Fear
Whenever you set out into the woods, or the wilderness, you'll always feel a little thrill of fear: wow, I'm really out here, I'm really doing this; no one knows where I am, and I'll have to deal with whatever arises. And you think, Am I nuts to be doing this?
This fear is normal
You are not nuts to be scared about the trip--anyone who's not a little freaked out before one of these trips is just stupid! Why wouldn't you be scared--it's all a big unknown, and that's the point of going--heading into a new space that's unfamiliar and that changes you. I'm used to long-distance hiking, but I'm sure nervous about my 300-mile Long Trail trip through Vermont this summer, even though I've done 100 miles of that trail already and it's familiar to me. You never know what will happen on the trip. Once you get out on the trip, though, the nervousness goes away and you wonder what you were ever afraid of. Before you start, though, it's hell!
Friends and family may not be helpful-in fact, they may do all they can to feed your fear and discourage you from going. Most people who live in towns, and some who live in the country, have a rock-bottom belief in the Big Woods Bogeyman. They may not have articulated it or even thought about it, but they believe that there is a nameless, faceless axeman who lives out in the woods and whose sole mission in life is to find and hack apart foolish hikers. This fear is fed by cheap horror movies set in remote camps, like Friday the 13th. (On my Appalachian Trail hike, I actually stayed a night at the camp that was filmed in that movie. Slept fine, it was a great place.) "You'll get yourself killed," they say. When you ask them how many people have been mugged, raped, killed, or hit by cars in their neighborhood recently, they may realize that they actually live in a more dangerous world than the one you're heading out to. But in some cases, they'll shrug that off-those muggings, killings, rapes, and accidents are "normal" and "expected," in their world view-they'll remain far more freaked out about your plan to head to the woods. You, however, have to keep things in perspective.
This fear of the woods is just the fear of the unknown-that big, scary forest full of wild animals, like the fairy-tale forest of childhood, where evil witches and bogeymen, wolves and bears live. In some cases, the wolves and bears are still there, and so are mountain lions. Wolves are not a problem. Black bears are usually not a problem. In the west, you need to be wary of grizzlies and mountain lions, and take sensible precautions. On remote hikes, weather hazards in the form of lightning, heat exhaustion, and hypothermia are far more dangerous than animals or people.
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