morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2003-05-11
From: Abingdon Gap Shelter

To: Damascus
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: heavy intensity rain

We're on our way into Damascus! A lot of hikers hike the 33 miles into Damascus in one day b/c it's supposedly "easy," but we didn't do that -- "easy" our asses! But this last day was pretty quick and hitting a milestone made it all the better -- we crossed from Tenn into VA. When we got to the state line, D-Rock, Wrong Way & crew were there waiting for us. They had their bear rope stretched out across the state line like a finish line, and we all sang Chariots of Fire as we crossed it. Then we took some photos. First, gut-cam #4. Then Chapeau made an appearance for his photo on the state line. Then Katouri & 56 showed up, and they have a "friend" traveling with them, a bear named Googli. Well, Googli wanted a photo also, so we got one of him & Chapeau on the state line. Pretty exciting day all right. Turns out Katouri & 56 have an even odder ritual -- they have a state line dance, a funky little foot jig, it's awesome! No wonder we like them. : ) After our state-line rituals, we booked it into Damascus. Got a room at Dave's Place -- a private room in a hostel, only $10 even though the book said it would be more, score. Went to Sicily's for lunch where we had a huge table filled with hikers, some we knew, some we didn't. Ate lots of pizza, listened to good tunes on the jukebox. Then went to Dollar General with Pipes -- she went in talking about wanting a pink flamingo, and as luck would have it, the store had not just one but 2 types of pink flamingos, so she had a choice and could get the pink flamingo of her dreams. How lucky can you get? Happy Mothers Day! Call your mother. We both did, and it was great to talk to them. At the hostel Moo found a really cool outfit in the hiker box -- a blue flannel shirt and some gray & pink OP shorts (remember them?) -- and he donned it so we could go do laundry. He looked really groovy with his long curly hair and fuzzy beard. Did laundry, then on way back went to a spaghetti dinner being made by Sheepstuff. We got there at the tail end of it, but there was still some food left. While we were eating, who should show up but Sleepy Floyd! Hadn't seen him since NOC and thought he was behind, but he hiked 26 miles that day into Damascus. He was dazed enough from his hike to agree to hike out with us the next day instead of resting. He wanted to do some laundry while in town, though, so Moo sacrificed his way cool outfit so Sleepy Floyd would have something to wear while doing laundry. We then headed to the Side Track Cafe to relax, then back to the hostel to bed.
Date: 2003-05-12
From: Damascus

To: Pond Campsite
Miles today: 11.7
Weather: overcast clouds

We were absolutely determined to leave Damascus! It was tough -- D-Rock and crew were taking a zero day, how could we resist? But we're strong & we believe, and we made it out of there. Reunited with Sleepy Floyd as we hit the trail -- what could be better? He was a bit dazed in the aftermath of his marathon the day before, and he got more and more out of it as the day went on, but he was still up for hiking. The first 1.5 miles were in town so it didn't feel like hiking. Then we went back into the woods and it was a gorgeous hike up Straight Mtn, with the rhododendron in full bloom. Had lunch by a stream with Superman, Torch, and Hepcat. As we were preparing our cheese sandwiches, Superman and Torch whipped out leftover pizza -- the nerve! We were very envious.Then we came to the first shelter. We wanted to check it out but continue hiking, so we left our packs on the trail as we walked to the 1/4 mile to the shelter to ensure that we would return. It was a good thing we did that b/c the shelter was really nice & had an amazing privy, making it way too tempting to stay. But we got back on the trail and rallied onward, although Sleepy Floyd started making noises about getting off the trail the next day. But walking along it was 42 who spazzed and fell and cut her hand (otherwise OK). Got to a campsite by a pond and pitched our tents on pine needles. Made a campfire as Puffy and Stumble got there. When we went to bed, Sleepy Floyd was still talking about bailing the next day . . . .
Date: 2003-05-13
From: Pond Campsite

To: Thomas Knob Campsite
Miles today: 16.9

Sleepy Floyd awoke rejuvenated and decided to stay on the trail with us. Woo-hoo. The trail joined up with the Virginia Creeper Trail for a bit -- the Creeper is a bike trail where a train track used to be, crossing over tressles. Going over one tressle we ran into Radar and Thumper who were riding bikes. Talked to them for a while. Then ran into Cap'n Ben, Auntie Em, Viking & Flatlander, who were slacking south, talked to them for a while. Realized we were holding up a bunch of bikers who wanted to get across the tressle, so we started hiking again. Beautiful, sunny, windy day. Hiking up White Mountain stopped about 2/3 of way up for lunch, b/c too windy to eat on the top. Dined with Sleepy Floyd, Superman, Torch, & Windtalker. Moo decided to make some soup and lit the stove on a patch of grass -- then realized the grass was burning, so he tried to move it, but some of the alcohol spilled and lit other patches of grass on fire and we had to stomp them out. Finally got the stove under control, but there were a couple of scorched patches -- so much for leave no trace camping. Pipes caught up with us as we hiked up the rest of White Mountain and onto Buzzard Rock against the wind. The wind was so strong, at times we felt like we weren't moving at all. Made it to Elk Garden and started hiking up Mount Rogers. Kept running into southbound hikers who were really northbounders slack packing their way into Damascus for trail days, and we kept stopping to talk to them, so it was very slow going but really fun to talk to people we knew and meet others we had heard about or read about in the shelter registers. Finally, after way too many hours for the distance we hiked, we made it to Thomas Knob Shelter on top of Mt. Rogers. Saw Radar there, which was confusing b/c we had seen him earlier and he had been biking. Then someone told 42 that he had strawberry shortcake, and she thought, "well isn't that good for him" -- then she realized that he had strawberry shortcake for all of us -- he was out doing trail magic! When he ran into us earlier and found out where we were going, he decided to surprise us there with the food. It was fantastic! We ate it all, then had dinner. It was such a nice night -- totally bright with an almost full moon -- we (Radar, Pipes, Windtalker, Sleepy Floyd, Superman, Torch and us) decided to hike a bit more and camp out. Coming around a corner, we ran into cows blocking the path, basking in the moonlight. Went around them and made it to the campsite, which turned out to be in another cow pasture so we had to watch out for cow pies as we set up our tents. Radar took some neat pictures with ghost images of himself around his tent in the moonlight.
Date: 2003-05-15
From: Damascus

To: Damascus 
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Woke up in tent city excited to see what Trail Days had in store for us. We first wandered over to the area where some of the equipment reps were located -thru-hikers are hard on equipment and, by the time Trail Days rolls around, invariably have stuff that needs tending if not replacement, and the equipment companies are (for the most part) great about taking care of thru-hikers. The reps did us up right. Moo took his pack over to the Gregory tent, and he was very excited to meet Wayne Gregory himself, who helped Moo adjust his pack. Both Moo & 42 had their poles tuned up by Leki. 42 had her Osprey pack taken care of by the Osprey folks, who sewed up a torn pocket and gave her a smaller hipbelt for free. (You might recall 42 being disgruntled that she hadn't lost any weight. Well, she still hasn't, but her weight must be redistributing itself because she needed a smaller hipbelt. That made her feel a little better.) At the Montrail tent, 42 had the toes of her boots repaired. We then headed into town with Sleepy Floyd. Tent City, where the hikers are coralled, is about a mile or so from town - the town is probably trying to contain the noise and smell of the hikers (no easy task). We hitched a ride to the Dollar General store where we got geared up for days of hanging out in Tent City, buying things like folding love seats, water guns, lawn decorations, lawn games, and that most important must have item, a noodle (remember - friends who noodle together stay together). We then went to do our laundry. You can tell we're geting used to the hiking life - when we first started hiking, doing laundry was one of our first town chores; now we wait until our second day in town. It started raining while we were at the laundromat so we hitched a ride (one of our harder hitches) back.When we got back to Tent City it was still pretty calm. We set up our area with all our lovely purchases. It looked grand. Then we headed back to town to check out the other area where reps were going to be setting up, but most of them weren't ready yet. Well, then time to eat! We went to the Mill with Sleepy Floyd and Windtalker. After we were seated, we realized it was a restaurant for real people, not thru-hikers -- there were cloth napkins on the table and the prices were for people with gainful employment. So we were totally tacky (read: smart) and left, going to the pizza place Sicily's instead. After dinner we went to the Sidetrack Cafe and heard some music.
Date: 2003-05-17
From: Damascus 

To: Damascus
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

By Saturday morning, Tent City was teeming with tents and cars -- not only were there hikers from this year's thru-hike, but also tons of hikers from years past.Moo and Sleepy Floyd had to get up early to go to the boot clinic, leaving 42 to take care of getting our bounce box together and to the post office before it closed. Then she went to meet Moo at the fairgrounds, but it turned out he was still in the boot clinic -- his feet are so whacked that he was there for 5 hours! But if it would help ease Moo's foot pain, then it was worth every minute. Moo got some Superfeet (custom footbeds) and some boot adjustments to give his toes more room up there in the smelly footbox; only time will tell if those things will do the trick. 42 went on a couple of food runs and supplied Moo with pizza to keep his energy level up during the process. After Moo was done, we went for a real lunch at the food vendors. 42 got a veggie plate, Moo got a meat plate that was so huge he couldn't eat most of it. We roamed around the fairgrounds checking out the vendors. We came to a booth where you could play roulette for a prize. One of the prizes was a cow stuffed animal. But Moo didn't want to play roulette. There was a darts game in the next booth -- that booth didn't have a cool stufed cow as a prize, but we were able to talk the vendors into letting Moo play darts for one of the cows. Moo won on his first throw and became the proud new owner of a stuffed cow, whom he dubbed "Mini-Moo." Moo made Mini-Moo into a go-lite cow by performing surgery, slicing Mini-Moo's butt and removing the innards, except for a bit in the head. The vendors were intrigued by our obsession with cows and gave 42 a ceramic cow -- that was very sweet of them, but there's no way to make a ceramic cow go-lite, so we wound up giving it to some kid we saw in a car.Then we went back to Tent City and hung out there for a while. We relaxed, sat in our love seats, played lawn darts. For dinner we went back to ... you guessed it, Sicily's! We were hoping to get done with dinner in about an hour or so to hit the movies (to see the Matrix, second time for 42, first time for Moo and the others -- Dimple Rock, Wrong Way, etc.), but no dice. The meal took hours, for real. In fact, 42 almost didn't get her meal at all, and all she had ordered was a pita pizza. So we missed the movie. Everyone else left but we waited for 42's pita pizza. Turned out to be a good decision, because it started pouring out -- instead of getting soaked, we were inside playing cards and hanging out. When the rain eased up, we swung by the Sidetrack Cafe for a bit then back to Tent City. We went to check out the drum circle, but by the time we got there, the cops were breaking it up and they arrested 2 people. We then went over to the Soft Porn Palace and hung out with Parkway, Farmer (his last day), and others. Then to bed.
Date: 2003-05-18
From: Damascus

To: Kincora Hiker Hostel -- Dennis Cove
Miles today: 0.0

The last day of Trail Days 2003. A lot of our friends were planning on hanging out in Damascus to recover from Trail Days, but we were heading out to do some "hard core" trail maintenance. We weren't really sure what we were getting ourselves into, and part of us wanted to stay in town and relax, but even more we wanted to find out what trail maintenance entailed. So 42 got up really early and went to the boot clinic, then met up with Moo and the others for trail maintenance at 10:00. We piled into trucks and were on our way - so long Trail Days!We rode with Bob Peoples (from Kincora), Granite, Blip, and Weather Carrot. Our project was to relocate part of the trail w/ a 1/2 mile section of new trail. There were about 50 hiker volunteers on the project. We all gathered at the entrance to the new area, were given pulaskis (tools that are both picks and axes), were given a rather brief lessson on using them (guess they assumed we knew what we were doing - yeah right!), and were sent on our merry way. We hiked in w/ Sleepy Floyd and found a section to work on. The area was thick w/ rhododendron, so our first task was to wrestle them out of the ground. They didn't want to go, but we, w/ the help of our pulaskis, proved stronger. After removing the rhodos, we had to remove the duff (the stuff on the trail above the mineral soil). Duff man made his first appearance and inspired us all to keep working. Ah, Duff, a good person, it was a shame that he got off the trail so soon. But back to hard core maintenance -- it was hard work, removing roots, stumps, and duff, but fun. We worked near Karma and Trucker and got to know them a bit.After we finished for the day, we headed to Watauga Lake for dinner. Met up with Pipes, who had a cold and missed out on the labor part (poor thing) although she did stay back w/ the trucks & watch the packs for a while. Baltimore Jack was wearing a shirt that said "Bill Bryson is a candy ass" -- hilarious shirt & so true. We relaxed and had BBQ sandwiches (42 had a veggie sandwich) and strawberry shortcake for desert. Then we headed back to Kincora -- it felt really comfortable going back there. Did some laundry, hung out, then went to bed (the 2 of us together on a top bunk -- in fear that we'd wind up on the floor).The bottom bunk was occupied by Wolf Man. When he found out 42's name, he asked if she was named after the wolf. Um, what wolf? Why, the wolf at Yellowstone, of course -- the second most intelligent wolf is named 42; the most intelligent wolf is 8. Um, no, that's not the reason -- but if she was going to name herself after a wolf, it would have been after the smartest one.
Date: 2003-05-19
From: Kincora Hiker Hostel -- Dennis Cove

To: Kincora Hiker Hostel -- Dennis Cove
Miles today: 0.0

Back to the trail for day 2 of hard core trail maintenance. Granite and Sleepy Floyd showed 42 how to use an axe, and her ability "increased dramatically over the removal of 1 stump," in the words of Sleepy Floyd. She's fierce now, don't mess with her. We had lunch with Romeo, Trucker & Bingo, T-Bird.Went back to do more maintenance, then at the end of the day found out we'd get to paint a white blaze on a tree -- yee-haw! Hung out with Smokey & Bandit while we eagerly awaited instructions. After being instructed by Ed (1 paint brush across, 3 down -- to achieve the standard 2 x 6 inch blaze), Moo & 42 painted a blaze together, very exciting! Our blaze is 25 paces south of the stream, on the southbound side of the tree, at Bitter End (for all of you who want to check it out). Went back to Kincora for a lasagna dinner prepared by Baltimore Jack. Both meat and veggie lasagna, salad, garlic bread, and fantastic dessert. Mmmm. That night we were able to move to a bottom bunk and got a much more restful night of sleep.
Date: 2003-05-20
From: VA 603, Fox Creek

To: Raccoon Branch Shelter
Miles today: 10.0

Trail maintenance over, back to hiking the trail. The trail maintainers arranged for our rides back to where we had left off on the trail for Trail Days -- we got a ride back with Sleepy Floyd, Pipes, Granite, Trucker & Bingo, and stopped at the Dairy Queen in Atkins to drop off some fellow hikers who were a bit north of us on the trail. Mmm, DQ blizzards. Nothing like hanging at the DQ for the afternoon. Finally rallied and got back in the truck to go to VA603, the point where we got off the trail for Trail Days, secure in the knowledge we'd be back in Atkins -- and back at the DQ -- after just a few days of hiking north.When we got back to the VA603 trail head, there were 3 guys there. One was wearing a great hat - a fisherman's hat with cars all over it. Sleepy Floyd eyed the hat and went over to tell the guy he admired it, and somehow managed to walk away with the hat, on the promise that he'd summit Katahdin with it & send the nice man a photo.Then finally back on the trail. It rained. Welcome back.
Date: 2003-05-21
From: Raccoon Branch Shelter

To: Partnership Shelter
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: light rain

Raining &/or misting for most of the day. We bumped into Parkway, good to see him. We were very excited to get to the shelter b/c it was an incredible shelter: it was near a ranger station, meaning there was a public restroom w/ indoor plumbing; the ranger station had a phone, and we were able to call for pizza!; the shelter had a shower, and it was hot. Even better than all those things, we found Dimple Rock, Wrong Way, and Foxie hanging out at the shelter after having zeroed there. Foxie was no longer Foxie - she had swapped names w/ Mellow Yellow for the rest of the month. Also at the shelter were Sleepy Floyd, Brian, Moxie, Crazy Talk, Loser, Butters, Erica, Double Dare, Martha Graham, Pipes, Torch & Superman.We all ordered a ton of pizza and beer. While eating and drinking, we sat around on the steps of the ranger station. We decided it was high time for Brian to get a trail name - we had been trying to give him one for a while but he kept rejecting them. He wanted Mist on the Grass -- huh? We wouldn't let him have that one, but we gave him one last chance to come up with something. People threw out all kinds of names -- Boyscout, Sir Talksalot, 2 Beers Drunk --but he kept rejecting them. Moo suggested "Hot Rod" and Brian loved it, so we had a ceremony and dubbed him Hot Rod. Then we tried to get Erica to embrace the trailname Candy Ass (b/c of her M&Ms boxer shorts), but she wasn't having any of that.Then, the entire crew of us @ the ranger station started chanting "Loser, Loser, Loser" in an effort to get fellow thru hiker & guitarist/singer extaordinaire Loser to put on a show for the gang. Out of nowhere, Loser came running into the middle of the group with his guitar and gave us a concert. We flipped a garbage can upside down for his performing space & he went to town. Awesome! He played a hiker favorite "Broken Pack," to the tune of AC/DC's "Back In Black," some U2, & some beautiful originals. Several of the songs were religious & spiritual, and it turns out that the garbage can he was sitting on said "Gott," which Pipes told us means God in German. We slept on the second floor of the huge shelter. It was a packed house, but great fun.
Date: 2003-06-16
From: Rockfish Gap/Waynesboro, VA

To: Calf Mtn Shelter
Miles today: 7.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Rain, rain, rain -- go away! We've never been more aware of the familiar AT saying "No rain, no Maine." Looks like we're well on our way to Maine!We're back! Moo & 42 here -- typing on our new Composer PocketMail device -- translation, we hope to share tales from the trail with y'all much more often. A big thank you to Peter G for helping us out. It's 10pm, we're in our tent, 7 miles into Shenandoah National Park -- oh yeah, and it's raining.After 3 nights in the lovely Quality Inn, we finally returned to sleeping where we like it best -- no, not The Plaza, the great outdoors. We had a hard time leaving town like we always do and didn't get into the woods until after 5:00 --we've had later starts but that's up there. But let's back up to the beginning of the day.We slept in, which was wonderful. Got up and finally started to get our stuff organized which of course took longer than we thought it would, and we wound up checking out an hour and a half late. Guess what - it was raining! There's a shocker. Made it very hard to turn down Otto's offer to slack pack, but that wouldn't start for another day and we were eager to get back on the trail (read: we had spent enough $ at the Quality Inn already). Went to lunch at the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet with Sleepy Floyd, Puffy & Stumble, resupplied, then grabbed a few minutes on the computer at the library before being picked up by the wonderful trail angel Sherri.Back into the woods with Sleepy Floyd! Only planned to go 7 miles, so not that bad to start at 5:15, right? We got one Shenandoah permit for all 3 of us and headed in. Before long it started misting -- Moo insisted it wasn't raining -- even though we were all pretty wet. Then the skies began to get darker & the "mist" fell harder. Then we got to the shelter to find it full so we had to pitch our tents in the mist -- ah, it's good to be back in the woods!Got the tents up then went to have dinner in the shelter. Everyone was trying to sleep so we had to eat quietly, which of course was impossible. Moo & Sleepy Floyd shared a wilderness beer that Moo had packed in. Then to bed, accompanied by the sounds of owls who didn't give a hoot about the rain.
Date: 2003-06-26
From: Blackburn AT Center

To: Harpers Ferry, WV -- New Jersey
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: clear sky

Once again, we're behind in our trail journal, but we're trying to catch up. It's now June 30, and we're in NYC about to leave to head back to the trail after a few days off. We've updated some dates in mid-June, and our plan is to update as we go along every few days (we now have pocketmail to help us do that), and to try to fill in from mid-May to mid-June as well.Quick update: We made it to Harpers Ferry, WVa, on June 26 -- about 1008 miles! We'll be back on the trail July 1, heading from West Va to Maryland, then across the Mason-Dixon line into Pennsylvania. We've had a wonderful few days off the trail seeing family and friends, and now we're looking forward to getting back in the woods.Happy Trails!Moo & 42