This brings me to one of my more odder fears (is odder even a word?) - If I'm hiking in the big world alone (as I most often do) and something catastrophic happens - Say 10 miles in the alpine, well off the beaten path (http://www.blm.gov/ak/st/en/prog/nlcs/white_mtns.html) and say an ice lens opens up under me and I break my leg (I didn't do anything stupid / wrong) and I cannot crawl my way out and I press the PLB button (say the bone is through the skin and I don't think I should wait the two days before someone reports me missing and tells the nice rangers what trail I'm on) - does this make me a bad person because if I hadn't been hiking alone maybe they could have gotten me out?

And yes, this is something I think / worry about every time I hike alone.