James was great to hike with, and we really appreciated him being able to drive for our trip. When he signed up online, he had said on our form that he would be able to drive 7 people including himself, so we were able to take four additional waitlisted hikers (plus Alan and Isabella (the trip leaders) and him). We were unable to get a second driver for the trip, so it was going to be just the 7 of us hiking to see the sunrise. At 5:30 AM the day of the hike, James showed up on time, but with a car that could only hold 5 people. All 7 of us were present, which meant that two people would not be able to participate although they were signed up for the hike. James had not communicated about this change prior to showing up for the hike the morning of. Lauren Watts, Alan’s sister, elected to stay and did not attend the trip. One of the other hikers who had ridden with James before volunteered to ride in the trunk of the car to free up an additional space to allow for everyone else to go, although it was not an especially safe situation. Our issue with James was his lack of communication before showing up with fewer spaces than initially promised. It was disheartening for the hikers to wake up so early for the hike and find out not all of them would be physically allowed to attend, and it created a situation (which was luckily resolved fairly easily thanks to Lauren and Olivia) that should not occur on trips. James will likely have learned from this situation to communicate better in the future about rides, but we wanted to bring it to the attention of the leadership.
