morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2004-03-31
From: Hiawassee, GA

To: Hiawassee, GA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Apart from town business -- washing, resting, buying food, etc. -- the only interesting thing to happen today concerned a hiker called ¢Slowpoke¢ who had gone missing. I was talking to Ron in the motel office when a man from local search-and-rescue arrived with Slowpoke¢s photo. I would meet Slowpoke later in the Smokies and at other times, and hear him talk about this day. He didn't stay lost for long. During the time I knew of or heard about Slowpoke, he was having a rough time. I last saw him in the Kincora Hostel near Hampton, TN, and a week later I heard he was still there, nursing three pulled groin muscles. I would like to say a word about Hiawassee. To begin with, Bill Bryson was at the back of my mind throughout this hike. His book is certainly funny and often laughter is tied to ridicule. In remote Hiawassee, Bryson wrote, it would be fitting if your gas station attendant were a cyclops. That comment was succeeded by a riff on the movie DELIVERANCE and Appalachian inbreeding. For me, Hiawassee was a perfectly fine town, on a par with Damascus, Virginia. The people were friendly to us and otherwise sensible and civilized. With regard to towns, my greatest reservations apply to Atkins, Virginia, down I-81 from Washington, DC, and my treatment there had more to do, I suppose, with hiker burnout, and also class warfare.
Date: 2004-04-01
From: Hiawassee, GA

To: Muskrat Creek Shelter
Miles today: 11.6
Weather: scattered clouds

Ron returned Homer and me to Dicks Creek Gap. Together, Homer and I crossed the state line into North Carolina. We paused at the simple border marker long enough to have our picture taken. We pressed some other hikers into doing this. This was also my first meeting with Obelika, a younger hiker.
Date: 2004-04-02
From: Muskrat Creek Shelter

To: Carter Gap Shelter
Miles today: 12.5
Weather: overcast clouds

After our first crossing of a state line the day before, Homer and I crossed our first mountain above a mile in elevation, Standing Indian Mountain, in snowfall. I¢m not sure why I failed to photograph the snowy trail on this mountain, under a canopy of rhododendrons. We came to Standing Indian Shelter by late morning, but pushed on, stopping at Carter Gap Shelter. It was cold and crowded shelter and four of us were forced to tent in the snow. The group that stopped included ¢Wizard¢ and Nightwalker, who would leave sometime late afternoon to walk at night.
Date: 2004-04-03
From: Carter Gap Shelter

To: Rock Gap Shelter
Miles today: 12.1
Weather: few clouds

Homer and I were very congenial hikers and had been hiking together for days. Our paces were well matched, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, if I worked, I could keep up with him. He had done a lot of walking preparing for this hike and was very strong. On this day we tackled two mountains I was eager to see, because of my multiple readings of Bill Bryson¢s A Walk in the Woods. Bryson paints a dire picture of the trail at Big Butt, which he and his friend encountered in a snowstorm. Bryson and his friend managed to get off Big Butt and blue-blaze their way to Rainbow Springs Campground. I¢m sure I would not have enjoyed the ledge at Big Butt in the snow, though it was exciting to cross it in fair weather. Albert Mountain presented a rock-climbing challenge, and the view from the fire tower was wonderful. We arrived while a Boy Scout troop was resting there. One of the scout masters, commenting that there sure were a lot of thru-hikers, sounded less than happy about the fact. Well, it¢s competition for resources, which is the condition everywhere in the world today, it seems.I intended to spend most of the next day at Rainbow Springs Campground and Homer was meeting a friend who would put him up for the night. We both stayed at Rock Gap Shelter, near Wallace Gap, so that we would come early to our different destinations. Camping near a town goal and arriving the next morning was a common strategy. We pitched our tarps beside the shelter where Wizard and ¢Meanderthal¢ were staying while Obelika pitched his tent to the other side of the shelter. I got my first taste of ¢trail magic¢ when a women arrived with her son dispensing brownies. We each took a brownie and the rest were hoisted up in a plastic bag on the bear cables for others she expected to pass through. During the night under a bright moon the high winds knocked down one of the trekking poles serving me as a tent pole and I just left it. The shelter, the rock wall, and the pitch of the mountain side had placed me effectively in a wind tunnel.
Date: 2004-04-04
From: Rock Gap Shelter

To: Wallace Gap
Miles today: 0.7

Homer and I parted at Wallace Gap, where I set off on the short walk to Rainbow Springs Campground. I arrived early and was soon cleaned up and installed in the hikers' yurt. By afternoon I was bored and ready to walk on, but had paid for the night. I watched some blue-wing olive mayflies and gray caddis rise in the creek for about two hours. I thought I would use occasions like these to train myself to spot trout, but never got any good at it. I liked Rainbow Springs Campground. The only problem was that the plastic material comprising the sleeping surface on bunks squeaked when one moved, which made every change of position a disturbance to others. Because we all had sore knees or other aches, we were all shifting throughout the night, so this squeaking posed a problem. I ended up sleeping on the floor. I believe this was where I met Archyopterix for the first time. Archyopterix had already thru-hiked the trail and had a lot of experience with the Long Trail in New England. He had established himself in New Zealand and anticipated citizenship status there when he returned. I would learn important things from Archyopterix. His philosophy of hiking pain was most useful. He helped me to see that a pain could be annoying without being incapacitating, and that, in fact, no hiker was ever free from pain. By accepting pain, I would be careful but not coddle myself, as I might otherwise be inclined to do.
Date: 2004-04-05
From: Wallace Gap

To: Split Whiteoak Gap
Miles today: 15.4

I got out of the yurt before dawn and walked the mile back to the trail. Later, crossing Route 64 at Winding Stair Gap, I heard Homer coming in after being dropped off by his friend. I waited for Homer to walk the hundred yards through the rhododendrons to where I was seated on a log munching trail mix. We were happy to see each other and set off together.As it turned out, the day could have gone better. We climbed Wayah Bald and got our first real view of the Smokies, especially Clingman¢s Dome. They were only some twenty miles as the crow flies, but we still had a distance to go before taking them on. I had hiked three miles before Homer got started, so he was a fresher. This was the day I learned there might be times when I could not keep up. Some weeks later, when High Trailer was pulling me along (reminding me of a time in the Chesapeake Bay when, clinging to a rope, I was pulled along by a boat), I simply stopped. High Trailer waited for me, but he needn¢t have, and I should have let Homer go on, instead of wearing myself out trying to keep up with him.During the day we crossed our first ¢bald,¢ Silers Bald, and Wizard and Meanderthal arrived as we were taking pictures.We camped far from water at Split Oak Gap after a long day. We camped with Eric, whom we had seen earlier in the day on Wayah Bald, and with Tree Frog, an older hiker and great friend of Homer¢s, who was a wonder because he kept up with the strongest of the younger hikers. His strength was long steady hiking rather than speed.
Date: 2004-04-06
From: Split Whiteoak Gap

To: Charles Morgan Shelter
Miles today: 14.2

I left our camp at 8:00 a.m. and by 4:00 had made it to Morgan Shelter near the Nantahalla Outdoor Center in Wesser, NC. It was important to me that I made the hike today in boots rather than in sandals. I had put the sandals on on Springer and blister problems had forced me to use them more than the boots. I would walk in the boots for about two or three hours and then switch to the sandals when my left heel started to hurt. I knew, however, that this practice was only possible because the weather had remained so dry. You cannot wear sandals in the rain, at least not with socks, and I anticipated rain and snow in the Smokies. Because I was nearing the Smokies, I was pushing harder with the boots. The left heel continued to blister, but I continued to treat the heel with moleskin or duct tape. The day¢s hike took me through a burned area, the first such area I had encountered. During the day I met ¢Dave,¢ a section-hiking trucker, who later camped at the stream below the Morgan Shelter, where I spent the night. I believe this was the day I again talked to Archyopterix, who was preaching the virtues of heavy leather boots, with good toe protection. His $350 German boots were tougher than my Vasques, which were already lacerated at the toes from some nasty scree on Jebel Qattara near Buraimi, Oman.At Morgan Shelter I met ¢Joanne,¢ a Californian who was ¢sampling¢ the AT. She was hiking some parts and skipping others. Over some protest, Joanne made me tea and we talked until another woman, ¢Walksalot,¢ arrived. Tree Frog and ¢Light Foot¢ arrived later. Homer did not arrive and I was not to see Homer again. He did e-mail me to say he had gotten off the trail. I was sorry, because he was strong enough to do the AT and I hope he resumes his hike sometime in the future.
Date: 2004-04-07
From: Charles Morgan Shelter

To: Locust Cove Gap
Miles today: 11.3
Weather: overcast clouds

I was at ¢NOC¢ (the Nantahala Outdoor Center) by 8:00 a.m., tying up the public phone talking to Lee. I then reserved a place at the Fontana Village hotel since I couldn¢t get into the Hike Inn. In the store I bought some food, a stuff sack for my stove, and a bandana and then walked across the foot bridge to a bench where I ate my Pop Tarts and drank my big Coke beide the Nantahala River. Soon I was walking out of the valley and passing some other hikers. The trail kept going up. I found a mitten on the trail which I picked up to carry along. The mitten, I learned later from the Sassafras Gap Shelter register, belonged to Lonesome Dove. Cheoah Bald required a strenuous climb but was worth the effort. For some reason I was already looking at Cheoah Bald as a possible stopping point, but I was low on water and so was forced to continue on to Locust Cove Gap, where water could be found down a blue-blaze trail. One hiker I passed on the way down looked like a Rastafarian. Certainly, the hiker world needs more diversity. That night I pitched my tarp at Locust Cove Gap.
Date: 2004-04-08
From: Locust Cove Gap

To: Cable Gap Shelter
Miles today: 11.6
Weather: overcast clouds

I arrived at Stecoah Gap at NC 143 and ate an energy bar. I thought I had seen the smoke from a forest fire the day before, and here people had gotten out of their cars to watch the smoke billow some miles away. I looked at this too, then crossed the road and began my ascent. I soon was putting on the pack cover and rain gear. The ascent began gently enough in a long diagonal. Before the trail was through, however, it was going up at a steep straight incline. By now I had become conditioned to steep climbs and often did not require rest stops. But I did on this ascent. I was at this point still what ¢Rick¢ called ¢a breather,¢ someone who treated every step as a weight lifter treats a heavy press. I learned from hikers like High Trailer that you can stop breathing hard and just walk slowly and deliberately. With the right conditioning, and a little time, I found I could walk up almost anything without heavy breathing. But I was not going straight up this incline without stopping. Eventually, I arrived at Cable Gap Shelter, which put me 5.5 miles from Fontana Dam, which I would reach early the next morning. I talked at length with a white-haired hiker named Pokey Pete. Soon ¢Nitro¢ and his friend arrived, whom I had passed earlier in the day. Then Wizard and Meanderthal, the two Maine men (they were walking home) arrived and Wizard pitched his tent and Meanderthal pitched his hammock.
Date: 2004-04-09
From: Cable Gap Shelter

To: Fontana Dam, NC
Miles today: 5.5
Weather: clear sky

After a five-mile walk, I arrived at the boat dock at Fontana Dam just as the shuttle woman was dropping off some people and she drove me into the Fontana Village complex and gave me a little orientation. I met High Trailer in the laundromat and I got onto my soap box about something. Considering we would walk together some later, I guess I didn't offend High Trailer too much.Wizard and Meanderthral walked in on that one. I had a short greeting with Saltlick, Catdog, and Lonesome Dove, the last of these busily typing away on her PDA. Lee had put John McPhee¢s The Founding Fish in my drop box and I went to work reading that. This is McPhee¢s book on shad, a species he fishes for avidly. Although a fisherman, I don¢t encounter shad, and anyway I found this topic a little less engaging than McPhee¢s Pulitzer-Prize-winning tome Annals of the Former World, which takes on all of North American geology. I had read the geology book several times in the UAE when I wasn¢t rereading Bryson. The upshot of McPhee¢s treatment of the Appalachians was that they were a mish-mash, a point borne out by V. Collins Chew¢s treatment of rocks along the AT in Underfoot: A Geological Guide to the Appalachian Trail.
Date: 2004-04-11
From: Fontana Dam, NC

To: Mollies Field Shelter
Miles today: 12.3

There was time when I thought I would take a trout-fishing hiatus in the Smoky Mountains. I had identified all the major stems and branches that make up the park's trout fishery. The streams are known to hikers mainly as the names of side trails: ¢Forney Creek Trail,¢ etc. I wasted a lot of time exploring these streams textually before learning, first, that they are all closed a mile downstream from the ridge the AT runs along to protect the brook trout and, second, that the regulations and the logistics of thru-hiking the Smokies made a trout-fishing digression very difficult. Getting through the Smokies, with its famous foul weather, was strenuous enough.I hiked on early today, Easter Sunday, for my initial assault on the Smokies. I met Eric near the Fontana Hilton and we walked across the dam together. At the near side were a pair or trio of hikers who were watching the weather apprehensively. Eric and I seemed to share the attitude that the Smokies were not going to be particularly fun weatherwise and that the thing to do was just to get it over with. It was an exhausting climb, with seven days¢ food in my food bag. In the fog, it was Hawk Mountain all over again. I thought I¢d die before I came to the shelter. The other climbers ¢ Eric, Matt and Jill, and Hawk -- all passed me and I arrived fifth at Mollies Field Shelter. Wizard and Meanderthal were the sixth and seventh. I stupidly erected my tarp in anticipation of a crowd of day hikers who never, of course, appeared. To explain: only four spaces in any shelter in the park were reserved for thru-hikers ("thru-hiker," in this context, referring to someone who began hiking the AT fifty miles, either from the north or the south, before entering the park). The rest, at least potentially, were reserved for a fee to short-term hikers. That meant there was always the potential that some thru-hikers would be displaced. In practice, thru-hikers could tent when the weather was good and could expect humane treatment, if crowded conditions, from those in the shelter when the weather was bad. I did not see anyone tenting in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.So my tarp spent the night in the rain and wind while I slept in the shelter.
Date: 2004-04-12
From: Mollies Field Shelter

To: Derrick Knob Shelter
Miles today: 11.7
Weather: moderate rain

Meanderthal observed in the morning that my tarp was still there and I mentioned feeling like Francis Scott Key. We all had a miserable wet hike to Derick Knob Shelter, where the Mollies Field Shelter group pretty much reconvened. The walk over Thunderhead Mountain was particularly exciting, with the winds and the fog. It was my first encounter with high-elevation balds and bad weather. Lying in the shelter, we listened to the tremendous winds and torrents of rain, which lasted most of the night.
Date: 2004-04-13
From: Derrick Knob Shelter

To: Double Spring Gap Shelter
Miles today: 7.2
Weather: light rain

Nobody was moving early today, though I was first out at 8:45. The rain eventually stopped and the drizzle was spotty. I arrived at Double Spring Gap Shelter at 12:30, followed 30 minutes later by three others. This trio appeared to consist of a very young couple and the father of one of them. By nightfall the shelter was cozily packed and the weather had changed to snow.
Date: 2004-04-14
From: Double Spring Gap Shelter

To: Mt. Collins Shelter
Miles today: 6.3
Weather: light snow

This was to be the day we crossed Clingman¢s Dome. When I got to the sign for Clingman¢s Dome, Wizard, Meanderthal, and Didi were photographing one another. This was the second time I was misdirected at a sign by the presence of people. I took a lower route for half a mile until I realized my mistake. I was able to climb up to the parking area and then to climb further to the observation tower, where I met Hawk It turned out to be a short day, mostly because of my own indecision. The snow had ceased falling but I was pretty wet with the snow that had been dumped on me from the pine boughs in the very tight trail. I refused to go to Gatlinsburg, which I considered a Brysonian cop-out, and anyway Hawk thought that the road would be closed at Newfound Gap and rides hard to get. I put on my fleece jacket at Mt. Collins Shelter to try to dry out my clothes. It was a cold three or four hours as I did this. I burned everything trying to start a fire and, with no better luck, to succeed where a predecessor had failed. I stayed in this shelter alone, so I had the full attention of the shelter¢s mice, bringing on what I came to call a ¢Willard event.¢ A Willard event takes place precisely at dark when six mice, from six different points on the sleeping platform, make a simultaneous beeline for your head.Some say that one achieves understanding through suffering and, in suffering the cold and loneliness at Mt. Collins, I finally understood that ¢Patapsco¢ should be my trail name. It was a pretty lousy choice because people had trouble hearing it or remembering it. It meant nothing to them. My brothers, who joined me for the hike over Roan High Knob, liked the name, however. The Patapsco River is the river my brother Steve lives on and it was our main destination when my brother Greg, or my friend Craig, and I went smallmouth bass fishing.
Date: 2004-04-15
From: Mt. Collins Shelter

To: Pecks Corner Shelter
Miles today: 14.9
Weather: clear sky

By 11:00 I had arrived at Newfound Gap, which was crowded with cars and people. I immediately met Hi-Trailer, who was headed south up to Clingman¢s Dome. He had accepted a ride off the mountain to Gatlinsburg earlier and was completing this section. It was a clear, sunny, sloppy day. I met Slowpoke, whom I recognized as the lost hiker they were searching for near Hiawassee down in Georgia. I told him my trail name, ¢Patapsco,¢ which Slowpoke, a Baltimorean, recognized immediately: ¢My father used to take me fishing on the Patapsco.¢ We talked for some time, but he was hiking slowly, and I went on ahead, and passed ¢Trail Dog¢ in the process. Hiking the ridges in the northern part of the Smokies was exciting because these ridges can be very narrow in places, with cliffs off to either side. Not that you felt in any danger, as you did a little on Big Butt earlier on. We took a long trail down to the shelter. A congenial group assembled at Peck¢s Corner Shelter, including Slowpoke, Trail Dog, Mo Juice, Beagle, Jim and Friend, Brandon, Palm Tree, and Pete and his father Joe. I made dinner with Mo Juice and Beagle, two women I was to meet frequently during the rest of the hike, as far as mine went. Palm Tree was also on hand, and him too I would see frequently. Palm Tree was a retired CPA and ¢iron man¢ from Florida who had an impressive athletic record.
Date: 2004-04-16
From: Pecks Corner Shelter

To: Davenport Gap Shelter
Miles today: 20.0
Weather: broken clouds

I had intended a 13-mile day but did my first 20-mile day getting the hell out of the Smokies. It was a morning of sightings: grouse in the trail, flushed grouse, reddish tree squirrels, a weasel, and, from a great distance, the French Broad River. Pete, a strong and experienced hiker, passed me at Cosby Knob, but I had already determined to push on for Davenport Gap. Pete¢s progress was constrained by his father's, Joe, who was hiking with him, if not beside him. I walked on into the afternoon. I came at one point to some horses parked in a clearing and very politely worked my way through the crowd, hoping not to get kicked. I did not see that the horses were tied to the signage, so could not know that I was being allowed to walk half a mile up a side trail. I charged back and stampeded one horse getting back on the AT. I collapsed at Davenport Gap Shelter, some two miles from Davenport Gap proper. ¢Rock Solid,¢ a young guy with knee issues who had slackpacked from Newfound Gap to Davenport Gap, put his head in.
Date: 2004-04-17
From: Davenport Gap Shelter

To: Davenport Gap
Miles today: 0.9
Weather: clear sky

While everyone else had gone to the Standing Bear hostel, I walked down to Mountain Mama¢s and had the dilapidated place to myself. The bunkhouses were a number of small cabins with two-by-four platform beds. There were two large friendly dogs tied to two of the porches. Abigail, a smaller dog, ran free. I was told not to leave anything leather outside the cabin, because some dog, perhaps Abigail, liked to chew things up. The cabin area was adjacent to a large covered hangar containing a truck and an antique car. The place had the disorder I associated with rural places, though not with commercial establishments. I made my calls to Lee seated on a folding chair on the front stoop of the store where the pay phone was located. Abigail hung pretty close, and ¢Ugly,¢ a cat with rather shaky tenure on these premises, insisted on curling up in my lap as I sat and talked. I suppose this was my most sustained encounter with ¢Appalachia,¢ though the feel did not diverge much from that of rural Maryland, where I grew up.My laundry was done by 11. I spent a lot of time looking at the Big Creek flow past the establishment. The river was high and fast and I couldn¢t get too close because the land was posted. By 4:30 I was eating dinner with Wizard, who had come over the check the place out and I left him on the phone.
Date: 2004-04-18
From: Davenport Gap

To: Brown Gap
Miles today: 12.5

After a long talk with Lee, I let ¢Mama¢ drive me back up to the trail. This was a Sunday and my forty-eighth birthday. The early walk was along a beautiful creek with long cascades. I then crossed Route 40 after refusing a dayhiker¢s offer of a muffin. I had some trouble following the blazes but I was soon back on a mountain, making the long ascent. In the process I passed Mo Juice and Beagle. Eventually I came over Wildcat Mountain with its communication tower that looks like the nose cone of an intercontinental ballastic missile. I ended up at Brown¢s Gap with Slowpoke, Pete, Brandon, Trail Dog, and Joe, all of whom I had met earlier in the day during a pause at Groundhog Creek Shelter. ¢Stands with Fist¢ arrived later.