morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2003-11-26
To: waiting to dance again!
Miles today: 0.0

I want to dance, and let my body free. I want to move like a feather peacefully in a breeze. I want to move so slowly and gracefully. Letting myself free. Feeling the joy, and stretching my muscles so they move so free. As the blood flows, fulling me with the nutritions I need. I want my body and soul just run free. With out limitations without restrictions, just flowing with the glory on the freedom of movement. I want to flow and move so gracefully. i want to dance and let my body free. My post hike experience has been at a low. I'm over 1,000 miles away from my home and my friends. I'm over 1,000 away from everything I know. Yet, I'm in a new city Boulder, Colorado. A place full of new life. Plenty of dance studios,which none I can afford right now. I want to dance, for its one of my loves. Dancing in the mountains and being free. I am stepping into a new chapter in my life. I'm excited yet sad just to be excited again. I lost track of my loves and the things that are important to me. After the hike I felt like I went into hibernation. I am now starting to wake up again. Enjoying the mountains around me. Wishing I had a couple dollars to go ski one of them.Getting back into the swing of things is taking a bit longer then I expected. I still don't have a job, the market is tight here. I went on my first interview yesterday, but didn't get the job. I'm trying to not let it get me down, for I already have another lined up. It is kind of funny, my feet have grown. So now I'm walking my foot steps in something other then my old known comfortable shoes. For now I have new shoes for my new paths and ways, covering more ground with each new step. The holidays are going to be tough. My sister and tim are going sking thanksgiven and home in Connecticut for Christmass, leaving me so alone. I spent most of these past few month alone, for I think I would be used to it. But I know it will be hard this time around.Laughing Bird emailed me, for now she is in this town. It makes me feel not so lonely even though we have not met since the trail yet.
Date: 2003-11-27
From: dancing in the snow, singing in the breeze

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Thousands of miles I've traveled this past year. I just look back at what I have done this past year, and only the work WOW cames to me as I sitback now think about it and just enjoy the huge smile in my heart. The trail put me through alot of trials with myself, making me a stronger more confident person teaching me not to be so critical with myself. Who am I now? I'm Deborah, When I look in the mirror I don't see that shaved head girl named Buttercup anymore. I see a confident everyday person who has found to enjoy the simpler things in life, a simple hello and a smile. I see people on the streets, and feel their pain. I still don't have much to offer, but a smile and eyecontact, the sense of being acknowledge is wonderful and I think people forget that. After the hike I did hit bottom, but I was really lucky to have my sister who helped me stand. Becky I love you!!! and thank you. I found that in my heart I have the power to make dreams work, and make the best of what I have. Believe it or not I'm still sleeping in my sleeping bag, but I'm looking foward to getting a bed. I am still in Boulder, for I think I found a new home. This place has everything I dreamed, but I really wasn't expecting it to find its way to me. I am happy and full of smiles again. I have a great job, and now looking for a apartment. I saw one today and I just feel so excited. Excited to get settled down again, and explore a whole new range of mountains, and who knows the Colorado Trail is not that far away. Makes me wounder. Thanks you guys for letting me share my story. love, peace and happines,Buttercup 2003 GA to the whites.
Date: 2004-04-29
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

I'm just sitting here reading all the old journal entries and the new ones from the hiker class 2004. Guys best of luck. For the longest time I was confussed and a little upset that I didn't recogized the faces that looked back at me from the mirrors. I was wondering why I couldn't get back into my daily routine. Then I woke up one day and realized that I have changed so much in the way I see things. I smiled with relief. I wasn't crazy. Okay so maybe that might be taking it a little too far. It was a long adjustment from getting off the trail and finding a whole new surrounding. I miss my friends and family. Sometimes I still feel like an outsider, but the balance of trying something new usaully out ways it. Since I've been in Boulder I've slept in a igloo, climbed the largest 14,000 footer in the state in winter, skied, crosscountry skied, and snowshowed. I love it. I turned in my hiking boots and travel mostly by bicycle, I don't miss a car at this point in my life. I am glad to live with out a TV in my life, and but yes I did purchase the softest bed I could find. But I find it easy to sleep almost anywhere. I'm trading my hikingshoes for plastic boots and think I'm going to focus on mountaineering for a bit, and cycling. I am torn about traildays. I would love to reunite with everyone, but don't know if I could make ends meet. I will go by fate here. Everything happens for a reason, sometimes we might spend our life trying to figure it out, but we just have to remember to go with it and LIVE! To my next adventure! CHEERS!!!
Date: 2004-05-16
To: Trails Day
Miles today: 0.0

Trailsday!!!! I made it down to Damascus for trail days. With help from Magic Rat. I flew into New York, took a bus to Grand Central, a bus to Penn Station NY, a Train to Penn Station Newark, NJ and finally a ride from Magic to Baltimore to pick up the Laughing Bird, and drove straight down to Damascus, VA. All with just a small cat nap inbetween. This was my first trail days. And what a great time it was. It was nice to see all the hikers from last year. And meet some that I kept reading there entries in the journal entries. Drums, bomfires, waterguns, parade, and goodtimes. Thanks all for making this experence happen!
Date: 2003-03-05
To: It's almost time
Miles today: 0.0

After two years of planning, it's almost time for my younger daughter Verity ('Wee Toe') and me to start our hike on the AT. However much prep we have done, it doesn't feel enough. I'm taking a six month leave of absence from work, which my employer Standard Life was kind enough to allow, and last week got a great send off from my colleagues. I was really quite moved. People have really got behind this venture.Verity, me and the rest of the family (my wife Heather and older daughter Ashley) are having mixed feelings at the moment. Not seeing each other for possibly six months is something we are trying not to talk about, except in the most light hearted tones, but it's clearly affecting us all right now. And Wee Toe will be interrupting a steady relationship with boyfriend Elliot which will be quite hard on them both. If the hike goes well, we hope to have got into northern Virgina by early June, and to take a week out to meet up with Heather and Elliot in Wash.DC.   We'll see. Lots of hills, trials and tribulations to overcome before we get to that point.
Date: 2003-03-06
To: The night before!
Miles today: 0.0

A frantic last week of preparation before we fly out to the USA - I feel too tired to do anything now except slump in front of the TV with a beer and watch a football (soccer) game. But no, I and my more stout-hearted daughter will be at Edinburgh Airport at 5.00 am tomorrow to catch the flight to Frankfurt and from there to Atlanta. We seem fortunate that war in Iraq hasn't broken out before or even on the day we travel, as some commentators had been forecasting at one time. Wee Toe and I have been doing a last weigh in of the packs today and we're coming out a bit heavier than we intended - about 32-33 lbs each WITHOUT any food or water. I'll sign off now so we can cut back a few more ounces here or there!
Date: 2003-03-12
From: Springer Mt Shelter

To: Gooch Mt Shelter
Miles today: 14.5

Covered 7.1 miles today to get to Gooch Mountain shelter after staying at Hawk Mountain shelter last night. Yesterday morning out of Springer Mountain was gently downhill for a couple of hours and was one of the best walks I've ever taken. Large parts of it were lined with rhododendron in bud, still maybe a month away from flowering. The whole way down to the footbridge over Stover Creek was accompanied by the sound of running water. Altogether it was a fairly short day's walking, in the mid 60s and sunny, and we got to Hawk Mountain about 4pm. We decided to have our first shelter experience, along with Tom and Ken, and Jeff (from Washington state). Tom and Ken are 65 and 60 respectively, both from Maine, and are doing this for the next three months before their wives set off to Scotland on a genealogy mission. Ken, by his own admission, is a big guy who could lose a little weight and had found the day hard going. Maybe not surprising that he snored like nothing I've ever heard that night. I didn't sleep much. (Note from Carnethy Bob's wife - now he knows what it's like!)This morning we were on our way by 9.45am, our earliest yet, and did fine for an hour down to Horse Gap. Then all energy just seemed to leave me as we set about Sassafras Mountain which is almost 3,500 feet. My big problem was the heat which I learned later had hit 80f. I just died! By 12.30, on the other side at Cooper Gap, I went on strike and rested through the worst of the day's heat. After 3.00 it cooled down, I picked up, dealt with Justus Mountain and Phyllis Spur without too much distress, and reached Gooch Gap shelter shortly after 4.00pm.We decided to try the shelter again. Like Hawk Mountain, it is extremely well made with a loft and lower deck. "Wee Toe" is down below, me up top. Met Charlie from Cleveland, Ohio. A wiry chap who said he is 64 I think. Also "Kabar" (Nick Baillie) who is having big problems with his feet. Lastly, a chap called Bagbie, trail name "Spur", who immediately knew we were British from my Karrimor backpack. "Spur" is from Atlanta and takes his name from a planned 10 day hike on the AT, and, on the spur of the moment, just decided to keep on walking to do the whole thing. A good evening's chat before the shelter dwellers hit their sleeping bags by 8.30pm. The campers chatted a good deal longer.
Date: 2003-04-27
From: A Campsite somewhere 

To: Erwin, Tennessee 
Miles today: 35.1

Two and a half days of hard hiking got us to Sam's Gap early this afternoon at which time we executed a cunning plan. Instead of carrying on to the next shelter, we hitched a ride into Erwin where we are staying tonight. Leaving our backpacks in our motel, tomorrow we will get a ride back to Sam's Gap and "slack pack" the 25 AT miles to Erwin, hopefully arriving in time for dinner. The last two days have been uneventful. Wet, misty mornings gave way to quite decent walking weather in each case. The six of us have been an informal team since Hot Springs, and camped together every night. Friday night at Little Laurel Shelter, we had pitched tents, cooked, and were getting ready for bed, when a lone hiker arrived and put up his tent beside us. Inside five minutes of introducing himself, he had given me his views on our tent designs, his National Service in Germany, Marilyn Monroe, and the assassination of John F.Kennedy. All done in a completely seamless way and virtually without pause. This was "Groundhog". I learned later that he has regaled other hikers on the subject of U.F.O.s, and, I suspect, knows something about Elvis that we don't. This unnerves some hikers, his apparent strangeness added to by his slightly unusual appearance - about my age or older, greying stubble on his face, smiling demeanour, a skeletal frame (which many of the men here develop), and bottle-glass spectacles. "Groundhog" is perfectly friendly. His only "crime" is that he is an eccentric, and of course that is no crime at all. Heaven preserve them!Our last view of "Groundhog" came the next day when, as we were struggling to make the next campsite at the end of the day, he came up to us, literally ran past us before we had time to make way, and said that he "had to be somewhere before nightfall". From our maps we couldn't see any place that could explain such urgency, but anyway he was gone. Yesterday, we met up again with "Spur", our very first Trail Angel, and this time hiking with his wife, "Ready", whom we were delighted to meet. About this point, shortly before Flint Mountain, we went through the 300 mile barrier from Springer. And so today, arriving in Erwin, we headed towards Miss Janet's Hostel. Miss Janet has become a bit of a legend in the hiking community. She has three teenage daughters but still takes time to house and feed a dozen to two dozen hikers every day of the week at this time of year. Her modest wood-frame home has space for, maybe, 8 hikers, but she regularly has twice that number. People sleep on sofas, floors, and even on the verandah outside. Meals are even more crowded. When our group of six arrived, there was plainly no room for us, we would go to a nearby motel, but she was absolutely insistent that we stay to eat with them for no charge at all. Tomorrow, once she has dropped her children at school, she will run us all up to Sam's Gap for our marathon day hike.
Date: 2003-04-28
From: Sams Gap 

To: Nolichucky River, Erwin
Miles today: 24.5

This has been an exceptional day. The weather has been bright, clear, chilly to begin with, but warmed up rapidly. The morning was a gentle ascent, over 7 miles, of Big Bald (5,500ft). The spring flowers were glorious. Spring Beauties, small plants about 3-4 inches high with creamy-white flowers, covered the forest floor in absolute profusion. Looking at some of the slopes just ahead, it was like a fresh snowfall. Not so abundant, but sticking up everywhere through this blanket of white, were Trout Lillies, yellow turks-cap blooms about 6 inches tall. The most striking flowers of all were Trillium which often lined the AT pathway itself. Three rounded, heart-shaped leaves and, above them, three narrow leaf-like blooms. Sometimes these flowers were white but more commonly were a very rich burgundy colour. Quite beautiful. Towards noon, we finally emerged on the meadows at the top of Big Bald which gave us fine views of Mt. Mitchell to the east, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, and the Smokies to the south. In a sheltered spot on the summit, out of the breeze, we took a break and just let the time go by. Time we didn't really have. We still had 17 miles to do and less than 8 hours of daylight. The rest of the day was extremely hard work, but we emerged about 1,500 feet above the Nolichucky River around 7.30pm, and were down on the Erwin road by the river about half-an-hour later. We were all extremely pleased with ourselves.            We still had to go 3.5 miles to reach Erwin and started to make the walk in darkness. We hadn't gone far when a small van going the other way pulled up. The young fellow driving asked where we were going, then said he would be back shortly, and drove off. True to his word, he came back - in a larger van able to pick us all up - so, thanks to this Good Samaritan, we were back at our motel by 9.00, and looking forward to an off-trail day tomorrow.
Date: 2003-05-06
From: Roan Mountain Town

To: Dennis Cove, Tenn
Miles today: 23.5

We have passed the 400 mile barrier. The sense of triumph is tempered somewhat by the long roundabout route we have had to take from the US19 trailhead. Twenty three miles of walking took us to Dennis Cove which is only about 10 miles from Roan Mt as the crow flies. New diversions have added 6 miles to the AT in this area in the past year. Only four of those miles are documented in the current AT planning book, leaving the hiker to discover at the end of a long day that he has two more miles to do to reach the next campsite or shelter. In the hiker register at Moreland Gap Shelter (the last one before Kincora) there was plenty of bitter humour to be found. One hiker who passed through yesterday simply wrote "I'm not normally profane, but F*** The RE-ROUTE!" He spoke for all of us.At least part of this problem sems to be due to a difficult relationship between the ATC and the local population for which this region is renowned. It's said that local landowners felt they had been swindled when they sold their land to "the Government", and that they resent "the Government Road" to this day. I've seen instances where the AT trailhead at a public highway was piled with trash. But on the whole I have found Tennessee people to be very friendly towards hikers, more willing than most to give us a ride, and anxious to dispel a reputation that is very possibly overstated. But I do know many hikers will remain nervous until they reach Virginia.         The four of us have arrived today at Kincora Hostel, run by Bob and Pat Peoples. They have strong Scottish-Irish roots, and fly the Scottish saltire and Irish flag on the flagpole outside. Good news is that "Dimple Rock", "Wrong Way", "Moo" & "42" and "Foxie" are all here, taking a zero day. We may do the same. "Chafe Master" in particular looks in need of a rest. He's had energy problems all day, and took a heavy fall in our last hour of walking when I think his legs just weren't responding the way they should. When "Chafe Master" and I arrived, only one bunk was free. "Blaze", who we first met in the Smokies with his partner, "Face", immediately vacated his bunk, was insistent that I take it, and said he would sleep perfectly well on the verandah. I protested mildly but was really too tired to argue. Trail Magic!
Date: 2003-05-08
From: US321 Trailhead

To: Camp beyond Vendeventer Shelter
Miles today: 12.7

Last night nine of us went to the cinema! In nearby Elizabethtown to the "Bonnie Kate" which was showing "Anger Management" and "X-Men 2". We were the only people in either theatre. "Anger Management" stank and I fell asleep. But the important thing was that we went to the cinema, had a big tub of popcorn and soda. An evening to remember.Bob Peoples dropped "Thistle" and me back at the US321 trailhead early this morning. After an hour or so we crossed Watauga Dam, then climbed steeply up to a ridge line at about 3,500 feet overlooking Lake Watauga down to our right. We have followed the ridge all day.Watauga Dam was another product of the TVA, completed in 1948, and displaced about 700 people living along the river banks. I've read that all TVA projects displaced nearly 75,000 people from their homes. Ironic to think that many of them would be direct descendants of the families cleared from the Scottish Highlands after the Jacobite Rebellion.By mid-afternoon we were finally leaving Lake Watauga behind us, and shortly afterwards came upon a young, but full-sized, female grey deer. She stared at us from the woods with large, almond-shaped eyes of almost Disneyesque proportions. Reaching for my camera spooked her, and she took off along the hillside, clearing a fallen tree trunk with effortless grace as she did so. We decide to push on past the last shelter at Vendeventer, and have camped at a dodgy-looking spot for a 13.3 mile day all told. The biggest event in our day has come at the end.WE HAVE SEEN A BEAR! Well, "Thistle" has. I was busy hoisting our food bag shortly before dark, when "Thistle" looked back along the trail and saw the black bear, probably a young one, on the fringe. By the time I turned round, it had fled across the path and was crashing through the undergrowth and down the hillside at a rate of knots. Alright, I have HEARD a bear!
Date: 2003-05-28
From: Helvey's Mill Shelter

To: VA606 - Trent's Campground
Miles today: 16.3

We put in a big 16.3 miles today which has been one of our few completely dry days this month. Pretty uneventful, a matter of putting one's head down and watching for the white blazes. The highlight for me came this afternoon just after crossing a Forest Service road and re-entering the woods. Two red deer, a doe and her fawn, leapt across the Trail in front of me, ran into the woods a short way and then stood and stared. As I stared at them, I spotted a second fawn quite close and completely motionless, keeping two large eyes on my every move.We are at Trent's Grocery store which sits on VA606 opposite the yard of the Walker Mountain Lumber Co. on Dismal Creek. As well as resupplying here, the store serves up a very decent pizza, and provides camping facilities and a shower house. We are camped here with a few other hikers. One of these is 'Taro', a N.Carolinian whose parents are Japanese. He first walked the AT in 1988 and this is his fourth thru' hike. He has seen some changes. Then, thru' hikers were only a fraction of those doing it now, and "were more likely to be social misfits and family outcasts. Today, the AT has become a cool thing to do."Trent's Store is interesting. Hikers and lumber men seem to provide maybe half its trade. The rest comes from men dressed in fatigues and camouflage, looking as if they had stepped from the set of 'Predator'. My petition to abolish the NRA stayed firmly in my back pocket. Trent's caters for hunters and merchandise ranged from shriek owl hooters (intended to shock wild turkey into gobbling and so revealing their presence) to evil-looking animal traps.But the pizza was good.
Date: 2003-06-01
From: Pearisburg, Va.

To: Roanoke, Va.
Miles today: 0.0

It's strange how people can see the same thing in quite different ways. The 'KC Girls' came down Pearis Mt the day before us. Coming at the end of a long, gruelling day, in fading light, they found it a harrowing experience. Both 'Dimple Rock' and 'Mellow Yellow' have said they were in tears at certain points. They badly needed a roof over their heads that night and got the last available room at the Rendezvous. Our arrival in Pearisburg has brought to an end the first half of our AT adventure, for we are now on our way to Washington DC to meet Heather and 'Thistle's' boyfriend Elliot, and to take a week's R&R. I'm looking forward to seeing Heather so much. One reason we are meeting is to celebrate her 50th birthday next week, an event she seems to accept with far more grace than I did. We thought DC would be an excellent place to do our celebrating. Pearisburg turned out to be a difficult town from which to reach any bus or rail services to DC. We could find no way to get to Lynchburg to make an AMTRAK connection, and have instead reached Roanoke which is serviced by Greyhound Bus. This is thanks to April, a young woman who works at the All Sports Cafe in Pearisburg and her husband Chris, a satellite TV engineer, who very kindly drove us over here.So, for the moment, this diary is closing down, unless anything AT-related should arise, until circa 10th June, when we hope to return.