morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2018-09-22
From: Roan Mt, TN

To: Roan High Knob Shelter
Miles today: 14.8
Weather: scattered clouds

The dudes were long gone by the time I got up and going this morning. Today was mostly uphill. And the guidebook gone and fucked up bad. It said the hike up Hump Mt was only 3 miles, but it was actually 5.5!! When you think you¢ve reached the top, but then realize you¢re only halfway... it¢s a real buzzkill!!Hump Mt was pretty cool though. It had a bald knob on top for like a mile! There was actually several miles of exposed trail today. No trees, just elbow high grasslands. You got a 360 view of all the surrounding mountains and valleys. Made me kind of reminiscent of New Hampshire. Super glad today had nice weather. It was supposed to rain, but it never came - at least not on my side of the mountain. It would have been a nightmare hiking today¢s trail in a thunderstorm. #BeenThereDoneThatToday I had lunch at an old red barn that trail maintainers have converted into a shelter. Mr Bob Peoples told me that the barn is gonna have to be torn down soon because it¢s leaning a lot and will become a safety hazard. So with its demise on the horizon, I did the 0.3 mile trek downhill to check it out. It¢s was a shelter with a view, which is pretty rare! And like a lot of people were hanging out there. There was actually like tons of people everywhere on trail today. I guess the Roan Mt area is a hotspot on the weekends. The AT also had a lot of junctions today with other trails and some roads, so that doesn¢t help. But it was pretty overwhelming. Like to go from barely seeing one person a day to dozens and dozens of Boy Scouts, weekend warriors, sectioners, lots of people in blue jeans... it was kinda insane. Like I actually had to meander way off into the woods to go the bathroom instead of peeing right next to the trail. LolTonight¢s shelter is pretty dope. It¢s a fully enclosed, two-story cabin type shelter. And it happens to be the highest shelter (in elevation) on the whole AT, sitting up at 6,186 ft. I¢ve only seen like 4-5 of these cabin-type shelters on the trail, but once again I have it all to myself! There¢s actually a Boy Scout group here tonight, but they were polite enough to set up all their tents and not hog the shelter. One of the dads/troop leaders seemed to be absolutely fascinated with my hike, so I got to play ¢thruhiker celebrity¢ for the evening and answer all their questions. Where do you get food? What do you eat? Do you carry a gun? What if it thunderstorms? And you¢re by yourself? But like..Bears!? Lol It¢s always a good time.
Date: 2018-09-24
From: Cherry Gap Shelter

To: Erwin, TN
Miles today: 17.1

With town in reach, I actually got up today before sunrise and was hiking by 7:30am. I know, crazy. The day started super foggy and misty, but eventually cleared up. At one point, the trail went through an old spruce forest on top of this mountain. It was full of huge, old pine trees covered in green moss and had a very ¢open¢ feeling to it. Looked like something straight out of Lord of the Rings. Really cool. I got to town by an impressive time of 1:30pm. I was hoofing it all day and now my feet are really feeling it. Lol I¢m not really ¢in town¢, but I¢m staying at Uncle Johnny¢s Hostel which is literally right next to the trail and they shuttle hikers into town for free. And Buddy and Disco happen to be staying here as well, so it¢s a party! One. Last. Party. *Tear*Uncle Johnny¢s Hostel is trail famous and has been around for decades. Unfortunately, Uncle Johnny died last year, so his wife and son run it now. Right when I walked up onto the porch, the son, Gary, tried to pass me his bottle of Bourbon. Everyone working at the hostel was absolutely hammered. Lol! Trail hostels can be the strangest places sometimes and this is definitely one of those places. Spent the afternoon/evening chillin with the dudes. Disco was trying to convince me to choose Oct 14th for my end date. The idea was tempting, but unfortunately it¢s too late. That ship has sailed. We all went out to dinner at this Italian restaurant in town. I was really craving spaghetti, so it was a good day. Wolly World was just across the street, so we did a quick resupply and got shuttled back to the hostel. The dudes are hiking on in the morning, so tonight I gotta decide if I¢m gonna split ways with them now or later. I was thinking about keeping up with them at least until the next town, Hot Springs, NC, but prolonging the inevitable is just gonna leave me with more and more zero days that¢ll have to get eaten up before the end. Zeroing here tomorrow just means a day of absolute boredom though because we¢re the only hikers here at the moment. Oh well, what to do.
Date: 2018-09-25
From: Erwin, TN

To: Erwin, TN
Miles today: 0.0

Wow. Goodbyes are REALLY hard. I never thought I¢d be so attached to two old dudes. Lol This morning I decided to hang back and zero at the hostel, which meant letting Buddy and Disco get ahead of me for good. They¢re literally the only thruhikers going south right now that I¢ve consistently ran into. Once again, its about to get lonely AF out here. I spent the whole day doing a lot of nothing. I¢m the only hiker staying here and the employees are all really weird, so I just kept to myself. I ended up traversing down a dangerously deep ¢rabbit hole¢ for several hours on YouTube, watching dozens of videos about the Illuminati, the future of AI, evidence of simulated realities, the Mandela Effect, time travel, oh and aliens of course. By nightfall, I was contemplating my entire existence and completely convinced that my whole life is predated and freewill is a hoax. I will never do that again. Lol
Date: 2018-09-26
From: Erwin, TN

To: Bald Mountain shelter
Miles today: 16.8
Weather: overcast clouds

Drizzly morning. Once again leaving a hostel to hike through the cold rain. Bleh. Lol The rain showers picked up a lot later in the afternoon. I feel like it rains all the time now. It was literally all ups today. 10 out of the 16.8 miles I did were steep, long, uphill hikes. My but is sore. I didn¢t stop for a lunch break because sitting and eating in the rain sounded really unappealing. So I powered out the miles and reached the shelter by 3:30pm. I would have kept going, but I¢m wet and cold and don¢t wanna set up my tent in the rain. Getting to the shelter this early is kind of a bummer though. I should have slept in more this morning or something because now I have several hours of nothing to do. I think tomorrow is supposed to be equally as rainy. Yay. I¢ve become quite the shelter rat lately. Since I¢ve been spoiled by almost always having the shelters to myself, they¢ve really started to grow on me. Especially on rainy days. I¢ve even begun to conquer my fear of just sleeping in my sleeping bag without the comfort of my tent¢s bug net. I looked like an idiot always setting up my tent inside the shelters. Lol There¢s actually another hiker here with me this evening. He showed up kinda late. Clean Sweeps is his name. Older dude. He started as a flipflopper last year, but ran out of time to finish it all in one year. So he¢s back now, headed south all the way to Springer Mt. He¢s technically a LASHer now (Long Ass Section Hiker), but I thought best not to correct him. Lol This shelter has bear cables for you to hang your food bags from instead of having to mess with the whole rock-and-rope business. Out of the whole daily routine, throwing my bear bag is my least favorite chore. I hadn¢t seen bear cables since Maine though, so I forgot how they worked. Clean Sweeps had never seen them, so together we were pretty helpless. But after about 15 mins of staring up at the sky while cold rain pelted my eyeballs, I figured it out. Lol
Date: 2018-09-27
From: Bald Mountain shelter

To: Flint Mountain shelter
Miles today: 18.9
Weather: moderate rain

Today was honestly pretty miserable. It started with me putting my very wet and very cold hiking clothes back on my body at 7:30am. This process is always just as painful as the last. The only upside is that it gets me moving really quickly in the morning. I left the shelter by 8am, before Clean Sweeps. The whole day was really windy and really rainy. It was cold enough to where I actually had to hike with my rain jacket on, which is something I haven¢t done since Maine. I¢m really ready for a dry and sunny day at this point. This evening I¢m staying at another shelter and for the second day in a row there is actually someone else here. Crazy. Lol Older section hiker named Jiffy Pop headed north. This guy is annoying AF though. I showed up to the shelter around 4:30pm after hiking 19 miles in the rain and this guy hiked 6 miles up the other side of the mountain where it did NOT rain and is complaining about his socks being wet. He looked at me and had the audacity to ask if it had rained for me today. My hair is literally dripping... I don¢t know what this guy¢s deal was, but the moment I said I was thruhiking the AT he got really defensive about his ¢section hike status¢. At no point was I acting like my hike was somehow better than his. Like we¢re all doing the same damn trail people. It doesn¢t matter how we¢re doing it as long as we¢re getting it done, right? But it was like everything I talked about this guy kept trying to one-up me. Like how he¢s hiked The Presidential¢s in New Hampshire twice, and hiked Mt Katadhin in Maine up and down every way possible, and has done all the other mountains in Baxter State Park, etc etc ETC! I wasn¢t sure if we were gonna have to pull out our dicks and measure up or what, but it literally never ended. And then when I thought this guy couldn¢t get anymore ridiculous, he pulls out a gigantic 15 L bear-proof food CANISTER that weighs a whopping 3 lbs when EMPTY! LOL WHAT! I didn¢t really mean to laugh right in this guy¢s face, but it happened. With all the hiking and backpacking experience this guy claimed to have, I¢ve never seen anyone carry a giant, heavy container to keep their food in. Like just put that shit in a tree?? It made zero sense. And to top it off, he also pulled out this big, metal aerosol can of ¢bear spray¢! He said the other day he saw a bear cub and was standing by with his hand on the bear spray waiting for mama bear to show up.. Lol!! This guy was straight up trigger-happy on the bear mace. The more serious he got, the more I laughed. Section hikers though.. Am I right? Haha!
Date: 2018-09-28
From: Flint Mountain shelter

To: Hemlock Hollow Hostel
Miles today: 17.3

Today felt like a pretty quick day. The rain finally stopped, but the trail was still a mess. I saw in the guidebook that there was a small hostel just off a dirt road about a mile from the trail, so I was cruising today trying to get there at a decent time. I did 17 miles by 2pm! Hemlock Hollow Hostel is a pretty chill place. There¢s a bunch of little bunkhouse cabins along a creek and they all have a TV and DVD player. And guess who I ran into here?? Disco!! Lol I really thought I wouldn¢t see him again. Apparently him and Buddy had a falling out, so he dropped back and let Buddy press ahead. Buddy is an extremely difficult, stubborn, self-centered person. He makes all his plans around himself and dominates every conversation. I¢m honestly surprised that Disco stuck with him for as long as he did. And as if the trail drama wasn¢t hot enough, Disco said Buddy was talking some mad shit about me behind my back. I tried to get him to tell me what he had said, but he wouldn¢t budge. I guess it was that bad. Haha! I¢m glad Disco and I are reunited though. He¢s pretty good company and this will likely mean I don¢t have to finish the rest of the trail by myself, which is kinda nice. Tonight we¢re watching Avatar and World War Z! Probably two of my favorite films. Lol Hot Springs, NC is only like 16 trail miles away from where we currently are. So tomorrow we¢ll be hostel hopping to the next place.
Date: 2018-09-30
From: Hot Springs, NC

To: Hot Springs, NC
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: mist

Hot Springs is a cool, little hiker town. The AT goes right down main street and all the shops are super hiker friendly. There also seems to be a big Harley scene here because there¢s tons of motorcycles passing through. There¢s zero cell reception in town for both AT&T and Version people, so I spent a lot of time hanging out at the local coffee shop that has WiFi. There¢s only like 4 restaurants in town, but all of them happen to have 1-2 really good vegan/vegetarian options, so I¢m really living it up today. It¢s crazy how close I¢m getting to the end. Over 1,900 miles completed, with only 274 miles left! The Smokies are only a 2-day hike away. After that¢s done, I¢m gonna be chanting ¢victory lap!¢ until the end. Also, it looks like I¢m gonna be flying back to Texas now instead of having my dad pick me up. It was a cool idea to have someone rooting for me at the finish line, but logistically it¢s just not gonna work. No matter how hard I try to slow down, I can¢t hold out for the 26th. It just requires too much waisted time. So it looks like I¢ll be finishing around Oct 16th probably, but since I¢m on my own time now that date is pretty flexible. One of the things Disco mentioned yesterday on our way into town was that tonight he was gonna ¢let go and get fucked up.¢ His words, not mine. Lol And remember, Disco is in his mid-60s, so hearing this was quite comical. There¢s two bars in town and we hit up both of them for several hours. But get this, the county voted out hard liquor, so you can¢t buy whiskey or anything for like miles! So watching Disco get drunk off of beer was time consuming, but entertaining nonetheless. This sounds weird to say, but tonight felt like one of the most ¢adult¢ nights of my entire life. Lol I literally sat at a bar with a handful of people much older me, drinking hard cider, listening to live music, participating in meaningless tipsy conversation, and then had to herd home a 60-something, drunk Disco arm-and-arm. Like it was fun, but I¢ve also never felt so out of place. Lol Getting Disco back to the hostel was a challenge. Drunk people are annoying. Especially when they¢re older than your dad, but acting like an 18 yr old who¢s just had their first beer. Lol When we got back to the room, I noticed that Disco had left his entire food bag and all his gear spread out across his bed. So before I could put him to bed, we had to organize all his shit back into his pack. And at this point he¢s just rambling and completely useless, so it¢s mainly me doing the work and him just getting in the way. And then when I finally get him in his bed and turn off the light, he continues to talk and shout random questions from across the room. ¢How many miles do we have left? How many days will we spend in The Smokies? What¢s our next town stop?..¢ I think I¢m gonna kill him. It¢s like real-life baby sitting, but he¢s an adult and I hate children. Lol
Date: 2018-10-01
From: Hot Springs, NC

To: Hot Springs, NC
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Today was our 2nd zero in Hot Springs. Mostly to recover from the first. Lol I feel like after today things are really gonna start moving quick. I pretty much have a loose plan for the rest of the trip in terms of where I¢ll be staying each night, what towns I¢m hitting, etc. The next trail town is Fontana Dam, NC, which is 6 days out. Carrying 6 days worth of food is kind of a pain in the ass (like a minimum of 12 lbs). So instead, I bought 6 days worth of food, kept 2 days and mailed the other 4 days ahead to a hostel that I¢ll be staying at in two nights just along the trail. I know, pretty genius right? Sometimes my ideas are good and don¢t invoke bushwhacking through a jungle. Lol Disco was impressed, so he followed suit. Spent the day being extra lazy and eating way too much food. I feel pregnant. I was talking a lot about the PCT today with Disco, and now I think I got him thinking about doing it too. Lol Getting close to the end really makes you reconsider everything. Like everything that once brought me so much pain and agony on trail, will soon probably be very missed. Missed so much that I¢m desperately desiring to drag myself through an entirely different, more complex trail NEXT year. LolDisco is an interesting character. I don¢t know what it¢s gonna be like going forward and camping with Disco without Buddy around. Even though they didn¢t get along very well, they at least kept each other distracted enough to where I could disappear off to myself without either of them noticing. But now Disco just has me and no one else, so I get subjected to the billions of random questions and useless conversations. Like I pretty much know Disco¢s entire life story now, and how his marriage is falling apart, and how he¢s bored with retirement, and how he came out on the trail to give himself a clear head and figure out what to do with his life going forward, etc. It¢s all kinda sad honestly, but what I am supposed to do with this information?? I¢m no marriage counselor. Lol I feel like there¢s a lot of pressure on me now to be ¢the better hiking partner¢ and make sure he finishes this trail on the up and up. But at this point, I¢m not really sure if I wanna hike with Disco for the next two weeks straight. Like I know I¢ve complained a lot on this trail about being alone too much, but to be honest I¢ve really gotten used to my alone time and actually kinda prefer it now. Lol
Date: 2018-10-02
From: Hot Springs, NC

To: Max Patch campsite
Miles today: 19.8

Those two zero days really had me pumped to hike this morning. I was up and had all my shit together before Disco did. We beat sunrise leaving the hostel, so we stopped at the local diner real quick for breakfast. Hiking on a super full stomach is hard, but so worth it. There were some long ass climbs going out of Hot Springs and back up to the mountain ridge. I was cursing though, while Disco fell back. He has hip-joint problems in the mornings. LolThe trail is starting to look a lot busier as we get closer to The Smokies. Lots of people out here doing 1-2 week trips. Tonight Disco and I decided to breeze past the shelter and camp on top of Max Patch instead, which is this really grassy bald with a 360 view of the mountains. It¢s a pretty well known spot on the trail, but little did I know that there was a parking lot literally less than a mile from the summit. So there¢s way more people camping up here than I expected to find on a Tuesday night. There¢s like a party of 10 in giant tents doing some glamping, several different couple-tents, some college kids shooting some artsy video for film club (I asked), a girl with a kite, and what looks like a newly engaged couple doing a photo shoot. Lol We¢re the only thruhikers though. But besides all the people, we¢re getting a killer sunset! It¢s a little cloudy, but the sky is changing colors like every 5 minutes. One of the best sunsets on trail yet for me!
Date: 2018-10-04
From: Standing Bear Hostel

To: Tricorner Knob shelter
Miles today: 18.1
Weather: overcast clouds

This morning I woke up to a wild rooster cooing at the crack of dawn and a tent completely soaked in condensation, inside and out. This early discomfort got me moving though. We were back on trail by 7:30am. I knew today was gonna be a bitch and had been mentally preparing for it for awhile. It was all uphill to reach the ridge line of The Smokies. The first climb was a steady 7 miles long. I have to say though, I¢ve gotten pretty good at this hiking thing. When going uphill, I just lock in a consistent pace and don¢t stop. For 7 miles of up I didn¢t stop one time. I¢m a hiking machine! #DontStopTillTheTopI¢ve started to take note of the current condition of my gear and well, a lot of it is pretty much toasted. A zipper split on one of my hip-belt pockets the other day, so that was a bummer. My trekking poles are complete nubs on the bottom and the wrist handles are hanging by a thread. My second pair of hiking shoes have nearly a thousand miles on them again, so they¢re shot. Oh and my Nike hiking shorts that I¢ve been wearing everyday for this entire trail have a huge, gaping hole in the crotch region that seems to be getting larger by the day. I¢ll be damned though if I have to replace anything this close to the end. LolThe Smokies is tagged as the ¢most visited¢ section of the whole AT. It¢s not the ¢most hiked¢ because the majority of people that visit the Smokey Mountains don¢t actually do any hiking. Lol But, that being said, I¢m starting to see a lot more people on the trail. Also, this area was in the news recently because just a couple days ago a woman was day-hiking, got lost off trail in a thunderstorm, and went missing. A big section of the trail was closed off to all road-access while search parties were out. For several days, only hikers on foot were allowed to pass through. But the woman¢s body was just found yesterday. She died of hypothermia sadly. Pretty crazy stuff. The Smokey Mts Park has some weird rules. Everyone is required to sleep in the shelters, so no camping/tenting. But if a shelter fills up, AT thruhikers must move out of the shelter to their tent and give their spot to any weekender/sectioner that shows up. This is because the weekenders/sectioners get to reserve/pay for spots in the shelters online, but thruhikers do not. So really weird, fucked system. The point is that I have to sleep in this shelter tonight with Disco and like six other snoring dudes and not super stoked about it. Disco gets so weird when we¢re around other hikers that aren¢t ¢thruhikers¢. He acts super extra, all high and mighty, flaunting the ¢thruhiker status.¢ It¢s embarrassing, honestly, and quite childish. I tried to explain to him that not everyone is impressed by hiker trash. Like, we smell. Lol He was shocked that I called him on his shit, but I think he gets it now. He¢s acting all tough and confident today, but I got a really big day planned for us tomorrow and I¢m not sure if he¢ll be able to hang. This will be a day where the ¢real thruhiker¢ shines. Lol