What is your best hitch-hiking experience when backpacking?

Here are two of my experiences.

I parked my car at South Lake (Sierra - out of Bishop CA) and did an 8-day trip- Dusy Basin to Marion Lake on Roper's High Route. About half way through the day, it occured to me that I probably left a banana peel in my car - at this trailhead known for bears! After a few days, I just decided if a bear smashed into my car, so be it. I planned on then going out over Taboose Pass. While in the Lakes Basin and on my way out over Cartrige Pass I ran into a couple who were also headed out where they had a car. They said they would camp on Taboose Pass that night. I would meet them there. Well, when nearly to Taboose Pass, the beautiful lakes below Striped Mountain caught my eye. I just had to go there. I figured I could get up early the next morning and catch up. I never regretted going to this beautiful set of lakes.

Next morning I was up early and headed out. I ended up at the trailhead at about 6PM and no people in sight. I had obviously missed my ride. This is a very remote trailhead and so I jumped in the creek for a bath and filled two Playtapus 2.5 liter bottles and carrying them like twin babies, I headed down the dusty dirt road. I could see the semi trucks, like kids toys, on Hwy 395. I had walked off my map. As I kept walking the darned trucks never got closer! And it did not seem that far! Well over 5 miles later it got dark. I could see lights, but thought it was a ranch house. So I hop in my bivy next to the road. It was hotter than hell and bugs were out so I had to sweat an zip up the bivy. Next morning, totally out of food, I walked the last mile to the Taboose campground (these were the lights that I saw) where a wonderful odler couple offered me breakfast. We got to talking and they actually were relatives of the couple who I was going to hitch a ride from. The wife said that the young couple had decided to come out early so walked out all the way from Lakes Basin to the trailhead in one day!

Just as they were fixing me biscuits and gravy, two old fishermen walked over. They were going to Bishop for breakfast. Here was my ride. They must have been nearly 80 years old and the guy not driving never let his little poodle off his lap. They had tons of fishing stories to tell. They even invited me to breakfast in Bishop. After dropping me off at the Forest Service office, I sat outside with my sign that said "ride needed to South Lake".

In seconds, another old guy, at least 75, also with a poodle, said "hop in" his truck. He had a summer cabin up there and if I did not mind waiting while he did a small repair, he would take me on to my car. He had lived there forever and knew everything about the area. He took me to my car. As we rounded the corner I fully expected to see my car torn to shreads. Instead I found a black dried up banana peel on teh roof! I thanked the fellow and headed down the road. I do not know what it is with old fishermen and their poodles, but what luck!

I was no more then a mile down the road than I spotted a poor fellow walking down the road. He was a Brit who was hikint the JMT and was needing a ride to Bishop to re-supply. He hopped in. I rolled down the windows! It was quite obvious that he had not bathed since the start of his trip! Poor fellow would have never gotten a ride with anyone else but another dusty backpacker. I dropped him off a the store and headed home. Near Mammoth Lakes, I saw a couple with thumbs out. I picked them up (two Germans backpacking) and took them to Lee Vining. They happily told me their wild country stories too.

I hoped by now that I had repaid the kind deeds that came my way. All in all, hitching rides and giving rides I had met a bunch of great folks and would not have missed this experience for anything.

Actually the most amazing hitching I have done was years ago when my daughter, then 17 and I did an 18-day one-way trip in the WInd Rivers and came out down Bull Lake Canyon. We stepped out onto an arm of Bull Lake and stuck our thumbs out and got a ride with two fishermen in a tiny tin boat! They offered us ice cold Cokes - after 18 days of eating fish! Just about nobody goes down Bull Lake Canyon - a VERY difficult off-trail route so they were really surprised. We were spared a hot 12-mile hike through rattlesnake infested sage. After a 10-mile ride on the lake shore, they drove us 70 miles back to our truck! Now that was quite the hitch!

I love reading about stuff like this. A large part of why I like being a hiker - in addition to the mountains themselves, mountain folk are just good people.

I don't have a hitchhiking story...I just wanted to thank you for triggering memories of my one and only Sierra trip. We went in at Taboose Pass, over Mather Pass, then past Palisades Lakes, Amphitheater Lake, Dumbell Lakes, Lake Basin, over Cartridge Pass, and back out. I don't know if I could do that now, but at least I wouldn't have the 50-pound pack I carried then!

They make horror movies that start out this way....but they also make PORNOS that start that way, too

BF

I have hitchhiked quite a bit because a lot of my backpacking in Michigan is on the North Country Trail which is a linear trail so you either have to backtrack or hitchhike. Since I have retired and backpacking time is not as limited I have been doing mostly backtracking and have found that it is not as bad I had previously thought.

I have had many positive experiences and I have met some really nice folks. My main observation is that you will only get a ride from locals and they will be driving a $500 car. If you see an expensive car and/or RV coming you might as well put your thumb down. Most of them will not start until you have your seat belt fastened and will tell you to do so if you are too slow. Many of them will give you their "extra" food. I have had a few rides where I have wondered how I got into this. I have had a few drivers who have had a bit more to drink than I would have liked.

I was doing the South Lake to North Lake route via Evolution Valley five years ago. My last night out was at one of the lakes below Piute Pass. I got up early and hit North Lake while all the fishermaniacs were shoulder to shoulder just about and had to walk 3-4 miles watching as a pickup or two passed me by. I got below Aspen, caught a ride in a $500 pickup finally for a mile or so, got dropped at the road up to South Lake, hiked 1/2 mile got a ride in the back of a fifth wheel set up pickup with a retired couple headed up to South Lake to fish. I ended up in Bishop by around 11 and gassed my truck up and headed home, still close to the time I wanted to leave town. I would have thought it would have been easier to catch a ride.

I have found that if I hide my pack and wash up, I get more rides. Particularly when I use my external frame pack, a lot of people are worried about where to put the pack. When I get to my car, I go back for my pack. I have always had super luck sitting outside the FS wilderness office in Bishop. I also have best luck if I stay right at the trailhead and not start walking down the road. I often just walk up to people and ask and offer to pay gas. This works. Fellow backpackers are much more willing than the day-use tourist.

As for safety, I have actually turned down rides with people I felt were creepy. And how true - it is the poorer folks who give rides! And fishermen are very willing as long as you do not interfere with their fishing. The other side of the coin is that I make a point of picking up backpackers when I am able. What goes around, comes around. You really cannot expect anyone to pick you up if you are not willing to do the same.

Well that kind of leads into my story. without going into too many details it was a two car trip into jasper park from outside up a not very well travelled drainage from the middle of nowhere, with two friends - one had to leave and travel through bc, the other and myself heading back to edmonton. We left one vehicle in the park and took mine around. I ended up with my tranmission cooler on my truck disabled and leaking all my tranny fluid. so having got the truck somewhere sane we vowed to hike through (me covered in tranny fluid) and make it to the other car anyway. Well, the rains were pretty much biblical, with moose and goats lining up in pairs looking for someone to build a large wooden boat for them. We worked out way up the drainage where the "trail" had become pretty much butt deep stream the whole way, so did lots of bushwhacking and other epic nonsense. We arrived at the lake at the top, normally which flows out under talus to find it spilling it's banks, impassible, and leading us to believe we'd never survive the river crossing beyond it. We camped for the night (with the skinny person in the group needing to warm up) had a great night, and hiked out through the wet in the morning to better weather, back down to the disabled truck. After driving for about 500 meters, the tranny starts to slip. ok stop. I have a litre and a half of tranny fluid. put it in - brief conversation among engineers about how an automatic works - the conclusion is we dont want it to shift or disengage - so put it in first, and always keep the power on, don't brake, don't coast.

The result is a very *interesting* drive out 10km of backwoods gravel road with the engine howling and a few very interesting corners and hill bottoms. we scooted out onto highway 40 int he middle of nowhere with the tranny slipping again and pulled off to the side. I step out of the truck, and there's a pickup coming over the hill (there is usually *very* little traffic on this road). I stick out my thumb, and am picked up by a mining surveyer who takes me into hinton to rent a car while my friends relax in the meadow next to the truck. I return, pick everyone up, and drive to the other vehicle in the park. I was darn happy to get that ride.

Story isn't quite over though, we say our goodbyes to the one, and my other aquaintance and I drive out to the bottom of the miette hot springs road, near the jasper park gate. As we turn the corner (in another pelting rainstorm) there's a bedraggled looking individual on the trans canada hitchiking - Figuring on a thousand years of bad karma if we don't stop we do, and the poor wet kid gets into the car, he's hitchiking to edmonton, where his girlfriend is, who he has found out is pregnant and has no money but he's heading back from Invemere BC, where he had hitchiked to jasper, then had *walked* from jasper with nobody willing to pick him up - several had stopped, waited for him to run up to the car, then driven off. We felt sorry for him, bought him coffee and a donut or 6 at Timmys in hinton, and got him safely to Edmonton to deal with his life.

Anyways, remember, what goes around comes around. especially with hitchiking karma..

I find I hitch with my pack, and usually use a big "freak flag" "HIKER TO CAR" - You might get away with looking innocent at the side of the road daisy, but as a larger man, I find without some context of hiking gear and some indication to give people the idea that I'm a recreational backpacker and not a bum, I probably look too intimidating and don't get people to stop.

I picked up one climber at the east end of Yosemite at Tioga Pass on the start of the same trip to South Lake, gave him a ride into Bishop, he was a seasonal worker for the FS. Dropped him right off where I had to get my wilderness permit.

Daisy you did say "stories" so I will be brief.

I was hitching from Le Brasus Switzerland to Geneve and a Swiss climber picked me up. I do not speak French or German but I asked him "Ou e Mt Blanc?" I think he drove me off his route for an hour into the mountains and finally jumps out of the car and takes me to a view point and points and says "Mt Blanc" with a big smile on his face.Then he drove me into Geneve and dropped me off at the train station with a big handshake and smile.

Then I was hitching to Zermat the day before Christmas and another Swiss guy picks me up and of course we can't speak but he was very hurt that I would not see my mmama on Christmas day. I had french bread and hazzlenut butter and we shared it and he had cognac chocolates and drove me as far as he could as cars were not allowed in Zermat.

I've had many wonderful hitching stories. I was hitching south into Big Sur and I was 500' down the road from the last stop light in Carmel because there were so many hitchers. A car passed them all, and suddenly swerves and the guy says "quick jump in before all those hippies get here" (they were running to the car yelling "hey I was first in line".) We're going down the road and he says "I never pick up hitch hikers but Jesus told me to pick up that guy and take him home." Thus started my long term relationship with the Jesus saves dairy goat commune of Palo Colorado road.

And finally I was hitching north on hwy 1 in California near the coast when a car pulls up with 5 girls in it who were looking at me like a tasty lunch. I got the address of one and took her backpacking with me on the JMT and she became my girlfriend and then I was invited to move in with them. All of them... and as BF says, sometimes porno movies start that way....

I bought my first car when I was 14. It was a basket case 1950 Ford Coupe that I paid $200 for.

For the next year I worked and bought a Chevy small block engine and transmission and everything else to rebuild that car. When I was 16 I got my drivers license and registered that old Ford.

In 1975 I was the only "White Boy Lowrider" in San Fernando, CA cruising the Mall on Friday nights.

So I never really hitched a ride to get anywhere. I did pick up a black guy in Pacoima one time that was hitching. I drove him about a block before he asked me to kiss him, french style. I dropped him off and the next corner instead.

But that old Ford took me a lot of places. There was a fallen Sequoia tree next to a dirt logging road in the NF that I used to park aside and car camp. It was illegal to do that but that old tree hid my car perfectly and the ground there was flat and soft. I'd leave LA after work and get there about midnight and then just lay on the ground and watch the stars.

But never, ever, did I see four hungry women hitching in all the miles and roads I traveled in that old Ford. Now I know why. Jim was always a year or at least a mile or two ahead of me

Bill
so my wife and I were in Hawaii staying in our favorite clothing optional resort on the Puna side of the big island above the national park, Kilani Hanua. We had a rented convertable and one day Indred got a massage, so I said "I'm gonna drive into Pahowa - the most Haight Ashburry like town in the islands - and pick up all the hitch hikers. First guy I see I pull over and said "sorry I'm late man, hop in" so we rode a ways and picked up a girl "Hey wanna a ride into town", so they pull out some local herbs and we had a nice ride.

Well in this case I was early then

I went to the "Big Island" in `78 and there wasn't much there at the time. I landed at Hilo and stayed at Kona.

Is Puna on the North side? I do remember a big resort there and that it was really windy on that side of the island.

After a few days there I hooked up with a local kid there and, at his suggestion, the next day we drove the little rental car I had all around the island. I asked him several times if we could hike off into the forest on the South side of the island but he told me people were guarding crops with machine guns in there and they did use them when intruders ventured where they shouldn't.

That really bummed me out, because it must be incredible in those forests. He did however provide a taste of what he said was never offered to Haoles and I still believe he was honest when he said it was the best the islands had.

That was the first night I went to bed the same time the islanders all did, about 9pm, and I was up at sunrise body surfing at Laaloa Bay Bay with the locals every morning after that. He taught me how to dive under the waves just before they broke on top of you, tossed you around like a rag doll, and then spit you out on the lava rock that lined the shore there.

Just before I left I did get to kiss a beautiful Wahine. That was a complete surprise too and made it pretty tough to leave the place.

BTW, skinny dipping in a secluded spot after sunset is a long time hillbilly tradition. So is gardening naked. So far, I've resisted the later, but I can see the value in the practice

My son and I had to bail on the JMT this summer because he got sick - came out over Bishop Pass. The car is at Whitney Portal. So we come to the trailhead, and we reach the big sign there with the wilderness info, and start a conversation with an older guy who is standing there. Soon he's heard our story, and he asks us how we're going to get to our car at the Portal. I say I guess we'll hitch, at least down to Bishop to catch the CREST bus. So he says, "I'll give you a ride." And he's serious. Turns out he's driving north on 395 on his way to visit a daughter, but he's got time so what the hell, he'll just backtrack an hour or so to help us out!
So we end up getting a ride before we even set foot on the pavement of the parking lot. We crammed into his little hatchback with our packs - he had his campiing gear piled in there - and off we went to the Portal - with one stop on the Portal road to avoid an immanent boilover. Along the way he regales us with tales of his life and times. Quite a ride. Although technically not hitchhiking - we never stuck out a thumb!

Not entirely true. While hitching through Colorado and Wyoming I got some pleasant rides. My favorite = convertible Corvette through Rocky Mountain National Park. The next day I got picked up by a guy in a Porsche, and he ended up throwing me $5 for lunch, even against my insisting that I had money. A month later near Yellowstone I hitched a ride with a family from Barcelona in an RV. We still stay in touch. I can sympathize with the drinking - I got picked up by many a drunk - one drunk couple who wanted me to "join them" for a night. I politely declined and went on my way.

Hitching is a relatively safe activity, and you meet so many amazing people. I spent a few weeks hitching through the west last summer and I loved ALMOST every second of it.

I know this is an old post but I found it while perusing the web for hitchhiking stories. I spent four and a half years hitchhiking and backpacking in the woods and recently my memoir was published on Amazon. Just wanted to share it if anyone is interested!

Travels With A Road Dog

Indeed I have found that in the 30,000 miles or so of hitchhiking I've done (over 90% of the time with backpack)that, yes the older "beater" vehicles tend to stop more frequently. But never rule any vehicle out. I have received several rides from large RVs for example. One I recall particularly was back around 1991 when I was hitching at entrance to Walmart in Flagstaff south on Rte. 89A to Sedona with 2 backpacks and some other gear. I had been waiting a couple of hours when a large RV pulled in front of me and invited me to get in. The retired couple explained that they had never given a ride to a hitch-hiker before but that something told them to stop for me. After I piled my packs/bags in and sat down on sofa behind the driver and his wife, and the motor coach started rolling, the wife turned around and nonchalantly asked: "You're not by any chance an axe murderer, are you? Well what does one say to that? All of her fears (despite their having just picked me up) congealed and now hinged on that one question and my answer. I calmly answered, "No, but if I was, I probably wouldn't tell you." That seemed to satisfy her somehow and they took me down to Sedona to a trailhead (Munds Mountain Wilderness) where I hiked a bit and found a good campsite where I wound up staying for many weeks. I have also gotten rides in perhaps 2 dozen or more semi trucks (almost always good rides as they are generally going long distances) and even one time (in New Hampshire) got a short ride (10 miles or so)in a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce. Have also received free rides while hitching w/backpack from taxis. So one never wants to discount the potential for rides from anyone or any type of vehicle.

Also wanted to mention/add that when I lived on Kauai for many years I camped out on Na Pali Coast (Hanakapiai and Kalalau Valleys). When I would hike to trailhead w/backpack to re-supply, I'd hitch, and frequently tourists with rental convertibles would give me rides into Hanalei. I probably rode in over 50 convertibles there.

WD, here are a couple of mine:

On my second thru-hike I was coming into Monson after some very serious rain. I remembered that the last part of the trail is a virtual swamp, so, under the circumstances, I took the blue blazed trail over to what I think I remember is Pleasant Road. It's a well-maintained gravel road along the river.

I was in fairly high gear and marching. All of a sudden, with no sound for warning, there was a car right next to me. I just about jumped out of my boots. But when I turned to actually look, I realized it was a silver Rolls Royce. The window was going down (silently, of course). The driver offered to take me into town (another couple of miles), and I got in (stink, dirt and all) and he took me right to the boarding house. Turns out his family founded the mill there, he collects old cars and takes one out for a drive a couple of times a week.

The second one was the result of a very serious mistake on my part. I was leaving Tri-Corner Knob Shelter (I think) in the Smokies, and I was just enjoying trail that I thought I knew well, paying very little attention.

When I came to a shelter I wasn't expecting, I stopped, looked at the map, realized I had taken a wrong fork and was now a couple of hours of steep hiking below the trail, and could not make the next shelter that day. Looking at the map, it looked like I could hit a road in the valley in less time, so I opted for that. It took considerably longer than that, since the trail largely petered out, but I found the road, and headed toward what looked like maybe habitation. I came to a ford. Concrete bottom, but I couldn't tell how much water, and it turned into a waterfall a few feet later.

But there were a couple of guys working there, obviously just ready to leave. I yelled, hard, a few times and one of them heard me. He fired up a front-end loader, came across and loaded me in the bucket. Then we got in their truck and he told me he lived near the point where the trail left the park, and took me right to Mountain Mommas (so I really Yellow blazed the last couple of days in the park)

best, jcp

Haven't posted in a while. I don't expect anyone to actually read these... but what the heck, they are at least on topic. I think.

From my personal blog:

http://jmarklane.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-waitress-trucker-and-me.html

http://jmarklane.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-highway-of-tears.html

http://jmarklane.blogspot.com/2013/04/carthage-tennessee.html