morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2016-10-22
From: past pen Mar park

To: pine knob shelter
Miles today: 17.3
Weather: overcast clouds

I was pushing for a 23 mile day to the bar .1 off trail, but Kate and cricket wanted the shelter. It's super crowded but I'm glad I lost out. Shorter day was nice and the section hikers started a great fire. We do have a 23 mile day tomorrow now into harpers ferry still so getting up early. Today was super windy and cold, no more rain though. Maryland is a lot like PA so far, rocky ridgelines and occasional views. I took zero pics today so here's one from tomorrow from the Washington monument.
Date: 2016-10-23
From: pine knob shelter

To: harpers ferry wv
Miles today: 23.1
Weather: clear sky

We got on the trail near 7am. Perhaps a record. I was loving the historical placards along the way today. First we passed the original washington monument that had a spiral walkway highlighting some of the clutch years of his life. He lived to a ripe old age for that time. Then we hit two spots on the civil war trail just filled with stuff to read. The first was the battle of fox gap, where a general from both sides were killed. My grandpa Owens always thought it was funny how if you look hard enough at the civil war sites in the north, you just might find a rebel memorial tucked away somewhere. This ste made me think of him. The union general reno had this giant tower of a gravestone surrounded by a stone fence. The Confederate had a normal sized marker just barely out of the woods off in a corner. I need to look up Maryland's deal in the whole thing because it's technically the south, but I guess the feds took it quick with the capital there and lee invaded later on in the war. Next was gath park and the war correspondents memorial. I think it was built to memorialize civil war journalists and was on some land also part of a battle. It's funny how the northern and southern historical societies are still fighting. The plaque about the CSA brigade is a different color and off in the woods somewhere.  Finally we crossed into WV and harpers ferry. Not what we were expecting. Awol makes it sound like it's a hiker town, but it is packed full of tourists. Everyone is foreign. I was glad we got a room at all. We passed a wax museum on the way to the hostel that depicts all the principals from John browns raid, which went down here. That was the abolitionist raid on the federal armory in the hopes of inciting a slave uprising. It was suppressed by none other than robert e lee. Brown was caught and hanged for treason and the whole ordeal was a catalyst for the civil war. That was when wv was still va, so I suppose I should say the war of northern aggression. It's also a really pretty town at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, so I'm not sure which makes this an international tourist hotspot. Maybe just the wax museum. The trail followed the Potomac in, and it's another beautiful mountain river kind of like the susquehanna.  In any case, the townies weren't sure why so many people were here either. The whole town had shut down by 6pm except one restaurant, and we were lucky to get some gourmet food and beer right next door.
Date: 2016-10-24
From: harpers ferry wv

To: past harpers ferry
Miles today: 4.1

Virginia! Then back to WV. I didn't realize there were multiple crossings on the wv va border, but apparently the final goodbye to WV is tomorrow. It'll give me many more occasions to sing that John denver song. Today was a bunch of town chores that took a bit longer than usual. We wanted to resupply at the Walmart in charles town 7 miles away and had to make a PO stop. On the way we stopped in to the ATC headquarters. We almost didn't but I'm glad we did. I don't think I knew it was a thing. They took our picture for their yearbook and we found out I'm sobo number 232 for the year, Kates 233. We saw a few sobo froends pics too that are within a week ahead of us. A lot of people flip flop from there since it's relatively halfway and the headquarters is a good milestone. They had some swag I wanna get. Good t shirt and a pet stuffed shelter mouse with a bandana. We talked to some really nice staff and volunteers there and they had a cool. Giant topographical 3d map of the trail laid out in a line. It's great seeing where we've been and where were going like that. Maine looks like a mountainous coastal swamp land. One of the staff guys reminded us that the difference between the mountains coming up and the mountains we've done, is that they have dirt in the south. Which I knew I guess, but didn't really get excited about it until he said it. And he also confirmed what I'd been thinking lately that for sobos, PA doesn't seem rocky enough to merit a nickname about it. For nobos thpugh, it feels like rock immersion plus it's super hot and dry when they come through. We weren't sufficiently fed and ready to leave until 4 or so out of town, and another short day tomorrow. I felt a little guilty about it earlier but now am pretty excited. There's a PATC/ATC run hostel in 16 miles that's got a sweet deal. Bunk, pizza, soda, pint of Ben and Jerry's, laundry with loner clothes, and breakfast for 30 bucks. Judging from the PATC shelters this place is prob nice too. Right now we're camped with a sobo flipper butterscotch and a few day hikers. We met butterscotch at the ATC and apparently he starts a fire every night and likes to cook desert for people. He carries eggs, butter, and a frying pan and made us all some caramel, banana fritter thing. For the fires he carries vasoline to get through the wet wood. I'd never heard of that but it works. The only thing I like more than a fire is a fire someone else makes. I got to sit on a log and play guitar for a good long while.
Date: 2016-10-25
From: past harpers ferry

To: bears den hostel
Miles today: 16.4

After drinking coffee around 5pm yesterday while hiking out of harpers ferry, I ended up not being able to sleep until well after midnight.  That was annoying at first but paid off because i got to see a great shooting star and a bear. I'd read about the orionids meteor shower going on but at its peak the moon was too bright and we were camping under too much tree cover. Last night though was super clear and luckily my hammock was set up so I had a direct view of the north of beetlegeuse where the radiation point is. So as I sat there sleepless I got to see a shooting star that streaked prob 20 degrees. A little later on our camp had a couple visitors. I heard them rustling and they avoided getting too close to us. I heard one get near where I hung my food so I shined my light on it. It stood up startled and looked at me for a sec before meandering on. It came back a bit later to inspect the food hang again but gave up. It was not the best hang by far so these guys were not smarter than your average bear. We're coming up on the expert Shenandoah bear culture though so I gotta stop half assin these hangs. Not much to report from today's hike except we are out of WV for good and in VA now for 540 some miles. This morning I realized that bringing a box of chocolate donuts for breakfast may not be feasible. I bought like 2000 calories worth thinking I'd replace my usual pop tart first meal for a few days. This morning though I just ate all of them except a few, then more later. They're just too good. We got to the bears den hostel before 5 and it was all we'd hoped. Its built like a stone castle and has a really cool vibe to it. Thetes A soda fridge right when we walked in and when the caretaker got here he put out all these leftover treats from a conference that had just left today. There's a cute dog Chang that lives here too. They had a fire going in the upstairs living room and a piano I played for a while. We then got our pizzas and pints of Ben and Jerry's and watched lock stock and two smoking barrels in the hiker lounge.
Date: 2016-10-26
From: bears den hostel

To: dicks dome shelter
Miles today: 18.2
Weather: broken clouds

This shelter is just past rod hollow shelter. And that's the truth, look it up. There's actually two shelters here, thr old dicks dome and the under construction fancy one were at. Th here's a big crew of old timers with the PATC here building it. And it looks almost finished. They had a fire raging and s picnic table so we joined them, although not sure if they liked the company. A lot of them straight up ignored direct questions and niceties but I let th hem know they're one of my favorite trail maintainers so far. the new shelter has a covered picnic patio and they're debating adding essentially a wet bar. Today we finished the roller coaster section and went through sky meadows park which had some pretty balds and fields. We were looking to do a big day but ended up slower than expected and had to night hike a bit just to get here. We were gonna go for another hour or so but I was beat and tempted by the shelter.
Date: 2016-10-28
From: front royal va

To: Compton springs
Miles today: 6.8

We're in Shenandoah national park. I'm excited. I love national parks. Mainly for the mostly unspoiled nature, but also because no hunters! Well no legal hunting at least. I hear gunshots off in thd distance, but hey its a friday night. Whattya gonna do. And it's great to be back in the mountains. We skirt around 3000 feet for a bit and then are mostly above it for the next 50 miles, at one point getting close to 4000. We just barely got into the park tonight and it already feels like the mountains. Today ended up being a mostly town day, a bit unplanned. We got breakfast on main street at a cute and packed diner, then the errands and such started piling up. First we remembered the visitor center had hiker goodie bags, so had to check those out. Then Kate found some things she had to mail off and I went back to the room. I found out the spot I needed to go to in Luray didn't have what I needed but the guy said I could go to the att store in front royal. Really glad I called ahead, that would've sucked. So it was att store followed by Walmart since now we didn't need to stop in Luray and could push further. We got an unsolicited hitch from a real nice man who wanted to take us anywhere. So back to the post office to mail off my old phone and all the accessories I didn't need. Then finally on trail at 420. Super late but I have a new working phone, we found our beloved instant Starbucks mocha packets at this Walmart, and now we can skip a resupply 9 miles off trail for one that's like .4 off. Hopefully we'll be able to make up for lost miles the next few days. I've heard the Shenandoah trail called Cadillac trail before so well see.
Date: 2016-10-29
From: Compton springs

To: Pass mountain hut
Miles today: 19.7
Weather: clear sky

Today was hot and beautiful, but the added sun had me in a salt stained shirt and exhausted by lunch. I also barely slept last night. Mostly my own fault but we also had several noisey bear friends in the area huffing at each other, inspecting our food bag hanging skills, and just generally waddling around. I managed to get up early still with Kate's help and was on the trail by 8. The Shenandoah is pretty packed on weekends with all sorts of foreign and domestic walks of life. Skyline drive and the trail follow pretty much the same path with access points everywhere. I think I might like the weekdays a little better. Everyone gets to see the beauty though, which is cool. The other not-quite-wilderness feature  I don't really mind are the wayside grills and snack shops. Awol had a few of them marked as closed already for the season, including the one we went to today which was happily still open.  Got a nice 3000 calorie lunch out of the stop. Kate's still dealing with foot issues and I had a bit of a return of some swamp ars issues with the hot weather, so we were quite the pair in the afternoon. We did pretty good on the miles though and crash landed at our first Shenandoah hut. We were expecting total mayhem being a Saturday and the crowds today, but we got the whole place to ourselves! There's a great flowing piped stream right next to the hut too. It's .2 off trail but the water and fixings I think are worth it. Apparently the park doesn't want these used by locals all the time. The rules are you have to be out for 3 or more nights and can't stay more than 2 nights at any one hut in a row. So pretty squarely aimed at not being weekend, local friendly. Unexpected, but thanks SNP. We're
Date: 2016-10-30
From: Pass mountain hut

To: Big meadows lodge
Miles today: 18.8
Weather: fog

Another hot but beautiful day.  The Shenandoah is really pretty. We had a decent amount of climbing today and lots of great views. I spent the morning fidgeting with my phone trying to get the Bengals gam Ed I need London on the radio. Even at mostly above 3000 feet I only got to listen to a couple minutes at a time. It kept me busy though and before I knew it it was lunchtime at the skyland wayside restaurant. I had given up on the broadcast an hour or so before but when I sat down at the bar they had the game on. It had gone into overtime so I got to watch a bit of it waiting for Kate. She had actually taken the wrong trail out of the shelter for like a half mile, so was behind me all morning even th hough she left earlier. I almost did the same thing but caught the blue blaze early. We hiked together most if the afternoon and went into big meadows lodge for pizza and unexpectedly, karaoke. The lady told us to put our packs outside which lately I agree to then either ignore or put somewhere else inside. It's usually their policy but with so few hikers now no one ever calls me on it there's so much space. While Kate was complying fully, she noticed I was cheating and called me out across the room, so I had to pretend not to hear her to continue with my treachery. It paid off big time though because while we were in there a torrential downpour struck unbeknownst to us and soaked her bag and shoes. She didnt have her pack cover on either and it was all literallt dripping wet, poor thing. She marched straight upstairs and got us a room at the lodge, which luckily had a blow dryer.
Date: 2016-10-31
From: Big meadows lodge

To: Hightop hut
Miles today: 20.4
Weather: overcast clouds

That rain last night really cooled things down. I went from sleeping almost naked outside my bag to now writing this under my bag because my hands are freezing. We're near the peak of Hightop mountain too, at around 3500. So that'll do it. Unfortunately we got a bit of a late start so had to night hike a bit and missed the last views from the peak. It was a really pretty sunset through the trees though. Everything is bright orange and yellow. As we were setting up our hammocks just now we heard some trouncing around getting near us. We yelled at the visitor to back off and it stopped and skunked the air. Mr skunk was kind enough to just send us a misty warning shot and go away. The thought of having to hike 40 miles and get a hitch into town while skunked...wow. we're all aline at the hut again but the log shows a bunch of friend and strangers sobos are within 4 days or closer. It'd be good to see some compadres.  There's a few from the logs that we've seen their entries for hundreds of miles, but never met. It becomes this one way conversation like meeting a famous person. It's happened the other way to me too. I'm kind of a big deal for having played banjo at the port Clinton barber shop. Nbd.  We didn't do much to celebrate Halloween, though it wasn't goose egg. This morning two ladies dressed as fairies passed us on the trail and we're handing out candy. And Kate used some leaves, branches and acorn cap to get a deer costume together for a quick pic. I got nothing.
Date: 2016-11-01
From: Hightop hut

To: Past Blackrock hut
Miles today: 22.6
Weather: overcast clouds

Black Rock mountain had a gorgeous view from a landslide boulder field to end the day. Earlier we had run into another sobo wed met in NH, Nigel Thornberry, and met a flip flopper calamity Jane, now on her sobo flop. And we were deciding whether to camp with them at Blackrock hut or press on a bit. I had been hiking with nigel amd jane for the last couple hours and was leaning towards calling it and going to the hut.  When Kate caught up though she wanted to press on. I checked the weather and it was supposed to be 10 percent followed quickly by 1 percent chance of rain all night. Right after I switched my phone off though, it started raining! So we were gonna head to the shelter. When we got to the turn off though it'd cleared up and Kate's feet were good to go. I reluctantly went along. Nigel and Jane seemed like buena gente but I gotta admit I was also tempted by the chance to get in on some beer and food. See their friend, who I also met and seems cool, is apparently the patron of their group some folks called the vacationers. I gather he's sort of yellow blazing the trail and treating the rest of his buds to trips, booze, food, etc. Super generous dude. He had been slacking them for the day actually, and only met up with us about a mile outside the shelter. But alas, it'll be good to get into town earlier tomorrow. The shelter trail would've added 0.4 miles and partying past 8pm would've meant no getting up early. So we're a couple miles closer and we'll get up a couple hours earlier. I do hope we run into them again another night. It'd be fun to have an on trail party. They were one hut ahead of us last night and apparently had decorated it with lights, balloons, had real costumes and went all out for Halloween. The first half of the day we didn't see a soul. It wasnt until we had lunch at this great babbling mountain brook did calamity jane catch up with us, followed by nigel and some section hikers all at once. It was a bit of a roller coaster of ups and downs with lots of great views and colors. There was this really weird peak too. All the trees were charred and sparse and the underbrush was thickets of purple loose-leaf, I think. It's got bright purple stalks and purple berries that hang like lanterns. It had a weird smell to it and the whole scene was kinda willy Wonka. Oh, and probably the highlight of the whole day was just an hour after I started hiking, I saw the biggest bear I've ever seen in the wild.   I was feeling a little groggy still and this woke me right up. I heard a snap and then saw this guy sprint away. Really glad he was scared of me! It ran away parallel to the trail though so I sang real loud for a while to make sure I didn't startle him again.  Well, time for sleep. While the rain passed quickly, a thick fog rolled in right after and we've got a nice, dark, damp, zero headlamp visibility thing going on. Hoping this all dries up over night.
Date: 2016-11-02
From: Past Blackrock hut

To: Waynesboro, va
Miles today: 19.5
Weather: broken clouds

We awoke this morning to a new kind of dampness. It had fortunately cleared way for a cloudy gorgeous sunset, with dry air, but last night the fog rolled in like a wet sponge. It wasnt a hypothermia inducing wetness, just a thin coat of moist on all surfaces. There's no defense. Inside and out of my tarp were the same. By the time I was on trail the annoyance had mostly subsided. Just an extra water weight until the day star could work it's magic.  Today was our last in the Shenandoah and it was HOT. Combined with a lot of young forest and fields and my face looks like I spent the day at the beach with no sunscreen. The last 5 miles were actually the most strenuous of the whole park. A small parting gift. There was an actually, albeit short, steep climb followed by rocky slate and technical ground. Compared to the last few days of dirt cushion, the struggle was real. I even had to use my hands twice! How quickly we get spoiled. While waiting for Kate at the end of the day I like to go to sleep until morning. The hiker hostels were all closed for the season so we ended up at a B&B in town. They had no laundry which was unfortunately a game changer. I wanted to just skip laundry and go into the cutesy town center to get gourmet food, craft beer, and resupply at the Kroger where we could get graeters ice cream. After the ensuing domestic squabble though, Kate of course won, and we went to the laundromat and the town's pit of despair. I was hangry by then and desperately trying to climb out of my grump. We ended up at a pizza Hut for dinner, and going to the Walmart . I was feeling very entitled and put upon, but finally broke out of it and enjoyed myself getting drunk in 3 beers, a pint of ice cream watching the world series until like midnight. Kind of embarrassing for the MLB that they're really trying to cut the game length down but the Marquee event takes 7 hours. I made it to the bottom of the ninth. It was entertaining though while I lasted
Date: 2016-11-03
From: Waynesboro, va

To: Laurel Springs gap
Miles today: 14.0

We got up to a paltry breakfast and another surly bnb owner. We met tealeaf and buckshot, another sobo couple that we've been behind and sewing in the log books forever. We had finished the tiny breakfast and we're chatting it up when this dude came out and literally told us to get out and get moving because he wasn't going to sit around and wait all day to take us back to the trail. I was like, controlling my rage, man were gonna do our thing and if it works out that you can give us a ride then great. Otherwise don't worry about. He weirdly insisted which was awkward and stressed Kate out to rush through all our chores, at the expense of an actual meal. I was packing upstairs and apparently tealeaf and buckshot went out to get fuel. He followed them outside and basically yelled at them that they didn't have time and we'd stop on the way. He then came inside and not knowing Kate was listening cursed them every which way. Make sure to never stay at the trees Inn in Waynesboro. Terrible people. I didn't get one good town meal because of that crusty curmudgeon. On the bright side tealeaf and buckshot seem like good people and we hiked with them all day. I think they're the only other preexisting couple (pretrail) that we've met, besides us. They inspired us to go to devils backbone brewery tomorrow. They apparently let you camp there for free and have a cheap hiker breakfast. They're an awkward 20 miles from waynesboro. But hey, I'll take two short days, a bunch of beer and food! It'll make up for those calories we didn't get in Waynesboro. Kate's even excited for the short days too. I think our new trail friends are a good influence . Going into towns can be stressful if we're trying not to fall too far behind in miles. The thought of doing 6 miles and then hanging out all tomorrow feels like Xmas eve. No chores, just recreating. I'm gonna play guitar for hours.