morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2021-05-07
To: Stealth site 895.5
Miles today: 10.5
Weather: broken clouds

We spent the night in the shelter because it¢s calling for rain today and we didn¢t want to have to put away a wet tent. Ghost and Lone Wolf headed out first followed by Foxtrot. Sailor Jack was the last to leave. I think they were all going to pull a 22 mile day to get to the shelter after next. They are quick hikers!There was a whippoorwill that sat outside the shelter last night. He was really close and loud! He continued his song all night, but slowly moved farther away. At 3:00am, David said he could still hear it.Breakfast was cold bagels, cream cheese, and Instant Breakfast again. Trying to get rid of the weight of the bagels and cream cheese. We have decided not to do that again. I don¢t know if I can stomach a bagel for a while. David says a bagel not being toasted just isn¢t the same.We left at 9:20am. We are pretty tired not having slept well last night. No matter where we land tonight we are sleeping in our tent and taking a sleeping pill. The rain started about 11am and was pretty much a steady drizzle. The wind made it really miserable. We met our first flip-flopper! Cubbie started at Harpers Ferry. We also met Traveler. She was quite chatty and very nice.By the time we reached the Loft Mountain Campstore we were wet, cold, and exhausted. They had a laundry room so we put a bunch of our wet stuff in the dryer. We had a hard time getting warm. I put on all my clothes and was still shaking. I put my fleece shirt in the dryer to warm it and then put it back on. We really didn¢t want to go back out in the cold rain. The temperature was in the low 40s. We met another thru-hiker named Grumper. We mentioned the gang we stayed with last night and he knew them all. In fact, he snd Sailor Jack had met shortly after starting in Springer. We found out that Grumper is from Lexington. The rain finally stopped about 4:30pm and we headed out again. We felt much better after resting for several ours. We passed by several deer that just looked up like "Yo" and went right back to eating. We hiked until about 6pm and found a stealth campsite. Grumper waved as he went by an hour later. We had a hot dinner and I packed away 3 Payday candy bars before dinner. (No comments! They were snack size!)It is still windy and tomorrow is supposed to be cold (50s). I would love it if the hiking  was a lot of level ground like today. (That was nice but the climbs were killer!) But tomorrow is going to be some tough climbs. Embrace the suck! :)We hiked 10.5 miles.
Date: 2021-05-08
From: Stealth campsite 

To: Stealth campsite above Hightop Hut
Miles today: 11.6
Weather: clear sky

Woo hoo! Clean underwear day! You probably didn¢t want to know that but I sure felt good about it.We left our stealth site about 8:45am. We had taken something to help us sleep and I was gone to the world. I still felt chilled during the night and noticed in the morning that the part of the sleeping bag that is under my keester is not really thick with down. I fluffed it around so hopefully tonight I will be a little warmer. I am still sleeping in socks, buff on my head, shirt, fleece shirt, and my puffy jacket. Today was alot of ups. Those really slow you down. We met Leap when we stopped at Pinefield Hut for water. He¢s from NC. Super nice guy. We were getting close to crossing Skyline Drive when I noticed a small teepee of sticks on the side of the trail. Underneath were a couple of Mountain Dew sodas, 2 oatmeal pies, and some Reese cups. Trail magic! We split a pie and soda and each had a Reese cup. That kind of thing really lifts your spirits!We got to Hightop Hut and met a group of ladies that were just camping for the weekend. Yesterday when we had left the Loft Mtn campstore and started hiking again, at the same time they were hunkered down in a horrible hailstorm with gusting winds. They said it was really frightening. So weird for the weather to be that different when you are probably 10 miles or less apart. We chatted, got water, and decided to finish climbing Hightop Mountain. That way tomorrow we can start the day going downhill for once. We found a stealth campsite for the night. Had mashed potatoes again for dinner. Yum! David adds a little packet of olive oil to our dinners to increase the calories. We also split a pulled pork packet and put it on tortillas. Life is good! One important thing we have noticed is the water sources, or lack of. Other than the huts, water along the trail has been scarce. Hikers this summer are going to have it rough. Today we did 11.6 miles. Too many ups to do more.
Date: 2021-05-09
From: Stealth campsite 

To: Bearface Mountain Hut
Miles today: 11.9
Weather: clear sky

Happy Mother¢s Day to all the wonderful moms and moms-to-be!Will it ever be warm? The wind is blowing (again!) though I did expect that since we are at the summit. I heard it sprinkle for a bit but today is just supposed to be cloudy. No rain. It should start warming up around 10am so we are taking it slow. Hike your own hike. That is the saying on the trail. We left about 10:20am. Over the course of the day we traversed Hightop Mountain and Saddleback Mountain, and passed by the Lewis Mountain Campground to reach the Bearface Mountain Hut, where we are staying tonight. Every shelter/hut we have stayed at always had a trail off the AT. This one you could see the roof of the hut as you walked past, but then you had to hike .3 miles down a fire road to get to it. All the tent sites around it are up the hill. Since our tent is a 3-man we need a little bigger site. We are about .1 up the hill from the hut. Of course to get to the privy we have to walk back down to the hut and then back up the road aways. As if we haven¢t hiked enough today and are already tired. Oh well. Tomorrow we hike to Big Meadows Wayside for hamburgers!! Woo hoo! Can¢t wait!A shout out to my awesome co-workers for the amazing carbiner they gave me when I retired. It is working amazingly well holding my water bottle. And the little compass always tells me which way I am going. That¢s good because I don¢t have them here to tell me where to go. :)We hiked 11.9 miles.
Date: 2021-05-10
From: Bearface Mountain Hut

To: Stealth campsite 
Miles today: 10.1
Weather: overcast clouds

We were the last out of Bearface Hut this morning, leaving about 9:10am. The hiking was a lot if level ground. We did scale Lewis Mountain though. Word was out to hit the Big Meadows Wayside for hamburgers so that was our goal for lunch. We got there about 2pm only to find out the grill wouldn¢t open until late May. We had to walk .4 miles off the trail to get there and then back again. Almost a mile and no hamburgers! We did split a small sub, chips, and a chocolate milk. We also picked up some resupply. We were told we could get hamburgers at the Big Meadows Lodge. Several hikers said they were good but really pricey. As we hiked past the lodge we decided we didn¢t want to make the 1 mile round trip to the lodge for a burger. We¢ll hold our cravings for Front Royal. We ended up at a stealth campsite that overlooks a valley. All the evergreen trees remind me of broccoli florets. We ate dinner out on the rocks and watched the sun dip in the sky. Was too tired to wait for  complete sunset. Hiker midnight for us is about 7:30pm.Tomorrow will be a tough day. We will summit Stoney Man Mountain, the tallest peak in the park at 4011 ft. We hiked 10.1 miles.
Date: 2021-05-11
From: Stealth campsite 

To: Stealth campsite 
Miles today: 13.5
Weather: broken clouds

Last night we were just about asleep and 2 hoot owls decided to have a ¢conversation¢ right outside our tent. We were able to stand it about 5 minutes and then David started cawing like a crow. After that, complete silence. HahaWell, we finally got our butts out of bed at a good time and were on the trail bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by 8:00am.  The campsite was nice and the view was awesome. Still windy at night but it stopped about midnight and the morning was nice. We climbed the 2 highest peaks in the park today. It was strange climbing Stony Man Mountain though because we hiked up the trail from the trailhead. Then we came to a junction with a blue blaze to the left to go to the summit and a white blaze to the right for the AT. So we basically went around the base of the mountain instead of up and over the top. Never had that happen before. The AT always makes us go up and over. But we were paid back when we hit the Pinnacle. That was a bear to climb. David and I both noticed that it is getting easier to climb though. We aren¢t gasping for breath as badly as the first day. Yay!The park is beautiful but it's not very back country. We have yet to spend a night or day without hearing or seeing cars and the road. It really takes away from the trail.We smashed all kind of records today! Earliest start (8am), longest hiking time (9.5 hrs), and drumroll please, 13.5 miles! Our mileage is finally increasing.
Date: 2021-05-12
From: Stealth campsite 

To: Stealth campsite 
Miles today: 11.4
Weather: clear sky

This morning was freezing! The wind was blowing (of course!) and we were too cold to eat. David did not sleep well again. He says whenever he looks over at me I am dead to the world. His sleeping bag is a mummy type and when he zips it all the way up it is a little claustrophobic. But if he doesn¢t zip it up, he freezes. I guess when I have to choose between claustrophobia and warmth, I choose warmth! LolSo we packed up, declared we would never stealth camp on a ridge again, and headed out. Decided we would eat breakfast later. It was 8:05am. About half a mile from our site was a view called Mary¢s Rock. Even though we were cold, we climbed the .1 mile up and was not disappointed. You could see for miles! I believe I read that the town below was Luray. But you could see miles all around it. We continued down until we got to Byrd¢s Nest #3 Hut. It was very nice and the spring was right near the hut. No walking half a mile to get water! We heated water and had a breakfast of oatmeal, hot chocolate (for me), and coffee (for David). (It was instant Starbucks, but to him it was heaven.) We also met hikers Beefstew and Kadunk. We hiked out and a short while later stopped to take off our heavy shirts. (Now my family and friends are going to enjoy the next little happenings.) So while at the hut, I used the privy. Now let me explain about the privies in SNP. They are called mouldering privies. That means that you don¢t throw anything in that cannot break down. The microorganisms cause the stuff in it to decay. To help it along they ask you to throw in a cup of wood shavings after each use. So when we stopped I yanked down my drawers to see what was hurting me. Unknown to me I got one of those tiny shavings in my underwear. It was scratching me. David said he didn¢t want anymore buttpaste problems. After putting myself back together David handed me my hat and then said ¢What¢s that?¢ There on my hat was birdshit!! Seriously??!! A bird had flown over and pooped on my head! Thank God for the hat!Later that day David was looking down and walked under a tree that was not quite high enough for him to pass under. He took off a nice chunk of skin on the top of his head. We are definitely going to need more medical stuff when we go in for resupply. Between injuries and blisters and hot spots on our feet, we are just about out of everything in our med kit. We stopped at Elkwallow Wayside. David had milk and Hostess cupcakes. I went  more for the junk food. Mini powdered donuts and potato chips. What a combo! We then continued our upward climb. We found a stealth site with another hiker named Chippin¢ Away. She is 4 months shy of my age. David says that so far we are the oldest hikers we have come across on the trail.We are looking forward to Front Royal! We¢ll leave SNP and be in Front Royal on Friday!!We hiked 11.4 today.
Date: 2021-05-14
From: Tom Wolfe Shelter 

To: Front Royal 
Miles today: 3.7
Weather: clear sky

The alarm was set for 6am but we were both awake before then. So excited to get into town, shower, eat real food, do laundry, and to see our daughter.We said ¢See ya later¢ to NoName and headed out about 7:10. There was a trolley that would pick you up where the AT crosses hwy 522 at 9:20am for $.50. We got to the road by 9am and waited, but no trolley. We crossed the road do we were going in the direction we wanted to go and I put my thumb out. About 2 minutes later a truck pulled over and a nice young man named Whitney gave us a ride into town. (David says I have a golden thumb.) Whitney is a bartender and works at the Front Royal Brewing Restaurant and Bar. He also asked if we had heard about the pipeline hack. We told him we hadn¢t and he told us about hackers shutting down the pipeline between TX and NY and people were losing their mind, like with toilet paper during the pandemic. Whitney dropped us at the laundromat and we said our goodbyes and offered to help with gas and he said he never takes money from thru-hikers. His payment is to hear our stories. In the laundromat we used the bathroom to change out of dirty clothes. I put on my Frog Togs and David had some clean camp clothes. Everything else went into the washing machine. Both our phones were almost dead and our power bank had no charge so I walked over to the Visitor¢s Center to see if I could charge my phone there. We did a washup in the bathroom, put on clean clothes, and walked down to find a coffee shop. On the way down Main Street (a very cute and quaint-looking street) we took pictures if the various murals painted on the sides of buildings.After coffee we walked up to the Burger King and had lunch. Showtime, HoneyBear and a friend were heading in too. Mackenzie and Mando (Megan¢s puppy) pulled into the Burger King and there were hugs all around. Kenz drove us to Walmart  to resupply. After dropping our stuff at the motel and taking showers, we went to Panda Express for dinner. We ran over to Target to get Mando some dog food. A funny thing about Mando and the motel. David went in and registered us at the motel and Kenz and I stayed in the car trying to figure out how to sneak in Mando. We were discussing all kinds of ideas and then Kenz said to just wait a minute and then for me to come in. She took Mando and just walked past the front desk like she owned the place. David was coming out and she said to him ¢Excuse me, sir. Would you hold the door for me please?¢  David just played along. Kenz is one cool customer! LOL!After dinner we sent her and the pup on their way home and we went up and just laid on the bed and relaxed. Resupply days are exhausting!Something else I have noticed is my eyes are swelling. Kenz reminded me that I mentioned it happening on our first hike too. I think the change in diet and the freeze-dried meals being higher in sodium are causing my eyelids and the skin around my eyes to swell. It will eventually go away. Until then I will have to get used  to looking like a bug. Today was a nero day (near zero) since we only hiked 3.7 miles.
Date: 2021-05-16
From: Stealth campsite 

To: Whiskey Hollow Shelter 
Miles today: 7.4
Weather: overcast clouds

The alarm went off at 6:20am but we both had woken before that and just laid there. This was the first time that I had not gone to sleep wearing a shirt, a fleece shirt, and sometimes my puffy coat. I actually took off my fleece during the night and only slept in my light cotton shirt and sleep pants. The morning was nice too. Not cold like it has been. If it weren¢t for the traffic on 66....We were packed, fed, and on the trail by 7:30am. The hiking today wasn¢t bad. The Aleve last night had done the trick and I was feeling great. I think my nail-less toe had healed enough that I was having no pain. Yay!We went along at a good speed, hoping to get to a shelter before the rain started around noon. And we did! We walked i to Whiskey Hollow Shelter just as it started to sprinkle. Fort Chagos joined us a few minutes later and we sat and listened to the rain and felt the temperature drop. We all put on layers to stay warm. Fort Chagos has a gps system that he is using to map parts of the AT. He does this as a hobby and then uploads the data to a website that apps like Alltrails and Guthook use. Pretty cool. Another hiker named Mark joined us to to wait out the rain. My family does monthly zoom calls and we had enough data coverage to be able to call in. I didn¢t want to impose on the other hikers so David and I walked back to the privy, since it has a roof too, to call in. The family was quite amused that we were calling from the privy. I told them it was apropos. :) We only stayed on for a bit before my phone started to die but it was so fun to see all of them. We decided to stay here for the night since the rain didn¢t really quit until 4:30. We didn¢t want to hike for a couple miles and then set up on wet ground. Mark had hiked on by the time we had gotten back from our zoom call and Fort Chagos had set up his tent up the hill.Pickles and Fire Daddy came in about 5:15 pm and set up a tent. (They are still newlyweds having married just last August.) They have had several bad experiences lately in shelters (mice, rat snakes) so Pickles does not want to stay in any shelters for a while. We are going to stay in the shelter and have set our alarm for 6:00am. We hope to put some good miles in tomorrow. We will be hitting a section called ¢The Rollercoaster¢ because it is 14 miles of steep ups and downs. Every place they camp, Fire Daddy builds a campfire because that is how they cook their dinner. Fire Daddy said that they weighed propane and the cooker and it was over a pound so they just decided to cook each night via campfire. Pickles put water in their pot and Fire Daddy would put it in the hot coals to heat. We would eat only cold meals if we had to do that.  We are not very good at fires. Today we only hiked 7.4 miles in 5 hours.
Date: 2021-05-17
From: Whiskey Hollow Shelter 

To: Stealth campsite 
Miles today: 13.6
Weather: overcast clouds

Last night was a blast! We stayed up right till hiker¢s midnight talking and laughing. Fire Daddy had the fire going right to the end. He used up all the wood they had collected. The only thing missing was s¢mores!It turned out we were the only ones in the shelter. We had it all to ourselves. It was cold though. We didn¢t get going until 7:45am. The .3 out of the shelter was up, of course. Fort Chagos had left about 30 minutes before us. Pickles and Fire Daddy were still dead to the world. We hiked through Sky Meadow State Park and it had some beautiful meadows. We stopped several times just to enjoy the scenery and the quiet. We figured this was the calm before the storm, of the Rollercoaster. By 12:45pm we had hiked 9 miles. We watered up at the next stream and then began the ascent to the Rollercoaster. Holy moly!! Hiking this section is definitely a challenge! It¢s 13.5 miles long. We are exhausted. We stopped at a tent site 5 miles in. It was a good day though because we hiked 13.6 miles in about 10 hours. Tomorrow will be another long day but we will finish the Rollercoaster AND hit the VA-WV border!
Date: 2021-05-19
From: Stoneybrook Farm

To: Stoneybrook Organic Farm
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

We decided that we really needed a true zero day (no miles hiked) and Stoneybrook Organic Farm was the perfect place. We woke up about 7:30am and got up to breakfast about 8:15am. They had decided in morning gathering that everyone would go down to the garden and help plant lettuce before breakfast. So we all trooped down, even the kids as young as 2 yrs old, and planted seedlings of different types of lettuce. With the many hands helping it took no time at all. After helping cleanup breakfast (even the young kids had jobs of sweeping the floor or wiping down tables), we headed back to our cabin and got our dirty clothes and headed up to the laundry cabin. Let me tell you about the sleeping cabins. There are 3 and they each can hold up to 4 people. We had a fruit basket with 2 giant homemade peanut butter cookies in it waiting for us in our cabin (#2) when we arrived last night. There was a pretty pot of flowers on the steps to the cabin. The beds had mattresses and linens already made up. We were the only hikers they had that day. At lunch we had the most amazing pizza and salad. We had s choice of pizza with cheese and beef or one that was all vegetable. I had a slice of each. The salad was made up of at least 4 different types of lettuce and greens. The dressing was a light vinaigrette. After lunch we worked with Yeremiah to plant paw-paw bushes around their campground. He said they have a festival in the fall that all the town comes to (¢Festival of the Boots¢) and he wanted to make the campground nicer. He had also planted some elderberry bushes and fall producing golden raspberries. The plantings would all produce in the fall so the kids could run around and pick fresh fruit. We learned several techniques when planting trees. One was to spread out the roots of the tree from the root ball. While in a pot, a tree¢s roots will grow in a circle around the pot. You want to spread them out when you put the tree in the hole you¢ve dug, so the roots will grow out and not strangle itself. The second trick is called ¢mudding¢.  After spreading out the roots you start to shovel dirt in the hole then you pour in a bucket of water. You take a stick and poke into the muddy water to release the air bubbles around the roots. Otherwise air may get trapped around the roots and they¢ll dry out. We were really impressed by what we learned and enjoyed giving back to our hosts by helping out. After planting, the kids all went down to the pond for a swim. We declined the offer and instead went back to our cabin to clean up and write out a postcard to our niece, Kaitlyn. At 6pm, the horn blew 2 times to signal the evening gathering. We joined them in song, dance, discussion of the Bible, and prayer. We then all sat down for a dinner of salad and broccoli with cream sauce on a bed of rice. We often drank a delicious tea from Brazil. I would add milk (fresh from the cow) and honey (from their bee hives). We went to bed by 9pm knowing we would be leaving this peaceful and relaxing place to hit the trail in the morning.
Date: 2021-05-20
From: Stoneybrook Organic Farm

To: Stealth campsite 
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: few clouds

I forgot to mention during our first night camping in the Rollercoaster, I woke in the middle of the night to hear a pack of coyotes howling like crazy. I must have listened for half an hour just to make sure they weren¢t getting closer. Luckily they didn¢t. We had a good breakfast of quinoa and scrambled eggs mixed. It was delicious! David asked permission to take pictures and snapped a few of the wonderful people there. We waited for our ride back to the trail.  Ish came and picked us up and drove us back to Blackburn Trail Center. David cleaned out the hiker box of Starburst candy and off we went. It was .4 uphill to the trail from the center but we were rested and in good spirits so it wasn¢t bad. We got back on the AT about 10am. We finally found a campsite and it was directly across from the sign that read ¢WV-VA BORDER¢. We weren¢t very far off the trail but we were tired.We hiked 10.1 miles in about 7 hours.