"My advice to you is: start slow and learn about what is out there to fear. Eventually, you will come to realize that there is really not much that goes afoot that you need to fear."

I second that advice. Let's cut Barry some slack; if I'm remembering his other posts, he hasn't actually gone backpacking yet. He has concerns that are trivial to us after all these years - but they're very real to him, and very understandably so. I remember how nervous I was before my first backpacking trip, wondering about bears and (where I was going) the timber rattlers that were "common" to the area. (I thought "common" meant every 15 or 20 yards, and that they preyed on humans.) And I grew up in a rural town, where playing in someone's woodlot was pretty common. Barry, on the other hand, is a big city boy in the biggest of cities; some trepidation is certainly understandable, and shouldn't be ignored.

So, Barry, ease into it. Pick a weekend when the weather's predicted to be beautiful, and head out to any local park that allows camping. Plan to camp in the public campground, if you want, at the end of a 6 or 8 mile hike - long enough that you can prepare at least one meal on the trail (lunch, probably), and can try out that water filter in a creek (carry two quarts, for starters, and filter a quart when the first one's gone. That way, you've got a spare in case it doesn't work. But it will.) In the campground, choose a more isolated site rather than surrounded by others, and use only what's in your pack. If you choose well, you'll pick a park where there are no bears (save that fear for another day), but practice bear-bagging - it's a good skill to develop, it will keep your food away from the local raccoon, and you need some form of evening entertainment anyhow. You can use a "metal" pack, since there's no storms around.

(By the way, the advice to ditch the pack in a lightning storm is good if you're up on an exposed ridgeline and there are nearby strikes occurring. In the big woods, the lightning will be drawn to the 75-foot trees all around you, not your metal pack. I've always kept my packs with me in a normal lightning storm, and kept on walking; I've yet to actually see a lightning strike. Some of that walking has been on the heavily wooded ridgelines of the Appalachians.)

Getting that first trip behind you makes you realize just how small the chances are of something going wrong. Get out there, take the trip, and deal with your anxieties as you go. They're normal, we've all had them, and we've all gotten over them - or learned to plan trips where they don't come into play. They will recede, but it will take some time. If we lived closer, I'd be glad to go with you on your first trip.

(Now, just to make you feel better: Senior-year ROTC cadets learned to fly light planes. At the end of the year, I was talking to a soon-to-be-senior buddy, and he was very, very worried about soloing. He just knew that, if he was alone in the plane, something would go wrong. I gave him lots of reassurance and encouragement, and got him calmed down. About midway through the next year, I got a call from another buddy, who had been commissioned with me and still got the college newspaper. Seems our mutual friend had taken off on his first solo, made the required circuit of the field, lined it up for the landing - and tore the tricycle gear off the plane when he came in a bit too low over some wires. He was fine, though, and went on to fly F4 Phantoms, which was the hottest jet the Air Force had at the time.)