Walks with Moss: PCT day 4 Diamond Lake to Chemult

Monday, August 11, 2014

PCT day 4 Diamond Lake to Chemult

Day 4 Diamond lake to Chemult

No luck getting a ride from here

We got up early and started trying to hitch a ride to Chemult. But no one would pick us up. All the RVer's coming out of the campground ignored us. Half of the traffic on the road was forest service trucks and none of them would dream of picking us up for fear of losing their jobs I guess.

If it was a white truck coming I would not bother sticking my thumb out, but some of the white trucks were not forest service. No matter, no one would pick us up and my daughter was never going to hike up to the highway to get a ride. Once again, John the painter helped us. He stopped his work and gave us a ride up to 138. He even told us that he would be back on an hour to check on us.

John painting the porch we had sat
on the day before while we try to get a ride

Once we were on 138 hitching a ride was easy. Right away a German Family in an RV stopped for us. They had just come from the campground that we had been trying to hitch hike in front of. They were going to Crater Lake and they offered to take us a little ways up the road if it would help. I said it would help because we might be able to get a ride with folks coming out of Crater Lake National Park.

The family moved some stuff around in their RV and offered us seats in the back. I sat at a table with 3 children who looked at me like I had two heads. They were nice children, but we were aliens to them and they did not speak any English. I think only the mom spoke English well. They dropped us off at the intersection of the 138 and the road that goes into Crater Lake Park.

German family heading in to Crater Lake after giving us a lift

So there we were back so close to where we had our second water cache and so close to the trail. I so wanted to just go back to the trail and continue my hike. But I knew that was not going to happen with my daughter in tow. I realized that we had no water on us and I was worried about that, the sun was coming out and it felt like it was going to be a super hot day. I hoped that we got a ride before we died of heat stroke.

My daughter lost a toy horse on the shoulder and we had to let several cars go by while looking for the stupid horse. How many potential rides did we lose due that that horse? I knew I would not be able to get my daughter into a car without her horse. More frustration for me. I might have screamed a little bit at that point.

Luck was with us, soon two British brothers in a tiny car pulled up and offered us a ride to highway 97. They were going south to San Francisco but we were going north to Chemult. I was not sure how much help that would be, but I gladly took the ride since we had no water.

The men had to move a lot of their stuff around to make room for us. I found it interesting that so many RVer's with tons of space passed us up while folks in tiny cars with no room to spare always seemed to pick us up.

The German family in the RV was an exception though. I also found it interesting that most of the rides we got were from international tourists. It seems to me that Americans don't like to pick up hitch hikers. I suspect that hitch hiking in Europe would be much easier.

The men were funny, we had fun riding with them. My spouse is British so we had fun laughing about the arguements me and my spouse had gotten into over the years due to the slight differences between British English and American English. For example "Bastard" is about the worst thing you can call a person in england and it's not reserved for men, while "son-of-a-bitch" in an unknown phrase in England.

The men were from Brighton England and had flown into Chicago, rented a car and driven all the way to Crater Lake. They were on their way to San Francisco. They went 26 miles out of their way and took us all the way to Chemult.

Two British men who gave us a ride to Chemult

I was so relieved to be safely in Chemult where I could catch the Amtrak train to Olympia. I don't like hitch hiking, but there was no other way to get the Chemult for us, so we did it.

I had the men drop us off at the train station so I could read the schedule. I learned that the train was due to arrive a 9:30 the next day, so we were going to have to spend the night in Chemult. We wandered over to the truck stop to get cold drinks and hang out in the lounge, but the truck stop did not have a lounge so we went across the street and hung out at some picnic tables in a MIA-POW park.

POW MIA park I took this piture to get her to
stop nagging me for money.

We later went into the store next to the park and the clerk told us of a free campground up the road just 1/4 of a mile. I knew I could not get my daughter to walk that far though. So at 11am we checked into the Dawson House Lodge and got a nice room for $65. We would stay there overnight and take the train to Olympia in the morning.

I was able to talk to my husband on the phone and he was so frustrated that he could not come pick us up due to his illness. I called and reserved two seats on Amtrack from Chemult to Olympia for $111.

We ate our backpacking food and did not buy any food in town.

We went to bed at about 10pm.