Good idea Bill about saying no to carrying other people's gear. I've been on a couple group hikes where the expectation was sharing the load. They insisted on distributing the gear amongst those who weren't carrying 30% of their weight. I was fairly light to start with, but after getting dumped with a whole ton of canned food it would have been better to stuff bulky clothes in my pack and claim inability.

The next year we made an agreement to organize food in small groups. That was a lot easier as I wasn't carrying for lazy packers and I got to get rid of heavy tin cans. It was a good thing as two other people brought 60 and 75 lb packs full of pie irons, charcoal brickets, etc.