When I first started trying to get back into backpacking I came across a posting on a forum at thebackpacker.com where the poster warned against hiking in Missouri. I don't think he'd every been to Missouri but he said that there were meth cookers in the woods who would kill you if they saw you and so forth.

Not real comforting as I was just starting to backpack in Missouri!

Since then I have done a lot of backpacking in Missouri (I get out a few weekends every month). I can tell you that not only have I felt safe but the locals have been awesome. Without exception my experiences with them has been positive. When I'm passing near a dirt road and one of them passes they invariably stop and back up and ask "you okay? you need a lift or something?" Kind of funny really. They don't understand backpacking for recreation. Of course one time I was lost and took them up on their offer of a ride to the trailhead and they were happy to help.

Anyway I now have really warm feelings towards these locals. It's true they aren't the most highly educated or sophisticated people you'll ever run across (and they generally don't have all their teeth for some reason) but they are really sweet people and more willing to help a stranger than city folk are.

So how are the locals in your neck of the woods?

As for the teeth - moonshine will do that...

I hike a lot on the North Country Trail in Michigan. Since it is a linear trail getting back to your car is a problem so I have ended up hitchhiking quite often. My observation on this is that you will get picked up by a local with a car worth less than $500 and you will have to move junk off the seat to get a place to sit down. They will go out of their way to help you and will even try to give you food, water beer etc. The tourists will not even move over to miss you. I think that those folks relate to someone who needs a helping hand.

So will meth from what i hear...

This is a great topic for a new thread and that part's pretty funny. I'd say it's not exactly accurate, and not entirely wrong... And you gotta know I just have to comment

First, I'd venture to guess that most of us still have most of our teeth and we are as highly educated (on a per capita basis) as those dwelling in the cities.

Meth use, and forest kitchens to cook it up, are both much less common than it was a decade ago. I haven't seen any signs of a forest kitchen in several years. A lot of the cooks are in prison now serving long sentences. A lot of users have spent time there too, and most the heavy users did indeed lose their teeth. That is one nasty drug and it has been a problem. Not one of violence really, but there has been that too.

Here's the thing about most all Ozarkers... Status Symbols have no status here. None. Rolexes, Mercedes Benzes, Designer clothes, all are looked upon with a certain degree of disdain. They're considered wasteful.

We understand why these things hold value to city people. What else can they possess? How else can they express they're successful? It's different here.

A good team of mules will still get you some respect among your neighbors. Knowing how to hunt and fish will too. Being ready to offer help when needed is considered a real measure of a persons worth. Respecting your neighbors is a must. That's why you'll never break down, or even walk on the back roads and have someone pass you without stopping to offer help. It doesn't matter what they look like. People work hard here and they do get to looking scrufty doing it. You get used to that.

Now here's the truth... Ozarkers don't mind the image you have of us. In fact, we rather enjoy it, and value it, and nurture its growth, so I really need to thank you and urge you to keep up the good work. You can even crank it up a notch if you want.

Our reasons for this are entirely selfish. I know people here that could sell out and buy a home in Malibu for cash and live good for a long time there. But I don't know one that would. Even money has limited value here.

Aside from family, health, and a piece of land, free time is the most valuable thing one can possess here. We all know it. And if you have it, and your here, you're as wealthy as anyone on the planet and darn lucky too.

So we laugh and poke fun at city people too. And we find them pretty odd sometimes. And we always wonder why anyone would "Want" to live in the city. And it never fails to amuse us when we see a "Backpacker" all dressed out in the latest gear hiking the trails in the Summer. It's not really that we don't understand it, it's just that we'd never do it. Not unless someone needed help.

Finally, you'd be surprised at how many city people, educated city people, I've personally helped rescue while I was down playing around the Buffalo River. They do some of the dumbest things...

It can make for some great story telling though


Bill

Brer Bill, don't make me live in the Ozarks. Any place rather than the Ozarks.

To the original question: I do not know. There are no locals in Colorado -- everyone is from someplace else.

It's not always the case, but how folks treat you is usually based on the attitude you bring with you.

I generally have had good interactions with locals most any where I've hiked.

That is so true. Once when I took my kids on a float trip we ended up having to get out before the take out point. We planned to walk back several miles to the main road. But the first house we passed was owned by a guy who ran out to make sure we were okay. His house (all he owned in the world) had just been condemned by the county because of flood damage (the river we were floating on had had a major flood a few months before). His car couldn't have been worth more than $300. But he wouldn't hear of me walking to the highway with my little kids. He insisted on driving us to where my wife was waiting. He wanted to give us food and drink too.

I live in an upper middle class suburb and I'm sure none of my neighbors (who are all fine people) would have done as much in his place.

Bill,

I knew you would chime in. I was looking forward to hearing what you would say. Great comments.

I have painted with too broad a brush in talking about people in the Ozarks. There is a lot more economic diversity there than I had expected. In fact what's interesting is that you will pass a beautiful summer home with a small lake and horses grazing in the field and then the next house will be a trailer that has had an extra room built on using plywood. Bill is right on about the status symbols. In the Ozarks nobody cares about such things. If someone were to put a trailer in my suburban neighborhood there would be a public outcry about property values going down and violating housing association guidelines. Suburbanites don't want "those kind of people" in their neighborhood.

I get the impression that in the Ozarks people are people and dollars don't make the man. Makes you think there is something about city living that messes up your priorities.

I'll tell you, I've been on both sides of this hillbilly vs city slicker thing at the same time. When I was living in Los Angeles my brother and I drove a Bronco to the Sequoias for a camp out. We were told not to four wheel because the clutch was weak, but we did anyway. We climbed the first hill we came to and burnt out the clutch right there. We were 20 miles from Porterville where the nearest auto parts store was.

There were people that lived around where we broke down, but they barely lifted a finger to help us. They did take time to tell us how stupid city slickers were. I remember being told by an old rancher, "You city people think eggs come from a factory. You wouldn't even eat one if you saw a chicken actually make one."

We got the Bronco running after hitchhiking to town two different times over the course of four long days of hard work.

Back at home, I lived in old farmhouse in Sylmar. There were new sub-divisions all around us. We had chickens, goats, cows, a pig, turkeys, geese, ducks, dogs, cats, and I'm sure there's some critters I've forgotten. But I remember what the neighbors and kids at school called us. "The Waltons".

I've been called a "Yankee", a "Hillbilly", a "City Slicker" and even a "Flatlander" by someone in Wisconsin. They were all right too.

Even the old rancher was right. A few months later a girl at school in Sylmar told me she quit eating eggs when she found out where they came from.

I swear that's all true.

And hey, we have it tough here. You don't want to have to live here. I'm telling you, there's bears and snakes and ticks and chiggers and sometimes, late at night, when there's no moon and it's real dark out, you can still hear banjos playing and pigs squealing far off in the forests....

Ain't no place for city slickers, that's fer sure.

Bill

I've generally had very positive experiences with locals everywhere I've hiked - Generally speaking you go in polite and respectful and people tend to treat you as they would want to be treated.

As for picking up rides back to the car, etc. I've found that tends to be a lot easier with locals than in the tourist spots. If I'm hiking where I won't loop back to the vehicle in a national park, that's usually where I find it's tough to thumb a ride, because nobody ever wants to pick up hitchikers when they're the tourists themselves. My usual tactic there will be try to end next to one of the road tourist spots, and hang around looking and the scenery with the other tourists striking up conversations - explaining where you were and why you're wearing a backpack, what's around there, etc. etc. before long I'm the "local" and I often get offered a ride within 20 minutes without ever asking - but I seem to have better trailhead ride-bumming karma than some of my friends. perhaps it's because I always try to pay it back/forward when I see someone needing a lift so karma works in my favour. I'm certainly not the type who can show a little leg by the side of the road and get people to stop

Thankyou Bill for your comments, you make me wnat to move out of this city I live in even more.

No, you did good, it was only a brief summation and it's all pretty accurate. I have the luxury of being able to fill in some details.

We get millions of tourists here every year, so we have some real insight to what urbanites think of rural people.



That is so true

Some of them are living on hundreds of acres in a old trailer. They won't sell the land, and they won't borrow money on it. It's not uncommon to see a dilapidated cabin or old stick frame house behind the trailer. Most often it's their childhood home. They won't work a job for anymore cash than it takes to pay the bills. Working for money cuts into their free time. (This really drives employers nuts

The Ozarks are really a great place to come observe rural culture. A lot of the people that live here have roots that go back a long way. In many ways the local culture of Ozarkers is unique and still very much in sync with the rhythms of nature.

Bill

I think people are just generally more helpful out in the boondocks; it's almost like an unwritten code. I know in the course of pulling dozens of people out of the mud over the years I would never fail to help someone in need out there -- next time it might be me who needs a jump or a tow. I too, Phat, believe in Karma.

Good one!

You know, Escaping from the city is worthy of a thread all it's own.

I can tell you exactly how I did it. I learned how from good friends that did it. I helped them pack while they told me how. Here's what they said:

"It's not as hard as some people might think. I made a plan. First I researched places that met criteria I considered important to me. Days of sun per year, inches of rain, average temps, cost of living, cost of housing, unemployment rate, public land nearby, proximity of nuke plants, lakes, rivers, and streams, and population densities."

They also told me the real and only secret to making it happen... "You know, other people are making a living there. I can too, so I'm moving." I never saw them again.

I'd never thought of it that way before either but it made sense so I went to work on it. For me, the Ozarks kept popping up high in what I was looking for so I came here to check it out. It was pretty much exactly what I had expected so I decided to move here.

After promising my wife she could come back to visit whenever she wanted we sold the cars, the house, and quit our jobs. We found a place to rent here and started looking for a place to buy. It took us a year to find it.

That was over 13 years ago. Within a few years after we moved here my mother and father, my grandmother, two brothers, and one of my sisters moved here. Two good friends from Texas and one from Rockford Illinois moved here too.

A few years ago, before she passed on, my mother told me she was happier here than she'd ever been in her life. I think it's fair to say that most all my family would still be living in the city had my wife and I not made the move here first.

Start planning your escape from the city now. "It's not as hard as some people might think."

And if you make it out you can thank George & Kathleen Goudy, wherever they are

Bill

In general, I've been treated very well by people in mountain towns--they're a lot more helpful and friendlier than people in Denver IMHO.

Interesting view, a bit different from the situation here in Europe.
Hiking, walking, trekking are well known sports. So no "local" reacts in panic just because you don´t use a car. You can see them everywhere, at any season.
People are friendly, especially in smaller cities. I was invited several times to put up my tent in the garden of someone I never met before, just to be offered to take a shower or drink a coffee with the owner. It happens often that someone asks you about the route you have taken, how the conditions have been or where you plan to go.

So in general, you only run into troubles if you break the law or do something stupid like leaving rubbish behind.

the only way to cause some attraction is to wear strange clothes. This happened only once when I started a trip to Norway and went to the train, wearing winter clothes, heavy boots, pulling a pulka with attached skiers while all others already ran around in short clothes.

Becks

From Heber:
I now have really warm feelings towards these locals. It's true they aren't the most highly educated or sophisticated people you'll ever run across (and they generally don't have all their teeth for some reason) but they are really sweet people and more than willing to help a stranger.

From Coyotemaster:
As for the teeth - moonshine will do that...

And Hoz:
So will meth from what i hear...

And GrumpyGord:
I have ended up hitchhiking quite often. My observation on this is that you will get picked up by a local with a car worth less than $500, and you will have to move junk off the seat to get a place to sit down. They will go out of their way to help you and will even try to give you food, water, beer.

Are you sure you all haven't been hiking down here in South Florida? Man, I'm almost sure I must have given some of you a ride the way you described me -- I mean the local giving you a ride to the trailhead. GrumpyGord, I'm almost positive me and my buddy Skink gave you a lift and a Miller High Life (after clearin' the fishheads off the seat) on our way to do some gator huntin' in Everglades National Park.

Maybe you just forgot my face. Here's a snapshot my mama, Arletta, kept on her person til she passed that I had sent her the Mother's Day I was in Raiford:



Ring a bell??

Lots of hikers have said that us boat people are as friendly and down home as country folk.