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Trail Safe
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Section I: Starting Out
1. Introduction: Why and how Trail Safe was written, and a road map to what you'll find in Trail Safe to prepare you for safety on any trip into the backcountry and to provide you with increased enjoyment of the natural world.A Walk in the Woods
2. The Real World: The perception versus the reality of the rise in crime in the backcountry, and how you can create a personally accurate view of the world through reality-based living and adjust your level of preparation accordingly.Reality-Based Living
How Do We Keep Ourselves Safe?
Section II: Three-Pronged Self-Defense
3. Intuition: An introduction to the first of three tools that form the framework for a powerful self-defense mechanism. How to listen to your intuition and use it to its full capacity in the outdoors.Hostile Environments
Mystic Bulletins From Warm Kitchens
4. Awareness: An examination of awareness, the second tool in our mental self-defense mechanism, and the reprogramming of the brain to create crucial mental shortcuts with the Awareness Color Code.The Ballad of the Clueless Poacher
5. Fear: The last tool in our mental self-defense mechanism, fear, is explored as the boon it truly can be, and is integrated with intuition and awareness to further build a methodology for improving our preparedness for violent encounters. Also, a look at strategic thinking, and how to update your strategy with tactical information as it becomes available while you're on the trail.Things That Go Bump in the Night
Strategic and Tactical Thinking
Section III: Trip Preparation
6. Completing a Risk Assessment: The construction of a common language for defining"risk," the examination of perceived versus actual risks and subjective risks, and the application of these fine-tuned definitions to create a detailed, written Risk Assessment for any trip.Risky Business
7. Planning: The importance of developing a planning strategy, and how to use the information gleaned through your research process at bookstores, on the Web, and through discussion with others to further complete your Risk Assessment for a given excursion.The Unsexy Stuff
Embracing and Recognizing Chaos
Appropriate Levels of Planning
Section IV: Encounters on the Trail
8. Violent Encounters: What to do when actually faced with a violent encounter, and the presentation of a self-defense strategy"decision tree" that will be followed and explored throughout the remaining chapters of Trail Safe.Strategic Thinking
9. Avoidance: Removing the negative connotations surrounding the word"avoidance," and recognizing that avoiding potentially violent situations should be the first strategy you pick with the aim of protecting yourself and your family from threatening human behavior.A Trip to the Dentist
Moving from Strategic to Tactical Thinking
10. Retreat: How to create distance between yourself and an assailant quickly, how to evaluate the option of"retreat" at every stage in a potentially violent encounter, and how to maintain personal space on the trail.Distance is Good
Michael's Rules for Personal Space
11. Placate: Using words, tone of voice, and body language as tools to end a situation with an assailant. Also, a list of rules for safety at trailheads, one of the most common places for pitfalls on a hike.The Art of Placation
How to Talk Your Way Out of Almost Anything
Section V: When Talking Fails
12. Non-Lethal Options: What to do when talking fails — a discussion of learning to fight and the seven principles of fighting you should employ in order to survive an encounter, and some non-lethal options that are out there for your protection.When Talking Fails
13. The Question: Defining your own personal limits when it comes to the lethal defense of your life, a look at the legal definition of the justified lethal self-defense of your life using the"reasonable-person" standard, and the importance of accepting responsibility for your own safety.Welcome to the
Worst Case
14. Presentation and Engagement: Using a weapon to defend yourself in the outdoors — what this means, what your responsibilities are, and when to submit to an armed assailant. Also a list of rules for safety at campsites, another place we stop of a backcountry trip where we can be at our most vulnerable.Lethal Defense
15. Handgun Use in the Outdoors: A serious discussion of the factors that one should consider when deciding whether or not to own and carry a gun into the backcountry, including gun control and licensing, household agreement on a firearms strategy, storage arrangements, safety rules, and above all, training.The Firearms Option
Gun Licensing and Household Arrangements
Safety First, Last, and Always
Section VI: Conclusions
16. An End and a Beginning: A return to the issue of whether or not crime is actually on the rise in the backcountry, and a summary of what the tools presented in Trail Safe can provide to you, as you explore our world's wild places.Reflections on Trail Safe
Disclaimer: Notes from the Publishers
Details mentioned in this article were accurate at the time of publication
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