morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-01-27
To: INDIANS
Miles today: 0.0

During the summer of 1979 my brother and I took a college field anthropology class where we became diggers on a Tequesta indian mound west of Fort Lauderdale. Natural land above water in the everglades is very rare and this 60 yard wide heap of dirt, 10 feet above the level of the sawgrass around it was a good place for florida indians to base camp. It also sat dead in the middle of the largest planned community in the US which is now Weston, and it was a nuisance to the developers who wanted to level it with bulldozers. Every student in our class was assigned a square foot of this mound and with toothbrushes and dental picks we spent the summer 5 hours every saturday, excavating our own little hole one grain of sand at a time.   What we basically found out was... that these folks camped out in the middle of the mound and threw all of their garbage to the water's edge. The classes after us must have found better stuff because it is now sacred burial ground and the showpiece park of the community. all we ever found was just a lot of old trash. We did find some pretty cool stuff like shark teeth which meant these particular Indians traveled to the ocean 20 miles east, no small feat considering the obstacles involved. The big find of our summer and the reason I would mention this on a hike journal is what my brother found in his square foot. It was a simple clay pipe, totally intact. Very similar in size and shape to the ones you can buy at a head shop for 10 bucks. It was made with clay from Chesapeake Bay and it was made by Chesapeake Bay Indians 7,000 years ago. The pipe sits in a glass case today at the Smithsonian. What does that mean? It means people have been walking up and down the eastern seaboard a long time before Earl Shaeffer made history (he was the first documented person to complete the AT). I was thinking about the pipe as I sat down tonight and obsessed over all of my planning... the gear, the mail drops, the weather forecasts. My maps, my thru-hiker's handbook, the phone card, the credit and debit cards, the bank balances. Mileages between town and which towns have good grocery stores, and where I can tell friends to meet me with beer and ice cream. These are all the things I consider necessary to have a sucessful thru-hike. The point is how fragile we are now.   I can't imagine making this trip without the support of a clearly marked trail, regular re-supply points, all of modern technology behind me, and the knowledge I can bail out and quit at the first road I get to. These people were making the same trip to trade bongs when fire was a novelty. No matter how rough it gets on the trail I still see myself a tourist on a scratch'n'sniff ride atDisneyworld. What we go through on the trail for fun doesn't compare to what everyone else that came before us had to do to stay alive next post is gear geek talk, obligatory
Date: 2005-03-03
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

OK...so Im testing this out to make sure Im doing this right before SWIFT leaves on his journey and I find out I dont know what Im doing.Hi, everyone!I'll be transcribing SWIFT's journal. I'm one of the people SWIFT sometimes calls to ask "Hey, wanna go on vacation?"and to my horror and dismay, I say "Sure". I'm always the one getting hurt, or sick, or crying for someone to slit my throat and leave me for dead. This time, I get to live vicariously through SWIFT in the safety of my livingroom!!I love technology.Safe Trip SWIFTLove yaEstee
Date: 2005-04-01
From: Amicola Falls State Park 

To: Stover Creek Shelter
Miles today: 11.3
Weather: moderate rain

It started raining at about 5:00 am, woke me up from the tent. We started at Amicacola Falls State Park at the arch and did the approach trail all the way to the Stover Creek Shelter for a total of 11.3 miles. The three of us were hanging out at the ranger station waiting for them to open at 7 am so we could sign in, and so were a couple in their 50's (Vern and Betsy) with their son who thru-hiked in 2002. It was Vern's turn to do the trail this time, the wife was just hiking for the day with him and the son for 3 days. We took turns taking pictures of each other in the rain under the arch that marks the trail's beginning. Hiked all day in the rain on a fairly deserted trail: there are nowhere as many people on the trail as i expected, i guess the weather is keeping them off.Last night Rob never made it into Neel's Gap where he was meeting us until 8:30, so by the time we got to Amicalola it was too late to do much of anything. We snuck up to where they park RVs and found a spot and pitched our tents there. In the meantime, yesterday, Eddie and I slept at the gym and gotten up very early and started out. We made it by 1:30 and waited around until Rob got here. While we waited for Rob to show up Eddie and I watched the hikers that had been on the trail just 3o miles walking in from the rain. Alot of pretty interesting people, some of them looked like they were shell shocked. A few people were walking with dogs. One kid was named Morgan, 18 years old and somewhere between high school and college-- he really didn't know, he was in limbo. I offered him a Corona and he bummed a smoke from me. I sat and talked to him for awhile. Also hung out after the store closed and talked with Winton and a hiker I met in 2003 named 'Cornbread' who offered me a beer. They were heading for a nightly poker game. Essentially we survived the first day and getting ready to start again tomorrow. It feels good to be out here again... a lot of memories for me from 2003.I forgot to mention that it took me so long to get to the trail because I spent the last 9 days partying. I took plenty of time driving from Fort Lauderdale, Fl to Asheville, NC and then stayed there with various friends, a couple of nights here and there, out eating and drinking, having a good time. Basically a vacation before the vacation. So the vacation is over, but the vacation begins.
Date: 2005-04-03
From: Stover Creek Shelter

To: Walasi-Yu
Miles today: 15.9

It was another cruel day, the weather was good. I checked my thermometer during the course of the night and it had only gotten down to 38 degrees in my tent which was good, I was happy with that, because it was definitely below freezing during the night. The wind was just howling, Rob said he had to put in earplugs to be able to sleep and Eddie was telling me that he woke up several times when the gusts went up to maybe 50-60 MPH gusts, although it didn't bother me much in my tent. The time changed today, so our official start time was 9:00 am and we hiked pretty well. Lots of ups and downs, the section that we did yesterday was the hardest, going into Walasi-Yu. I wasn't really expecting to to go all the way to Walasi-Yu, because you have to go over Blood Mountain. The last couple of times I always waited at the bottom and went the next day because I like to conserve energy. It's all 1,200 foot ascent, and 1,200 feet down into Walsai-Yu. When we got to the last shelter we decided, 'what the hell, we'll just push it' which, in retrospect, wasn't a good idea. I was already beat, worn out, out of energy. Rob was pretty f**ked up too, his knees were messed up. Half way up I had to stop a couple of times, I was feeling like I needed to puke. Eddie caught up and gave me a fruit cup, and I hung for awhile.He went ahead to get the truck from the parking area to meet us back at the trail at Walasi-Yu. So, what little I did see of Blood Mountain was pretty, but I was just too damned sick. It's an excellent place, my second time over it, the top is mostly bald rock that you walk on with some beautiful overlooks. There are alot of people still up there. We ran into some day hikers going up and down in both directions. Alot of people were still up there as the sun was setting. We pulled up to Walasi-Yu at about 6:30 in the evening. We had some Coronas left in the back of the truck, so we drank those. Then we headed down to this little country restaraunt at the bottom of the mountain here, about 10 miles away or so. They had some surprisingly excellent food there. I was expecting country ham and eggs, and grits and stuff. They had some pretty artsy fartsy kinds of food in there like stuffed filet of sole with crabmeat, and scallops, and glazed porkchops, all kinds of interesting things. I settled on the biggest hamburger they had, figuring part of my problem was protein deficiency. I managed to eat that, and get a couple of sweet teas, and ended up feeling better. We drove back up to Walasi-Yu at about 9:30, I got my stuff out of the back of Rob's truck. I had my 'bump box', my re-supply box, which I carried with me. I laid everything in front and I threw out what I didn't want, and changed over what was dirty, and went about 100 yards behind the place and Eddie and I pitched tents and slept there overnight. Thats it for April 3rd.
Date: 2005-04-12
From: Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC)

To: Sassafras Gap Shelter
Miles today: 6.9
Weather: light rain

I got up early, around 6. I made coffee in the coffee maker and went down to the River's End restaurant and had breakfast at 7:30 with Hot N Sweaty, who is slack packing with Ski Bum. They have been Slack Packing for a few days. Slack Packing all the way to Fontana Dam now. Free Radical came in and sat with us. I bought him breakfast.   A few others came in and we chatted over breakfast.I'm going to mail some post cards and send some things ahead that I don't think I'm going to need. Hopefully get out of here by 11 o'clock. I'm going to walk the 4,000 feet uphill to the first shelter very slowly Hopefully get there by 4 o'clock. It's starting to rain, they are calling for rain on the AT for the next 2 days. Looks like the weatherman might be right for a change.I am at Sassafras Gap Shelter.I walked up from NOC. In the 6.9 miles I hiked, I gained 3,000 feet in elevation. It was a pretty steep walk for the most part, but I had already made a plan to take my time getting up here. I started at 11 o'clock and it took me 4 hours, I didn't get into the shelter until 3 o'clock. The whole walk was in a light pleasant rain, until I got to a higher elevation, about 4,500 feet or so then a cloud dropped down and it turned nasty, windy and cold. I had to pull out my rain jacket. I still got soaking wet. It all turned out good. I dried up pretty fast. I ate one of the subs I got yesterday, and I gave one to Sam I Am and Origami, who just figured out they don't have enough food to get to Fontana Dam. I told them to check with me tomorrow night and I could probably spare some more food for them. A few new people here tonight, Wooki, a big kid that just graduated college who I met last night at NOC. Also, a guy named Golgi. After about an hour or so Ray showed up. I haven't seen him in a couple of days. He always seems to be popping up, I keep thinking he has stayed ahead of us, because he's a fast hiker, I figure he's history. I had several cups of hot chocolate to warm up. I was pretty full because I ate all kinds of crap. I kept munching on candy bars and beef jerky. A new thing I'm trying is to constantly eat while I'm walking. I waited until about 6 o'clock and cooked up some beef stroganoff. I'm going to try to shoot for about 15.5 miles or so through some really rough terrain tomorrow, including Stecoah Gap. A southbounder, named Dude, told us it was really muddy and steep so it's going to be really scary going through that. He's been southbound since September. He went through the AT all winter. It took him 8 months so obviously he went through some rough weather, but, he's almost there and seems pretty happy to be less than 200 miles from the end of his journey.
Date: 2005-04-15
From: Fontana Dam Shelter

To: Spence Field Shelter
Miles today: 16.0
Weather: clear sky

Eddie and I got up real early. We were packed and ready to go. Despite what he says, he on a mission to get through here as fast as possible. We were off hiking by about 7:15. The hike out of Fontana Hilton is paved road uphill and you're on a road down to the dam and you cross the dam. We stopped to drop off our registraions. You have to register to walk through the Smoky Mountain National Park. It's a good long walk across the dam and another good walk along the paved road. After 2 miles of road walk, you hook it up to the left and start climbing from 1,715 feet up to about 4,800 feet or so. Then there's ups and downs and ups and downs. My altimeter read something like 5,200 feet of elevation climbs today. It was a tiring day for me, mainly because I left town with a full load of food, about 8 lbs, and a full load of water, about 4 pounds. It made a pretty big difference. I took the uphills well at the beginning. We stopped at Mollies Field Shelter and I cooked up some seafood chowder.We then hiked up to Russell Field Shelter. I was expecting to stay at Russell Field Shelter. I discussed with some of the other hikers that we would meet there. That would have been a proper day considering the elevation climbs and the amount of weight. However, when Eddie filled out the registration, the put us down for Spence Field Shelter, which was another 3 miles away. I got a little upset about it because we had an agreement that we would average 15 miles a day. To me, averaging 15 miles a day means that on the first day out where you have a big climb and a pack full of food, you're not going to do a 16 or 17 mile day. He said it was a misunderstanding. I'll admit I was pretty pissed off at him for awhile, but I'm over it. I'm also very tired from those stupid extra 3 miles.When we got to Spence Field Shelter there was nobody here. The shelter is empty. Eddie started a fire in there. We set up tents, but it looks like he's going to drag his mattress and sleeping bag in there and stay in there. I'm going to stay in my tent. I'm going to try and recover. My legs are a little wobbly and sore. I'll sleep better in here.
Date: 2005-04-23
From: Asheville, N.C.

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Once again, things got screwed up.I got up early this morning, turned on the computer. Carol was on with bad news. Her mother had a hernia that strangulated, and all of her organs ended up in her lung cavity. She's in the emergency room with her now. It looks like all of our plans for this weekend are postponed for another day because Carol had to go to Asheville to be with her mom.I ran around shopping at different outfitters. I found 2 pair of pants and bought them. I had stopped off yesterday at Eddie's gym to pick up the gear I thought Carol would need. Now I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I have to get it back to Eddie somehow.I spent about 4 hours retooling, sewing, changing over stuff, packing my food last night so I wouldn't have to do it today. Things happen.Bob had made plans to go out fishing. So, I'm waiting for Nina, who is Bob's girlfriend, to finish cleaning house. She's going to drop me back off at Hot Springs tonight. I guess that's the best route. I'll just get on the Trail first thing in the morning. Maybe I'll stop and see what Trail Fest is all about, I really don't want to get too involved.
Date: 2005-05-01
From: Deep Gap

To: Clyde Smith Shelter
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: clear sky

Today was an uneventful hike. I tried to dry out everything as best I could, but sleeping in a cloud last night, everything got wet again, including the sleeping bag. Rain, rain, rain last night!! It rained like hell and it was windy until after 2 o'clock.This morning, I got walking about 8 o'clock. I walked very slowly. I walked from 8 to 3 o'clock, so it took me 7 hours to do 13 miles. Mainly because the knee was in pain and I felt heavy, slow, and fat again. I just took my time, I wasn't going to push it. I knew I wasn't going to go past this shelter because after this shelter there's a big climb. Roan Mountain, which is intimidating me because this is the mountain that gave me such a hard time last time. It's the one where I started losing my eyesight going uphill.It's a big climb and if I were to go over there, the only shelter is Roan High Knob Shelter which is above 6,200 feet. It is the highest on the Appalachian Trail and notorious for being cold. I was NOT going to stay there. I also wasn't going to break my rule about doing big climbs at the end of the day. I stopped short at 3 o'clock, which was a good thing because I managed to take my tent, sleeping bag, and stuff out to dry in the sun for a couple of hours. When I got to the shelter, there were 2 locals here day hiking, and KTR, who's Trail Journals I had read before, but had never met. KTR was staying in the shelter, and the other guys took off. A couple of people walked through here, Spicy Thai and Patch were two that decided to continue and go up to Roan High Knob Shelter. That's just too much of a day for me.It was looking like KTR and I were going to have the shelter to ourselves. I'm sleeping in the shelter tonight.   At around 6 o'clock people started walking in. Sensai, SamIAm, Origami, OC1 (Vern) and another couple walked in. The shelter is not full yet, but it's getting there.   It's 8 o'clock, and who knows, people walk in after dark.That's about it for today.
Date: 2005-05-05
From: Dennis Cove Road

To: Iron Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 24.3
Weather: light rain

Another 'Ass Kicking-Taking names' kind of day for me. The endorphins really kicked in today. I could not stop walking, it just felt too good to be running.It's amazing what a difference all that food I had yesterday does for attitude and hill climbing ability. I got packed up this morning and was walking out of Kincora at 6:30.When we went to the grocery store, Bob Peoples made a point of telling everyone that he ran a dry hostel. No liquor allowed. I told him that I was planning on buying something, but that I would not open it or drink it until I left his place, and I kept my word.When I hit the Trail this morning at 6:45, I had a decadent breakfast of a Marlboro Red, a King Sized Mounds and a Fosters that I had bought the day before. After that I just went flying by Laurel Falls and burned up the miles.I also stopped at Watauga Lake, there's a beach there with a bunch of concrete tables. I sat there for about 25 minutes and ate 3 turkey wraps. I met OC1 coming out of Watauga Dam Shelter. He's been pretty run down. He hadn't realized that his diet has been mostly carbs and hardly any meat. He's probably craving proteins and fats. He's fixing on changing that.When I got to Watauga Dam, it was so windy! It seemed like the wind was trying to blow us over the Dam. Somewhere around that point, it started raining, just spitting cold rain. Out of Watauga Dam you start climbing from 2,000 to 4,400 feet where the shelter is. I recalled that section as being very easy. It seemed a little harder today but it didn't make a difference because I ran like hell. <I hit Vandeventer Shelter by 1:15, which was 17 miles. I stopped in there for lunch for about 35 minutes. Vern came in and we sat and talked for a while. We both hauled ass with the intention of hitting Iron Mountain Shelter. I got to the water source just before the shelter at 4 o'clock. So, at 24 miles I was on the Trail for 9 hours and 15 minutes. With the breaks taken out of it, about 8 hours for 24.3 miles. That's 3 miles per hour over some pretty decent terrain.We got in here at 4:30 or so. I pitched my tent. Vern has a tarp and he's pitched a few yards from me. He's got a problem with a blister on his heel. I gave him some alcohol and a blister patch. There's some guys over here building a fire. I think I'm going to go over there and open up my jacket and try to warm up.The shower I had yesterday at Kincora was unbelievable. If only because I have forgotten what it's like to be warm again. It's been cold for so long that you just get used to it. The temperatures have been in the 40's all the time. You never really warm up, even with jackets or clothes on. You hike on the Trail and you get wet with sweat and you just forget what it's like to be warm. Getting into the hot shower at Kincora was just the most unbelievable delight, I could have stayed in there for a couple of hours.    So I'm back in the chilly weather again. One of these days it will warm up.
Date: 2005-05-13
From: Crawfish Valley

To: Virginia 623, Laurel Creek
Miles today: 23.1
Weather: few clouds

Whoever said Virginia was easy and flat has obviously hiked a different Trail than I have. There have been, in the past couple of days, some pretty shocking uphills. Not long ones, but steep enough to take your breath away. This morning it started right away with the climb out of Crawfish Valley. It kicked my ass first thing in the morning. I was trying to take it slow but, I have been following OC1, and now that he's lost 8 lbs and got a new pack, he's hiking much faster. I told him that he's taking the uphills much faster and now he's starting to realize that. I am having a hell of a time keeping up with him. Since last night, we have been trying to figure out what to do about OC1's maildrop. He has a mail drop in Bland, Virginia and there's no real, possible way for us to make it by Saturday morning at 11 o'clock when the post office closes. Which means that we have some choices to make since we are traveling together. We either slow down and walk in on Sunday, get a room, and get the mail drop on Monday morning and lose about 30 miles that way.Or, I could keep going and he can take a zero day there, and I take a zero day in Harrisburg and meet up again later.We were trying to mull all this over as we were walking along. We dropped into a picnic area and sat there for a few minutes until we realized that hikers were not welcomed there, so we got the hell out of there. Our problems were solved pretty quickly because I ended up getting Nextel reception there. OC1 called the Bland Post Office and they agreed to forward his package to Harrisburg, Va. in time for us to pick it up on Monday.OC1 already had enough food to make it all the way to Harrisburg. We are traveling must faster than he anticipated and he has been getting too much food in the mail and now we are going to try to adjust that.It looks like we will both take until Monday to get into Harrisburg and take a zero day there. It's a zero day which I'm looking forward to, mainly because Harrisburg, Va. is the first Trail Town which you can get a Long Island Iced Tea in. I've been looking forward to having a Long Island Iced Tea. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I was pretty low on energy, I think I'm getting sick. I was not feeling very well, despite the fact that we did a 20 mile day.We ended up here at Virginia 623 in time to call it quits at about 6:30. We pitched tents right next to the road. It started raining, its windy, and we are going to sleep in a cloud tonight.  It's already getting foggy here. To top it all off my tent is getting water in it and I can't figure out how.I'm going to try to use what little daylight I have left to find out how to stay dry tonight.