But for the newbies, this is good. They will take the precautions until they gain the experience and knowledge to reduce those fears to match the reality of the specific trip conditions. Unfortunately, what happens is the newbies will take extra precautions for low-risk possibilities at the expense of taking precautions for the higher risk possibilities.
I am doing a big (50 people so far signed up) potluck and presentation for newbies in our group who want to backpack. I am going to set up a white board and develop a list of their concerns and fears, and then my top 10 concerns, regarding backpacking.
I think I can predict that the lists will be radically different - I bet you animals will be at the top of their list. Depending on how much reading they've done and whether they took REI courses, they might list waterbourne pathogens.
I already know that my list will have clean water pretty far down on the concerns - since I have plenty of information on that matter, both experiential and the information other experienced hikers in my area have provided to me. (Animals will probably be grouped together on #10.)
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