In today’s story, a family lives along a hiking trail, so they set up a stand to sell cold drinks to hikers.

The problem is that some hikers don’t want to pay.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

AITA for denying water to a group of women who were supposedly dehydrated as they refused to pay?

A very popular hiking trail actually crosses my (privately owned) land that is nestled inside a national park.

I’ve never objected to people crossing our land as I’m an avid hiker and don’t want to deny them enjoying the scenery, though it can get annoying at times when groups of 10+ people litter on my part of the trail.

OP’s daughter set up a beverage stand along the trail.

Anyway, a few years ago my daughter decided to set up a small stop to sell cold drinks and snacks on the trail.

It’s basically a caravan she lives in, but with an attached section to serve drinks and food.

So she’ll spend her time in there and every now and then people will pass by and happily top up (it’s a multi day hike).

It made a surprisingly large amount of money, and so we began taking turns spending time in the caravan on the off chance someone (or a hiking group) passes by.

Some hikers wanted to refill their water bottles.

Now, we live in a place that gets very humid in summer. It “feels like” 40-45 degrees Celsius during June-July.

Today i was watching a movie in said caravan when a group of 5 girls rung the bell.

They said they were out of water and asked if I could refill their water bottles.

I told them I could for 50cents a bottle.

The reason we charge money is that all of our water is rainwater and hence limited (especially in summer).

We aren’t connected to an endless supply of water.

The hikers wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

They were furious that I refused to top them up for free and said they are dehydrating and could faint from heat stroke.

I told them where a clean creek was about 1hr down the trail that they could top up (I’ve drunk from there countless times, seriously no risk) but they refused and insisted I top them up.

OP’s wife thinks he was wrong for not filling the water bottles for free.

They had a young girl with them (around 13) while the rest were in their early 20s.

So I refilled the young girl’s bottle and gave her a sprite for free, but insisted the adult women with her pay.

They refused and very angrily went on their way.

My wife says I should have filled them up, but IMO so long as the little girl is okay I don’t think they deserved anything given their attitude.

The hikers probably didn’t have any money with them, but it’s not OP’s fault they didn’t plan ahead with their own water supply.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

This reader pointed out that OP was helpful.

Another reader agrees that it wasn’t OP’s fault the hikers weren’t well prepared.

This person agrees that the hikers should’ve brought more water.

This reader applauds OP for helping out the young girl.

This reader thinks OP should’ve given the hikers free water.

Next time these ladies go hiking, they’ll probably remember to bring more water with them.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.