Hitchhiking

[Don]

Anyone here done any hitchhiking? How far? Where? Any crazy stories? Advice?

Anyone here pick up hitchers? Any crazy stories? Would appearance or location affect your decision to offer a hitcher a ride?

Is hitchhiking illegal in Utah?

[BruteForce]

I've never done either. It's doubtful I'll be doing either (hitching or picking up a hitchhiker).

It's sad that we've come to this (not trusting each other), but our society has degenerated to the extent that I trust no one. I carry a firearm almost everywhere for self defense (or offense if the occasion warrants! )

[KapitanSparrow]

I could see myself picking up a pretty female hitchhiker

[Mooseman70]

My Dad did when he was in college. Hitchhiked from Montana to So Cal in 3 rides. Those days are long gone!

Wouldn't recommend hitchhiking today......

[rockgremlin]

Here's a funny and somewhat tragic story of my latest experience with hitch-hiking:

Back in January of this year when I moved from Monticello, Utah to Green River, Wyoming my Uhaul broke down just north of Vernal. I called Uhaul and they arranged a tow truck to come and pick me up. Problem is, the tow truck was coming in from Ogden, Utah ~ approx 5 hours away (due to the snowy icey roads, and some closures on I-80 at the time). So I had a choice: Sit in a broken down Uhaul for 5 hours, or shop my thumb on up to Green River, Wyoming, where my wife and kids were waiting for me. I opted for the latter, swallowed my pride, and started giving the thumbs up to every north-bound vehicle out of Vernal. After over an hour of frustrating rejection, an older guy in an oversized domestic pickup truck picked me up. He was working in the oil fields outside of Vernal, and was on his way back home to Evanston. He went as far as Manila, Utah where he dropped me off, and continued on the Bridger cutoff road to Evanston (he wasn't gonna go through Green River). So there I was left to shop my thumb once again. By this time it was dark, and it was frigid cold. Lucky for me, I was picked up by the first vehicle that passed through Manila - a semi-truck driver, that could only speak two words of english. That final stretch of road into Green River was a verrry quiet ride!

I believe that most people are good, and I would probably hitch-hike again if I needed to.

[Cirrus2000]

Twenty years ago, I worked traveling throughout the province of Alberta, living in Edmonton. Covered a lot of miles. Didn't generally pick up hitchhikers, but did every now & then. Funny, because I usually enjoyed chatting with the folks when I did...

Don't see many people hitching anymore. I consider stopping once in a while, then reconsider when I realize my wife would probably kill me if she found out. If the hitchhiker didn't do it first...

[Last Child]

Must have been 1980-81. My friend Scott and I were headed out to Park Valley to do some camping where we did our deer hunting. We both brought our 22 rifles, deer hunting rifles, and each had a shotgun. These were laying out in the open in the bed of my truck.

We see this guy with thumb in the air so we stop to pick him up. He puts his stuff in the back of the truck all the while eyeballing the guns. I could tell that he was pretty scared. He jumps in with us and we take off. He says thanks for picking me up, I've been here a long while. He then inquires about the guns. We explained where we are headed and what we are up too and try to assure him that we are "cool".

We then begin to bombard him with questions. Just curious teenagers wondering what he's up to, where he's from, where he's been, where he' going, about his family, and what does he do for money as he's traveling? It was at that point he became literally terrified. He tried so hard to control his demeanor but we could tell he was about to soil himself. He was sweating bullets.

We made it to our exit and let him out. We both could tell that he was so relieved when he got out. As I drove off I looked in my rear view mirror to see him sit on his bags, elbows on knees, and face planted in his hands. I would not doubt it if he actually was breaking down in to tears.

Poor guy. We both felt real bad for him but at the same time had to laugh. Once in awhile Scott and I reminisce about this trip and this poor fellow.

On an unrelated topic but also kind of funny and since this took place on this trip it comes back to my mind:

Both of us being big fans of the mountain men and the mountain man era had read that the mountain men considered beaver tail to be a delicacy. Well there just happened to be many beaver dams in this area so we shot ourselves a beaver and tried it out. OMG. All I can say is that it must have been some other type of beaver that they were talking about.

[Win]

We've picked up a few in Utah, mostly hikers.

Back in the dark ages of the '60s and '70s there were always people hitching.
Coming out of Oregon, heading to New Jersey we picked up a couple of guys and gave them a ride all the way to New York!

Another time we got drunk and headed from NJ to FL on a whim. We picked a hitcher up in VA and he went to FL and back to NJ with us.

Win

[trackrunner]

I've put my thumb out once. Went for a trail run with a teamate in the mountains above Cedar City. Upon returning to my car I realized I had locked my keys in the car. The first vehicle stoped to pick us up. A guy that owns a cabin up there and on his way to Wal-Mart for some supplies. We got in and I noticed he was trying his hardest to hide his open container of beer. We both needed to get back ASAP so we started asking questions to etimate how buzzed he was.

This was the night I had set up a date to propose to my wife. This unfortunate event (locking keys in the car) ruined the entire date plan.

[devo_stevo]

open container of bear.

I would have been more concerned about the bear than if the guy was drunk.

[trackrunner]

open container of bear.

I would have been more concerned about the bear than if the guy was drunk.

It was riding in the bed of the truck. Not a problem.

[moabfool]

I know there are people who have worse hitch hiker stories, but they won't be telling them because they're dead. About five years ago (2004) I was heading down to Las Vegas from SLC to hang out with a buddy that was down there on business. It was January and I needed to escape from the cold and the nastiness of "the inversion." I had the buddy's mountain bike in the back seat to run a canyoneering shuttle in Valley of Fire, and a quilt in the front seat to take to another friend's mom in Cedar City. My stuff was occupying the trunk.

I started to get thirsty when I got to Nephi so I pulled off at the Flying J to grab a Gatorade. As I was getting back in my car a very attractive woman asked, "Excuse me. Are you going to St. George?"

"Las Vegas actually, but I can stop in St. George." Maybe this trip wasn't going to be as boring as I thought. But (there's always a big butt) I probalby should have opted for boring.

"Oh good," she said. "There's this poor man over here that's been sitting under the bridge for three days. If he stays there another night he'll die. If you hadn't come along I was going to take him myself."

Aw crap. Talk about the ol' swithcharoo. No good deed goes unpunished.

So I loaded his backpack in the trunk, moved the quilt to the back seat by the bike, and he deposited himself in the front seat.

Luckily he didn't smell like your normal homeless guy, but he did have a unique odor. At least he was a talker, so it helped the time pass. His name was (is?) Arthur. He's a Viet Nam vet, and a former Army Ranger.

"Do you know what Army Rangers do, Mike?"

"Uh, no Arthur. I don't."

"THEY KILL PEOPLE."

"Really? You don't say."

I was formulating a plan on how to expell him from my vehicle should the need arise. It went something like this. Unbuckle his seat belt, hit the brakes hard, reach over his back to open the door as the car came to a stop, shove him out, drive up the road 200 yards, dump his backpack on the shoulder, and then keep 200 yards of distance between me and him as I waited for the Utah Highway Patrol to come pick him up.

Arthur was actually helping me with this plan and I didn't even know it. He had a 1 liter bottle of Mountain Dew. Well, that's what the label said, but it was actually "Mountain Dew." Yup, he had it full of low end hooch when we started our Journey. By the time we got to Cedar City it was empty. I figured this out around Beaver, just about the time I noticed the smell of drunk homeless guy growing ever stronger.

In Beaver I stopped to let him take a smoke. He got out of the car, tried to run over to the gas pumps to pan handle some poor folks, and promptly fell over. That made me feel better. A falling down drunk homeles guy would've probably been easier to force out of a car than a half-drunk, angry, Nam Vet, former Army Ranger.

Why didn't I just leave him in Beaver? I guess I'm just too kind-hearted. It was just too cold. Besides that, if I dumped him there that lady might have picked him up. I couldn't do that, so we got back in the car and continued south.

I actually got a "three-for-the-price-of-one" deal. Not only did I get Arthur, I got Tony and God too. Arthur and Tony were sitting in the seat next to me, sharing a body. God was somewhere in the viscinity of my sun visor, at least that's where Arthur looked when they were talking to each other. They had some great conversations. "God, thank you for sending Mike to save my life," he'd say to the sun visor. "Tony, you're a good soldier, a good soldier," he'd say to the air. "Shutup Arthur, Mike isn't going to steal your backpack!" he'd say to himself. It's never boring around those three.

He Chineese fire drilled at a stop light in Cedar City. The poor guy couldn't stand to be inside for longer than an hour and we'd already been driving for over two. He was like a caged animal, a drunk caged animal. It was too cold to leave him, so I got him back in the car after he pan handled a couple bucks at The Maverick.

This is the part that made me the most nervous. I had to drop the quilt off at my friend's mom's place. The scary part was that she wasn't going to be home and I had to break in. What if Arthur saw how I did it? Would my friend's poor mom wake up to find a short, drunk homless guy in her kitchen or worse. I shouldn't have been worried. He was too drunk and too busy smoking to notice much of anything. He didn't even remember where we were. She doesn't even live there anymore anyway.

As we headed south out of Cedar and past the Black Ridge I decided that it was getting warm enough to drop him off if he got crazy enough (which he was). I got close to dumping him when he said, "Mike, I need your help with something when we get to St. George." Oh crap! He needs help hiding a body. After Army Rangers kill people. He kept warning me that he was going to ask for something, and my mind was going 100 miles and hour over what it was. Boy was I surprised when I finally found out.

He wanted to go to the homless shelter, but then he changed his mind. He was just going to sleep up on the side of the hill. "Do you know what the most dangerous part of sleeping on the hill is, Mike?"

"Uh, scorpions?"

"Nope, teenagers."

I finally dropped him off at the Smith's on St. George Blvd. and Bluff. That's where he asked me the question. "Mike, do you think you could throw me a couple bucks." That's it!?! That's the question?

"Sure. I was going to do that anyway." So I pulled out my wallet and handed him two whole dollars. All that stress over two dollars.

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved my life." As he gave me a big, stinky, homeless guy hug.

I unloaded his backpack from the trunk, gave him a cabiner to hang his coffee mug on his pack, and drove over to the gas pumps to fill up.

After filling the car I noticed that his gloves were sitting on the console, so I drove over to where I'd left him. When I got there two kinda grungy guys were loading Arthur's backpack in the back of their car. "Hey! What are you doing to Arthur's backpack?"

"Oh, we're taking him back to our place to drink beers."

"Oh, I was just wondering since I gave him a ride down here from Nephi," I said.

"Oh, you're the guy that gave Arthur a ride? You're a good man. Thank you," said one of the guys, and he gave me another greasy, stinky hug.

And with that off they went to drink beers.

Anyway, that's the condensed version. I'm at work and I didn't have time for all the details. The moral of the story: Avoid the Flying J in Nephi unless you don't have room in the car for attractive women or homeless guys.

[Don]

So I'm thinking about hitching to St George tomorrow to meet friends who left today for the Red Bull Rampage. I found this article online. Anyone know how much a fine might be if I were ticketed?

State Laws on Hitchhiking in Utah (UT) (Laws)

By strict definition, hitchhiking appears to be illegal in Utah, though many hitchhikers make it through the state without harrassment each year. Law enforcement officers may choose to interpret the law differently by region, but under these EXACT conditions, hitchhiking should be legal:

A person is WALKING purposefully while FACING TRAFFIC either on a SIDEWALK or (if not available) the OUTSIDE edge of the highway SHOULDER while CLEAN & SOBER and NO SIGNS were present at the entrance of the highway prohibiting pedestrians.

Read the exact wording of the law below...

(NOTE: This article of the code was revised Feb. 1, 2005, with minor word changes and subdivisions of prohibited activites.)

41-6a-1009. Use of roadway by pedestrians -- Prohibited activities.
(1) Where there is a sidewalk provided and its use is practicable, a pedestrian may not walk along or on an adjacent roadway.
(2) Where a sidewalk is not provided, a pedestrian walking along or on a highway shall walk only on the shoulder, as far as practicable from the edge of the roadway.
(3) Where a sidewalk or a shoulder is not available, a pedestrian walking along or on a highway shall:
(a) walk as near as practicable to the outside edge of the roadway; and
(b) if on a two-way roadway, walk only on the left side of the roadway facing traffic.
(4) A person may not sit, stand, or loiter on or near a roadway for the purpose of soliciting from the occupant of a vehicle:
(a) a ride;
(b) contributions;
(c) employment;
(d) the parking, watching, or guarding of a vehicle; or
(e) other business.
(5) A pedestrian who is under the influence of alcohol or any drug to a degree which renders the pedestrian a hazard may not walk or be on a highway except on a sidewalk or sidewalk area.
(6) Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, a pedestrian on a roadway shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles on the roadway.

[Don]

I've never done either. It's doubtful I'll be doing either (hitching or picking up a hitchhiker).

It's sad that we've come to this (not trusting each other), but our society has degenerated to the extent that I trust no one. I carry a firearm almost everywhere for self defense (or offense if the occasion warrants! )

Oh, glad you brought that up. If hitching is a misdemenor how much more trouble could I get into if I were hitching with a legal and licenced concealed weapon?

[BruteForce]

[quote="Don"Oh, glad you brought that up. If hitching is a misdemenor how much more trouble could I get into if I were hitching with a legal and licenced concealed weapon?[/quote]

I doubt that would compound the fine, provided you're carrying the license on your person.

[trackrunner]

So I'm thinking about hitching to St George tomorrow to meet friends who left today for the Red Bull Rampage. I found this article online. Anyone know how much a fine might be if I were ticketed?

For you $0. If an officer harasses you pull out that vetern & purple heart cards.

[Mooseman70]

I know there are people who have worse hitch hiker stories, but they won't be telling them because they're dead. About five years ago (2004) I was heading down to Las Vegas from SLC to hang out with a buddy that was down there on business. It was January and I needed to escape from the cold and the nastiness of "the inversion." I had the buddy's mountain bike in the back seat to run a canyoneering shuttle in Valley of Fire, and a quilt in the front seat to take to another friend's mom in Cedar City. My stuff was occupying the trunk.

I started to get thirsty when I got to Nephi so I pulled off at the Flying J to grab a Gatorade. As I was getting back in my car a very attractive woman asked, "Excuse me. Are you going to St. George?"

"Las Vegas actually, but I can stop in St. George." Maybe this trip wasn't going to be as boring as I thought. But (there's always a big butt) I probalby should have opted for boring.

"Oh good," she said. "There's this poor man over here that's been sitting under the bridge for three days. If he stays there another night he'll die. If you hadn't come along I was going to take him myself."

Aw crap. Talk about the ol' swithcharoo. No good deed goes unpunished.

So I loaded his backpack in the trunk, moved the quilt to the back seat by the bike, and he deposited himself in the front seat.

Luckily he didn't smell like your normal homeless guy, but he did have a unique odor. At least he was a talker, so it helped the time pass. His name was (is?) Arthur. He's a Viet Nam vet, and a former Army Ranger.

"Do you know what Army Rangers do, Mike?"

"Uh, no Arthur. I don't."

"THEY KILL PEOPLE."

"Really? You don't say."

I was formulating a plan on how to expell him from my vehicle should the need arise. It went something like this. Unbuckle his seat belt, hit the brakes hard, reach over his back to open the door as the car came to a stop, shove him out, drive up the road 200 yards, dump his backpack on the shoulder, and then keep 200 yards of distance between me and him as I waited for the Utah Highway Patrol to come pick him up.

Arthur was actually helping me with this plan and I didn't even know it. He had a 1 liter bottle of Mountain Dew. Well, that's what the label said, but it was actually "Mountain Dew." Yup, he had it full of low end hooch when we started our Journey. By the time we got to Cedar City it was empty. I figured this out around Beaver, just about the time I noticed the smell of drunk homeless guy growing ever stronger.

In Beaver I stopped to let him take a smoke. He got out of the car, tried to run over to the gas pumps to pan handle some poor folks, and promptly fell over. That made me feel better. A falling down drunk homeles guy would've probably been easier to force out of a car than a half-drunk, angry, Nam Vet, former Army Ranger.

Why didn't I just leave him in Beaver? I guess I'm just too kind-hearted. It was just too cold. Besides that, if I dumped him there that lady might have picked him up. I couldn't do that, so we got back in the car and continued south.

I actually got a "three-for-the-price-of-one" deal. Not only did I get Arthur, I got Tony and God too. Arthur and Tony were sitting in the seat next to me, sharing a body. God was somewhere in the viscinity of my sun visor, at least that's where Arthur looked when they were talking to each other. They had some great conversations. "God, thank you for sending Mike to save my life," he'd say to the sun visor. "Tony, you're a good soldier, a good soldier," he'd say to the air. "Shutup Arthur, Mike isn't going to steal your backpack!" he'd say to himself. It's never boring around those three.

He Chineese fire drilled at a stop light in Cedar City. The poor guy couldn't stand to be inside for longer than an hour and we'd already been driving for over two. He was like a caged animal, a drunk caged animal. It was too cold to leave him, so I got him back in the car after he pan handled a couple bucks at The Maverick.

This is the part that made me the most nervous. I had to drop the quilt off at my friend's mom's place. The scary part was that she wasn't going to be home and I had to break in. What if Arthur saw how I did it? Would my friend's poor mom wake up to find a short, drunk homless guy in her kitchen or worse. I shouldn't have been worried. He was too drunk and too busy smoking to notice much of anything. He didn't even remember where we were. She doesn't even live there anymore anyway.

As we headed south out of Cedar and past the Black Ridge I decided that it was getting warm enough to drop him off if he got crazy enough (which he was). I got close to dumping him when he said, "Mike, I need your help with something when we get to St. George." Oh crap! He needs help hiding a body. After Army Rangers kill people. He kept warning me that he was going to ask for something, and my mind was going 100 miles and hour over what it was. Boy was I surprised when I finally found out.

He wanted to go to the homless shelter, but then he changed his mind. He was just going to sleep up on the side of the hill. "Do you know what the most dangerous part of sleeping on the hill is, Mike?"

"Uh, scorpions?"

"Nope, teenagers."

I finally dropped him off at the Smith's on St. George Blvd. and Bluff. That's where he asked me the question. "Mike, do you think you could throw me a couple bucks." That's it!?! That's the question?

"Sure. I was going to do that anyway." So I pulled out my wallet and handed him two whole dollars. All that stress over two dollars.

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved my life." As he gave me a big, stinky, homeless guy hug.

I unloaded his backpack from the trunk, gave him a cabiner to hang his coffee mug on his pack, and drove over to the gas pumps to fill up.

After filling the car I noticed that his gloves were sitting on the console, so I drove over to where I'd left him. When I got there two kinda grungy guys were loading Arthur's backpack in the back of their car. "Hey! What are you doing to Arthur's backpack?"

"Oh, we're taking him back to our place to drink beers."

"Oh, I was just wondering since I gave him a ride down here from Nephi," I said.

"Oh, you're the guy that gave Arthur a ride? You're a good man. Thank you," said one of the guys, and he gave me another greasy, stinky hug.

And with that off they went to drink beers.

Anyway, that's the condensed version. I'm at work and I didn't have time for all the details. The moral of the story: Avoid the Flying J in Nephi unless you don't have room in the car for attractive women or homeless guys.

Great story!

[rockgremlin]

Wow Moabfool - you've got more patience than me. I would've ditched him in Beaver and called UHP to go pick him up. Great story!

[Don]

So I'm thinking about hitching to St George tomorrow to meet friends who left today for the Red Bull Rampage. I found this article online. Anyone know how much a fine might be if I were ticketed?

For you $0. If an officer harasses you pull out that vetern & purple heart cards.

Didn't really come with a card. I have a framed certificate, but that might be awkward to pack...

[moabfool]

I unloaded his backpack from the trunk, gave him a cabiner to hang his coffee mug on his pack, and drove over to the gas pumps to fill up.

Oops, I spelled carabiner wrong

I've hitch hiked a couple of times, mostly for canyoneering and rafting shuttles. More than once I've been trying to get from one of the switchbacks below the Mt. Carmel tunnel to a trailhead, usually for Pine Creek or Spry. Somebody usually stops in the first few cars. I've never waited longer than five minutes. I try to pick up canyoneers and give them rides whenever I can. It's just good karma. I've also hitched a ride from the take-out to the put-in on the Snake River below Hobak Junction. The people I hitched the ride with knew my dad. It's a small world.

I've picked up other hitch hikers. I don't usually stop, but every once in a while I'll feel like it's okay. One dude was walking on I-70 east of Green River in August! He was walking to Crescent Junction. He never would've made it. It's like 20 miles and it was 100 degrees.

I picked up a Russian girl in Montana that was hitch hiking. I was between Bozeman and West Yellowstone headed south through Gallatin Gateway. I figured it would be better for me to pick her up than some psycho (I do believe that most people aren't psycho, but they're out there so I stopped). I guess that's how she got to work every day (summer employment). I asked where she was going. She said "the corral." I figured she was working at some dude ranch, so every time we'd pass a horse corral I'd ask, "Is it this one." Every time I asked she'd get frustrated. It turns out there's a dumpy motel called "The Corral" about five miles from where I picked her up, and that's where she worked. Nobody had bothered to tell her what a corral was.

One time I stopped and gave a girl a ride that wasn't hitch hiking. She was riding her bicycle between Washington and Hurricane on SR 9. Her rear tire was half flat and she was obviously struggling. It seemed like the right thing to do so I stopped and asked if she wanted a ride. After a moment of thinking about it she said yes. I had to put her bike in my trunk even though I had my bike rack on. Her front tire was bolted on and I didn't have any wrenches (a dilema that has since been remidied). She was headed for LaVerkin, and was very glad I stopped. We got talking and it turns out she's the niece of my veterinarian (my dog's vet actually). I grew up five houses down from his. The world shrinks again.