morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-06-10
From: Paul C. Wolfe shelter

To: Waynesboro
Miles today: 5.0
Weather: light rain

When I wake up this morning only Papa Razzi and I are still there. The others have left early. Having only five miles to hike to town this morning makes me lazy and I haven't been getting up early at all lately. Big change in my hiking rythm this last week.When Papa Razzi and I get to the visitor center the lady there kindly offers to call trail angels for a ride in to town. No one is available though. She says this is the first time that has ever happened. Just our luck! We're not worried though. There's always hitching and Papa Razzi actually has Hot Crothes' phone number. Hot Crotch is off the trail but is trail angeling and giving people rides.We're lucky, Hot Crotch is in Waynesboro and agrees to pick us up. There are a lot of hikers in town who I haven't met yet. Busy, busy, busy...After hanging out at the Quality Inn for a while we move over to the Chinese buffet where I meet 'my' group again. They're all staying at the Lutheran church hostel. It's closed up during the day but it is a cool place to hang out in the evening. There is a big t.v. and the guys have rented Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's also not expensive so I'm planning on staying there too. After visiting the library and updating my journal I go to the laundromat. After doing my load my clothes still stink and I decide to do another round. In the meantime I try to pick up my backpack that I had left at the motel. Nobody is home however. Then I discover some other hikers at the pool. Mmmmm.... pool.... I'm wearing underwear.... why not jump in? So I jump in and chat with the other hikers until I realize that I should go check on my laundry. I'm about to walk away when one of the guys who have a key to the room shows up. Yippee! I can take my pack after all. Back at the laundromat Turbo Joe has taken charge of my laundry and put it in the dryer. Nice! When it's done and still stinks we walk by the Quality Inn again. Wanna go for a swim Joe? Sure! There we go again. This is the best deal. I stay at the Lutheran hostel, showered at the motel this morning and use their pool twice ; )At the post office I pick up new shoes and a maildrop from Belcher and Navigator. Their maildrops are always special. This one contains items from previous maildrops that were planned but never sent. There is the Hawaiian outfit and the Halloween card, there are the Saint Patricks Day glasses, there is the bag of really stale tortilla chips (good til 2004) and there is still more. The best item is a book of break up letters from scorned women. I can't wait to read it. Thank you guys!!!The Monty Python movie is hilarious. Good times in Waynesboro!
Date: 2005-06-11
From: Waynesboro

To: Calf Mountain shelter
Miles today: 7.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Another lazy day today. And a twist in the hike! Again? Yep! Some hikers have been talking about aqua blazing. That means canoeing on the Shenandoah river instead of hiking through the park. The canoeing sounds like a lot of fun but I don't want to miss any stretch of trail. Stilts comes up with this brilliant idea of canoeing first then hitching back to where we get off. Brilliant!!! We decide to tag along. We're going canoeing!!!The Gypsies have planned to go through the Shenandoahs reading 'The Hobbit'. They are going to shelter hop, do short days and hang out with the Garland 5 (a family with three kids), Cuppa Joe, and whoever else is interested. Stilts and I will miss them but we'll try our best to catch up to them after the aqua blaze. We'll still see them tonight and join in for the first reading but after that we'll have to make miles to get to a good hitching spot for our aqua blaze meeting point.After breakfast and grocery shopping it is time for more swimming at the motel. I mean, we only got 7 miles to do today. Plenty time to hang around the pool some more ; )Domino and Bassline are trying to corrupt Stilts however and want him to take two more zeros so we can all leave together. Thankfully Stilts is stronger than that and we finally get Hot Crtoch to drop us off. Back on the trail, on to Shenandoah National Park!We get our permits at the information board on the trail. With the canoe trip included it's kind of hard to know when we will be out of the Park so we just put a guesstimate on the permit. We'll see.We hike through some beautiful open fields on our way to the shelter. At the top there are some tractor seats on short metal poles in the grass. I pose for a picture on one of them but instead of sitting down gracefully I tumble over because the seat isn't fixed in place. I'll never be elegant...It's good to meet up with the rest of the group at the shelter. The Gypsies have made beautiful drawings in the register announcing the start of 'the Hobbit' readings. Different people read and it's fun. I don't have the guts to read because of the English second language thing but I'm still enjoying it.
Date: 2005-06-12
From: Calf Mountain shelter

To: Blackrock hut
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: broken clouds

When I get up most people are gone already. The Garland 5, Stilts and I are the only ones left. Where to go, where to go? Twenty miles will put us at a fee campground without our friends. Thirteen miles will offer us another Hobbit reading. Thirteen miles it is! We'll just do more tomorrow.The hike is fairly easy and I meet the Garland 5 at the first road crossing. We all score sodas from two thru hikers who get dropped off here. Yippee! I manage to pass the garbage that I forgot to throw away in Waynesboro (duh!) on to some day hikers. Saves me a lot of weight. The Garland 5 have a map of the area and when Stilts arrives we study it for a while. It seems like the road we should get to isn't 30 miles out but 40! No way we're going to make it there in time. I guess we'll hitch from the Skyline drive tomorrow. The rest of the day I keep leapfrogging with the Garland 5 and I meet up with Stilts and Touk later in the day. I'm a little down after lunch. I'm missing people that I wish were out here with me.The deer in the park are really tame and you can walk up really closely. I try to get myself in a better mood and do a little music therapy (singing along with my MP3 very loudly). I'm going really slow now. Crazy Legs catches up to me. He's doing a slackpack and talks about Trailmagic at the road where Phoenix Rising will pick him up. I decide to hang out and chat for a while. I only have a couple miles to go the shelter anyways and Trailmagic always sounds good. He has Hot Crotches' phone number and I call him to find out about a possible ride if we get stuck tomorrow. When I talk to him I find out that I'm really ill prepared for this phone call. Where am I? Uhh... dunno. What mile marker? Uhh... No guide book handy... What shelter am I headed for? Uhh... The second shelter after Waynesboro. What mile marker will I start hitching from? Uhh... We conclude that I can call him back in the morning if we can't get a ride before 9:30am. I hope it won't be necessary but it's good to have a back up plan. I have no idea how busy the Skyline Drive will be on a monday morning.I finally make it to the shelter. They wondered what took me so long. Oh well, low energy and sad mood.I did bring some of the trailmagic to share. Crystal light lemonade powder. It is appreciated by most.A good reading of the Hobbit follows. I even have the courage to participate and it's fun!I'll miss the readings but the aqua blazing should be worth it.
Date: 2005-06-14
From: Aqua Blaze

To: Aqua Blaze Day 2
Miles today: 0.0

According to the itinerary we should do 21 miles today. Most of us are doing the aqua blaze instead of hiking and want to get as far as possible on the water so we make an effort to stick to the schedule. It is really hot though and the water is really shallow and slow. This means lots of paddling in the sun. This is tiring!Add to this two difficult portages. For the record, I am useless for portaging a canoe. I can't get a grip on the handhold so I keep dropping it. Poor Stilts I'm sure he would be with a strong manly canoeing partner (or maybe not...) but I digress. The second portage is at a dam where there really isn't any path for us or the canoes. It is a rocky stretch on the left bank and stairs on the right bank. Since the canoes are rentals and we've already scratched the paint many a times while hitting rock bottom (ha ha) we don't worry about them too much it just is a lot of hard work to get them back in the water. While I let the guys take care of that I'm getting our water supply replenished. There is a faucet on a small building off to the side but when Anchor and I start filling our water a man comes out of nearby house and offers us nice cool filtered water. Nice!!! So I get to stay in a nice cool kitchen filling up water bottles while the guys are dealing with the boats in the! heat... How smart am I? ; )We are all pretty tired after this long day. Isn't this aqua blazing supposed to fun and easy? Are we doing something wrong here? It's even harder than hiking! By the way, there was another impressive canoe accident today. Apparently Anchor and Pilgrim got stuck on a rock. Their boat wrapped around but they were able to pop everything back in place. There is now a huge fold/crack on the side and bottom of their canoe but it still floats. Quite amazing really.I mean, wasn't this supposed to be a walk in the park?
Date: 2005-06-15
From: Aqua Blaze Day 2

To: Aqua Blaze Day 3
Miles today: 0.0

John from Down River Canoe takes some of us to go grocery shopping in the morning. I get to experience the joy of buying beer for the first time in my life (I thought I would give back to the community ya know ; ). Since I'm boring and don't drink or smoke I get some sodas and juice for myself. There's also food and coffee. Yum!Once back at the river we get all our shit together and presto we're off again! After the long ass day yesterday we decide that we're going to take it easy today. Most of the day is spent in a flottilla. Often four outof the six boats are hanging on to each other. This is especially interesting when we encounter rapids and/or get stuck on rocks. There is also canoe polo. Two beach balls are tossed in the air and passed around via paddles. Lots of backpaddling is involved but it is great silly fun.At some point we are all holding on to each others boats and 10 year old Oblivious is pulling the whole float. We think Motor would be a good river name for him ; )There is much excitement when we encounter a great rope swing. It is attached to a big strong branch high up in the air. They've put much thought in this one. Wooden steps are attached to the tree and a rope is knotted onto the swinging rope so we can pull it towards us. It is really high though and I when I first climb up the tree I'm pretty freaked out. I'm determined to do it though and peer pressure is pretty fierce so I finally take the plunge. Yahoo!!!It takes me two more times to actually get a good swing going and not just crash in the water. From then on it starts to really be fun. Anchor should have some pictures up on her journal some time. Definitely the coolest rope swing I've ever done!!!We have trouble leaving this sweet spot but there are more miles to be done and a class two rapid at the end of the day. We unload our boat before the rapid because the campground wraps around and this way we're sure none of our stuff will get lost or ruined. The unloading turns out to be a waste of time because the rapid is actually pretty tame. Fun but nothing dangerous. The campground is at a nice spot. Big rock face surrounding the water and a nice grassy field to set up. John stops by again so we can go grocery shopping and some others hitch to Mac Donalds and get lots of burgers. Good times!
Date: 2005-06-16
From: Aqua Blaze Day 3

To: Aqua Blaze Day 4
Miles today: 0.0

Aqua blaze day 4, 11 milesThe sun burns hot when we get up. Breakfast is enjoyed, tents are broken up and off we go again. Another short day is planned and we continue doing what we did yesterday. Floating down the river, chatting and hanging on to each others boats. Domino and Stilts do some good fishing. Small fish but lots of them.Lazy, lazy, lazy that's what it's all about...
Date: 2005-06-17
From: Aqua Blaze Day 4

To: Aqua Blaze Day 5
Miles today: 0.0

Day 5. 9 milesWe have til to 2pm today before they come and pick us up. Yesterday we decided that we wanted to continue the lazy routine that we had so wisely chosen after day 2 so we only have 9 miles to go. Nice!We basically repeat what we have been doing the last two days. Floating, getting stuck on rocks, drinking beer and soda, eating potato chips, letting Oblivious pull six boats... Life is good!After the pick up we reunite with the other hikers. They have taken it real easy. Some of them barely made it to the outfitter. It's hard to say goodbye to all our friends as we split off to different places on the trail. Some will continue from Front Royal, some will go back south and pick up where they got off.Stilts, Domino, TDS and I join Hot Crotch and get shuttled to Shenandoah where the he left his car. We all go back to Waynesboro to resupply, sleep and do laundry.
Date: 2005-06-18
From: Aqua Blaze Day 5

To: Pinefield shelter
Miles today: 12.5

Since the guys went out drinking last night and I was updating my journal none of the chores got done. It doesn't look like we'll get out of town early today. Indeed Stilts and I don't get back out on the trail til 4pm. We still make it to the shelter with some daylight left. Twelve and a half miles after 4 pm, not bad.I like Gypsy Lulu's quote in the register so here it is:"Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent living long enough, from now on I'll be mad." -Rumi
Date: 2005-06-19
From: Pinefield shelter

To: Hazeltop
Miles today: 24.0

Hazeltop, Campsite, 24 milesIn conversation with other hikers Stilts had mentioned that he was going to go as far as he could today. Since I don't want to be left behind I get up early today. We've talked about doing a 30 mile day but we'll see what happens. I leave around 6:45am. Haven't done that in a while.Badger is the only other person up at this hour and we hike out together. I lose him at the first uphill of course but meet him again at a rare viewpoint. He saves my sanity by giving me batteries for my MP3 player. Now that's real trailmagic for ya! I mean, between the frustration of struggling with the apparently easy terrain of the Shenandoahs and trying to do the big miles I really need my musical therapy. The humidity and heat don't make my life easier either. Some breaks and lots of miles later I have dinner at a campground and get to enjoy their wonderful flush toilets. The spigot is cool too. It's somehow built into a rock.I continue on to the shelter to sign the register. On my way back out Stilts finally catches up to me and we talk about doing a few more miles. I soon get very frustrated again and sit down to read a book. I don't feel like doing the 30 miles today mostly because I'm just too annoyed by the trail. Struggling up just to go down again... arrrrghh!I decide to finish the last climb and then look for a campsite. Grumble, grumble.... beautiful campsite.... yippee! No more hiking today! I set up my tent and later Badger joins me. We enjoy a nice sunset together and it's time for bed.
Date: 2005-06-20
From: Hazeltop

To: Thornton Gap US 211
Miles today: 22.1

Stilts never showed up at my campsite last night so I'm guessing he stayed at the shelter last night. I kind of miss his company, bummer! Theoretically he could have passed me last night but when I get to the next shelter I'm pretty sure he didn't. He usually signs the register and this one isn't signed. I'm really tired and down. Not enjoying myself at all!!! I decide to take a nap and wait for Stilts to catch up. He's taking his sweet time though. About three hours later he finally shows up and he was only four miles behind me! Apparently he had a much better day than I. He stopped at a Wayside to get a burger. I wish I would have thought of that. Oh well...It's not until 5pm that we leave the shelter. I mean there was the fixing of the feet, the getting of the water and the chatting with Peter Pan... Fifteen miles after 5pm that will end up being a night hike again.I'm all reenergized again though. It's interesting what a change the presence of a friend can make.There is some down hill cruising and the miles go by fast. I meet up with Stilts again for a short dinner break but leave about ten minutes behind him. The last down hill before the shelter is really long and rocky. Not quite the smooth sailing I was hoping for. I'm not worried though I'll probably make it to the shelter before 11pm. Two hours of night hiking is about the maximum I like to do. Things take a different turn however when my headlamp dies. I yell out to Stilts hoping that he is still within hearing distance. He's not. Eventhough there is a full moon tonight it's still really dark. The canopy blocks the light. Mmmm... this is not good. I squeeze the last juice out of the batteries by keeping the headlamp switch tightly pressed and luckily make it to the road. It's open enough that I can use the full moon and set up camp. Setting up camp consists of finding a flat spot not too close to the road but close enough to take advantage of the moon. I really don't set anything up. I just throw down my Tyvek and other stuff and hope that it won't rain tonight. Here I am, stranded one mile from the shelter. Extra batteries. Now those would have been nice to have. Maybe I'll get smart some day...
Date: 2005-06-21
From: Thornton Gap US 211

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

I haven't written any full journal entries from the 21st til the 28th. They will appear some day.In short, we make it to Harpers Ferry, spend a day with my friends near Washington D.C., catch up with the Gypsies and the Garland Five.Check back later. I'll probably will spend the rest of today (July 11th) doing my homework... errr... writing my journal ; )
Date: 2005-06-29
From: Pennsylvania

To: Deer Lick Shelters
Miles today: 4.7
Weather: light rain

What do you do when it rains and you're in a town without a place to stay? Mmmm... how about hanging out at the Goodwill? Guess where I'm writing this entry? Indeed at the Goodwill near Waynesboro PA. Stilts is lazy in a relaxing chair, Touk is typing her journal, Lulu is tuning musical instruments and Sunshine is using the pay phone outside. It's quite a nice set-up here. The kitchen tables are nicely decorated with plastic fruit and everything. I'm loving it.Today started out like just any other hiking day. I mean, we staged battle scenes at the Mason Dixon line, hiked about three miles and hitched into town. Nothing special really. We were supposed to go in, do laundry, eat, resupply and hitch right back to the trail. Of course that didn't happen. But this time it's not because we were lazy.Sunshine is having a bad reaction to a bee sting she had in the morning and is now looking for treatment. There could be worse places to hang out than the Goodwill really. The laundromat and the supermarket weren't bad either. Although the airco in the supermarket was a bit on the chilly side. Then again it did have restrooms. Hours later:We've moved out of the Goodwill and are now loitering on the sidewalk in front of the store. The weather cleared, then it rained some more. Finally after 8pm Sunshine and Lulu come back mission accomplished. Yippee! It's safe to leave town now. We better hurry getting a hitch because it's almost dark now.Stilts very smoothly yogis a ride at the gas station. We all congratulate him on a job well done. Then we realize that we're not going the right way. Oops! This car is headed to the park where we had dinner last night. Time to look for another ride!It doesn't take too long to get another hitch and we're back on the trail. It's after 9pm but we're back on the trail, no complaints from me. We night hike to the first shelter where we try to be quiet. There are actually two small shelters next to each other and one of them only has one person in it so most of us fit in there. Ahhh.... sleep!!! Lovely!
Date: 2005-06-30
From: Deer Lick Shelters

To: Birch Run Shelters
Miles today: 23.2
Weather: few clouds

The goal for today is pool, pool, pool!Caledonia state park is supposed to have a nice pool and showers. We've been talking about it for quite a while now and today is the day! If yesterday had gone according to plan we would have had only three miles to go in the morning but now it's 13.5. Oh well...I hike with Stilts for a while but lose him after Tumbling Run Shelters (those uphills!). Tumbling Run has a snoring and non-snoring shelter. Funny.Peanut and Drumstick pass me while I'm sweating and trying not to overheat. Man, I'm going slow! Finally it levels out and Wagdaddy catches up. We hike and chat for a while until the first uphill then meet again at the sign to Rocky Mtn Shelters. We're joining Goat and Buffet on their lunch break. And then there are only 3.5 miles left to the State Park. The pool is crowded with locals and hikers. I'd guess in the end of the day there are about 20 hikers there. It's great! During adult swim time the hikers jump in and play ultimate frisbee.... how adult is that? The Garland 5 and Bassline are taking some time off but will get back on at some point. They will be missed.I meet a lot of new people today and all of us are pleasantly surprised when Spicy announces that his dad wants to buy everyone pizza. Yum!After pizza a couple hikers yogi left-over birthday cake. Yum! Yum!Slowly people are heading back to the trail and when I get to the first shelter it's packed. There are still spaces left but I'm on thru-hiker overload. So many people today.... I need some quiet time.The evening temperature is really pleasant and the trail is fairly level. Nice hiking!I decide to push on to the next shelter. It's around 11:30pm when I get there. I'm trying not to wake anyone up but a growling dog greats me which prompts me to say: "Who's dog is that?". Someone wakes up and calms the dog down but I decide not to push my luck. I'm sleeping on the porch. Register entry: "CDT > June-December > thru-hikers met: 15AT > June 30th > Thru-hikers met: 20No wonder I'm suffering from thru-hiker overload"