Okay, here's what I started out with at the tender age of six, when I had read no books at all and had no real clue other than what I learned at momma's knee. And since momma at times lived for months out in the country in a tent or shack, taming down skunks and squirrels and wild horses for pets, I figure she was pretty good at knowing what she was saying.

* If you don't know what it is, don't touch it. If you want to know what it is, look it up when you get home, don't take it with you.
* If it wobbles or slips when you put a shoe to it, draw back the foot and walk somewhere else.
* Keep your hands and feet in your sight, and out of holes, cracks and crevasses.
* If a rock falls instead of rolls down it, find a gentler slope.
* If it rattles, walk away, even if you think it might be a gopher snake faking it with the leaves.
* If it's shiny leaves of three, don't touch it and warn your dad, he's deathly allergic and we don't want to kill him.
* If you get lost sit down and stay there and yell. (Did this a couple of times, turned out mom just moved around a boulder and I didn't notice.)
* Moss grows on whatever side is shady, don't trust it. Look at where the sun was and where it's going instead.
* If you stay still, you'll see the animals. If you make noise they go away. (Yes, this did include bears. No, never had a bear even come close.)

Still works. And yeah, it's not that simple, but it's all a kid needs other than "stay close." It mostly works for adults too. Once you start going out on short hikes you start to figure things out - that's part of the fun. I managed to survive another thirty years or so without carrying the burden of fear, then I started to find out there were books and forums about backpacking and hiking. Somehow, in all that time being an uneducated and uninformed hiker, I managed not to get poison oak, snakebit, lightning-hit, attacked by anything bigger than a chipmunk (it REALLY WANTED that trail mix!), or ever so much as a sprained ankle. I've had one infection due to a missed tick (got all the others out within minutes of bitten) and mosquito bites that went away overnight. I've only ever been bitten by a garter snake, but that's because I was a tomboy and collected snakes and had to catch garters to feed to the king snakes, which were the real fun snakes to keep. Rattlers lived in the field around my house and I played outside constantly, and never once did we get bit, nor did the dogs. Coyotes and mountain lions definitely lived in the hills around our house. Surprise! never attacked by any of them, not even if they were rabid. On any given day you could find me climbing (with permission) neighbor's fences and going bushwacking through oaks and pines and looking for treasures in the foothills, identifying animal scat as I went. I always came home with nothing more than a scratch or two and a sunburn.

The things I added to the list as an adult:
DRINK WATER. SERIOUSLY. DRINK MORE. Also, eat enough calories!
And - Don't get too cold! Take those layers!

At some point it becomes obvious that the DIRE WARNINGS in books aren't dire at all. They're just cautions to take care. No need for the RED ALERT mentality.

When we tell you things aren't as bad as you're making them out to be, we aren't just making it up. Books will always tell you how to avoid worst case scenarios. If you read in a book that there is a danger of snakebite, yeah, that's true - an astronomically small danger if you don't touch the snakes. I have seen ONE snake in the middle of a trail - early in the season, while it was still cool and the snake obviously was trying to warm up in the sun. A prod of the trekking pole tip got it to leave.

The "best practice" you can have is to go hiking, be careful, and keep learning. No more, no less. Fussing endlessly about bears when you are not in grizzly territory is not really going to lead to enjoying the hike. I have to tell the newbies in my group when we go to Yosemite that the bears are not going to hurt them, don't drop your pack and run, don't panic, don't give it your food, don't leave your pack unattended and go wading or taking pictures - because the only time bears learn to be aggressive is when they get your food, and the times they get people's food are generally when people are very careless, or when they are AFRAID of them. There was a bear in Kings Canyon that learned to charge at people because that resulted in dropped packs - the bear had to die, because people were SCARED, and the more people let the bear know it could scare them, the more aggressive the bear got. It's not fair to the bears to be terrified. Respect them, avoid coming into close proximity, look big and get loud and don't let them approach you. It's not about you - it's about them. You won't be the one hurt. And if you doubt me, check out the bear page on the Yosemite website sometime, or any other park website - the rules will be different in Alaska, or Rocky Mountain National Park, because the brown bears are not black bears. Black bears are less dangerous, statistically speaking, than DEER.