Got headed back out towards the trail mid morning. Took about an hour and twenty minutes to get a hitch back out to the trail. Ashland, where we went to resupply is about 15 highway miles from the trail, so it wasn’t a reasonable walk without a hitch.
Some thoughts on hitching:
Once one is standing on the side of the road looking for a hitch, perspective really changes. We are standing with backpacks, all in running shorts, sports shirts, with hiking poles…with the only similarity between us and a vagrant, is our thumbs out. However, even with our bandana out that says ‘hiker to trail’, and being able to even see people mouth that phrase as they read it, it took 100+ cars passing before someone pulled over. What becomes entertaining is the looks people give as they pass…waving or shrugging or smiling….all kind of meaningless in an empty car that can only pass where we are going. I guess Heraldo and the like did a good job in the 80s scaring folks. These are the things that go on in our heads as we try to hitch and banter about the passer-bys.
The driver who did pick us up, has a husband who had hiked the PCT in the early 90s and she was a forest service employee. I guess that is what it takes sometimes.
Don’t mean the above to be a rant, by any means. I have hitched all over the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, as well as several countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. Oddly, or maybe not, the US can be one of the hardest places to get a ride.
Got to the trail and met up with Grey Wolf and No Amp. Other than those two, the only other thru hiker that we saw was Upside Down, who we had not seen in many miles.
Great hiking today. The tread was relatively smooth and we were able to do our miles by 7, even with a pretty late start. The trail was in and out of the sun, which is great as well. Not a whole lot of views, but it is hard to complain about that with nearly three months of daily outstanding views! There were some giant dandle lions, just smaller than a softball. Wolfpack and JJ saw a big black bear. They were watching it as I came up, but the bear got spooked by my footsteps before I knew he was there.
Pretty tired today as we were up late watching the Olympics in Ashland.
Tonite we are camped at the Hyatt Lake campground…can hear the RV generators in the distance. Not typical for us to camp at developed camp areas, but this was right off trail at the end of the day and there is a picnic table…so good enough….and an actual toilet will be nice in the morning 🙂
Daily Distance: 26
Trip Distance: 1,743.8
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