morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2014-05-14
From: Campsite just before US 421

To: Hikers Inn, Damascus
Miles today: 15.4

I got up early, but before I left everyone else was up. Acorn was in no hurry as she was waiting for some friends to catch up. I think they'll spend at least one day at Trail Days, and I plan to get through Damascus before it starts.I started slow to make sure all my body parts were warmed up and Grant soon caught up with me. We hiked together into Damascus - stopping briefly at the VA border to film him and two other hikers and me going Well... that's 3 down! - and we got bunks at the Hiker's Inn hostel. Paul and Lee are super nice and had scrubs for us to wear while they did our laundry. Grant and I hiked back down Main St in our scrubs for a late lunch at the Blue Blaze Cafe about 3:00. The owner is from Philly and specialized in Philly cheese steaks, even flying in the rolls from Philly. Grant being from Philly, and I having recently lived there, each had to order one. It was huge and delicious! However, after eating it, I felt like my body immediately absorbed it and my stomach was still empty. So I ordered a big salad with chicken, too! Yum!I then resupplied at Dollar General which was well stocked with hiker food, and bought a replacement pack cover at the outfitter, before walking back to the hostel for my clothes. About 7:00 Grant and I went to Hey Joe's, where I had the two salmon taco dinner, supplemented with a single fish taco. They had an older guitar player/singer playing and a bunch of young hikers filling up the small place. After dinner I stopped by one large group and told them how good it made an old man feel to see them having so much fun together. :-)Grant started hiking the trail on his 40th birthday, the day before I started. He is a lawyer who quit his job to hike the trail and figure out what to do next. His passion is to train and coach rowers, but he's also got some lawyering options available when he gets back. (I read between the lines he was very good at what he did.) I shared with him my Chariots of Fire inspiration, and encouraged him to also consider looking at options on how he might apply his passion for teaching and coaching in the lawyer world as well as in crew.Chariots of Fire inspiration: A couple of months before I started I was thinking about the line in the movie Chariots of Fire where Eric Liddell is explaining to his sister why running in the Olympics is important for him to do before they head off to China as missionaries. His line is "The Lord made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure." I realized that's a great line to use when considering what I should be doing: The Lord made me ______ and when I ______ I feel his pleasure. For me, for now, the blanks were "a hiker" and "hike". I'll know how to fill in the blanks for after this hike later!Tomorrow's supposed to be a rainy day, but I'll be hiking out of town to hopefully get ahead of the bunches of hikers coming in from places north and south on the trail for Trail Days. Tomorrow the vendors start setting up with the main events Friday thru Sunday. Should be fun but I'd rather take my days off further north with my Sweetie! :-)
Date: 2014-05-15
From: Hikers Inn, Damascus

To: Campsite past Whitetop Mtn Rd
Miles today: 21.2
Weather: overcast clouds

NOTE: "Trip Miles" posted at the top of each journal page is simply the difference between the mile post numbers of the spots on the AT where I ended the day and where I started the day according to the 2014 version of AWOL's AT Guide. It tells you how much of the 2085.3 miles (the official 2014 distance - it changes year to year) of the AT I've covered. It does not include extra distances hiked for going off trail to shelters, to get water, zig-zagging on the trail to avoid obstacles or to reduce the size of a step up or down, etc. or distances hiked in town for resupply, eating, etc. By taking the slightly shorter distance of the Virginia Creeper Trail, today I probably walked a little less rather than more total miles for a change.It was supposed to rain today but the heavier storms passed through before I got up. I took my time waiting for stores to open. It was clear when I walked down the street to get breakfast (egg sub sandwich and three big blueberry pancakes), buy a new pack cover at the outfitter and mail a letter at the post office. I packed up and started out of town, stopping by Subway for a bacon, egg and cheese sub, which I saved half for later!The AT out of Damascus starts by following the Virginia Creeper Trail, an old train track converted to a hike/bike trail that follows a large creek up into the mountains. It's named for the train that "crept" up the hill, not for the vine. The AT leaves this trail just out of town, but rejoins it a couple of times before heading off in a different direction about 11 miles out of town. I had read in a couple of journals how nice an alternative the Creeper Trail was so I decided to hike it. I soon remembered that the hikers whose journals I had read recommending it were southbounders (SOBOs), and hiked the Creeper Trail downhill for 11 miles. I enjoyed the trail, but found the constant uphill slope perhaps more tiring than the ups and downs of the AT where different muscles get used. But I'm glad I experienced it!After getting back on the AT I continued uphill on a somewhat rocky path in the rain. The rain stopped, I went over another mountain top (Whitetop) in the clouds, and found a nice camping spot to crawl into my tent before the rain started again. :-)
Date: 2014-05-16
From: Campsite past Whitetop Mtn Rd

To: Tentsite @ Mile 514.6
Miles today: 25.8
Weather: light rain

One of the things I was most looking forward to seeing on my hike was the wild ponies in the Grayson Highlands. The AT passes through Grayson Highlands State Park, and I had annotated on my AT guide when I would enter and when I would leave the park. I knew the ponies roamed outside the park, too, but that's where I expected my best chance of seeing them to be.I started the day with a good pace. Then the rocks started and they continued as I climbed uphill for a loooong time! It was really wearing me down! I was working hard to "consider it pure joy" but I gotta admit I was struggling to do so. I was still about two miles from the state park when I climbed through the saddle of a very large rock formation and there right in front of me were about a dozen wild ponies lazing about! (The photo at the top is looking back after I had passed through the ponies. In the upper left you can see the saddle in the rock formation over which I climbed and first spotted the ponies.) I forgot about all the rocks for a while as I just enjoyed watching the ponies for a while. There were several younguns, including one very small one. Made my day! :-) Cute!The rocks began again until I reached the state park, when the trail became more comfortable and I could pick up the pace again. All the way through the park I saw no ponies! Then, about two miles beyond the park boundary, I came across a mom and a dad pony with their offspring. Very cool! More Ponies!After a long day, I found a nice spot to set up my tent and went to bed tired but happy and content. :-)
Date: 2014-05-18
From: Relax Inn, Atkins

To: Tentsite @ Mile 561.6
Miles today: 18.9
Weather: overcast clouds

When I got up, I went over to the gas station and got a premade egg biscuit and two egg sausage biscuits for breakfast. That was not a good idea. After I went back to the motel, packed up and started hiking, those biscuits just sat in my stomach. Ugh!But it was a beautiful day and the trail started out fairly easy through woods and meadows. After a few miles, trail magic! The parents of a thru hiker, Bud, I think, drove down from Indiana to see their son and do a little trail magic. They were both decked out in Purdue clothing, so I told them about getting a degree there and later on working there. I had some fruit, a soda and some homemade oatmeal raisin cookies - yum! She put 4 more cookies in a ziplock bag for me to take with me! Good folks. Through a Pasture on a Beautiful DayAfter crossing the last meadow and starting uphill into the woods, there was some more trail magic! A cooler full of Dr Thunder sodas left by a previous thru hiker. So I had one of those. I normally try to avoid caffeine since it¢s a diuretic, but trail magic is trail magic! So my diet for the first half of the day was stale egg biscuits and sugar - took me the afternoon to recover, but I did! :-)Later in the day as I was crossing a nicely built footbridge over a large stream, I saw a 40ish man and woman standing with their dachshund at the large campsite on the other side of the stream. I made what I thought was a humorous comment about the dog probably not doing big miles with his short legs, and the man started talking about how dogs shouldn¢t do more than 6 or 7 miles a day and these young folks making their dogs hike 15 and 20 mile days are wearing out the dogs¢ paws and the dogs have to be euthanized when they get to Pennsylvania. He then asked me if I knew if there were any camp sites at the road crossing in a couple of miles - where I was planning to camp if there were - and I told him I didn¢t know, but that this looked like a great camp site! I then hiked on.When I got to the road, there were no campsites and a lot of trash where a full garbage bag had been ripped open. So I hiked on up the next mountain a ways and found a good spot to set up my tent and settle in just before it got dark.
Date: 2014-05-19
From: Tentsite @ Mile 561.6

To: Tentsite @ Mile 584.7
Miles today: 23.1
Weather: overcast clouds

I got up to another beautiful day and started hiking on up the mountain. I felt like a slug at first, probably due to yesterday¢s diet. It was a four mile hike up to the top of Chestnut Knob, but I was rewarded with a different kind of shelter sitting on the side of the bald at the top. It was a fully enclosed concrete block building with a door, two levels of nicely built bunks, and the picnic table was inside, too. I stopped for brunch.I didn¢t see any other people today until about 14 miles into my day when I stopped at Jenkins Shelter for a late lunch at 3:00. There was a couple still in their sleeping bags in the shelter, so I stayed at a distance. He was sleeping and she sat up and talked with me briefly, telling me that he was feeling sick and had slept all day. She lay back down while he continued to snore softly. I used the privy and headed on, not seeing another person all day. The privy was interesting - up the hill behind the shelter, hidden from the shelter by a small grove of rhododendron, and without any walls - just the stool part sitting on a platform. Nice and airy, though! I then hiked up and down a couple more ridges before settling in at a very nice spot on the top of a ridge with a fantastic view to the west just before the trail heads down to cross I-77. The past few days have covered an interesting part of the trail as it heads generally northwest, cutting across the ridges of mountains that lie in a northeast/southwest direction. Lots of ups and downs!I¢ve also been noticing that the northwest sides of the ridges are often quite steeper than the southeast sides, just like in the Smokies. It¢s as if the mountain ridges are waves coming in from the Atlantic and are just about to break before hitting the shore. I remember learning that the Appalachian Mountains are old, worn down mountains, but I wonder if there¢s any such thing as mountain waves in their geologic formation process?
Date: 2014-05-20
From: Tentsite @ Mile 584.7

To: Wapiti Shelter
Miles today: 29.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Another beautiful day to go for a hike and I felt good! I wanted to cover a lot of miles today so I wouldn¢t have too long a day tomorrow heading into Pearisburg. I wanted to get there early enough to get a motel room and do some resupply shopping. But I wasn¢t really shooting for 29 miles! I hiked the three miles on down the ridge and did some road walking to get across I-77, followed by a little more road walking before reentering the woods. Just before going into the woods, I met a couple of guys sitting by a fire on the side of the road and several more folks still in their sleeping bags nearby. They had all hitched into Damascus a few days ago for Trail Days, and had been dropped back off here last night. As I entered the woods, there were several camp sites along a stream and several tents set up. Much to my surprise, the last camp site was occupied by the couple with the dachshund I had met nearly 30 miles back the evening before last. We chatted briefly, she remembered me, I¢m not sure he did. I wondered how they got here - I¢m pretty sure they didn¢t pass me on the trail, and that would have been a lot more than 6 or 7 miles per day for the dog!As evening approached, the trail went through a lot of rhododendron tunnels in a relatively low area following a stream nearby. Although the sun was still up, it was already behind a ridge and it was dark along the trail and I was tired and I couldn¢t find a good camp site like I had hoped to find. Then along came Moka Pot, a tall twenty something young man to inspire me like so many other young hikers have done before. I fell in behind him and we briskly hiked the remaining couple of miles to Wapiti Shelter. When we got there, several others were already there with their tents set up and fixing dinner at the picnic table. I set up my tent and then joined them. Pockets is a young woman from Zurich, Switzerland. She started out without trekking poles and hiked with her hands in her pockets. She thereby avoided the trail name given every other young woman thru hiker from Switzerland - Swiss Miss. Hansel and Gretel were a brother and sister duo who had graduated from Virginia Tech a few years ago. I had heard about them from some Tech section hikers I had met a few days ago. I also met Stevie Wander, who had stopped by for dinner, but was going to get a couple more miles in before stopping. Two others were there whose names I don¢t remember. They all knew each other from previous encounters on the trail. Good folks, all.While we were eating and talking, another young couple showed up who everyone seemed to know. They were tired and excited about just doing a 24 mile day, their longest yet. I didn¢t want to mention my 29 mile day and spoil their excitement, but someone else at the table did, and it did put a damper on it a bit. But we all had fun and then turned in for the night!
Date: 2014-05-21
From: Wapiti Shelter

To: Pearisburg
Miles today: 17.6

I got up early and had breakfast. Having slept in the shelter, Pockets was the only other one up, and left before I did. When I got to the top of the ridge, I had good cell reception and gave Linda a call. She told me that she had talked to Flynn and Gloria last night and that they were planning to pick me up in Pearisburg this afternoon! Super duper trail magic! Flynn had sent me an email which I hadn¢t received yet due to no data coverage.So I called Flynn and made arrangements for meeting them. Flynn is a graduate and a trustee of Williamson and is a semi-retired professor at Virginia Tech, doing an online course each semester. He would stay with us in our Williamson home whenever he came up for a board meeting or other event, and Gloria would sometimes come with him. They were happy to reciprocate the hospitality! That gave me even more energy and I hustled down the trail. About 10 miles before Pearisburg, the trail crosses a dirt road that leads a half mile to the well-known and well respected Woods Hole Hostel. Like the Kinkora Hostel in NC, the distance timing wasn¢t right for me to stay there. As I got to the road, there were two young guys standing there looking at their AT Guide. They had spent the night at the hostel and were planning their stop in Pearisburg. We chatted briefly and I started up the trail uphill. Pretty soon they passed me and I fell in behind, once more being inspired to pick up my pace by some young folks. I told them about their being my inspirers and we chatted some while hiking. However, the trail soon got rocky and they seemed to pick up the pace even more as we bouldered on up to the top of the ridge. Conversation stopped! I was really having fun but was getting worn out and about to fall back when we reached the top and they stopped to check out the scenic view. I thanked them for a fun work out and headed on while they lay out in the sun on the rocks enjoying the view some more.Flynn and Gloria had a little trouble finding me, but we soon connected and they drove me to their lovely home outside of Blacksburg about an hour¢s drive away. Flynn designed the home years ago based on Gloria¢s wish list and did a wonderful job. I¢m spoiled! I took a hot shower while Gloria threw my dirty clothes in the washer and then fixed a scrumptious dinner. We sat out on the back deck looking down on the valley below while eating appetizers (what are those things - oh yeah, fresh vegetables!), salad, shish kabobs from the grill, oven roasted potatoes,¢¦ and all the while enjoying good conversation and fellowship. Then off to sleep in a cozy bed!
Date: 2014-05-22
From: Pearisburg

To: Pine Swamp Branch Shelter
Miles today: 19.3
Weather: scattered clouds

When I got up, Gloria fixed a wonderful breakfast for us and then they took me back to the trail. We stopped by the grocery store on the way so I could resupply and by a deli where I got a big sub sandwich for the trail. It was hard heading up the trail after being pampered so nicely. Thanks Flynn and Gloria! Good friends and good folks!After going over the river and through the woods for a couple of miles, I stopped to eat half of my sub. Then I headed uphill once again to get to the top of a ridge. I was struggling to keep a good pace going uphill when four young guys passed me and inspired me once again. This time I couldn¢t quite keep up their pace, but was still rejuvenated as they moved on ahead of me. I caught up with them when they stopped at the stream crossing just before the top of the ridge. They were all from Texas State University in San Marcos and were out for a section hike. We chatted some more while filling up on water, and I pressed on up to the top of the ridge.Most of the day was hiking along this ridge, so water was scarce. The West Virginia border comes down to follow along the ridge about the point where I got on top. So I hiked in and out of the two states until I descended off the ridge and back fully in Virginia on my way to the shelter, where I set up my tent and went to bed tired but feeling good.I saw more may apples in bloom today. I¢ve enjoyed seeing this plant since the beginning of my hike. It was one of the early plants to grow alongside the trail, and sometimes covered large areas off the trail, providing a leaf canopy 8 to 10 inches above the ground. I could just imagine wee leprechauns and fairies having dances and celebrating under the may flower canopy! The flower comes out on the stem below the leaves as you can see in the picture. (Early on, there were no other plants below the may apple leaves to interfere with the dance floor.) When the flowers started to bloom, I could then imagine the wee folk turning them on as lanterns and celebrating throughout the night! May Apple BlossomsHead Tunes: California Here I Come got me up the ridge today. Guess I was thinking about Sarah¢s upcoming move!
Date: 2014-05-23
From: Pine Swamp Branch Shelter

To: Laurel Creek Shelter
Miles today: 18.5
Weather: broken clouds

It was tough hiking today - lots of rocky trail which is much more tiring and tougher on the feet and knees, plus a couple of big climbs. I leapfrogged with several guys who had tented at the same shelter last night and I hiked some with AZ Cruiser whom I met today and has a similar pace. He is a younger old guy who lives in Arizona. He has his own small business and can let his son run the day to day business while he thru hikes the AT. He started from Springer just three days ahead of me, so he's been making good time, too.I was initially hoping to make it further today so I could get to Daleville Sunday evening, but had to listen to my body, especially my legs, and decided to stop about 4:30 to let them rest. There were already several folks set up at the shelter when I arrived and AZ came in right after me. I set up my tent and had dinner with several hikers and enjoyed the conversation. Then I followed the example of a father and young adult son team there, Bear Man and Skins, and went down to the stream and soaked my feet in the cold mountain water. Ooooh! My feet are now happy! :-)
Date: 2014-05-26
From: Daleville

To: Wilson Creek Shelter
Miles today: 11.2
Weather: scattered clouds

Although I got to sleep late and didn't plan to hit the trail 'til early afternoon, I was awake early. Since the HoJo breakfast started at 6:00, I went on down at about 6:30. Stevie Wander was there! After I passed him on the road yesterday he had gotten breakfast at the same grocery and went to play golf. He finished the game, but was feeling worse and worse, suspecting food poisoning from his breakfast. So he got a ride to Daleville and stayed at HoJo's. He felt good this morning but needed to get a ride back to where he left the trail yesterday. I didn't ask him how his golf game went. :-)I then went to the gas station next door for laundry soap and quarters since HoJo's didn't have either. Since there was only one working washer, which was in use, and two dryers, I washed my dirty clothes in the tub. I prewash my socks in the sink before putting them in with my other clothes - man, can they hold a lot of dirt! I then took my wet clothes to the dryer and stopped in for a second breakfast while my clothes dried! Then back to the room for a short nap. I checked out about 11 and walked down the road to resupply at Krogers, then stopped into Wendy's for way too much lunch before hiking back to the trail. This is the section of the AT where I hiked a short distance with our grandkids back in March where I took the selfie used for my "About" photo in this journal. That was a long time ago!The 5 miles to the first shelter were very tough for me - my Wendy's lunch just sat in my stomach and tried to use all my blood for digestion so my muscles had to fight for its share. As I approached the first shelter, Scout caught up with me and we took a break there and chatted for a bit. This is a different Scout than I met before and he said there are two women named Scout hiking the trail, too.The break did me well and the 5 miles to the next shelter were uneventful. When I got there, Terry and Jay were already settled in. Terry is thru hiking and just celebrated his 60th birthday last week. (I think he could easily pass for being under 50. 'Course I think most anyone under 70 looks young these days!) He's from Tennessee, so his wife joined him for his birthday, and she supported him often as he went thru NC and TN. Jay is a young man from Southern CA who is on his first day of a section hike from Daleville to Harpers Ferry. Last yearhe section hiked from Springer to Daleville. I asked him why he was hiking the AT, and he said he accidentally clicked a YouTube link to a video about the AT and was hooked. I thoroughly enjoyed them both - good folks.I had good cell coverage for a change, so I got to talk to Linda for a bit before heading to dreamland. zzzzzzz