Is Enlightenment a solitary experience?

Does everybody who want enlightenment have to hide away from the rest of the world to find it? For centuries monk of various religions and creeds have gone into solitude to find enlightenment and often stay out there to stop the world tainting their new found knowledge. But is this necessary?I am by my nature a solitary person but of course I have not achieved enlightenment so clearly being a solitary creature is not an automatic entry into enlightenment. The real question I have is that if you want to achieve that great enlightenment to you have to seperate yourself from the rest, remove all attachments and climb that scared mountain? Or is it simply that history does not contain a great many enlightened people at one time so they just can’t hang out with each other.

Everybody who dislikes sport knows that sitting with a bunch of guys who are talking about the favourite team can be boring, so I guess for the enlightened us talking about our daily troubles, stress and other mundane things with such vigor must be boring. Also for every guru that climbed on the mountain there probably is another you went walking amongst the masses. Although even those who walked amongst the masses where often without a relationship.

Anyway it was just something I was wondering about.