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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Apr 30, 2013 - 01:12am PT
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Inlet Inn in Anchorage. Gives me a headache just thinkin' about it...ugh...
Got bumped off a flight to Lima Peru in '86. Airline put us up in a hotel somewhere in Miami. Scary place. Bullet holes in the walls...bad scene. Can't recall the name.
My climbing partner (well, and me too) likes the Clown Motel in Tonopah. Creepy cemetary next door. Way better sleep than the now closed Mizpah in the center of town...that place was creepy (haunted creepy). We never do the drive from SLC to Tuolumne in one shot...
Stayed in a not great place in Los Nevados in Venezuela a few years back, after a multi day traverse and climbing trip behind Merida. Woman who owned the place saw us coming on the trail, and, flagged us down. We shoulda shopped around. Tried to stick us in this huge, dusty dorm room like place and we talked them into a smaller, more private room. Shower was bad. Food was horrendous, and, I was starvin' (havin' done some bad math on the number of days we were out on the trail and rations). Was some sort of guts dish, like menudo took a hard left turn somewhere. Awful.
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axlgrease
Mountain climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Apr 30, 2013 - 03:53am PT
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Hey jfailing!
The Caprice motel - wow! I haven't thought about that place for years. I grew up about 2 blocks from there - never was in it, and wondered what it was like. You're right, Topper motel was probably worse, though.
Not an inn I had the pleasure of experiencing, but my wife has a great story of one in Whittier, Alaska. In the early 90's she was working at a salmon hatchery in Prince William Sound on an island with about 25 other people. There wasn't a lot of opportunity to get off the island, so one day, she tagged along on the boat run to Whittier to pick up a new employee. The weather deteriorated so badly that halfway back on the return they had to go back to Whittier to wait out the weather and try again the next day.
Once back in port, it's of course pouring rain. The only place to stay in the "town" (if you can even call it that) was the Anchor Inn. To get there involved crossing the rail yard and climbing over multiple greasy railcar couplings in the rain. Upon arrival at the Inn, there was only one room available for my wife and the 4 other guys on the trip, so one room they got!
Besides being the only hotel in town, the Anchor Inn also happens to be the primary (only?) drinking establishment, and this night is a special one: a one-night gig for an Eagles cover band! To add to the fun, the bar is actually upstairs from the room, and the "beer chute" is right outside the window. Apparently, the function of the "beer chute" is to direct the empty beer bottles being flung from the second floor into the dumpster at ground level.
Between the crashing of beer bottles, the partying in the bar, and the non-stop horrible renditions of Hotel California, no one got any sleep, but they did leave the next day with a good story to tell.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Apr 30, 2013 - 03:57am PT
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Carl is barred from the PRC.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 30, 2013 - 05:03am PT
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In light of the recent tenant/rental agency hassle due to a dishonest mgr's peculation, I'm forced to say that this place, the Tioga apartment homes, even though I'm fond of it after nearly twelve years, IS THE WORST.
The elevator has broken down at least ten times since 2001.
The garbage is not collected on the weekends, just because "nobody works weekends," yet it's not a health code violation, apparently, on Saturdays or Sundays to have over-flowing garbage collection spots, but is on the other five days.
There never was a designated spot to park your car or motorcycle.
The entire building needs paint, cries for paint. Nada in twelve years.
They removed the letters from the Tioga Hotel Sign atoop the building, but they left the uglier steel framing for the pigeons and Sprint's communications gear. Looks like hell. Welcome to Merced is not, definitely not, the message.
The maintenance problems which I reported in October took this long to resolve.
Livin' the nightmare/dream.
It is close to the Transpo Center and YV's only $18.00 R.T....
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Gunkie
Trad climber
East Coast US
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Apr 30, 2013 - 06:23am PT
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I'll never be able to compete. I always prefer the airport chairs or a night in the car over sleeping in a shithole hotel. However, I have stayed in rooms so small (Tokyo) that the bed was virtually the entire room with only a small footspace and a shelf at the foot of the bed. But it was very clean. And I've stayed in $300/night rooms and found dried puke or some kind of human detritus in the sheets (Chicago).
At my work, we have a competition to stay in the highest ranked place by star rating for the lowest price per star. Last week I stayed in a 4-star hotel in Dallas TX for four nights @ $92.50/night... $23.13/star. I regularly use hotwire.com and score good deals.
With that, I'd rather be in a Curry Village tent cabin risking a brush with Hantavirus.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Apr 30, 2013 - 08:18am PT
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I had never thought of it as a hotel before, but the hovel I stayed in at Lobuche at 17,000 feet on the way to Everest Base Camp technically qualifies. Immortalized by Krakauer in his book on Everest he describes it as a small room filled with thick greasy smoke from the open pit yak dung fire. I had to bury my face in my sleeping bag as the smell made me nauseous, not helped by the greasy food and the smell of human excrement surrounding the hut. With a dozen westerners and a like number of Sherpas crowded into one room, it was reasonably warm, but the unwashed humans and their snoring was only slightly less obnoxious than the smoke. And that was all before I started suffering from a high altitude headache.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 30, 2013 - 10:22am PT
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And with Jan's comments, I give you the greatest book ever written about travelling, up-dated.
http://thejourneyer.org/
I have not read the rest of this link's offerings, but plan on it.
Think about what Marco Polo and family did and how long it tookand what they may have given up and weigh your/our experiences in comparison to what happens in The Journeyer by Gary J. and then consider how bad things can get when dark comes in a strange place...
Not to denigrate anyone's stories, it's just me sayin' again...
Take just this one word and mention it in a modern hotel: lousy. The word seems to have a different connotation these days, but where does it actually come from? I am not a nit-picker, just sayin'...
And the last motel I stayed at was in downtown California Capital in 1995. I'm not very cosmo, sayin' the l'east.
I would never live in a downtown motel in a busy city. The noise!
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rwedgee
Ice climber
canyon country,CA
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Apr 30, 2013 - 11:57am PT
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Some way way off the strip place in vegas during one of the Tyson fights. there was a big hole in the floor about 4' wide and at least 6" deep that the carpet was draped over. It was almost like a trampoline, and the shower valve would come out of the wall when you pulled on it because it nor the pipes were anchored to the studs, if there were any. The plastic enclosure walls would flex out about 10" unless you pushed it back with your foot. The thing was so tight you needed 2 hands on it to pull. Then it howled as the water run thru it.....good times
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Majid_S
Mountain climber
Bay Area , California
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Apr 30, 2013 - 12:09pm PT
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Some cheap trash/motel/dump in Pakistan in 1982 and I had bugs on me sucking me to death for three months.
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chez
Social climber
chicago ill
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Apr 30, 2013 - 12:12pm PT
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COT
climber
Door Number 3
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Apr 30, 2013 - 02:27pm PT
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In 2004 we stayed in this awesome hotel near the Stone Forest in China. Blood and other substances on the sheets (prior to our arrival). Glad we had our own sleeping bags and few beers to acclimatize.
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ddriver
Trad climber
SLC, UT
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Apr 30, 2013 - 02:46pm PT
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Not the worst but funny nonetheless.
Foursome went to Dillon MT under the tutelage of an ST'er. Got reservations at the Creston Motel.
Stopped on the way up just out of town at Barretts Station where the local replied: "The Creston, didn't know that was still open."
Showed up and in fact it was. Don't think anyone else was staying there and at check-in the guy behind the counter lamented how he had inherited the place from his folks and was looking to get rid of it. Offered to sell us the place right then and there for $35K. We declined.
Went over to find our two rooms. The hotel maintenance staff, a young couple, lived in one of the rooms in between the two we were given, and had their pickup parked right in from of one of our rooms. So close in fact, you couldn't open the room door without hitting the bumper. They were kind enough to move the truck, after some while, as well as the hibachi grill they were firing up in the parking lot outside the room. Ah, the smell of fresh charcoal.
Sometimes you get what you pay for.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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Apr 30, 2013 - 03:03pm PT
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Ekalaka MT. When I put the key in the lock, the entire lock fell through the door. The walls between the showers were so thin I almost felt like I was showering with my coworker in the next room... which wouldn't have been all that bad since she was kinda cute.
The "coffee" was Sanka and the "orange juice" was Tang. Everyone was nice, except the lady with Turrets who kept screaming the details about how she was going to kill Jon at the next table, and then blowing him a kiss and acting like a flirty 8 year old girl.
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Baggins
Boulder climber
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Apr 30, 2013 - 03:14pm PT
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So far, south-east asia seems to be winning. Eastern europe and south america for honorable mentions.
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Apr 30, 2013 - 03:34pm PT
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Sanikiluaq, on Belcher Islands, Hudson Bay, in 1986. Walked into town from the airstrip in winter. No sign to identify hotel. Finally picked out a big building that looked like it might be, four foot snowdrift in front of the door. Just went in. Nobody there. Found the best room - four sagging bunk beds in each, grubby toilet down the hall. No restaurant. An Inuit lady, no English, came in and fried a leathery caribou steak around dinner time, left without a word. Somebody came in next day with the bill. $140 per night.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 30, 2013 - 03:35pm PT
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Kotzebue, Alaska.
250 bucks, about as big as a prison cell, and crappers down the hall. Considering how many months I had gone without a shower, it was damn near worth it.
Summertime in the Arctic is manic. All night long the eskimos are cruising at top speed on their ATV's right outside your window.
I have a picture of me racked out in that room somewhere around.
After that, whore baths in freezing streams were better. I have to rinse my crack out every week or I just don't feel right.
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Sredni Vashtar
Social climber
The coastal redwoods
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Apr 30, 2013 - 04:24pm PT
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Crabs are so seventies man, they went out with big bushy lady gardens and men sporting mohair pants
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 30, 2013 - 04:31pm PT
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There was this one dude with us in the valley once who had crabs. We would be sitting around, he would stuff his hand down his shorts and pulled one out. They looked like clear little lobsters.
Never caught em.
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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Apr 30, 2013 - 04:46pm PT
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The Clown Motel has always made me laugh and shudder as I drove by...
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Phil_B
Social climber
Hercules, CA
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Apr 30, 2013 - 05:46pm PT
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Went kayaking in Mexico in 2005 with my buddy Chuck. We took the bus from Matamoros to Tampico. Unfortunately, the bus leaving when we arrived only had one more seat on it so we had to wait until 3AM. The place we stayed at was way overpriced at $10.
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