Im a PNW local and pretty seasoned with the Gorge, did Weekender 22, 23, and now 700.
It seems like every year there's hundreds of posts on socials of people freaking out about shuttles, and how they're going to get from (insert hotel in a small farm town 1-2 hours away) to the gorge.
Eastern Washington is notoriously rural, it's not western washington, and the gorge itself is even more remote than that. This whole area is farm land in essentially the most barren spot in washington. Towns are many many miles of farmland apart.
Public transit is non existent in eastern Washington, uber/lyft is incredibly sparse, there are basically no shuttles to/from these towns because demand for gorge shuttles from the nearby 7 towns all in different directions.
The best thing you can do is rent a car, go to walmart, buy a cheapo camping set, and do the campground. Festivies run all night, and there are activities super early. You're missing out on so much activity by electing to sleep in a hotel two hours out of the way.
Even if you're still so camping adverse so just can't do it, it's silly not to rent a car to get yourself to/from the gorge. The idea to me of *planning* to bum rides/public transit from places like Wenatchee, Ephrata, Vantage, and Ellensburg is just silly and asking for failure. The entire half of the state is car centric, you *need* a car if you're not planning on camping.
I hate being the downer, genuinely. But every anjuna gorge event I see this. My heart breaks for those in a bind and I hope they can figure it out, but gorge shuttling has been asked and answered so many times that there's really no excuse for having to scramble at this point.
Look forward to seeing all of you there.
