http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/05/national/05missing.html
Stolen from Potter00‘s site:
Nobody knows exactly how many people disappear in the woods, ravines, hollows, craters, creeks, deserts and bogs of the more than 500 million acres of public land in the United States. The federal land agencies say they do not keep such records. But more people are hiking than ever before; the number increased by nearly 50 percent to almost 70 million from 1994 through 2002, according to the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment. Those who disappear, one survey found, are usually young men walking alone, or older men who overestimate their ability.
One assumes all the women hikers just asked for directions…