I'm going on a slight tangent here, but what's the etiquette for splitting up when you're in a hiking group?
It would be helpful to read the chapter in Doug Thompson's book
Mountain Lore From The Whitney Store entitled "When Something Goes Wrong."
If a party consists of two or more people, they may not feel any need to stay together. ...Any number of things can happen to cause a missed connection. ...The net result is, the sun goes down without everyone knowing where everyone else is. Suddenly they want help.
I don't think that there is any official etiquette. However, if you start as a group and the fast ones zoom ahead while the slow ones lag behind, then what was the point of going out as a group? When groups split up is when problems can develop. When our local hiking club goes out, there is always a leader and a sweep. No one gets ahead of the leader and no one falls behind the sweep. The leader knows that everyone is behind them and the sweep knows that everyone is ahead of them.
In case of an injury or someone who is too tired to continue, they never go back alone. Someone always goes with them. If the group is small, then this circumstance may mean that everyone goes back.
