morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-06-19
From: Manassas Gap

To: Rod Hollow Shelter
Miles today: 15.9
Weather: broken clouds

Word of the Day: HoneysuckleThe air today was filled with the beautiful aroma of honeysuckle. The vines were all along the trail, covered with yellow and white blossoms. I could not resist taking one flower, picking off the end, and pulling the "strings" until the honey dripped out. Of course, I sucked the honey out. It was a childhood memory replayed. At one point on the trail, there was an arbor overhead made of the honeysuckle vine. I wish I had thought to photograph it at the time!Trail Characters of the Day: Doc Gnarley and "Luggage Man"Doc Gnarley is another of the older hikers. He began on March 15th, so he hikes about the same speed as I do. Today he stopped at a highway crossing, got a ride to a restaurant, and brought back 12 beers! He then hiked up to the shelter to share them with us. What a surprise! "Luggage Man" is a name I made up for the most unusual thing I have ever seen on the trail. As Dorothy and I approached a stream crossing, we saw several pieces of luggage sitting on a rock on the trail. There was a black, almost square, wheeled bag, like a large computer bag. There was a big fabric duffle bag, large enough for a good size tent. There was also a small day pack made of camouflage fabric. We commented on it being a weird amount of stuff for someone to have on the trail, and hiked on. Then we saw him, Luggage Man, pulling another black wheeled bag, like an airline carryon bag. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a light blue shirt, very clean cut, with dark sunglasses. Dorothy asked, "Where are you headed?", a common trail question. "South", he answered, without looking at her. "How far south?" she asked. "As far south as I can go", he answered. "Carrying a suitcase?", I asked. "I don't have a backpack" was his reply. He went on, and Dorothy and I headed north.At the shelter, all the hikers talked about the "Luggage Man". What was with him anyway? Since we are just outside Washington DC I speculated that he may be carrying national security information. Was he a fugitive from justice? Was he a murderer transporting a body? Was he a runaway groom? Why would anyone carry this much luggage on the AT? It was impossible to carry all at once, so he had to make two or three trips to move them. From shelter registers, I found that he had been seen as early as June 16th in the roller coaster area south of Harper's Ferry. Everyone agrees that he is the weirdest thing on the AT!
Date: 2005-06-20
From: Rod Hollow Shelter

To: Bears Den Hostel
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: light rain

Word of the Day: Roller CoasterThis section of trail, from Rod Hollow Shelter north to Devil's Racecourse, stretches some 13 miles. It is simply up one mountain and down, then up and down again 10 times in 13 miles. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I found that it took about an hour to hike each up and down today, quite a change from the 3 miles per hour we were doing in the Shenandoahs. Luckily, we only have about three more miles left to do tomorrow, before the terrain gets more friendly.Trail Character of the Day:Queen DivaQueen Diva manages the Bears Den Hostel. The Bears Den Hostel is an old mansion built in the 1930s by a doctor. It is made of stone and even has turrets at the gate. It was purchased by the Appalachian Trail Conference in the 1980s and turned into a hostel. There are some 26 bunks in four different bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, and large living room. Queen Diva cooks dinner each night for the hikers who stay here. Tonight's menu is enchiladas.  (Update: I realize that I have neglected MacGyver and his father, Just Passin Thru. They hiked together using two cars for this section. We passed them going north as they hiked south each day. They slacked us to Harper's Ferry. They summited Katahdin in August.)
Date: 2005-06-21
From: Bears Den Hostel

To: Harpers Ferry
Miles today: 20.0
Weather: clear sky

Word of the Day: NakedBeing the first day of summer, today is designated as "Hike Naked Day". Most of the hikers we encountered, fortunately, did not choose to do so. At breakfast, Just Passin Through volunteered to slack our heavy stuff to Harpers Ferry. We had planned on a short day to the Blackburn Center, then into Harpers Ferry tomorrow. But the offer was just too good to pass up. Twenty miles should be easy with a light pack. The first people we saw weren't hikers at all, they were adventure climbers. They were going down the cliff at Crescent Rock! They were wearing clothes. After a short visit, we hiked on. We got to the trail to the Blackburn Center early and had lunch. Finally done with the Roller Coaster, making time was easy now. Arrived at the David Lesser Shelter before 2:00 pm. It was there in a discussion with several other hikers, that we found out Crazy Legs had indeed hiked naked. He even had a photo on his digital camera to prove it! He was crossing the busy highway at Snickers Gap without even a backpack. It's a wonder he didn't cause a wreck! We then discovered that the ATC office closed at 5:00 instead of 6:00 and we had three hours to get there and pick up our stuff. We needed to hike 9 more miles in 3 hours! Dorothy set a pace and I followed as best I could. Somehow she managed to arrive in time and I got there about 5 minutes later. We picked up our gear and headed over to the Hilltop house for a much needed rest.Characters of the day: Jenny McCarty and John SidebottomThese are not trail characters at all, but relatives. Jenny McCarty was born in Loudoun County, Virginia in the mid 1700s. John Sidebottom was born in Prince William County, but may have moved to Loudoun County at an early age. As I walked through Loudoun County today, I kept thinking that the area may have been their homeland. Did Jenny play in these mountains? Did John learn to hunt here? Of course county lines have changed since then, but I just felt like this was my family home years ago. Jenny's father, Jeremiah, fought in the revolution. So did John, though he was just a boy. Both received land in Kentucky Territory for their efforts. Thus it was that the two families moved out of Virginia. John and Jenny were married in Kentucky and started the family of my father. So many generations have passed, but I felt something today.
Date: 2005-06-22
From: Harpers Ferry

To: Home by Amtrac
Miles today: 0.0

Word of the Day: HomeI woke up and packed to hike out. I really planned to hike! I went to the post office and picked up the package from home. There was a sweet, supportive, card in side. I cried a little, then headed to the ATC office. I had my picture taken, number 378. Still planning to hike out, I headed for the outfitter. Somewhere between the ATC and the Outfitter, I kept thinking about the train for Washington DC. I needed time to think. I wanted to be home with my husband, but I wanted to finish the hike too. Thoughts of the past few weeks were wonderful. My return to the trail had been perfect: perfect weather, perfect friends, perfect hiking. If I hiked into Pennsylvania, I knew I was in for tough times. Hot weather, bugs, rocks... Why not stop while it was great, instead of when it was bad? Maybe, I'd just take a short trip to DC and think... The train was running three hours late! I went back to the outfitter and found Dorothy. I told her I was going home. She was as surprised as I was. But this time the decision was completely mine and I felt good about it. After lunch, Dorothy hiked on and I caught the train to DC and home.Trail Character of the Day: SeraphimAt the ATC office I met the sweetest young girl (just 20 yrs old), Seraphim. She hiked last year and was looking for a hiker she had met at Trail Days this year. Seems she can't get him off her mind... Anyway, she hitched into town to find him, without any money. She is in "LOVE". She summited Katahdin last year with Sunshine. When I told her that Sunshine was just a day or so behind, she was really excited. I hope everything works out for Seraphim. She is so nice, albeit naive. Reminds me of myself forty years or so ago...
Date: 2005-09-28
From: Home

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

As I continue to vicariously hike along with my friends from 05, I have updated my journals to reflect summit dates of my "Characters of the day". I still do not know the whereabouts of some. Please let me know if you have any information on them. A few are still out there like Scholar, Serenity, Cuppa Joe, Longhaul, and Hopeful Hiker. I'll fill in the dates when I have them. Please email if you have anything to add. Thanks.
Date: 2005-07-03
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

When I finished my journal back in 2003 I failed to include pictures from Caratunk to Katahdin, with the exception of one summit picture. I always intended to go back and include some of the pictures from that stretch of trail so I might as well do so now in this journal. If any of the 2003 Thru Hikers read this they might recognize a few of the hikers we were with to the end. I've been busy, and probably will be until I'm ready to leave next week, taking care of any and all projects around the house that I've already started. I've mailed my backpack to my good friend back in New Jersey so I don't have to worry about the airline loosing it....now hopefully U.P.S. doesn't! My friend, Denny, will pick me up in Philadelphia and take me to the trail head at the 501 shelter after I spend a couple of days with his family. I'm really looking forward to seeing him once again. My gear this time around, with the exception of the pack and tent, are pretty much the same I took two years ago. I traded my Gregory Makalu Pro for a ULA P2, and my Sierra Clip Flashlight for a Squall Tarp Tent. This is about a 4 lbs. savings between the two items, which will be a welcome feeling over the course of a hiking day. I also am going with a digital camera this time instead of my trusty old 35mm camera. Using film on my last hike caused me to be more selective of what I took pictures of making me miss many I wish I could have taken. Beekpr had a Nikon digital with a couple of large memory cards that worked well for him, so this time around I've got my Canon A-520 and I'm looking forward to hopefully taking many good shots, and not having to worry about running out of film.We're having a beautiful day here in the Seattle area and hopefully it holds up for the fireworks tomorrow night. Here's wishing everyone a very happy 4th of July!
Date: 2005-07-08
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

This will be my last entry before starting my hike next week in Penn. I'll be flying east early next week to spend a few days with my old childhood friend Dennis and his wife Betty in my hometown of Vineland, N.J. Then on Friday he'll be taking me to meet up with old hiking buddy, Beekpr, at the 501 Shelter and we'll start our trek north from there. As I mentioned before, I'm really excited about the prospect of being on the A.T. once again with my old friend...its been too long.Over the past few weeks I've had the pleasure of playing trail angel to an old friend from my 2003 hike, Wildcat (A.T. class of 2004). He's presently hiking south on the PCT after making it to Walker Pass in Calif. The flooding early last month along with the heavy snow in the Sierra's made him change his plan of hiking north bound, as it did many other PCT hikers this year. I picked him up at the train station in Seattle on June 5th and took him to Manning Park in Canada two days later to start south. I met him again at Dinsmore Hostel at Stevens Pass with a few other SOBO hikers, Crosby, Bob and Donna Mabry, and Business Casual and took them grocery shopping and dropped Crosby, Business Casual, and Wildcat back on the trail again to resume their hike. About 4 days later, Wildcat's wife flew in from Tenn. to meet him at Snoqualmie Pass. My wife and I met up with them and Donna and Bob Mabry and took them to dinner at a local restaurant on Pudget Sound. It was a great time and I enjoyed being on the other side of trail magic for once. For those of you that know and enjoyed Wildcat's trail magic in the Smokies over the past few years, you know how much he and his wife Becky enjoy feeding and helping the Thru Hikers as they come through. It's a good feeling to be able to do a little trail magic in return to someone thats been there for others.Well, I'm ready to go and I'm anxious to get started next friday and begin my journal from the trail. I'll be sending the journal pages home, like I did in 2003, by mail as I get into trail towns and my wife will be transcribing for me once more.Looking forward to that first White Blaze!
Date: 2005-07-15
From: 501 Shelter

To: Hertlein Campsite
Miles today: 5.6
Weather: scattered clouds

It's hard to believe but I'm back on the AT once more with my old hiking bud, Beekpr. We didn't start hiking until after noon so we decided to make our first day an easy one and stop at this campsite for the night. I'm sure the fact that neither of us are in great hiking shape had something to do with our stopping here for the night at arond 3:15pm. It was probably a good thing we stopped too since we got hit with a thunderstorm at about 5:00pm. And did it ever come down hard! It turned out to be a great test for my new tarptent and I'm pround to say the extra time I took to seam seal it was worth the effort-no leaks in the first downpour.Tomorrow we'll head, hopefully, to Port Clinton. I must say how exciting it was to be hiking past the white blazes again. I've really missed this. At any rate, we have a long way to go, about 400-500 miles so we'll have plenty of time to get our hiking legs back.I want to thank my very good friends from New Jersy, Dennis and his lovely wife Betty. They picked me up, housed and fed me the past 2 days and dropped me off today at the 501 shelter in Pennsylvania. Better friends you could never ask for.Well, it's 6:45 and still raining so I'm going to lay back for awhile and relax. Like I said, we still have a long way to go and I'm looking forward to every minute.
Date: 2005-07-16
From: Hertlein Campsite

To: Port Clinton
Miles today: 18.1
Weather: light rain

It must be July in Pennsylvania, the thunderstorms and high humidity are a daily occurence. I woke up this morning at about 5:00am and reached up to feel if my tent walls were still wet from last night's thunderstorm and was happy to find them dry. Well, I thought, I won't be packing wet gear today. Unfortunately, about 20 minutes later as I was slowly waking up I heard the first clap of thunder and about 5 minutes later it starts to pour. At about 6:45am the rain slowed down so Beekpr took our food bags down from a nearby tree and we had a quick breakfast, packed up our now wet gear and started hiking the trail in a slow, but persistent, rain. Did I mention the humidity? It was God awful today. We were pretty well soaked from one end to the other with sweat making it kind of uncomfortable. We hiked the 9 miles to Eagles Nest Shelter by 11:00am and had lunch out of the weather. The trail is definitely starting to get rocky and from my memory of my 2003 hike, it only gets worse as we approach the Delaware Water Gap.We arrived in Port Clinton at 4:00pm and got a room at the Port Clinton Hotel so we could shower and wash our sweaty clothes as well as grab a good meal and a few beers.We'll head to 3 C's restaurant for breakfast tomorrow and try to get started by 9:00am. We'll try to make the Eckville Shelter tomorrow in hopefully better weather but, since it's still raining, it doesn't look like it's cooperating. Rain or shine though, we're enjoying being back on the trail again and looking forward to tomorrow.
Date: 2005-07-17
From: Port Clinton

To: Eckville Shelter
Miles today: 15.4
Weather: light rain

We woke up at 7:30am and went looking, in the rain, for a place that served breakfast. We found a nice place, the 3C's about 1/4 mile away. After a big breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage and S.O.S we waddled back to the hotel to pack up and leave, it continued to rain. Our freshly laundered clothes took about 5 minutes to get soaked again as we climbed up our first steep ascent. We hiked to Windsor Furnace and had lunch next to the stream. I got a chance to rinse some sweat out of my shirt before continuing on. It didn't take long to get all sweated up again with the high humidity we were experiencing. When we arrived at the Pinnacle Overlook there was, unfortunately, no overlook or should I say, nothing to see, becasue of the heavy cloud cover. We hiked to the Eckville Shelter, a little over 15 miles, on a very hot day. Not bad for two aging hikers. We're here tonight with Treetop and Beefsteak, two other section hikers. If my memory is correct, tomorrow will be a very rocky walk. Well, it's time to cook dinner so, catch you tomorrow.
Date: 2005-07-18
From: Eckville Shelter

To: Bake Oven Knob Shelter
Miles today: 17.3
Weather: light rain

I hate to use cliches, but you could have cut the humidity with a knife today, it was thick and heavy.We left the Eckville Shelter at about 7:30am and the trail started out easy for the first mile and then gained 1,100 feet leaving both Beekpr and me soaked with sweat. The humidity was really awful today. It seemed I was drinking all day but could never quench my thirst. The sun came out for awhile and I immediately got acquanited with some old friends from my last hike, the knats that love to hover in front of you eyes and, at the right moment, dive bomb into the corner of your eye. Not to be out done was the buzzing bug that flies around your ear until it decides to do a kamakazi into your ear. How well I remember these bugs from 2003. I only wish they didn't remember me. The hike from Eckville to our present location took us through many stretches heavy in rocks. One place in particular called "The Cliffs" was really outstanding and quite beautiful.Beekpr and I are tenting about 100 yards away from the shelter in a very nice campsite. As I'm laying here writing, the air is still stiffling and it's very muggy in the tent tonight. After rock hopping all day though, a little heat isn't keeping me awake. I'm reall bushed tonight.
Date: 2005-07-19
From: Bake Oven Knob Shelter

To: Palmerton, Borough Hall
Miles today: 8.4

We got up early today and left camp around 7:15am. Last night we decided to take the weather channel recommendation, "don't go outside unless you need to, due to the extreme heat and humidity.", and with Palmerton so close, this seemed like the time to take our smelly, sweaty bodies off the trail and get a shower and do some laundry.The hike in was supposed to be about 6 miles but the re-routed part of the trail added more to our walk. We ran out of water about a mile from the spring at George W. Outerbridge Shelter. We had to ration our water since we left the Blue Mt. Summit Restaurant on PA309 due to the springs from there to Bake Oven Knob Shelter being dry, so we hauled our water and couldn't get anymore until we arrive at the shelter around 10:00am.I know I've mentioned several times about how much we are sweating in this humidity and to have to ration water is rather tough and you can only carry so much.It was an interesting hike though. On our way to the shelter this morning I stepped past a rattlesnake just off the trail scaring the B-Jesus out of me and Beekpr, who was close behind. About 1/2 mile further we came upon a Black Racer that was stretched across the trail giving us our first 2 snakes in a one day sighting.Getting back to when we hiked into the next spring this morning for water, I can only say nothing imaginable could have tasted better, and it was piped out of the ground and COLD! We drank all we could manage and dumped a good bit over our heads to cool off.We lucked out when we started hitching a ride into Palmerton, we were thumbing for only about 10 minutes when we were picked up and dropped off in front of the hostel. Thanks, Jamie.Well, we are planning an early 9ish start tomorrow after breakfast. I'll spend today re-hydrating for the hot climb just outside of town, something like 1,100 feet in .8 mile (really steep). Again tomorrow we have to carry our water for the 16 miles to our destination and next water source so wish us luck.
Date: 2005-07-20
From: Palmerton, Borough Hall

To: Leroy A. Smith Shelter
Miles today: 15.8
Weather: clear sky

What a great day for hiking. The temperature got to 90 today but the humidity was cut drastically by last nights low pressure that pushed through the area. The difference was, I was able to hike the complete day without having to wring out my shirt or feel my shorts dripping into my boots.Our day began when we got up at 5:45am and went to eat breakfast at Bert's Steak House just across the street. After a big breakfast we packed up and we were outside the hostel by 7:30am. A local named Debbie picked us up on her way to work and took us to the trailhead. She was very knowledgeable about Palmerton and was able to answer all our questions about the super fund site we were about to climb. At any rate, she was a great trail angel to us so, thanks again Debbie. So we started our climb out of Palmerton at 8:00am which was perfect since the sun wasn't on that face of the mountain yet. It was still hot climbing but much better than when I climbed it in 2003 at 11:30am with the sun on my back the whole way. After we summited we walked the ridge for quite a way looking at all the devistation the zinc plant below the mountain has caused. In the 2 years since I was there it looked virtually the same with little to no vegetation advancement.The trail today was still very rocky, mostly the rocks that protrude from the ground. These are the rocks that really batter our feet and you have to be very careful where you're stepping.Water was a concern since there were no water sources between Palmerton and where we are camped. We carried all the water with us today which really weighed down our packs.We arrived at the shelter at 3:45pm, dropped our packs and started down a blue blaze trail to find water. As we headed downhill, about .4 mile, the first and second spring we came to were dry but the third was a real gusher. Water piped from the rocks with a 4" plastic pipe and was it ever cold. It was definitely worth the long walk to find it. I'm tenting and Beekpr is using his hammock in a nice little campsite about 1/4 mile from the shelter.Tomorrow's hike should put us just a few miles out of Delaware Water Gap. If the weather stays like this it will be a most pleasant hike. One big difference from my hike 2 years ago is that there are hardly any mosquitoes. Since leaving 501 shelter last Friday I've been bitten only once, versus feeling like a pin cushion 2 years ago. We have all the other bugs, but few mosquitoes and, as Martha would say, "that's a good thing".