[ghaff]

>People also died in the back woods a lot more than they do now.

That certainly could be true although I suspect a lot of people are also less prepared/careful today because they assume they can just call for help. And then they end up with a dead battery, no cell reception, or conditions are just such that rescue is delayed.

That said, a cell phone probably should be on your "10 things to carry" list these days. And I could certainly be convinced that an inReach-like things should be too if you're regularly off by yourself in areas without a lot of people.

[ashtonkem]

Also, more people are in the back woods these days for recreational purposes rather than pure necessity, which also confounds the numbers. The relationship between safety gear and risk taking attitudes seems to be relatively complicated, and none of the sources I’ve read have managed to pin down whether or not safety equipment reliably produced more risk taking behavior.

Still, if I was in the habit of going further afield than your typical day hiker, or lived in a remote area, I think a rescue beacon would be a minimum requirement. An inReach gives you rescue functionality and GPS, so it’s kind of a win win.

The rumors of a satellite enabled iPhone might change this calculus again. Time will tell on that one.

[int_19h]

Even for a typical day hikers these things can save lives. It's surprisingly common for people to get lost a couple hundred yards off the trail, and even remain close to the trail even as they wander around all lost. This can easily happen on a day hike.

[emodendroket]

Compared to when? It's not like hiking is some new fad.

[ashtonkem]

Certain recreational activities are in fact new as hobbies, at least at scale. Skiing, mountaineering, and camping were once things you did out of necessity, not for funsies.

For example, our records for recreational skiing stretch back basically 300 years. Mountaineering has been done practically forever, but as a mass hobby it’s also basically 250 or so years old. The idea that you’d do it for fun rather than as a spiritual quest or to catch a lost sheep is a fairly new idea.

Hiking is a bit more debatable. Humans have walked on local trails for practical and recreational purposes forever. Some European trails are clearly very old, so that’s hardly new. But I think the idea of backpacking deep into the woods for fun has exploded in popularity over the past century, and certainly got a huge kick in the pants with the creation of the national park system.

[emodendroket]

Well, whether we mean the past century or the basically the entire existence of the United States, it's certainly much older than the GPS devices we're talking about, which was the sort of timeframe I had in mind when I said it is not a "fad." If we mean a couple hundred years then we could also call driving a car newfangled and faddish.

[ghaff]

Here is one set of stats showing significant growth in hiking from 2006 through 2019: https://www.statista.com/statistics/191240/participants-in-h...

This is consistent with other data I've seen.

[thaumasiotes]

> But I think the idea of backpacking deep into the woods for fun has exploded in popularity over the past century

Have you heard about Robin Hood? ;D

[ashtonkem]

Yes, but that actually somewhat reinforces my general point if you think about it. Robin Hood hid in the woods because that’s where the power of the state couldn’t reach him. The legend tips it’s hat to the general understanding that deep forests were effectively stateless territory beyond the reach of the law.

For most of human history untamed woods and mountains have been dangerous, unordered places. This is where political dissidents, bandits, and runaway slaves have gone specifically because they’re not places that most people wanted to go given the choice. That’s why the legend of Robin Hood had him there rather than in a safe house in London.

[thaumasiotes]

Living in the woods was for bandits. But it's not obvious that the idea was less popular then than now -- one of the earliest references to Robin Hood is just a complaint that the stories are so popular they're damaging the spiritual fabric of society.

[ghaff]

Pre-COVID many outdoor recreational activities as measured by stats like national park visits were up. (Some others like skiing I believe were down.) But without digging up a lot numbers, the parent's basic point squares with my understanding.