BW: Is Solo Trekking OK For Women?

“You did what?” my friend Virgil said, dumbfounded, when I told him I had just backpacked overnight in the backcountry by myself, as if he could not process such a notion. Other friends were equally baffled, and they all live in the Big Sky/Bozeman area of Montana, where civilized country as opposed to backcountry is represented by mere pinpricks on a map. Are we so gregarious as a species that the thought of one night of complete aloneness is foreign? Or can we only enjoy “the wilderness” in the company of other humans who will fill the silence and grandeur of mountain nights with familiar conversational reference points? Could the wilderness be too wild a thing to be in by ourselves?/ Betsey Weltner , New West. More here .

Question: Should a woman ever hike by herself into the backcountry?