Another thing to consider is that sometimes people hike with strangers they meet through a club or something like MeetUp, the website where you can find people with similar interests.

Usually there is a group leader, but even then, this can lead to trouble. A few years ago in the PNW, a beginning group of winter campers didn't check the weather reports and got caught in a huge storm. No one got lost from the group, but they were lucky. It took a massive rescue effort-about 100 rescuers, several helicopters, snow machines and ambulances to get them out. This was a combination of inexperience and bad judgment on a grand scale.

Several boards had accounts of this, including posts by some of the particpants, a couple of whom made light of the extreme danger they were in. Had this storm gone on for a few more days, the outcome could have been far different. During that same storm, I think 4 backcountry skiers were killed by avalanches.