Alaska: A hitch in time

They thought we were murderers, but our only crime was showing up at the wrong time.

Savoring a first cold beer after five sweltering days kayaking the Yukon River, Neil Rome and I were all too aware of the glares coming from the crowd of locals in the corner. Our smiles and nods of greeting didn't help; the group turned away from us and began murmuring among themselves. So Neil and I shrugged our shoulders and sighted in our longnecks a couple more times.

Before we could finish that first round, though, the mob approached us, and their questions quickly took on the tone of an inquisition. Noting that edge, we tipped the tender and began to gingerly work our way toward the door. Neil and I know a bad moon rising when we see one.

The situation was rapidly degenerating toward a painful conclusion when our salvation came squealing to the curb in the form of the local postmistress, Dorea, who ushered us out of the bar, into her pickup truck and down the road toward Circle Hot Springs.

Neil and I were, we learned from Dorea, the first strangers to arrive after a double homicide had rocked the small Interior mining town of Central. The tragedy had taken place about two hours before we had hitchhiked into town en route to the healing waters of the springs. With no solid information in Central regarding the murders, rumors were everywhere. Unknown and unkempt strangers were obvious targets for people's fears and confusion, and Neil and I had unwittingly walked within range.

From riding herd on everyone's mail for years, Dorea had a pretty good make on all the personalities who ever licked a stamp in her district. The lead inquisitor at the Central bar was a gruff one, and quick to action at times, she said. Her night job as bartender at the lounge near the hot springs had earned her numerous run-ins with the man, and she knew that when his voice began to rise, so did the potential for physical encounters. Sure as the mail, Dorea warned, we were headed toward such an encounter back at the bar. So she'd fetched her truck and effected a rescue. Adventuring in Alaska can, when a bike or hike or kayak takes you miles from your starting point, call for complex, and potentially exciting, travel arrangements. Staging vehicles or chartering air taxis are sometimes appropriate solutions to yourtransportation dilemmas. But neither is as simple or inexpensive as the thumb. Due to the fickleness of fate and human nature, though, one has to be a bit of a gambler to coax a car to a halt on Alaska's remote and lonely roads. You might say hitchhiking is the roulette wheel of alternative transportation.

"What's going on here!" the trooper barked out, just as I hopped over the convenience store counter to confront a stubborn clerk. Timing, I was reminded, is everything in life.

I wasn't trying to rob the fella, I assured the tense trooper. I just wanted to use the phone. After floating 10 days down the Swanson River on the Kenai Peninsula, I, along with fellow floaters Ron McKinney and Neil Rome, had arrived at the terminus only to discover my pickup had been stolen.

Jogging the 12 miles from the river to the nearest store consumed the night, I'd finally arrived, exhausted, only to have the clerk refuse to let me use the phone. Frustrated and angry, I leapt the counter and landed in a squad car.

My luck seemed ready to change when the trooper sympathized with my plight and offered to at least drive me back to the river. It quickly returned to normal when he received an urgent call that required immediate response, and disallowed unofficial passengers. Eight miles away from anywhere, I was let off onto the familiar roadway. A sincere "I'm sorry" from the officer, a speedy U-turn and a motor's fading roar colored my morning.

I squished blisters back toward Ron and Neil until the first car drove by. The driver bit on the presentation of my thumb and carted me to my chums. Then, remarkably, he drove all of us some 80 miles to our starting point and Neil's buggy.

I found my truck two years later while working for the Peninsula Clarion newspaper in Kenai. (I spotted it behind a fish processing plant while doing some field research for a story.) I fixed it up, then loaned it to a friend of a friend who was down on his luck. I could only stand dumfounded in the middle of a Whitehorse, Canada, road four months later as I watched the same vehicle, again stolen, heading south toward America.

I laughed, resigning myself to the fact that the truck was obviously never meant to be mine. But if someone reading this is in possession of a rusting blue Ford Courier and a load of guilt, I warn him to beware the karma crossroads. His bad deeds will come back to roost!

You can be sure that I'm careful with my karma. Whenever reasonable, I try to repay the debts I've accumulated by accepting rides from kind drivers. If I've got an empty pickup bed or spare seat and I see a traveler assuming the roadside pose, I'll offer a lift.

And there's no livelier hitchhiking ground than Valdez.

Each spring, this seaside city booms with visiting ski and snowboard enthusiasts. Many fly in and opt not to rent a car. (Some ski bums can't afford to.) In the mornings, these hopeful parasites pepper the roadside with their junk show of equipment, optimistic expressions and outstretched thumbs.

Our fellow wore a fedora, was shuffling about the road in ski boots and grinning with confidence in the early morning sunshine and crisp spring air. My brother, George, swerved the lumbering Winnebago to the side of the road, and I flung open the camper door. Justin Patnode clomped into the motorhome and would remain in our company for the rest of our 10-day ski safari.

The accomplished extreme skier more than paid for his seat by regaling us with his traveler's tales and jokes. We all became friends by the end of the trip, even sharing a few lumps from the rogue overhead bed that (as we slammed on the brakes to avoid a pair of lynx near Sutton) escaped its securing straps and pinned all three of us to the dashboard at 50 mph.

But despite that scare and the accompanying bruises, George and I consider ourselves lucky that we stopped for Justin, and he knows he was fortunate to have gotten a ride at all. When betting on the fickleness of human nature, one can't be too choosy.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong.

This winter, I pulled over to pick up a skier munching a muffin on the side of the road. As I already had a passenger in my truck, I encouraged the hitchhiker to pile into the back for the short drive to Alyeska. He looked inside the cab, then looked at the bed of the pickup before refusing the ride

"I think I'll wait for a cad" he said. There are lots of ways to travel in Alaska, but few are as simple as hitchhiking. You've got to have a sense of adventure, got to have a lust for gambling, and, if that last hitchhiker is any example, you've got to have some nerve.

JOHN WOODBURY is a lifelong Alaskan and free-lance writer who lives in Anchorage. His column appears monthly in Alaska magazine.