You've misinterpreted here... I stay on trail solo not because I am afraid of getting lost, but because if I get HURT there is a higher probability of someone coming along and finding me!

You can't predict what will happen, and it's entirely possible that people will never find you five feet from a trail, if you are unconscious.

Survival training is NOT necessary for leisure backpackers. Leave an itinerary and do your best to mitigate the risks that exist. Have reasonable expectations for yourself and your abilities. Developing a level of comfort in the wilderness somewhat decreases the chances that you will panic and fall into that state of shock from which comes many dumb decisions that double and triple the danger you are in.

I'm plenty comfortable with cross country navigation, enough that I tend to let people rely on me too much in groups. I try to encourage everyone to develop their own skills so that if I am out with a group and incapacitated someone is able to start navigating the group out of the wilderness. This is also why I recommend that EVERYONE in the group take their own filter, map, and be ready to be self sufficient in the event a group split somehow happens. Groups don't make you impervious to risk - they merely diminish it. Just like everything else we do is intended to do.

If you want to label what I share discouraging, fine. It hasn't discouraged anyone I hike with. Facts are facts. There are plenty of risks, and letting them scare us off makes no sense - we're at more risk on a freeway, after all - but it would be negligent to ignore them because we want to feel safe.

Fact is, an experienced backpacker's remains have been out there all winter, and a forum full of other backpackers are still searching for him. And he was solo, cross country, and within a day of his being reported missing, search teams armed with his itinerary covered a lot of ground. And he remains missing. No one knows why. It wasn't that he didn't prepare. Then there are veteran backcountry folk like Randy Morgensen, and the gent with decades of backpacking experience we were looking for in my first season in SAR, found dead sitting on a rock not far off the Whitney trail. Solo hiking increases risk in many ways. Wanting to play it down in the name of being helpful isn't going to be my habit.

I get flack from people because I do go out by myself, too. I don't take umbrage because I know that they are also concerned because I am female, I "know better," and sometimes, people get a little bothered because I'm a "bad example" or not practicing what I preach. The bottom line is that we do what we do out of some need to do it - I won't deny that's there. But it's pretty irresponsible to not acknowledge the truth of the matter. One misstep, one rock zipping out from my boot in the wrong place, one trip and fall and blow to the head, and I win the "booby prize" from my team for being a SAR subject complete with a ride in a stokes litter. Because of course, my itineraries are going straight to a SAR team member....