Nearly everyone who books comes on their own

Almost every person who books a Jove trip books on their own. Not most. Almost all of them.

Which means the thing people are quietly worried about, that they will be the odd one out arriving alone into a group of friends, is the opposite of what happens. Everyone standing in that car park on Friday evening got there the same way you did.

Why it stops being awkward faster than you expect

Walking is unusually good at this, and it is worth understanding why, because it is not about anyone being especially outgoing.

• , You walk side by side rather than facing each other. There is no eye contact to sustain, and conversation can stop without it being uncomfortable.
• , The group reshuffles constantly. Over eight hours you end up next to almost everyone, without anyone organising it.
• , There is a shared task. You are all going the same way, up the same hill, in the same weather, which removes the need to invent something to talk about.
• , Silence is normal. Nobody thinks you are being rude if you go quiet on a steep bit.

Groups are small, typically six to ten people. Small enough that everybody has spoken to everybody by the end of Saturday. Big enough that you are not locked into one conversation all weekend.

Who else is there

A wide spread of ages, mostly late twenties to late forties, and a fairly even split between people who have done a bit of hiking and people who have done none. Plenty of them have just moved to London, or come out of a long stretch of work with no time in it, or reached a point where the gym stopped being interesting.

What they have in common is not a fitness level or a background. It is that they all booked something slightly outside their comfort zone on their own, which turns out to be quite a good filter.

“Everyone in the room did the same slightly nervous thing you did. That is the one thing you can rely on.”

What we do, and what we deliberately do not

What we do: keep groups small, start with a proper briefing on Friday evening where everyone says who they are, eat together, and structure the walking so the group mixes rather than splitting into a fast half and a slow half.

What we do not do: icebreaker games, forced pairing, team-building exercises, or anything that makes an adult want to leave the room. Nobody needs to share a fun fact about themselves. You need a hot meal, a clear plan for the morning, and somewhere to put your boots.

If you are an introvert

A hill day is one of the better social formats for anyone who finds groups tiring, because you can drop back twenty metres and walk on your own for half an hour and nobody will read anything into it. There is no seating plan and no obligation to perform.

There is also a hard stop. The weekend ends on Sunday afternoon and you go home. It is not an ongoing commitment, and there is nothing to keep up with afterwards unless you want to.

Bringing someone

Some people do bring a friend or a partner, and that is fine. The only thing worth saying is that pairs sometimes stick together all weekend and end up having a narrower trip than the people who came alone. If you do come as a pair, split up for a few hours on Saturday. You will get more out of it.

For what the first evening is like, read: the Friday night before