Day 107: Hitching Across Washington
The bus departed at 7:15 am from Oroville so we were up early packing up our stuff. My goal was to hitch south across the entire state of Washington to reach Timberline Lodge by the evening. I had 114 miles of trail I missed south of there and wanted to go back to finish it.
I’d ride the bus about an hour south with Sandman, who was heading to the town of Mazama to pick up a resupply box, and then try my hand at hitching.
The hotel manager made an awesome sign for me to hopefully make it easier to hitch across the state.
And it did! I made it to the lodge by 6pm via 7 hitches.
Hitch 1: the first car to pick me up set the tone to the day. The guy in the backseat had just taken a hit of chronic and I learned during the ride he had a warrant out for his arrest due to a “clerical error”. They were nice enough though and drove me about 45 minutes south.
Hitch 2: the next car was an extremely nice fella who’d recently got out of jail due to gang and addiction issues. He was working hard to set his life straight. I was taken aback by how kind he was -- he offered to give me money and buy me food, although I politely declined since I could tell he didn’t have much.
Hitch 3: This was the critical hitch of the day since the older couple in the car were headed about 3 and a half hours my direction. They were from a small town, didn’t believe in COVID (although he was currently wearing an oxygen tank recovering from “the virus”), talked passionately about their constitutional rights, and generally met the small town USA stereotype. They were nice enough although we struggled to find common ground to connect on, especially since I wasn’t used to socially with people for this long after the months on trail.
Hitch 4: I was hitching from the center of a town, which is a difficult way to get a ride. I was beginning to lose hope after 30 minutes when a car whistled at me and signaled to meet them. A nice guy who was a venture capitalist was heading towards Portland and offered to take me as far as he could. We chatted for most of the ride.
Hitch 5: Hitching from the on ramp of the interstate, I only had to wait for a few minutes before a younger girl stopped to swoop me. I was the first hitch hiker she’d picked up, but she said I looked nice enough. She was heading to a town just 45 minutes away from Mt Hood. I couldn’t believe my luck! She was a non-profit working barely making ends meet so I offered to put gas in her car as a thank you.
Hitch 6: A local picked me up and offered to drive me 10 miles down the road. Figured any miles helped, so I hopped in for the quick ride.
Hitch 7: My final hitch was this cool middle aged couple who had dropped their kids off at band camp and had spent the day touring wineries. They were driving around Mt Hood admiring the views. They weren’t originally planning to go as far as Timberline lodge, but offered to take me there.
Upon arriving at Timberline Lodge, I needed to pick up my resupply box but the front desk couldn’t find it. They said to return in the morning so I headed out to camp.
A long day, but I was frickin pumped to make it across an entire state hitch hiking!