[pct-l] no hitchhiking

[Brian Lewis]

MarkV listed four places that it's difficult to deal with apart from
hitch-hiking.
I thru-hiked this year, and like you I set out ahead of time trying to avoid
or at least greatly minimize the requirement to hitch-hike.

My comments on those four places and others:

(1) Hikertown to Kennedy Meadows, about 200 miles:
My plan for this year was to call from the highway to the Mojave motel that
advertised free pickup and drop-off on the trail.  I did exactly that, I
called, and was told that one of the guys that works there was off work for
a few days and that there was no one to come out and get myself and my
current hiking companion (J.B.).  So I ended up hitching anyway; lots of
cars passed us by until Gordon came by in his PCT support van (he suppported
a couple of thru-hikers this year and gave rides to a lot of people this
year).
No ride available back to the trail via the motel either, but fortunately
J.B. yogi'ed a ride from someone having breakfast at the motel at the same
time we were.
While I can't comment on accuracy, I heard rumors that other cases of
lodgings offering free rides can be hit or miss, I didn't try any others.
There might, however, be a taxi that you could call from the road to Mojave
or Tehachapi (?).  If your cell phone works from there (note: see Halfmile's
collected data on where cell phones work,
http://www.pctmap.net/cell/index.html).  And if your information about taxi
service is up-to-date, and if --- perhaps --- the one taxi in the whole area
is running that day and isn't engaged driving someone else to somewhere else
when you need it.

Trying to carry enough food to skip resupply there --- well, note that you
could in places be carrying a lot of water through that area there too.  I
really appreciated some time off as well as getting resupplied in Mojave.

(1a) The Sierras.
I ended up hitching in to Independence after hiking over Kearsarge Pass, in
order to not try to carry a ton of food.  That road is not something you
would want to walk if you went out that way (!).  A long way if I recall
correctly, and more elevation loss down to town.  It could be possible to
yogi a ride from folks camping at the trailhead campground.
Also, going in to Mammoth Lakes there's a series of buses that one can take,
but both on arrival and departure I was outside of the window when the bike
shuttle busses run up to the ski resort, so ultimately ended up yogi-ing and
hitching that fairly short stretch both ways.  I could have walked it, but
by then I had lost some of my hesitancy about hitch-hiking and in both
directions sort of fell into a situation where I could get a ride.  Note
however, that I never really lost my "hitch hiking hesitancy", I still don't
like to do it, but it was no longer a sort of "avoid at all costs" thing in
my mind.

(2) Tuolumne Meadows to Echo Lake.
You still have a bear can out of Tuolumne Meadows, and depending on the year
maybe or maybe not some additional "sierras gear" (maybe extra clothing).
I had originally planned to have a resupply box sent to northern Kenney
Meadows, as it's physically closer to the (same) trailhead than Bridgeport
--- my theory being that if I just couldn't get a ride, I could walk it.
After I had done a few hundred miles on the trail I had enough of my
"completely avoid hitch-hiking" philosophy beaten out of me that I
re-evaluated that and asked my wife to instead send the box to Bridgeport,
because the latter is more like a full-service trail town, and I realized
that I wasn't going to walk either to or back from northern KM anyway, and I
speculated that it might actually be easier to get a ride to Bridgeport than
to northern KM.
I ended up splitting up with my current hiking partner there (Milky) and
hitching by myself.  There were a ton of day hikers milling around the same
place, some even wandering on to the road.  A car with two very nice women
pulled over to ask me what was going on; I seized the opportunity to ask for
a ride (I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have taken me otherwise) and so
quickly got in to town.
I met back up with J.B. in town and we asked at the bar where we were
staying and arranged to get a ride back to the trailhead for an agreed
fee.   That sort of approach can work sometimes getting back to the
trailhead.

(3) Castella to Seiad Valley.
In my case there wasn't an option as the Etna Summit road north was closed
due to fire.  I had originally planned to skip the town of Etna for exactly
this reason, i.e., to not have to hitch hike, but instead I *had* to hitch
in to Etna, and then separately to Seiad Valley from there.
And then to really complete the trail, months later I had to get a ride way
back to Etna summit road and get picked up at Seiad Valley to finish those
56 miles in September that I couldn't hike in July.

Moral of the story: even if you plan carefully to avoid all hitch hiking,
you might well end up doing some anyway.  Having part of itself on fire
seems like a state hobby or passtime in California, it's very possible that
fire (or perhaps some other biblical plague) could force you to skip around
some trail section(s).  There were two big chunks that had to be hitched
around for many (most?) of us this year.  The 180 mile chunk from Truckee to
highway 36 took Lucky and myself something like 7 separate hitches, taking
all day to do it.    Actually, there were three sections counting Idylwild.
I did hitch that and then hitched *back* to Paradise Cafe when I found that
there was in fact a reasonable roadwalk option.

(4) Snoqualmie Pass to Stehekin.  Mark called these two sections "A very
tough 175 miles" and I would agree.  Beautiful, but your daily mileage drops
down closer to what's typical in the Sierras, lots of up-and-down.  I live
near Seattle, so my wife did direct support at Steven's Pass.  DiGiorno
zeroed at my house with me and wanted to maintain his independence going
forward, so while I walked out of Snoqualmie Pass with something like 3+
days of food on my back, he walked out carrying maybe 9 days worth.
DiGiorno is young and strong and I'm middle aged (52), but he was having a
hard time keeping up with me in section J.  I have to agree that in the
normal case, hitching to the Dinsmore's makes a ton of sense.

I would add Big Bear City as another place that it's common to hitch in to
and out of.  You don't strictly have to, but I, with my "really try to avoid
hitchhiking") mentality did get an easy hitch going in to town (a woman was
dropping some hikers off at the trailhead when I got to it) and got a ride
arranged back to the trailhead by asking at the place I stayed in town.
Ditto Wrightwood.

Bottom line is that while you can do some upfront work to minimize it, I
don't think it's realistic to consider a standard PCT thru-hike without
hitch-hiking.  As someone else said I believe, if you start out with that
intent, the trail will change your mind for you along the way.   That's
exactly what happened to me this year.


           Gadget '08
           http://postholer.com/brianle