Ok so it looks like ONLY around 40-50 people died of cold or heat exposure over the course of 4 years (just in National Parks - not all of them…).
Some folks may look at that and say “See!!! It’s so unlikely to happen to me I don’t need to worry about it!”
Other folks like myself see that SAME DATA and think “Jeez!! That many people died from exposure! I wonder how I can keep myself from becoming one of those statistics??? Maybe bring a shelter or some tools to make a shelter?? Yes by Jove! I think that’s it!”
100/297,000,000 is a very small number (or 1/2,970,000). Your odds of getting struck by lightening in your lifetime are 1/15,300. According to the data, you're far more likely to drown in a national park, but I'm guessing you're not packing your swimmies, right? There's an obvious bias here on the forums as to the minimum appropriate knife for hiking. I'm fine with that, but there's a lot of pretending going on as to what's necessary and not a lot of acknowledgement about what's likely.
Plus there's the little fact that statistics apply to populations and large samples, not to individuals. Once "selected," the probability of something happening to an individual is 100%,
I think you're referring to the ecology fallacy. It's true that my case is highly over simplified, and (for instance) if you avoid bodies of water, you change the odds that you'll drown. The statistics aren't informed enough to handle measures that one might take to keep their hearts beating. However, if we're willing to accept that victims in national parks are reasonably representative of the average person doing average things in nature, it indicates that most people who go in to national parks come out alive. My case
improves if we assert that these were below average people and/or they were participating in riskier activities.
Go around Yellowstone in early spring wearing a raw meat suit and maybe those odds of being bear food get better.
And who knows- maybe the remaining 99.99995% of visitors all had an ESEE 6 with them, and that's how they all made it out alive, congratulations ESEE, but I think it's reasonable to assert they were regular folks, carrying a typical smattering of knives and probably had relatively minor issues for which whatever knife they
did have was sufficient or of no consequence to their situation.
Its why my pack usually contains several gallons of water.
Uh oh... now I see how all those people drowned.
As a general comment:
Carry whatever knife you want into the woods. I carry more than I need to because I'm an enthusiast. I believe it's appropriate to carry some kind of knife, but I don't see much evidence that indicates your life hangs in the balance over the choice of
what knife.
