When I came to Juneau over 30 years ago, I felt very comfortable walking by myself on local trails. Bears were not a major concern — if you encounter a bear as you walk a trail and are circumspect and polite, a bear is not likely to harass you. The same may NOT be true in human encounters — people are generally more unpredictable than bears, especially if they have psychological problems (e.g. drug and alcohol use).<\/p>\n
The possibility of encounters with unpredictable, unstable persons on the trail has risen with the advent of dispersed camping. That is especially the case on the more accessible trails. One such encounter led to the murder of a dog-walking woman on the Brotherhood Bridge trail. Those unfortunate homeless people need to have a decent place to go that does not put trail walkers at risk.<\/p>\n
The increased possibility of unpleasant or dangerous encounters is a significant deterrent to those of us local residents who would use those trails, sometimes walking alone, observing birds, flowers, insects, and other things. We don’t feel safe except on the trails most popular with other walkers and sometimes overcrowded (e.g. the Airport Dike Trail), so the variety of usable trails is less. Safety concerns stemming from dispersed camping sadly diminishes our quality of life here.<\/p>\n
Mary F. Willson<\/p>\n
Juneau<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I came to Juneau over 30 years ago, I felt very comfortable walking by myself on local trails. Bears were not a major concern — if you encounter a bear as you walk a trail and are circumspect and polite, a bear is not likely to harass you. The same may NOT be true in human encounters — people are generally more unpredictable than bears, especially if they have psychological problems (e.g. drug and alcohol use).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":119554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,8],"tags":[97,106],"class_list":["post-119553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","category-opinion","tag-letters-to-the-editor","tag-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\n