morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2016-05-02
From: Cincinnati, OH

To: Asheville, NC
Miles today: 0.0

I took off 4 days to go to Cincy for Jenny¢s graduation. I¢m glad I was able to do that because I was very happy to see her and didn¢t want to miss this special occasion for anything!I am lucky to have parents and siblings willing to take time off from their lives in order to allow me much needed R & R with my girlfriend. I think they like these breaks I¢m taking because it gives them an easy excuse to take a vacation. Jenny, I know your family, Sammy and myself have said this already, but I am very proud of you.   It isn¢t easy making it through DAAP, but what doesn¢t kill us makes us stronger. So I know you will find your calling on your time and show those other designers what you¢re made of!Anyway, I¢m back in Asheville at the Best Western relaxing before heading back on the trail tomorrow. It¢s supposed to rain all morning, so we are in no rush to get out to the trail at the crack of dawn. 300 miles in, a fantastic weekend with Jenny, and now hopefully 300 to 400 miles in 3 weeks!May 2, 2016 Night before going back on trail:Naked Body Weight ¢ 169 lbs.Full Pack Weight ¢ 40 lbs.Total Starting Weight ¢ 209 lbs.
Date: 2016-05-03
From: Devil Fork Gap

To: Sam's Gap
Miles today: 8.2
Weather: light rain

First day back on the trail since my 4 day break to go see Jenny¢s graduation. I remember arriving in Cincy last Friday and how weird it felt to be back there. Not to mention how loud the city felt after being in the woods for a month. Now being out here for a day it seems a bit strange, yet feels familiar imultaneously. When I walked away from Devil Fork Gap, it felt like I was going on a simple hike in the woods back home and I¢d be back doing modern civilization activities at night. It¢s like my mind is trying to live in 2 worlds simultaneously but can¢t decide where it wants to be. I guess I had similar feelings the first couple days after Springer and I got used to it. I guess I didn¢t figure a small 4 day break would put me back into city mode so easily. Anyway, I¢m out here now on a clear night listening to crickets and tree frogs singing in their high pitched octave. It occurs to me now that this is the first night I¢ve heard them. I¢m sure they¢ve been out before, I just must not have taken note. The morning started off rainy so when we got to our drop off point, we three (Danny, Mom, and I) played clubs in the car waiting for it to dry up. When it did, Mom made us a salami sandwich and we went on our way. Again, I¢d like to thank my parents for their support and understanding when it comes to the couple of breaks from the trail. One last thing, tonight Ziploc and I switched thermal systems for our hammocks because I was curious how well his pad worked. If it keeps my back warmer, I may buy one and use it with the top part of my supershelter. I want to keep the top because it helps cut down on wind tremendously.
Date: 2016-05-04
From: Sam's Gap

To: Spivey Gap
Miles today: 13.9

The plan was to wake up at 7 AM to get an early start on the day but I turned that alarm off real quick and slept until 9 AM. We both were till very tired at that hour for some strange reason since that¢s about 10 hours of sleep. We started off with what we thought was a good pace but ended up only being about 2 mph. We¢re thnking our slow-ish pace is either due to the nearly 5 day break or the high elevation or both. Still, 14 miles isn¢t a bad day, so we aren¢t bummed about it. This is the 2nd day in a row, first full day, where I didn¢t take any pain pills and so far so good! There¢s slight discomfort in my left knee, but no actual pain. Hopefully that keeps up. There isn¢t much else to say about today¢s hike other than most of it was fairly easy with a few steep ups and downs that got us breathing hard. We were expecting rain tonight, so hopefully we stay dry.
Date: 2016-05-05
From: Spivey Gap

To: Erwin, TN
Miles today: 11.1
Weather: light rain

Another very late start today because it was still raining at the 7 AM and 8 AM alarm, so we both just slept until 9 ish and took our time getting ready in the random spurts of rain that came through.The entire day was fairly easy hiking, but instead of rain, there was hail! It was neat to walk through as the sound was lighter than rain as each bee-bee sized piece bounced off the leaves. The temperature hovered between 42 ¢ 45 degrees which with the precipitation and wind easily dipped below freezing. Both Ziploc and I were shivering after our short lunch break 2 hours after starting our hike. Which reminds me, my appetite is definitely off the charts when I¢m hiking. I will eay my meal or my snacks and my stomach will be yellig at me within the half hour. Good thing we decided to stay in town tonight and get a Little Caesar¢s pizza each. I finished the whole thing in one sitting while Ziploc was only on piece #4 of 8. So not only is the volume of food increasing but also the rate at which I eat it. I¢m sure this will calm down when I¢m done with the trail, but I¢m kind of enjoying it right now for some reason. Okay, time for bed here at the Super 8.
Date: 2016-05-06
From: Erwin, TN

To: Beauty Spot Gap
Miles today: 12.3
Weather: light rain

We took our time getting out of town so we could enjoy continental breakfast. McDonald¢s Big Mac and go to the post office. Overall, it was a short day for us, but not too bad of a pace and mileage. We thought about pushing on another 4 miles past the heavily spruced steep Unaka Mountain, but with a chance of snow tonight, we decided to save it for tomorrow. Speaking of snow, it¢s a good thing we stayed in town last night because it snowed up in the mountains we traversed today. We have been extremely lucky so far avoiding rain and snow simply by zeroing or neroing into a town before hell is unleashed on weary travelers. We often missed it by just a few hours or only had to endure it minimally before warming up in a hotel room. Beauty Spot Gap includes a grassy bald where we would¢ve loved to cowboy camp had it not been so cold and windy. Today it¢s around 50 degrees, but the windchill cuts it close to freezing. There were great views of the surrounding mountains and foothills from up there. Seeing all those relatively flat foothills so close to where we are hiking is kind of a bittersweet moment. On one had, you wish the trail planners would take you over them instead of those big mountains. On the other hand, part of thru-hiking is the challenge of it all; if the whole trail were low rolling hills not mountains, then the accomplishment of finishing would be diminished.Today is the first day since the 4 day break that I¢ve felt like I¢m on the trail again. The previous few days have felt like a weekend trip sandwiched by living in the city. But today, not only was I more mentally prepared for it, but physically as well. I was much less tired on the long uphills and my vision of where to place my foot for every step was quicker and more efficient. Hopefully this will translate into larger days for us. That of course will also depend on if we get out of our hammocks before 8, which with the impending cold night, seems unlikely.
Date: 2016-05-07
From: Beauty Spot Gap

To: Hughes Gap
Miles today: 16.8
Weather: broken clouds

I called it! We woke up 2 hours past our goal due to a cold morning. Eventually the night will get warmer, allowing us to wake when we plan to, but until then we¢ll just keep setting overly ambitious goals for ourselves. Our decision to end the day early yesterday was a wise one however because the big mountain we considered crossing got hit with some snow! At camp, I saw the storm cloud engulfing the mountain about the time we would¢ve been summiting it. So that was definitely a good call, but it was cool to see snow for the first time on the trail. As we were walking down the other side, I couldn¢t help myself and grabbed a handful and turned around to throw it at Ziploc. He of course paid me back. the summit of that mountain was a very neat looking place with lots of spruce trees. The dead needles were very nice on the knees. After that climb, it was a fairly easy day where we went 3-1/2 to 4 mph at times. allowing us to get the distance we did in the time we did. I¢m currently in my hammock listening to the wind and rain hit my rainfly. It started raining about 20 minutes after we chose our camp spot, so again, pretty lucky to avoid it. Right before getting into my hammock, while eating dinner, I noticed a light off in the distance. I told Ziploc and we both shut off our headlamps to watch. We both could have sworn that they were movign closer toward us. While watching the light, I noticed a second one which turned out to be the one Ziploc was watching. We thought it was either night hikers or coyote hunters, either way they made us cautiously uncomfortable. After watching them dance around for 15 ¢ 20 minutes, we saw a couple more in the surrounding hills and determined they were house lights flickering through nearby leaves blowing in the wind. Our paranoid minds definitely got the best of us there! Well if it¢s not raining, we¢ll try to leave before 10¢¦ we¢ll see about that!Oh, I almost forgot, we got some trail magic from a cooler in the form of Oreos, Samoas, and Coke! We also saw this moron hiker with an acoustic guitar. What a hassle that must be. He did have hikers sign their names on it, which was cool, but I think Pebble¢s white jacket is a better way to go for that. One other tidbit of interesting commentary¢¦my seat began to smell like fresh red wine. I¢m not sure why but it was actually quite pleasant.
Date: 2016-05-09
From: Overmountain Shelter

To: Campbell Hollow Road
Miles today: 12.8
Weather: overcast clouds

Today started off with a mountain bald that kicked our butts, called Hump Mountain. The dirt trail through a grassy hillside reminded me of Scotland, or at least pictures I¢ve seen of Scotland. If there were sheep openly grazing on the sides it would not have surprised me. It was one of the coolest walks we¢ve had simply because we could see the whole trail from the bottom. We were rewarded with a 360 degree view near the Stan Murray plaque and the grassy ridgeline continued to offer us view on our descent. About 6 miles into our hike, we crossed the TN/NC border for the last time! Sayonara North Carolina! It was definitely a tough state so I¢m glad to have it behind us. Now a bit less than 70 miles until we can wave bon voyage to our third state! That will be a nice relief. We stopped at Mountain Harbour Hostel for lunch and a small resupply before hitting the trail again. We got mainly snack foods and pop to eat, but some guy came with an SUV full of food to restock the store. So of course I had to get a BBQ Rib sandwich even though I¢d already eaten what I was planning on. It was definitely the right decision to make. With everything I ate there, I actually am not hungry enough for a Mountain House tonight! That¢s the first time that¢s happened to me, but only 4 miles after the hostel wasn¢t enough to bring the extreme hunger back. I¢m sure I¢ll regret not eating it later tonight, but I¢m eating enough snacks tonight to get me through. We had an interesting sequence of photos near the end of our hike. First, I took a pic of a cemetery, then Ziploc found a deer skeleton that he pretended to eat (kind of looks human), then we filled water at a church. So without context, the photos make it look like we went grave robbing to eat skeletons and then went to a church for redemption. It was a pretty funny realization after the fact.
Date: 2016-05-10
From: Campbell Hollow Road

To: Meadow at Piped Spring
Miles today: 17.1
Weather: overcast clouds

Another hundred down! We made it over the 400 mile mark today but neither of us realized it until we saw a sign that said ¢Springer Mountain 406 Mi¢. I guess once you pass 100 miles, every hundred after that isn¢t a big deal, it¢s more what areas you pass that matter more. I will be looking out for 550 though since that¢s 14 of the trail complete. As it stands right now we are 13 miles from Hampton and Elizabethton where we¢ll stay the night. We then plan on making it to Damascus, VA on Friday for the start of Trail Days. Neither of us care too much about it, but it¢ll still be cool to have that experience. For the last 2 miles of our day, we were hiking through a burned forest. We believe it was a controlled burn, but it was still neat to witness firsthand. The smell of charred wood lingered in the air as it the fire were from last night. There¢s no telling how long we¢ll be walking through it as I can see it on the trail ahead. We are camping in the only green patch untouched by flame; a meadow with a watchful turkey grazing nearby. We also got to see a pretty big waterfall about 2 miles into our day.Some interesting commentary on life on the AT. Normally if I drop a piece of food on the ground, I won¢t think twice about picking it up and eating it. During dinner, I dropped some food on my leg and just said ¢Nah¢ and threw it aside. That means in my mind, my leg is dirtier than the earth I¢m sitting on.
Date: 2016-05-11
From: Meadow at Piped Spring

To: Hampton, TN
Miles today: 13.0

It started storming last night before falling asleep. The thunder could be heard rumbling through the mountains for about 45 seconds after a lightning strike! Storms definitely sound much meaner in these hills when a rain tarp is all the protection you have. It continued to rain for the first half of our hike so of course everything got wet. But true to our form so far, we were walking into a town to stay the night, so wet gear wasn¢t a big deal for us. About halfway through our hike, we came to a very different area we haven¢t seen yet. First came Laurel Falls which was the largest and coolest waterfall we¢ve come across yet. Right after that, the trail traversed a rock ledge along the roaring river. Since all the rocks were wet, it was slightly more dangerous, but it would¢ve only been a 5 feet fall into the river. This combined with the mile or so beforehand, we were walking between large cuts through white stone a hundred feet above the river. A pretty neat walk, but difficult at times. Soon after the falls we came to a huge mountain that was 2.5 miles up and 3 miles down to get to the road crossing into town. We got a taxi into Elizabethton instead of Hampton since there were no hotels there, only hostels. In fact, this Americourt Inn is the only hotel in 3 towns. Apparently it¢s either a hostel or B & B when we get to Damascus for Trail Days on Saturday. That is, if there¢s any rooms left anywhere. At some point, we came across a sign informing hikers that the wildfire was contained and included a bunch of technical info about it. So I guess the 3-4 miles we walked through wasn¢t a controlled burn and was only the corner of the affected area.
Date: 2016-05-12
From: Hampton, TN

To: spring at campsite
Miles today: 12.9
Weather: overcast clouds

Well, today started off fairly eventful. We were ready to head back to the trail, so we called the taxi service and they said it was over an hour until they could get us. So we go outside to figure out something to do in that time, when a lady in a van offers us a warm hello. She seemed like someone who was waiting to pick up hikers, so I said a bit loudly to Ziploc, ¢We could try to hitch¢, hoping she¢d overhear. She did and offered us a ride to the trailhead before taking her scheduled pickup to Damascus. On the way, she pulled over to pick up another hiker trying to hitch. As soon as she did, a cop pulls behind us with lights on. We thought that maybe hitching was illegal here and he was going to bust the other guy. Our driver thought it was because she was speeding, which it turns out it was. The cop seemed friendly and took her license to check some stuff out. After 5 minutes or so he comes back and says ¢I see you have a couple other violations already. Since you¢re doing a nice thing for these hikers and I don¢t feel like writing a ticket today, I¢m going to let you go with a warning. We all thanked him, the other hiker got in, and we went to the trailhead. When we got there, I asked how much we owed her and she said nothing, she was just killing time. So not only did we not have to wait an hour for a ride, but we didn¢t have to pay for one! Good karma was on our side that time.After getting on the trail, we walked alongside Watauga Lake for 3 miles before coming to Watauga Dam. It¢s an earthen dam much different from Fontana Dam with a sole purpose of allowing this man made lake to exist. We then continued up some fairly steep hills before coming to a ridgeline that again went alongside Watauga Lake, this time 2,000 fee higher. I don¢t know how far the lake stretches, but we¢ve been able to see it during our whole hike today. I wanted to get 15 miles today so we could attempt a 25 mile day tomorrow to get to Damascus Friday night. Unfortunately a storm began to roll through around our 12 mile mark, so we cut our losses and found the 1st good spot to set up camp before we got too wet. About 10 minutes after setting up our rainflies, the rain was done and the sun was attempting to come out. So we could have continued to get my 15 mile goal, but you just never know about this mountain weather.
Date: 2016-05-13
From: spring at campsite

To: 1.8 miles past Abingdon Gap Shelter
Miles today: 20.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Friday the 13th is usually a lucky day for me and this one continues that trend. We walked our farthest day yet today! The terrain the past couple of days has been relatively easy, allowing us to average over 3 mph except for our stops. Today was one of the muddiest days so far as most of the first 11 miles was 4¢ deep mud, creating some fun slip-n-slide moments¢¦most of which were unintentional.   Neither of us fell, but Ziploc came close on multiple occasions. We walked through a cow pasture that offered us stunning views of Shady Valley below. There were around 20 cows and at least one bull right next to the trail. They didn¢t seem to mind that all these people were walking through. The gates on both ends of the field area had a very interesting but ingenious latching system that we felt deserved a video showing how it worked. After all the rain we got last night, it was nice to have a hiking day without it. Now we¢re only 8 miles from Damascus where we¢ll spend a few hours enjoying Trail Days, but then it¢s back on the trail for us!
Date: 2016-05-15
From: Between 2 Streams

To: Elk Garden
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: broken clouds

I actually woke up before 8 today, but we still left late due to a very cold morning. The temperature all day didn¢t get higher than 50 degrees. The hiking all day was mostly uphill, but we still kept a 2 mph overall pace. Not bad! It all culminated with a final climb 5,000 feet up to Buzzard Rock. It¢s a long 4 mile climb over white rock and grassy fields to get to the majestic view that awaits. On y way up I saw a garter snake, the biggest I¢ve ever seen, in strike position on the edge of the trail. It¢s neck reared back as if ready to fight, I backed away about a foot. It then slowly turned it¢s head the opposite direction and slowly meandered into the tall grass at the base of a large rock. This snake wasn¢t scared one bit about my presence. I was really tempted to pickup a large rock and smash it¢s head, but I resisted the urge and went on my way. When I reached the top, there was steady, cold wind with about 40 to 50 mph gusts. It was freezing! Since I had to wait there for Ziploc to get done doing his business, I threw on my down jacket, rain jacket, and Baclava to stay warm. I sat down on a large rock overlooking the valley and enjoyed the alone time that I was granted. Once Ziploc came up, we continued another 3 miles to camp. There are about 13 tents and 3 hammocks (including our own) set up in this campground by a highway. Way more than we expected! We got some trail magic from Reptar and Fancy Pants. Unfortunately they are with friends who brought food and they will probably be loud late into the night. It¢s 10 PM and they¢re still going strong. Jerks.
Date: 2016-05-17
From: Spring past Hurricane Creek Trail

To: Mt. Rogers Visitor Center/Marion, VA
Miles today: 18.0

Not much happened today. We woke up in the rain and hiked for a few hours in it as well. We then came across a small waterfall, bringing our total to about 7 falls for the hike. It¢s pretty cool the trail takes us near so many of them, it¢s always a treat to randomly come across. The whole day, I was walking in a daze, partly due to bad weather, partly because I was trying not to think about my hurting feet and partly because I was thinking about the food I¢d eat in Marion. So we made it our 18 miles at a decent time and got a taxi into town. We are zeroing here tomorrow, so it¢s a much more relaxed visit than normal. We¢re at the Econolodge both nights. It¢s a good decision I think, it seems like a pretty nice motel. That¢s really all I have to say about the day today.
Date: 2016-05-18
From: Mt. Rogers Visitor Center/Marion, VA

To: Marion, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Just a typical zero day with laundry, food and ice cream. One thing that always seems to happen on these relaxing days is that my feet hurt more when I stand up every time. It¢s probably just my feet trying to heal, which is something they don¢t have a chance to do on the trail. After lunch, I laid in bed for 5 hours doing nothing but watch TV. It was pretty great to not do anything.