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scout005
01-18-2008, 16:14
What's the scariest hitch hike experience you've had while hiking the AT?

orangebug
01-18-2008, 17:15
My worst was in New Jersey, in a hugh downpouring rain at ?Wind Gap? hoping to get to a motel and unsure which direction to go. Eventually picked up by a guy in a pick up truck, soaked his front seat, and worried about my pack in his truck bed.

He got me right to where I wanted to go.

Probably worried him much more than me.

From my experiences hitch hiking since the early 70's (infrequently), one knows within 15-20 seconds of the car/truck stopping whether there is a problem.

AT-HITMAN2005
01-18-2008, 17:23
got a ride to Abingdon(? town near damascus) in '05 to see a movie on a zero. 5 of us walking back towards damascus, hitching. i was on 1 side of the road they were all on the other. this tiny car, something like a geo metro, pulls over. 2 guys in the front seat, fishing pole and rifle or shotgun in the back seat, right in plain site. i heard banjos. fortunately not enough room for all of us.

Pony
01-18-2008, 17:56
Not my story, I just found it on the internet. Both hilarious and terrifying.
http://purebound.com/troy.htm

DAKS
01-18-2008, 19:35
Not my story, I just found it on the internet. Both hilarious and terrifying.
http://purebound.com/troy.htm

that's a super sketchy experience. i once had a guy pick me up who had to clear the empties out of the passenger seat so i could get in. i was a bit scared at first but it all turned out well. at least i was dry. oh, and he was drinking and it was only like 0800 if i remember correctly? i also got picked up by a guy who i believe was living in his car? i tried to clear the passenger seat, but he insisted it was okay to sit on what was there in the seat?!(i.e., his car was completely full with his belongings) as we continued down the road, i realized i was sitting on his groceries and such! i felt horrible and insisted i pay him for ruining his loaf of bread. he wouldn't allow it. neither experience was "a worst hitch story", but interesting to say the least!

KG4FAM
01-18-2008, 20:38
When I was traveling to Katahdin in 06 I took the train to Portland and was going to stay with some folks near Bangor. I was going to try and hitch to them because the bus didnt leave til the afternoon. I got a ride out of Portland and the guy dropped me off at an exit that didnt have an on ramp, so I had to walk several miles to get to the next exit (had my thumb out the whole way). Once I got there I got a ride to Agusta from a very nice lady. I sat at the onramp at Agusta for hours and didnt get anything. To make it even worse, one of the first people that passed by me had an AT sticker on his car. I eventually walked up to the bus station and got a ticket, hung my hammock in the yard of the bus/air terminal and took a nap (the stationmaster was a bit confused on the hammock thing, but since I had a ticket he didnt care). That day sucked, but the next day going to Baxter was full of easy rides.

River Runner
01-19-2008, 00:34
Not my story, I just found it on the internet. Both hilarious and terrifying.
http://purebound.com/troy.htm

:eek: Wonder what ever became of the kids with a parent like that?

-Ghost-
01-19-2008, 13:46
:eek: Wonder what ever became of the kids with a parent like that?

i was thinking the same thing....horrible to think about.

RITBlake
01-19-2008, 14:26
http://purebound.com/troy.htm

jesus, you can't make something like that up....what a bizzare story.

HighlanderII
01-22-2008, 19:00
I got in a Iroc-Z that came screaming to a stop coming around a corner when I put out my thumb. I got in and the guy floored it down the road, going probably double the speed limit in the Whites. I tried to put on the seat belt (as I always do) and it didn't work. The driver said "the seat belt doesn't work and I'm late for work". But he did give me a ride (I was 19 so I really didn't know any better).

I got in this van with the guy I was hiking with at the time. We were in the back and the driver asked if we wanted a beer. We said "no" so the driver cracked it himself, chugged a bunch and then gave it to the passenger to finish and throw out the window. This beer drinking system repeated for the scary and very fast 7 miles downhill to town. Both of us thru-hikers were pretty shaken up when we got out.

I've also had some really weird rides which I never expected I'd get, like a whole family I'd met while hiking down the trail. They crammed me into this little tiny car in back with the kids but it got me to town and I was happy for that.

HIKER7s
01-23-2008, 08:08
helped a lady out with her flat, she said climb in.
Went to AC, never saw the casino
stayed in a honeymoon suite
sunday I woke up and it was all a dream

Gaiter
01-23-2008, 12:39
i was hitching into boiling springs, I had a wolf spider bite on my foot that was very painful and i didn't want to hike on it any more that day, so i stopped at a major rd (i was sobo) i knew it didn't run in the direction of boiling springs, but it ran to another road that ran into another road that did, sooo i knew it was going to be a hard hitch, after about 45min (in the south i never waited more than 20, except for one time in which me and lil'red saved a stuck goat before getting a hitch, it was ment ot be), a truck stopped, i jumped in, he said he'd take me to boiling springs,
then i realized that there was a beer in btn his legs as we took off, he proceded to explain to me that he was a professional driver so he could drink, i'm starting to think of ways to get out of this, then he insisted on taking me to a chinese buffet, his treat, its free food and a chance for him to get sober,
i said okay, but i need to get there before dark, so after dark we left the restaurant, dropping me off well after dark.
i was planning on staying at the campground just out side of the town, went to look for the porta-john that i had heard about, couldn't find it or anything else that looked like an established campground, it was all over grown, the whole time i was talking on my cell w/ my mom, she finally yells 'just go get a damn room' i didn't question that, and she paid for a night at a bed and breakfast, the next day i got to see a doc for my spiderbite

scavenger
01-23-2008, 12:58
David Sedaris tells some hilarious and insane stories of hitchhiking around the country in his book "Naked."

I remember most just seemed funny, but one involved a man who pulled a gun on him. Sedaris dove out the door of the truck, it was night and he hid in the woods while the guy looked for him and shouted something like "Come back, I was just joking! its not even loaded!" :-?

ThrashHammer
01-25-2008, 11:48
A friend had a knee problem about forty four miles north of Damascus, Va. We hitched a ride on a ninety degree day in the back of a '92 Dodge pickup. We had fishing poles and shovels that seemed to coming out of our aces as we winded through these curvy roads. Keep in mind, we were forty four miles away, so about an hour. An hour and a half later, I make her pull over. She tells me she decided to take her mother home who lives about fifteen minutes south of Damascus. Then she says she can only drop us off five miles from Damascus. So I offer her a tank of gas if she gets us into town, she takes the offer. We drop mom off, head back north, right past both Damascus exits. Now I am starting to **** myself. What the hell is this lady doing. Now we drive past the Hurricane Campground, where she originally picked us up at. Now I'm really ****ting, have her pull over again. Freaking the hell out, I ask what what in the world is she doing. She says she knows a better way. She ended up taking us seventy five miles out of the way so she could take an interstate. Now we're flying down an interstate going 85 mile an hour in a rust bucket. We eventually got to Damascus, four hours late. Hell of a ride. Oh yeah, and never go with a fat out of shape guy, this all could've been avoided.

DesertMTB
01-25-2008, 12:34
Forgive me, but this is a positive hitch-hiking story.


Late last year my brother and I were hitching into Franklin (Couldn't get a cell signal to call Ron). After a half hour, a Ford Bronco finally pulled over. He asked where we were going and I told him to Haven's Inn.

The guy said no problem, but that he had to meet someone first and that he would drive us there afterwards.

We get to this convenience store and he gets out to talk with a friend. The guy comes back and tells us that we can just take his vehicle drive ourselves to the hotel. He just wanted us to drop off a few bags of trash at the dump on the way.

My brother was suspecious, thinking his wife's body might be in the bags, but I said sure.

Well, we dumped the trash and left his vehicle parked at the hotel with the keys in the ignition.

Amazes me that someone would let complete stragers borrow their vehicle, but hey, I guess there is something to Southern hospitality.

max patch
01-25-2008, 12:44
3 from from my thru:

1. Grover the Rover walked all the way from Ga to Me. Didn't hitch or get in a vehicle the whole way.

2. A pick-up somewhere in the South with 5 thrus and a dog in the back took a curve too fast and pitched everyone out of the truck. Somehow the worst injuries were a few bruises and minor cuts that didn't need stiches. Lucky.

3. I hitched back from Gettysburg with a maniac. He saw a car full of girls (he was 20 something) and literally went 100 mph down the road to catch up to them. Passed everyone like a maniac. When he passed the girls - still speeding - he turned around to wave. Surprisingly, when I demanded he stop and let me out he complied. That was the only time I was scared during my hike.

mindi
02-01-2008, 01:24
I found that David Sedaris book at the church hostel in Troutville (or Troutdale, always get them confused) and read it on the trail.

I had one really creepy, icky ride but I don't even like to talk about it. Luckily nearly every other ride I got was great.

mweinstone
02-01-2008, 01:28
i dare any of you to ask the goat to tell his hitchiking story. i double double dare your asses.each gathering , its the pride of our storys.

mweinstone
02-01-2008, 01:30
he will tell it at the doyal this winter warmer. be there. guns,bagpipes,tears and hiding in the woods till the freak left. full details at thye billville winter warmer in duncanon this leapday!

dessertrat
02-01-2008, 08:10
David Sedaris tells some hilarious and insane stories of hitchhiking around the country in his book "Naked."

I remember most just seemed funny, but one involved a man who pulled a gun on him. Sedaris dove out the door of the truck, it was night and he hid in the woods while the guy looked for him and shouted something like "Come back, I was just joking! its not even loaded!" :-?

I had a similar thing happen to me while hitchhiking once about 20 years ago-- I got in the back of a pickup truck, two guys were in the front, they took off on a wild ride, went up a dirt road in the middle of nowhere (they had claimed they were heading toward town). This was around midnight and it was pitch black, and they were driving too fast to safely jump out. They then asked how much money I had on me, and I told them I didn't have any. When the truck stopped at the end of the dirt road I jumped out and ran into the woods.

Then they started yelling "come back, we were only joking." Nothing doing. I yelled from the woods that I had their license plate number (not true, though I wish it had been) and that I would find my way back to town on my own and give it to the police. That freaked them out, I think, because they took off like a shot. It took me about four hours to walk to a pay phone, where I did make a useless police report. (This was not on the AT, I was just hitchhiking because my car was broken down and I couldn't afford to get it fixed. That's why they have laws about hitchhiking at night, I guess. The small town cop was cool and gave me a ride home, ignoring the two prominent stickers inside his cruiser that said "no smoking" and "all occupants must wear seatbelts" ).

mweinstone
02-01-2008, 08:35
note i was givin by my mom at 14."to whom it may concern,my son matthew weinstone has my permission to travel between philadelphia and the appalachain trail for the purpose of backpacking" i was in the port autharity police station a few times . they allways thaught i was a runaway. i would show them the note and say my bus was leaveing and they would let me go. an old man rubbed my leg and asked if my girlfriend ever did that for her. two women outside of reading picked me up at age 15 and talked quietly in the front stats about getting a room and rapeing me. a lady dropped her transmission and had sudden uncontrolled acceleration and i bailed with her infant. she thanked me at the gas station a block up the road where she skidded in and the guy popped the lid and killed the battery on the now flaming beast. two fat sweaty oniony smelling fish mongers put their hands on my girlfriends hair once. the next ride was an off duty cop.hitch? yeah! i love too!

earlyriser26
02-01-2008, 08:46
When I was a teenager me and my hiking partner got a ride outside of Baxter state park. At first we thought the group of college kids were joking since there was no room in the car. We road from Baxter to Millinocket sitting on the hood of their car.