All my mountain hikes for the last year have been solo, including one where I scored an unused permit off a girl I found here on WZ, managed to keep up with her for about 15 minutes in pre-dawn darkness, didn't even get a good look at her, and only saw her once more about 6 hours later. I find it harder to find someone near my physical capacity who's headed in the same direction as myself, than to hike on my own.
Hiking with others does not necessarily make you safer. If you absolve yourself of responsibility and count on others to make decisions, you give yourself the license to behave irresponsibly and not to think things through. The biggest advantage to hiking as a group is that your body will be found sooner if things go really wrong.
