I got into hiking rougly three years ago, and whenever there seems to be a possibility for me to do so i try to get some of my friends to join me. The main problem is that whenever i have time i have a hard time to persuate them to come because most are simply too lazy, or have an completely other idea of hiking. (Walk one day, rest one day, if there's a nice place close then two days. Also we want to sunbath on the beach.) There are also other problems that come up like the fact they usually don't have time and i have to run from one to another to find out when this time would be, but that's just how it is, and i wouldn't be mad about this. The fact i'm mad about is that whenever i want to go hiking at first everyone agrees to it, and the "planning" goes on for so long till everyone agrees that they don't want to hike or we passed a certain deadline to buy some trainticket to get there. This happened two times now, so i seriously consider hiking alone in the alps somewhere.
My questions are:
Why is it such a terribly bad idea for a relatively unexperienced guy in his best days to go hiking alone?
How many of you drink water out of (mountain-)rivers, and did any of you ever get sick of it?