hello friends,
i’ve been meaning to write up a summary of my trip hitching around the northwest since i returned home. this site was so helpful as i was planning so i wanted to share my adventure! well i’m putting it off no longer! here it goes:
a close friend of mine was moving west to portland and needed help driving her stuff cross country. we haven’t been friends that long, but our relationship is rooted in a mutual understanding of how fucked the world is and what we want to do about it, a similar political inclination toward communal and Indigenous anarchisms, and an appreciation for the sheer intensity that life offers us. knowing she was half kidding when she asked me to be her co-pilot, i jumped on the offer. needless to say i wouldn’t hesitate to help her out. plus, it saved me the trouble of trying to hitch out of the midwest and across the great plains.
we took our time getting out there. neither of us had an agenda besides getting out west and spending time in the mountains. we drove straight to denver, briefly stopping to spend the night with a mutual friend in the plaines before heading out the next morning. that night we had the genius idea to get some window paint and cover the car with ‘just married, venmo to help us celebrate! buy us a beer’ and the like. we took off early the next morning to make it to dinner with her friend that agreed to put us up for the night. after denver, we were hoping to spend the next few days in the wind river range in wyoming, but to our surprise the trails were still snowed in above ~6000’ despite it being late june. instead, we pushed on to idaho.
she was stoked on the sawtooths, and it just happened that one of my friends was in the area. we stopped for a few nights at alturas lake. it was magnificent. calm and serene water enveloped by powerful mountains that twisted the light around the sky. we spent our days hiking into the alpine, swimming in the coldest lakes we could find. we spent the nights freezing around the fire watching the stars reminiscing on our shared memories and envisioning a less violent world.
on our last night in these mountains, my friend invited us to their boyfriends birthday party. they were doing some massive suffer fest with a bunch of friends and everyone who wasn’t masochistic enough to join got to meet up at the end of the trail for a bbq camp out. so we went, driving some 30 miles down a dirt road somewhere in rural idaho blindly following the pin on my phone. unsurprisingly, we pulled up on a group of 30 some drunk exhausted friends. even though i only knew one person there (and my friend had only met her the day before) we had a good time!! we basically just chatted strangers, got drunk, and played stump until it got dark. we made it an early night since we would send it all the way to portland the next day.
that next week was pretty chill. when we finally made it to portland we were both pretty beat from all the driving so we didn’t get up to too much. i was crashing on the couch, but it was still better than sleeping in my tent. one of the days we snuck into the blues festival which was pretty cool. another day i biked all over the city while my friend was at work. portland is pretty cool in that there’s a lot you can do for free, especially in the summer. the rest of the week was spent chilling, reflecting, and anticipating what the next few months would hold, knowing that in just a few days i would be in my own with nothing more than what i could carry in my pack.
my friend decided she wanted to send me off with one last camping trip (she also wanted to help me get out of portland closer to where i wanted to be). her roommate wanted to tag along, so the three of us headed up to the Olympic peninsula for the weekend. we decided to take a detour to tour the tillamook cheese factory and opted for the scenic route up the oregon coast. we had a hard time trying to find somewhere to sleep as it was getting dark. we were still a few hours out from the park, so we spent the night on some random forest road in a pull out. it was a pretty spot and we weren’t bothered by anyone else. we woke up early the next morning and went to quinault since it was the closest spot to where we were and we had no idea where we were going since the peninsula is so massive. we ended up spending the day hiking around in the rainforest then poked around the stores for a bit. there was a little old lady who had made a museum full of colonial regalia and stolen native heirlooms. she made a huge point of telling us not to eat the berries (since it was a slow year and she wanted them for herself ) and that they (whoever they are) MUST have stolen the election from ben carson since she knew three people who voted for him. she liked him because ‘he doesn’t have a political bone in his body’. we thought about stealing some of the old shit but instead decided to find a cool hike to do the next day. i was pretty set on climbing mt. stone because i wanted to do something scrambley in the mountains and i knew they were down for a longer hike. after some debate and no other alternatives besides driving to the coast hours out of our way, we decided to head to the lena lake campground. before we took off we noticed a beer on the hood!! all three of us were stoked that the ruse finally worked after more than 2 weeks and thousands of miles on the road. as we got close to the campground, the sun was starting to set and the olympic ridge was clearing its cloud cover. the tide was low as we passed a little oyster shack on the side of the road. see, my friend LOVES oysters. plus it was the perfect excuse to stop right on the water and drink our free beer. so without consulting the group i pulled over and we ordered a dozen. they were pretty cheap and the dudes selling them were total chillers. they have us a few free grilled bbq oysters and some beers. we chatted with them for a bit about aquaculture and how they got into what they’re doing. they took us down to the water for some seabeans (delicious) and to look at the oysters growing. they even gave us a free eighth before we left. nice guys
we set up camp and found a bunch of slugs fucking. pretty damn weird. but they don’t have genders which is pretty cool. we went to bed and got up early to get a start on mt. stone. the trail was pretty steep right off the bat. as we gradually ascended out of the rainforest the tree cover got thinner and we reached a series of plateaus holding boggy marsh ponds. from there the trail got pretty muddy and we had to cross some patches of snow as we climbed higher. we lost the trail a few times and got turned around relying only on a few screenshots of the route description and a gps topo downloaded on my phone. we stopped for lunch and tried to re assess what we were doing. we saw a bunch of other parties going both up and down the trail a bit past where we were. a steep snowfield gained an alpine lake that everyone promised was worth the view, but we were set on the summit. we’d already hiked about 6 miles up the trail and found the route we were searching for, which rose sharply out of this snowy basin. occasionally we found ourselves doing 4th class moves up a narrow ramp of mostly solid rock. once we had climbed about 1000’ above the basin it started to get really foggy and we couldn’t see the ridge we were meant to use as a waypoint. i convinced my friends to keep going and we traversed a snowfield that was probably between 30-40°. it was soft enough to kick our boots in, but there was no trail in sight. we each found a stick before crossing, to self arrest in case of a fall since we didn’t have ice axes. after making it nervously across 2 or 3 steep snowfields, with no end in sight we’re one of us to fall, we made it too loose scree field. not loose like occasionally some pebbles would fall. loose as in every step would dislodge a cascade of boulders avalanching down the mountain. this is the part where i, if i were alone, probably would have wandered up and around until i inevitably got lost in an increasingly desperate situation given the visibility.
shout out to women for good decision making skills.
we turned around, carefully climbed loose blocks back down to the snow fields, traversed back to solid ground, and headed for the car. When we had mad it past the more technical sections, back around where we had briefly been lost, we stopped to drink our summit beers and have a spliff.
i wasn’t really bummed that we didn’t summit. i’m not one who cares in the arbitrary achievement of bagging a high point. for me it’s more about the process. while i absolutely fucking love scrambling along an alpine ridge, it’s not worth it for me if my friends are uncomfortable or having a bad time.
we made it back to the car in good time and made a fatty dinner and got drunk by the river. it was kind of sad since it was the last night i’d spend with my friend. we’d been together for almost a month, but we both had separate paths we needed to go down. the next morning we got up pretty early and took our time packing up camp. we drove into olympia for some pretty mediocre breakfast at some brewery, or maybe the food was good and i was just anxious to be heading off on my own. after meandering around town for a bit, they dropped me at the bus stop and headed home to portland. after some heartfelt goodbyes, i was on my own.
i’ve been meaning to write up a summary of my trip hitching around the northwest since i returned home. this site was so helpful as i was planning so i wanted to share my adventure! well i’m putting it off no longer! here it goes:
a close friend of mine was moving west to portland and needed help driving her stuff cross country. we haven’t been friends that long, but our relationship is rooted in a mutual understanding of how fucked the world is and what we want to do about it, a similar political inclination toward communal and Indigenous anarchisms, and an appreciation for the sheer intensity that life offers us. knowing she was half kidding when she asked me to be her co-pilot, i jumped on the offer. needless to say i wouldn’t hesitate to help her out. plus, it saved me the trouble of trying to hitch out of the midwest and across the great plains.
we took our time getting out there. neither of us had an agenda besides getting out west and spending time in the mountains. we drove straight to denver, briefly stopping to spend the night with a mutual friend in the plaines before heading out the next morning. that night we had the genius idea to get some window paint and cover the car with ‘just married, venmo to help us celebrate! buy us a beer’ and the like. we took off early the next morning to make it to dinner with her friend that agreed to put us up for the night. after denver, we were hoping to spend the next few days in the wind river range in wyoming, but to our surprise the trails were still snowed in above ~6000’ despite it being late june. instead, we pushed on to idaho.
she was stoked on the sawtooths, and it just happened that one of my friends was in the area. we stopped for a few nights at alturas lake. it was magnificent. calm and serene water enveloped by powerful mountains that twisted the light around the sky. we spent our days hiking into the alpine, swimming in the coldest lakes we could find. we spent the nights freezing around the fire watching the stars reminiscing on our shared memories and envisioning a less violent world.
on our last night in these mountains, my friend invited us to their boyfriends birthday party. they were doing some massive suffer fest with a bunch of friends and everyone who wasn’t masochistic enough to join got to meet up at the end of the trail for a bbq camp out. so we went, driving some 30 miles down a dirt road somewhere in rural idaho blindly following the pin on my phone. unsurprisingly, we pulled up on a group of 30 some drunk exhausted friends. even though i only knew one person there (and my friend had only met her the day before) we had a good time!! we basically just chatted strangers, got drunk, and played stump until it got dark. we made it an early night since we would send it all the way to portland the next day.
that next week was pretty chill. when we finally made it to portland we were both pretty beat from all the driving so we didn’t get up to too much. i was crashing on the couch, but it was still better than sleeping in my tent. one of the days we snuck into the blues festival which was pretty cool. another day i biked all over the city while my friend was at work. portland is pretty cool in that there’s a lot you can do for free, especially in the summer. the rest of the week was spent chilling, reflecting, and anticipating what the next few months would hold, knowing that in just a few days i would be in my own with nothing more than what i could carry in my pack.
my friend decided she wanted to send me off with one last camping trip (she also wanted to help me get out of portland closer to where i wanted to be). her roommate wanted to tag along, so the three of us headed up to the Olympic peninsula for the weekend. we decided to take a detour to tour the tillamook cheese factory and opted for the scenic route up the oregon coast. we had a hard time trying to find somewhere to sleep as it was getting dark. we were still a few hours out from the park, so we spent the night on some random forest road in a pull out. it was a pretty spot and we weren’t bothered by anyone else. we woke up early the next morning and went to quinault since it was the closest spot to where we were and we had no idea where we were going since the peninsula is so massive. we ended up spending the day hiking around in the rainforest then poked around the stores for a bit. there was a little old lady who had made a museum full of colonial regalia and stolen native heirlooms. she made a huge point of telling us not to eat the berries (since it was a slow year and she wanted them for herself ) and that they (whoever they are) MUST have stolen the election from ben carson since she knew three people who voted for him. she liked him because ‘he doesn’t have a political bone in his body’. we thought about stealing some of the old shit but instead decided to find a cool hike to do the next day. i was pretty set on climbing mt. stone because i wanted to do something scrambley in the mountains and i knew they were down for a longer hike. after some debate and no other alternatives besides driving to the coast hours out of our way, we decided to head to the lena lake campground. before we took off we noticed a beer on the hood!! all three of us were stoked that the ruse finally worked after more than 2 weeks and thousands of miles on the road. as we got close to the campground, the sun was starting to set and the olympic ridge was clearing its cloud cover. the tide was low as we passed a little oyster shack on the side of the road. see, my friend LOVES oysters. plus it was the perfect excuse to stop right on the water and drink our free beer. so without consulting the group i pulled over and we ordered a dozen. they were pretty cheap and the dudes selling them were total chillers. they have us a few free grilled bbq oysters and some beers. we chatted with them for a bit about aquaculture and how they got into what they’re doing. they took us down to the water for some seabeans (delicious) and to look at the oysters growing. they even gave us a free eighth before we left. nice guys
we set up camp and found a bunch of slugs fucking. pretty damn weird. but they don’t have genders which is pretty cool. we went to bed and got up early to get a start on mt. stone. the trail was pretty steep right off the bat. as we gradually ascended out of the rainforest the tree cover got thinner and we reached a series of plateaus holding boggy marsh ponds. from there the trail got pretty muddy and we had to cross some patches of snow as we climbed higher. we lost the trail a few times and got turned around relying only on a few screenshots of the route description and a gps topo downloaded on my phone. we stopped for lunch and tried to re assess what we were doing. we saw a bunch of other parties going both up and down the trail a bit past where we were. a steep snowfield gained an alpine lake that everyone promised was worth the view, but we were set on the summit. we’d already hiked about 6 miles up the trail and found the route we were searching for, which rose sharply out of this snowy basin. occasionally we found ourselves doing 4th class moves up a narrow ramp of mostly solid rock. once we had climbed about 1000’ above the basin it started to get really foggy and we couldn’t see the ridge we were meant to use as a waypoint. i convinced my friends to keep going and we traversed a snowfield that was probably between 30-40°. it was soft enough to kick our boots in, but there was no trail in sight. we each found a stick before crossing, to self arrest in case of a fall since we didn’t have ice axes. after making it nervously across 2 or 3 steep snowfields, with no end in sight we’re one of us to fall, we made it too loose scree field. not loose like occasionally some pebbles would fall. loose as in every step would dislodge a cascade of boulders avalanching down the mountain. this is the part where i, if i were alone, probably would have wandered up and around until i inevitably got lost in an increasingly desperate situation given the visibility.
shout out to women for good decision making skills.
we turned around, carefully climbed loose blocks back down to the snow fields, traversed back to solid ground, and headed for the car. When we had mad it past the more technical sections, back around where we had briefly been lost, we stopped to drink our summit beers and have a spliff.
i wasn’t really bummed that we didn’t summit. i’m not one who cares in the arbitrary achievement of bagging a high point. for me it’s more about the process. while i absolutely fucking love scrambling along an alpine ridge, it’s not worth it for me if my friends are uncomfortable or having a bad time.
we made it back to the car in good time and made a fatty dinner and got drunk by the river. it was kind of sad since it was the last night i’d spend with my friend. we’d been together for almost a month, but we both had separate paths we needed to go down. the next morning we got up pretty early and took our time packing up camp. we drove into olympia for some pretty mediocre breakfast at some brewery, or maybe the food was good and i was just anxious to be heading off on my own. after meandering around town for a bit, they dropped me at the bus stop and headed home to portland. after some heartfelt goodbyes, i was on my own.
