That's what I've been trying to do. Unfortunately, people are getting really good at looking like one thing and being another. I had talked to the fellow a number of times before about preparing, but once on the trip with other men around, he stopped listening.

Of course, that means he embarrasses himself by being the only backpacker ever to light up a stove quite that way.

If only it were the only time it's happened - it's been made very plain repeatedly that this is a social group, and yet I have had to say it just that way - I am not guiding you today. You don't get me to do that unless you are paying me. People have gotten angry because some of the other organizers can't tell them what a flower is, or how to do something.

I have in the past year banned three people from the group - one of them insisted, repeatedly, that he was going to take a second group of folks on a very overbooked hike with a waiting list on the same hike on the same day. Another demanded that he be allowed to bring his dog on another hike - it was clearly posted no dogs, he informed the organizer he was bringing his anyway. Then there was a campout I had planned on the coast where a lady repeatedly asked questions, and when other campers refused to respond to them she got very angry - so I started answering her questions, and then she became angry when she was unable to rewrite the trip the way she wanted it. Turning a camping and hiking trip into a shopping trip is not allowed. I had to ban her too. Who wants to spend three days with someone like that?

This forum hasn't had so many people as other forums doing the online equivalent lately. But I have been among those on a couple of others trying to explain the realities of why March is a bad idea for someone who clearly doesn't understand what he's getting into in the high elevations. On one hand, I'd like to think these folks will get frustrated and turn back when confronted with an icy or snow covered trail. On the other, I've witnessed some really spectacular yet determined failures to backpack.

Sigh.