View Full Version : Hitchhiking
ATAlbatross
03-31-2009, 11:50
I was wondering if hitching a ride into trail towns is easy. In the AT Companion I read states where it is illegal, however do people still do it without getting caught, and if so would you recommend it personally? Thoughts on hitchhiking rides into towns? Apologies if there is already a thread for this topic, I was not able to find one, new to WB. Thanks for the feedback.
Lone Wolf
03-31-2009, 11:55
hitching is easy and most times necessary.
the goat
03-31-2009, 11:58
yeah, hitching is easy, except for ny, ct, mass. you don't have to hitch, as long as you don't mind walking for hours on a narrow road shoulder to get to town.
Hitching is pretty easy, especially down south! On my thru last year, I don't think I ever waited longer than 30-45 minutes for a ride...even had a trucker stop to give me a lift in VA!
My brother has one of those nice handkerchiefs that has the saying " Hiker To Town" on one side and "Hiker To Trail" on the other. It has worked for him, just hang on your pack showing the proper side while walking down the road. I guess technically that ain't illegal, its just stating what you are doing and if someone offers a ride, so be it.
Hitching is pretty easy, especially down south! On my thru last year, I don't think I ever waited longer than 30-45 minutes for a ride...even had a trucker stop to give me a lift in VA!
I had the exact opposite experience. Go figure. Maybe they could smell my Yankee blood. But, hitching is generally pretty easy and very common. Most of the people that live in/near trail towns are used to it and familiar with hikers. One thing I noticed is it's actually easier to get a ride With your pack thbn without. I think with the pack, people can see that your doing something with purpose. Without the pack, you just look like some unkept bum :)
Blissful
03-31-2009, 20:44
In NJ I heard of hikers getting hefty fines. Just ask around parking lots for rides.
Blissful
03-31-2009, 20:46
My brother has one of those nice handkerchiefs that has the saying " Hiker To Town" on one side and "Hiker To Trail" on the other. It has worked for him, .
Never worked for us with that sign thing. My son did the hitching and I sat on my backpack with my hair down and looked needy. :)
waywardfool
04-01-2009, 22:27
I "accidentally" hitchhiked several years ago in PA and MD. I don't have my journal from that hike handy, but it went kinda like this:
Our Scout troop (I was ASM at the time) was doing about 70 miles or so on the AT, and the guy up there that was supposed to move our bus was a no-show, canceled at the last minute. After some thinking, it was decided I would separate from the group, drive on up to where we had planned to leave the bus, then hike southbound for the week, and when the troop got to the bus, they'd pick me up at the original starting place.
Long story short, as soon as I pulled into the parking area on the northern end, a family of four was there, and came over to talk Scouts...five minutes later, I was in their car, headed south. They had to drop me about 20 trail miles from where they picked me up....low and behold, in that parking lot was a couple of trail maintainers that were on a work day, getting ready to pull out...another 20 or so miles....when they got as far south as they were headed, they happened to see somebody they knew that had just come off the trail from a dayhike, and knew he would be headed home towards Harpers Ferry, where I needed to be.....once again, no wait, and I was on the road....got dropped off at a road crossing a couple of miles from the Scout's first planned campsite...boy were they surprised to see me walk up just a few hours from when I'd last seen them.
I wish it was always that easy!
Glebbber
04-01-2009, 23:09
I have found smiling helps to get rides.
moonshiner
04-02-2009, 15:18
to hitch or not to hitch? hitch
moonshiner
04-02-2009, 15:19
but don't pick-up hitchhikers in a prison area
moonshiner
04-02-2009, 15:19
Showing some leg also helps...
Feral Bill
04-02-2009, 19:14
How do older hikers do hithching? Better or worse?
Frick Frack
04-02-2009, 19:34
Most of the time my wife and I got a ride from just being next to a road with our packs on without even thumbing for a ride. If we thumbed for a ride we never waited more than 5 minutes with the exception of two spots.
The greatest danger to the long distance hiker is not the trail; it is the traveling to and from the trail and then the town itself. Hitchhiking to town always means accepting a ride from a stranger, an unknown. The nice little old lady may be dotty or half blind. The soccer mom may be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. More than one hiker has accepted a ride before discovering that the driver had been swilling white lightning all day. But the scraggly derelict with a five day beard may be a brain surgeon on his way home from hiking a section of the trail. On top of that uncertainty, the ride is likely to be in the back of a pickup truck. At 75 miles per hour. Down a wet mountain road.
The most common ride on the AT starts with a pickup truck pulling to the side of the road with the invariable question, “Y’all mind riding in back?” It may be raining and sleeting with hurricane force winds, and the pickup bed may be covered with material that looks suspiciously organic, but the answer is always, “No problem! Thanks!!”
On the other hand, not all rides are benign. No prudent person will get into any car with one or more folks drinking, especially the driver. Women have their own instincts about this. At the most obvious level, no one, male or female, should accept a ride in a windowless van. And more than two males in the car can be a problem for women. At a more subtle level, pure intuition has to enter the equation. Folks whose perceptions are honed by a few weeks or months of wilderness travel tend to be attuned to danger of all kinds.
Recognizing a problem ride and not taking it are two different things. How do you turn down someone who has gone to the trouble to stop for you? Some hikers slap their pockets and claim to have just discovered they left their camera at the last overlook, thank the driver for stopping and scurry back into the woods. The direct approach is to say something like, “I’ve changed my mind. Thanks for stopping.” The trouble is, honesty can result in the driver feeling slighted and getting dangerously indignant. Some good-old-boys can take serious offense at any perceived slight.
Spock’s favorite way to turn down a ride is to peer at the driver through the window and say, “Have you accepted JEE-zus as your personal lord and savior? WELL!?”
This might not work in the South, where the response is likely to be, “You betcha, Brother!” But if that happens to be the answer, then the ride might not be a problem anyway. But if it still looks iffy, he bugs his eyes and rants about Satan, demons, and fiends, jerks around while spraying spit, and makes sure he is clear of the vehicle in case it peels out. If you didn’t grow up in the right church and don’t have a stock of religious raving to draw on, Jonathan Edwards, somewhat paraphrased, is easy to memorize, with suggested emphasis:
Vile SINNER! The BOW of God’s WRATH is BENT and the ARROW is made READY on the STRING and JUSTICE bends the arrow at YOUR HEART and STRAINS the bow and NOTHING, NOTHING but the mere PLEASURE of GOD, and He is an ANGRY God, WITHOUT PROMISE or obligation AT ALL, that keeps the arrow from being made DRUNK on YOUR BLOOD. BLOOD!!! BLOOOOOD!!!
Cimarron, one of several thruhikers in their 80s.
That’ll do it.