Big group trips often matter because everyone shares the first.

Two hikers reached Mount Whitney before their planned group summit.

The milestone changed.

Their response made things worse.

Let’s see how this one played out.

AITA – cancelled trip after friend’s summit ahead of schedule

A group of three friends (we are actually friends — one person is my neighbor, not a group of strangers) and I had been planning a trip to summit Mt. Whitney for about a year.

We have done multiple hiking trips together, but this was the “big” one — a first for all of us.

The permitting process is competitive, but we were lucky enough to score a permit.

But soon the hiker’s best laid plans fell into ruin.

Well — two and a half weeks before our trip, two of the group members found additional permits to go to Whitney ahead of time with other friends.

They said they were just going to go up to “practice” (which we actually did at Whitney prior, just going through the lower trails but not summiting).

But — they ended up summiting.

This hiker didn’t approve of this at all.

Honestly, I was pretty upset about this. For me, the summit was about doing this together — having the first together, the celebratory cheers after, and the group bonding.

The fact that they went ahead and did this with another group changed the dynamic for me, and I felt like it was pretty off-putting.

So she decided to do something drastic.

So, I decided I was going to back out of the trip.

When I told the group that their early summit changed the dynamic of the hike for the rest of the group (the other woman was not happy about it either), they dismissed it — and basically “thanked me” for giving them a springboard to summit.

Then they said that when I do decide to summit Whitney, they will have a lot of tips for me.

She balks at their complete lack of care for her feelings, so she bids them farewell.

Zero acknowledgment of how their choice to summit may not have been the best move for our group trip, plus totally flexing their own accomplishment at a moment when I was trying to be vulnerable and honest.

Anyway, I wished them the best and told them that their group hiking style differs from mine.

I symbolically left the group (in our WhatsApp chat — ironically called Whitney Women), and I will not be planning another trip with them.

But now she begins to question whether she did the right thing.

AITA here? Or is it bad form to summit before and then respond the way they did?

Now that’s how you turn a harmless hike into an unnecessary fallout.

Redditors were quite divided on where the blame should lie.

With activities like mountain climbing, it’s best to stick with people you align with.

This commenter isn’t convinced this situation is really that big of a deal.

Maybe everyone was just doing what they thought was best.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who feels hoodwinked after finding out the sick father she’s been supporting has plenty of money of his own.

This commenter seems to think this hiker acted pretty immaturely.

These friends turned a shared first summit into their own early achievement, then dismissed her disappointment.

She was free to leave once the trip no longer offered the group experience she had spent a year planning.