on the opener. being a smaller operation we're flexible, and switched up to rings early. my boy is a rep down south for promar so we scored his first big sale. we store the pots and kill it with hoops for early months. gets all of out vendors hyped. but really we're doing it to keep money flowing. Live prices are nice for us and the investment was scary at the time but it paid for itself the first season. As far as rocks and rcg. we see the type of schooling patterns on the finder to kind of guess the type, though the occasional yellow eye and cow cod gets taken, we have some expensive descend devices to limit barotrauma effects on them, which is regs for live catch. Cows and Yeloeye are commonly deeper than where we target and they dont do well in the tanks anyways.. mf'ers are older than i am.. we prefer survivors for the tank not half dead meat and we dont leave floaters they all get dropped down. its easy now with an electric reel. I used to do it with a 9/0 senator LOL..
>>2882715You're right, fruitcake, art is for real men
>>2882896What’s the soak time on rings? Hours? Always seemed appealing since you can stack a ton more vs pots on a deck. Still use bait boxes with rings?
Beautiful morning fog in Buryatia. Just went outside and shot this
>>2882904Version with longer shutter
Looks real nice bud.
>>2882910noice, all that's missing is some weeaboo haiku
>>2882904shot what? there is nothing there
Looking for a good minocular to take camping and vacations. I want one instead of binoculars because they are easier for the kids to use and easier to carry around. Any standard recommendations and/or price range i should look in/avoid?
>>2883018i already ordered some nocs, just none of the dumd accessories. i can supply my own string and plastic bag without spending more than the nocs themselves cost
Get real binos instead of a glorified toy
>>2883019Good. None of us told you to buy accessories. I was just playing with NOCS today. I think they were some 10x32 binoculars. They were pretty nice for the money.
>>2882944I have this Vortex that's decent. It's compact and light which is good for hiking, but detailed viewing is only good for about 100 yards or so.Avoid any cheap brands on amazon like Barska.
>>2882977Skill issue. Brace your elbows or use a string pod.
>>2880798eto.... how would anyone know if they had a shark tooth fossil instead of just a sharp looking rock
>>2879772They have cloacas, which is basically the same thing. I went to see what they look like and found pic related. Good thing to do, but imagine your job being "shark wanker".
I can’t believe I’ll have to break up with lifts-her-tail
Kiwi hereMy first thoughts on that sign is another sign"Don't bum the gators"I really don't want to know what people are doing over there.
Pretty sure molest can mean touching something in a way it doesn't like. Not nessesary sexual.
Any hunters have stories/sightings of chronic wasting disease? The concept of prion diseases seems like nature cheating imo
>>2881103>>2881106Reminds me of a fucked up scifi short story I once read "Damascus" by Daryl Gregory. How a prion disease spreads by inducing religious visions in a cannibalistic death cult who believe their own salvation comes from eating the brains of members who have died from the disease.
>>2883030Fucked up shit anon, I’ll check it out
>>2881590>>2881306Uh okay, enjoy your dementia then I guess
>>2882449Yeah I fucked up, incineration is the recommended way of prion waste DISPOSAL. For STERILIZATION autoclaving even at 134c isn't completely reliable, you have to combine a higher temp, extended autoclave and sodium hydroxide (lye) for recommended decontamination.Prions are fuckin scary.
It's mostly unrelated but one time I smashed an old glass pot lid that was used to cook meat back when Mad Cow was a thing in this country and I spent the next week doomspiraling about how I could have maybe possibly theoretically but almost certainly not really come into contact with prions from back then.Prions are fucking scary man.
>no night walk threadAnyone else enjoy a good walk in the dark? City streets or woods?
>>2882554I nightwalk my suburb all the time. I wouldn’t misrepresent it as an amazing /out/ experience because it absolutely is not compared to other parts of the country but it is fairly old, quite affluent, and spacious. That means we have lots of old trees and parks all around. Even the residential neighborhoods have nice trees taller than the houses most of the time. I have a nice flashlight like others have mentioned in the thread. It’s a mini Nitecore one but it goes up to 1k lumens so it’s plenty. It’s a really cozy experience.
>>2883026I'm always paranoid that some retarded neighbor will see my walking my suburb and call the cops. Wouldn't be a concern out more rural..
>>2882675>i bought a flashlight and look forward to using itjesus christ anon please get some hobbies
>>2883282some people like flashlights you abrasive nigger. nta but i collect them myself.
>>2883281Depends on the neighborhood, I guess. As much as it sucks to admit, our area tends to stay “nice” directly because of more aggressive policing activity. Flip side of that coin is that being a nice area makes it safe and pleasurable to walk around at night, obviously.So maybe 5-7 years back there was a huge uptick in boomers trying to call the cops for exactly the reason you described and in a couple of months I got stopped twice. The cops were chill enough about it because I was just on foot with no bags or anything and my ID shows I live a couple streets over but it was irritating. As it turns out, calling the cops on everyone who walks by at night in turn makes it so other boomers can’t have an occasional night walk because they’ll get stopped too kek. After boomers realized this actually affected their own ability to walk around at night, pretty much the entire thing stopped. Haven’t even had a cop slow down while driving by me in years now.
Have any of you tried these wild button mushrooms, pretty tastey
Would any of you eat the fly agaric? Double parboiled? Have a spiritual journey maybe?
not the best specimens but i couldn't get out when the weather pattern was the best, so i'll take it
I just ate the first mushrooms I ever gathered myself in the wild today. Honey fungus, growing in big bundles on some old decaying spruce tree stumps. Boiled them for 25 minutes, then fried them for another five minutes and served them in a cream sauce with salt, pepper and some garlic. pretty good. No stomach cramps and no violent diarrhea so far. Seems like I also discovered some bay boletes today, those will be in my frying pan next.
North Texas reporting in I really wish I could harvest mushrooms but the only ones I ever see appear to be either useless or straight up deadly.
>>2879596Chicken of the woods is the bomb shit
