morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2018-09-03
From: Johns Creek campsite

To: Pearisburg, VA
Miles today: 34.0

Today was a desperate day. I did a 3.5 mile hike up this mountain right out of camp and was just done. I wasn¢t supposed to reach Pearisburg until tomorrow, but I got there today because this nice couple, Doug and Angie, offered me the ride when I was standing on this desolate dirt road that leads to no where and so I just couldn¢t resist. Which means about 20 miles of trail got yellow-blazed today. I know, I know - sue me. I¢m dying out here, okay. LolThey were driving this swagged out, soft top black Jeep with an intense stereo system. We went driving all through the mountains with the windows down and some heavy rap bass bumping through the surround-sound speakers. They drove me by this cabin/resort place where the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed! Lol And then they drove me all the way to Pearisburg and dropped me off at McDonalds where I was super psyched to get a large sweet tea and French fry. There were signs posted everywhere inside the McDonalds asking patrons to ¢Please Don¢t Loiter¢. I almost felt like they were speaking specifically to me. LolEventually I left and started the 3 mile road walk to Angel¢s Rest Hiker Haven, the hostel I¢m staying at tonight. Luckily an older couple, Bob and Jill, saw me walking and gave me a lift. The hostel is pretty sweet. It¢s just a cluster of temporary buildings and campers, but the inside of everything is really clean and well kept. Also, the staff is super nice. Tenting is $12 a night and the bunkhouse is $25, so I paid for a tent site because I¢m cheap. But whenever I went to set up my tent earlier right before dark, one of the guys that works here (Acadicus) whispers over to me ¢You should just go sleep in the bunkhouse. There¢s AC...¢. Well, don¢t mind if I do! LolIt¢s just me, Disco, and Buster here tonight. They showed up a couple hours after me this afternoon and were of course shocked to see me. ¢How in the hell did you get ahead of us??¢ Lol! I knew I was gonna get grilled. Because of the detour into Blacksburg with Hector, they were supposed to be a day ahead of me still. I confessed my yellow-blazing sins and they laughed. Buster looked at me and was like ¢Honestly, if I had been given the offer to skip the last 20 miles, I¢d have done it too. You didn¢t miss a damn thing.¢ Haha! It was nice getting to spend most of the day hanging out at the hostel. I forgot it¢s Labor Day though, so the only place open in town is the grocery store. The hostel has a huge ¢hiker food box¢ though, full of unwanted food and snacks left behind. I was actually able to do an entire 5 day resupply from their box. So I didn¢t have to purchase anything from the grocery store, which was amazing luck. The day here went by rather quickly. Disco and Buster are leaving in the morning, but I¢m not sure yet what I¢ll be doing. It¢s always tempting to stay another night. I guess I¢ll see how I feel tomorrow.
Date: 2018-09-04
From: Pearisburg, VA

To: Pearisburg, VA
Miles today: 0.0

I woke up this morning and just couldn¢t do it. Lol I¢m zeroing today. And really glad I did because guess who walked in the door this morning - Riddler!! Riddler is a girl I met on trail in Vermont. She¢s a flipflopper like myself, but I hadn¢t seen her since Gorham, NH. Literally FOREVER ago!! She¢s the first familiar face I¢ve seen since flipping south. I¢ve never been so happy to run into someone. Lol Running into her is a great surprise, but also proof that I have slowed down IMMENSELY. Like she should have never caught up to me. HahaWe recapped everything that had happened since Gorham, which was A LOT. She also seemed to be stuck in a ¢Virginia Blues¢ state of mind, which made me feel better about my attitude lately. Lol We spent the day being super lazy, eating food and watching movies, like ¢The Wedding Crashers¢ and ¢Salt¢. It was great. I spent most of the day assuming that we¢d be leaving the hostel tomorrow morning and hiking on together, but unfortunately that doesn¢t seem to be the case. Riddler found out on trail recently that a close family member was diagnosed with cancer and will be starting treatment on October 6th. She wants to be home by the time treatment starts, so she has a hard deadline to make. And unless she skips ahead about 100 miles of trail, she won¢t make it. So that¢s what she¢s decided to do. It¢s either that, or quit the trail entirely and go home now, which would suck even more. So tomorrow morning, Acadicus is gonna shuttle her ahead to a town about 2 hours away. I¢m super bummed that our reunion was so fleeting, but I also can¢t imagine having to deal with all that on trail and then still have the strength and determination to finish the hike. Like big props to her! And much love.
Date: 2018-09-06
From: Pearisburg, VA

To: DocÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs Knob shelter
Miles today: 8.3

Slept in until nearly 9am this morning. Check out isn¢t until 1pm at this hostel, so I was in no rush. Spent the morning catching up on the blog and other social medias. Around 12:30pm, I packed up all my things, put on my hiking clothes/boots, and sat outside on the front porch until I could get someone to shuttle me back to the trailhead. The hostel does shuttles to the trailhead for free and Acadicus is the driver. Acadicus, and his coworker Mule, join me on the front porch. We all talk for about an hour or so, but then we get hungry. So we dip into the kitchen for a bit and snack, and then go back out on the porch and talk for another hour. And before you know it, it¢s 3:00 and I¢m still NOT hiking. At this point, Acadicus and Mule were making bets on whether or not I¢d get roped into staying another night. They kept asking, ¢Are you sure you wanna go? Because you don¢t HAVE too, you know?¢ Lol Acadicus even told me I could stay for FREE if I chose to stay just one more night. But I¢d already stayed 3 nights!! It was SO tempting though. I kept telling them how dangerous of a situation they were creating for me. Lol Like this is exactly how people fall off trail forever. They get wrapped up in some town with some locals, and before you know it they¢re in a relationship and offered a job and never see the trail again. Eventually, it hit me though. I looked over at Acadicus and was like ¢Dude, I gotta get the fuck out of here!¢ LolSo he drove me back to the trail, and I was hiking by 3:30. Before we said goodbye though, I made him promise that he¢d come hiking with me in The Smokies. And he promised, scouts honor. Lol I did a steep hike out of town up Angel¢s Rest mountain with a heavy, freshly loaded pack. Today ended up being a short day, obviously. I stopped at the first shelter I saw, which was about 8 miles in. Tenting in the shelter again since it¢s only me here. I¢m planning to do a 20+ day tomorrow, so hopefully I wake up early and have my shit together. It¢s time to conquer!
Date: 2018-09-07
From: DocÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs Knob shelter

To: Pearisburg, VA
Miles today: 22.8

So I have some good news and some bad news. Lol Good news is that I woke up super motivated today and crushed out 23 miles. I really wanted to make up for yesterday¢s short day. And it didn¢t even take me all day, just 9-6! However, the ¢bad news¢ is that I am now back at Angel¢s Rest Hostel in Pearisburg. Lol! I was originally planning on staying at this church donation-based hostel that was just 0.8 miles off trail. But when I got to that road, I realized I finally had cell service and before I knew it Acadicus was driving 40 mins to come and pick me up. Haha!I know, I know. Like wtf are you doing Amanda?? I¢m having fun damn it. Lol I got another shower and finally did laundry because for some reason I neglected to do that the whole prior 3 days I was here. And I get to stay for free because I¢m a young, attractive woman and they like me. Lol! So one more night¢s stay in Pearisburg with good company and I refuse to feel guilty for it.
Date: 2018-09-09
From: Pearisburg, VA

To: Laurel Creek campsite
Miles today: 20.0

So this morning, I finally and officially left Pearisburg for good. Goodbyes are hard. Everyone at the hostel kept asking if I was ACTUALLY leaving this time. Most didn¢t believe me when I said yes. Lol But it¢s true, I have to hike on. It was really hard to get moving though. I slept in and didn¢t get back on trail until 11am. Acadicus drove me 40 mins south back to where I had last jumped off. It felt weird parting ways, but I feel like we¢ll meet again. Hopefully. Even with the late start, I still managed to put in some heavy miles. Feeling pretty refreshed and refocused. Hit that 1,600 mile mark today! Water is getting scarcer and scarcer in southern VA. Like there was only ONE water source in between today¢s 20 mile stretch and it was 0.6 off trail down a steep hill! Like WTF. It¢s supposed to storm all week. It didn¢t pour on me today though fortunately. Just really misty and lots of thunder. Apparently Hurricane Florence is coming towards the south, like right towards my general vicinity in like a week or so. Lol So that might be interesting. Hoping to keep up the momentum and be in Tennessee in a week!
Date: 2018-09-10
From: Laurel Creek campsite

To: Chestnut Knob Shelter
Miles today: 15.0
Weather: light rain

I had originally planned for today to be a 25 mile day, but that plan soon became overly optimistic. I overslept and didn¢t get hiking until 9:30. There were a lot of short, but steep ups today that made it difficult to catch that 3mph speed. So I ran out of time basically. I called it quits around 5pm because I happened to be at a shelter and it was starting to rain. The idea of hiking several more miles just so I could get soaked and have to set up my tent in the rain was less than appealing. Also, tonight¢s shelter is pretty dope. It¢s a four-walled stone shelter with a door and everything! It¢s like a small little cabin and I have it all to myself. LolThe only downside about this shelter is that it has no water source near it and it¢s sitting on the tippy top of a mountain. So I had to pack up a lot of water to camp with for the night and stuff. Usually, that¢s not too big of a deal except this guy today named Gary doing his ¢trail magic¢ really messed me up! Long story short, he gave me all this false information about the local water sources for the evening and it really screwed me over. Ended up not having enough water for camp and having to hike 5 miles down the trail in the morning to get water for breakfast. Thanks a lot Gary!!! xPMet a cool, interesting family today. It was a dad (Sweeps) and his two kids, 9 and 10 years old (Bear and Fizzy). Those kids were fucking superhuman. They¢re SoBos trying to finish the trail in less than 100 days! The dad looked exhausted. Lol The kids were pushing him hard, averaging 25-35 miles EVERY DAY. Any pride I had built up was quickly diminished. They blew right passed me. Lol
Date: 2018-09-11
From: Chestnut Knob Shelter

To: Davis Hollow campsite
Miles today: 22.0

Super thankful for the cabin-like shelter I stayed in last night because it rained hard! The rest of the day was really drizzly and misty. I actually didn¢t see a single person on trail all day! No day hikers or anything. Kinda creepy. Got a nice lunch in at Bear Garden hostel. It was just 0.3 miles off trail, so I thought I¢d make the trip down the road. And happy I did because they had loads of snacks and sodas for sale. No one was even there though!! So it was all honor-system based, which is kind of a neat thing to see. The trail went through a lot of overgrown, farm fields today, which is like my least favorite thing. Especially in the rain because you don¢t get any tree cover, so you¢re just like soaked. Also, the rain made all the once-dry cow patties wet, so I was just hurdling over cow poop for several miles in the rain praying to god I didn¢t skip and fall. LolOn a different note... I know I complain a lot, but I think I¢ll be extremely proud of myself when I finish this. This blog is more than anything just space for me to vent with an audience. Not every day is as miserable as I make it sound sometimes. Lol it¢s just that hiking 2,200 miles cross country is a BIG feat and there are many days where the reality of that colossal goal really sets in. Also, I¢m one of those people that when the end is in sight, instead of sprinting to the finish line, I come to a near CRAWL. It also doesn¢t help that every day hiker I pass keeps telling me ¢Wow! You have less than 600 miles! You¢re almost done!¢ OMG. That kills me!! No I¢m not almost done! That¢s just dangerous thinking. Have you ever voluntarily hiked 600 miles?? Probably not. Because that¢s really freaking FAR. Lol I¢m trying to stay focused and keep up the momentum I left Pearisburg with. My personal goal is to average at least 15 miles a day and get to The Smokies within the first week of October. Fingers crossed!
Date: 2018-09-13
From: Stealth camping 

To: Fox Creek campsite
Miles today: 15.0

Today was actually a really sunny, nice day. It¢s honestly amazing what one dry day in the midst of a rainy week can do for your soul. Lol Every day hiker I run into though keeps reminding me of the hurricane coming. I personally think everyone just needs to calm their tits. Like the storm is serious and lots of people will be affected I know, but fortunately where I am I¢m really not gonna be in the heat of it. At all. And I plan to reach Damascus by Sunday evening, so that helps. On a different note, I¢m kinda starting to understand why people rehike parts of the AT. When I was up north, I ran into several people who had already thruhiked the whole trail and were now coming back to rehike long portions of it, like Potato and Handy. At the time, I found it mind boggling. You hiked 2,191 miles and now your back to do some of it again?? Like wtf. But now, I think I get it. When you¢re in the middle of thruhiking, you constantly have to stay focused on the overall goal, which involves waking up everyday and hiking forward. And it¢s a LONG goal, taking an unbelievable amount of determination and consistency. So much focus that sometimes it¢s hard to enjoy a lot of it. BUT once you¢ve completed the whole thing, the pressure to rack up the miles everyday is gone. You can spend as much time as you want at any view, campsite, shelter, etc. This is part of the reason why it¢s nearly impossible for me to spend time in town and not constantly feel guilty about it simply because I know that there are miles that need to be hiked and I gotta keep moving. So that being said, I¢d love to finally finish the trail, but then just stay on the trail forever. Lol Trail life is such a simple life. And don¢t tell me I can¢t live on trail because I¢ve met a lot of people doing just that and it¢s pretty rad. Who knows what the hell I¢m gonna do when this is finished, but right now I feel like the closer I am to the AT the better.
Date: 2018-09-14
From: Fox Creek campsite

To: Lost Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 25.7
Weather: overcast clouds

I didn¢t sleep well at all last night. At 3am I was awoken to the sound of a large animal screaming it¢s lungs out. It must have been a deer, and maybe an injured deer, but honestly I have no idea what it was. It was just SO loud, really creepy sounding! It started hollering from a distance and was moving closer and closer to the direction of my tent and then all of a sudden it just stopped. Absolutely terrifying. LolMost of the morning was misty and foggy. Hit that 1,700 mile today! Finally getting productive again, thank god! Lol The trail today was kinda weird. Recently they¢ve had a lot of ¢aggressive bear¢ activity around Grayson Highland State Park, so park officials actually closed three shelters around the park and banned ALL camping for a 17 mile stretch of the trail. So what that meant was that you had to get through that piece of the trail within one day and camp outside of the boundary. Not a super big deal because it was only 17 miles, and I can do that in one day. But then as I was hiking through this stretch, I reach another sign that says the AT has been rerouted to go around the park ENTIRELY because of Hurricane Florence and ¢overhead hazards¢. What? So instead they were encouraging people to take the Pine Mountain Trail, which actually reduced a 10-mile stretch of the AT down to 2 miles! So basically there was this sign post by officials educating me about a shortcut and encouraging me to take it. So fuck ya, I took it. Lol Saved me a lot of time, which allowed me to hike way further than I had originally planned for today. I didn¢t think I¢d reach Damascus until Sunday, but now I should get there by tomorrow. So that¢s cool! Any AT hiker reading this is probably screaming blasphemy because I ¢skipped¢ the ponies. Everyone calm down, I still got to see the wild ponies while on the side trail. It was hella foggy and rainy, but I got the pictures to prove it!
Date: 2018-09-16
From: Damascus, VA

To: Damascus, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: moderate rain

Today was a joke. No storm people! The locals and everyone kept saying that all hell was gonna break loose today and literally nothing ever happened. Businesses literally had piled up bags of sand in front of their doors and it just misted a little. HahaBreakfast is included with your stay at Woodchuck¢s, so I got fruit, potatoes, and Reese¢s Puff cereal with Almond milk this morning! Score. Then I almost immediately laid back down for a 2hr nap afterwards. Lol Just spent the day chilling at the hostel with Buddy, Disco, and a weird random assortment of other people who are kinda hikers but also kinda just living here for extended periods of time it seems.. Not entirely sure. Lol Met another flipflopper named Flash! He came into the hostel earlier this afternoon. And Flash is an appropriate name because, get this, he started on June 14th nearly an entire month after I started and he¢s now caught up to me. So he¢s fast. LolWe all got to talking about Tennessee, mainly because the state line is just a couple miles away! Like I will literally be in TN tomorrow baby!! AHH! But ya, apparently TN hates hikers. Lol Like many years ago a lot of people¢s land got seized under eminent domain for the AT and a lot of the locals are still really salty about it. Like back in the day, if you tried to hitch from the trail into Roan Mountain, TN, people would throw trash and bottles at you from their car windows. There were even reports of physical harassment and people stringing fishing line across the trail with fish hooks on it! Like some really crazy shit. This stuff doesn¢t really happen anymore, but I assume it¢ll probably be a little bit more difficult to get a ride in and out of town there. Lol
Date: 2018-09-17
From: Damascus, VA

To: Double Springs shelter
Miles today: 18.3
Weather: light rain

Ate another good breakfast at Woodchuck¢s Hostel this morning and then packed up my stuff and headed out to the trail around 9am. It was raining when I left the hostel and it pretty much rained all day. Leaving a warm hostel in clean clothes just to go hike 18 miles through the rain is a hard thing to do, but I did it. Lol Caught up to Buddy and Disco by noon, even though they started hiking at 7:30am. I was moving fast today. Got to the shelter by 3pm! I was tempted to go another 8 miles to the next shelter, but the book says the water source for that shelter was 0.3 miles down hill and we all know I¢m not about that life. Lol So I stayed put. I¢m glad I beat Buddy and Disco here though because I was soaked and needed time to air dry. Haha. And OH YA, crossed the state line into Tennessee today! FINALLY. Goodbye Virginia - you were chill but I won¢t miss you. This morning while I was eating breakfast with everybody, Flash and I started talking about the Pacific Crest Trail. The PCT is that other really big cross-country trail that spans the west coast. It starts in Southern California and then goes all the way to Northern Washington. It¢s around 2,600 miles long I think, so like a month longer than the AT. When I was headed north, I¢d hear NoBos talk about the PCT sometimes. Either saying they¢d already done it or that they wanted to do it. I always avoided those conversations like the plague because at the time the idea of another thruhike sounded like absolute torture. Yet, now here I am trying to come up with a hundred different ideas to keep me on trail. So I asked Flash a ton of questions because he thruhiked the PCT in 2016. The AT is apparently a lot more rigorously challenging than the PCT, but the PCT has its own set of demons, like 20-30 mile water carries, 20-50 mile hitches, longer resupply stretches, no tree cover, no shelters, really cold nights and really hot days, etc. So a little more logistically challenging in some areas. But damn, I¢m HIGHLY considering it. PCT April 1st 2019!! Here I come! Maybe.. Lol
Date: 2018-09-19
From: Hampton, TN

To: Elk River campsite
Miles today: 19.6

This morning I said goodbye to Bob and headed out around 9am. Before I left though, we talked more about trail life and what it means to accomplish something like a thruhike of the AT. We both agreed that the AT is a special place for many reasons, but mainly because it connects a wide variety of people that otherwise would never associate with one another elsewhere. It also allows you to be a 100% authentic version of yourself. When you¢re on trail, you¢re vulnerable, but no one knows the off-trail version of you so no one judges you for being YOU. No pressures, no bullshit. It¢s a great feeling. Today was a nice, dry, partly cloudy day. Passed a tree today in which someone had made and hung a wooden sign that read ¢Springer Mt. 406 Miles.¢ Holy Fuck. That¢s just insane. It might as well of read ¢In 406 miles, you will experience the most rewarding, yet saddest day of your entire life.¢ Lol Ended up spending most of the day in deep thought. All I accomplished was realizing I just have too many options. I know, very ¢first world problems¢. But it¢s true.
Date: 2018-09-21
From: Roan Mt, TN

To: Roan Mt, TN
Miles today: 0.0

Sooo Poncho ended up being a weird dude. And I don¢t just mean a little trail crazy. Like this dude hiked with a machete and hunted rattle snakes and copper heads. As the night went on, he got stranger and stranger. And he kinda seemed a little too interested in me to the point where this morning I just woke up and had to leave. I knew I wasn¢t hiking today, but I was definitely done staying there. He was just simply insane. LolAfter running errands around town, I eventually made my way over to the Mountain Harbor B&B/Hostel. I knew Buddy and Disco had a reservation there for tonight, and I wanted to sync up. We got there at just about the same time. They¢re staying in little private rooms in the bunkhouse. I¢m ballin on a budget, so I paid for a tent spot by the river. I spent the majority of the day hanging out with them while watching bad cable TV. The hostel has a little common area with a TV, but they only get like 5 channels. So we ate our instant Ramen hiker dinners and watched about a dozen Jerry Springer reruns. By the end of the evening, I felt like my IQ has dropped about 20 points. Nevertheless, we were all making high bets on whether or not Seth Wheeler was the father of baby Mercedes. LolIt just kinda dawned on me that eventually I¢m gonna have to split ways with the guys soon. If I continue to keep pace with them I¢ll finish by Oct 18th or sooner. So I¢m gonna have to drop back at some point. And considering I¢ve been hiking around them for the majority of the southern half of the trail, it¢s kind of a weird feeling. I¢ve been keeping in touch with Kidska, the girl flipflopper I hiked with for awhile in Maine. She¢s still about 10 days behind me, but with my new schedule it¢s possible that we might finish together and get to be summit buddies for a 2nd time! That would be truly serendipitous. Lol