Have you ever felt like you were a character in a horror movie? This one time we hitched a ride into Smithsburg Maryland to eat at a local deli and grab some supplies at dollar general and our ride back out to the trail felt like we were riding into the latest installment of the Saw franchise.
This guy was taking all of his old tools to the dump and said that he could give us a ride back to the trail but only had space in the back of his van. That didn’t have windows. Which had buckets of nails, loose sheets of plywood, saws and other tools hanging from the walls. There was four of us hiking together at the time. We realized the error of our ways as we stuffed ourselves along with our packs in the back of Jigsaw’s wagon and then shut ourselves in. It was pitchblack in there so I got my headlamp out which only seemed to make it more ominous. But at that point all we could do was cross our fingers and hope that the guy wasn’t a serial killer, and laugh our way to either the trail or somewhere far more sinister.
Luckily he was a perfectly nice man and dropped us off at the trail after a ride that lasted only a few minutes.
Hitchhiking hasn’t ever really been a thing I thought I would be doing. As a generally anxious person it never really appealed to me. To me, it has always just seemed like the easiest way to get murdered. Thus far, my experience on the trail with hitchhiking has been nothing but positive. Since first getting off at the first place one can get back into town from the trail down in Georgia (just after Blood Mountain to be exact). Back then, we walked into the outfitters on a snowy day and the employees must have felt bad for us because his boss told him to take a break and give us a ride into town. While we were riding with him he kept talking about how easy hitchhiking is on trail.
Getting back onto the trail from Blairsville was the first time I ever hitchhiked. We stood outside a coffee shop and held out our thumbs for about ten minutes before some guy pulled over. He asked us where we wanted to go and then told us to hop in. He was really nice the whole ride and it turned out that he went about 10 miles out of his way to get us back onto the trail.
Some of the people who have given us rides have shown us so much kindness. It has been relatively easy to hitch into and out of most of the towns that we pass by. We have had people pull over and ask if we needed a ride before we even tried. When we were stuck in the sweltering heat of the Shenandoah and decided that a day off and perhaps aqua blazing might suit us better, the first car we saw pulled over and took us into town.
Hitchhiking has been on my mind the past couple of days as we have now ventured on into states where it is illegal. Though the shuttle drivers from New Jersey and New York are awesome. Because there are so few up here, everybody gets a ride from the same people. Josie takes everybody to the Warwick drive in, a thru hiker must stop, as everyone cheered for her when we showed up. And to answer your next question, hell yea we camped at the drive in.
From the other side,
Pan and Bell
from the other side 