morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2016-09-01
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

On the first day of my hike in Maine, my sister Diane posted a picture of me at the top of Saddleback Mountain to her Facebook page. One of her friends responded, ¢She'll return a changed person. Guaranteed.¢ I saw this and thought, a week in the woods couldn¢t possibly make me a changed person. But in fact it did. The first three days of the hike were over terrain that was harder than anything I¢ve hiked before. It required my complete concentration at all times just to move forward and avoid tripping over roots or falling on rocks. I had no time to think of anything except where to place my feet. Some days were a challenge because they were more miles than I usually hike: 15.6, 16.6, 15.5,18.5., these distances were a stretch for me: my normal exercise is to walk about 3 miles a day and a bit farther on weekends. The hike was a test: can my body stand up to the difficulties of the trail, and am I really serious about thru hiking? By the time I reached the top of Saddleback Mountain, on the first day, I knew I was serious about the hike. I was completely hooked on the spectacular views from the mountaintops and the peacefulness of the woods. By the end of the hike, I felt confident that my body could likely withstand the rigors of the trail. Although my whole body felt tired, nothing hurt and no old running injuries flared up. The last four days of the hike over easier terrain were wonderful. Most of the time I was hiking alone in the woods of my childhood ¢ the same trees, plants, wildflowers, sounds, smells, and silence. Each day in late afternoon the woods became completely quiet ¢ no bird sounds, no rustling of trees. I¢ve never experienced such a silence. And I heard loons for the first time in many years. When I emerged from the woods at the end of the hike, my mind was quiet, and I had a profound sense of wellbeing and happiness. I felt refreshed and lighthearted, as though a huge burden had been lifted from my heart. I felt freer and happier than I¢ve been in years. Perhaps having to concentrate so hard on a single task is like walking meditation. Whatever it is, I want to experience this feeling again.
Date: 2016-09-19
From: Skyline 102.1, McCormick Gap (southbound)

To: Skyline 95.3, Sawmill Run Overlook
Miles today: 6.8
Weather: clear sky

Susan and Bill Hosaflook and I decided to hike the AT in Shenandoah National Park, starting at Rockfish Gap, about a mile south of the southern entrance. Our plan was to hike as far north as we could get in 4 or 5 days. Skyline Drive has many parking areas, and the AT crosses the road at many of these places. So it¢s easy to hike sections of the trail by shuttling cars. We camped at Loft Mountain Campground and drove from there each morning.We got to the park around 1 PM. I missed the intended starting place, Rockfish Gap, the southern entrance to the parkway.  So we started hiking at Mitchell Gap (Skyline 102.1).  The day was overcast and misty, the trail a series of small ups and downs. Skyline Drive generally runs along the ridge of the mountains, and this part of the AT parallels the Drive at slightly lower elevation. This means that most of the good views are at scenic overlooks on the road. So we looked forward to the road crossings. We hiked 6.8 miles to Sawmill Run Overlook (Skyline 95.3). Both Little Calf Mountain and Sawmill Run Overlook were fogged in, so our only view was at a power line right of way. After our hike we headed to Loft Mountain Campground. This is a nice facility. It has a store with food and supplies, a laundry room, and a room with coin-operated showers. There are bathroom facilities throughout the campground, with hot water. Once we picked our camping spot we headed back to the store building to get showers. What a treat at the end of a sweaty day! My hike in Maine using a tarp persuaded me that I¢d rather have a tent. I never mastered getting the tarp up, and I hated dressing in a place where anyone could easily look in. So I borrowed a tent from my brother in law. It had a lot of stakes, and I kept hitting rocks, but I did get it up. It felt much more private than the tarp. Our campsite was very buggy, so I donned my bug net for the first time. We went to bed right after we ate.
Date: 2016-09-20
From: Rockfish Gap

To: Loft Mountain Campground
Miles today: 10.9
Weather: clear sky

Destination: Skyline 94.1, Turk Gap Start: Skyline 95.3, Sawmill Run Overlook (southbound)Miles:1.6Destination: U.S. 250 and Blue Ridge Parkway, Rockfish Gap Start: Skyline 102.1, McCormick Gap (southbound)Miles: 3.6Destination: Trail to Loft MountainStoreStart: Skyline 84.3Miles: 5.7It was nice getting to start the day with clean face and hands. The restroom facilities ¢ and everywhere else in the camp ¢ encourage careful disposal of all food waste. A sign in the women¢s bathroom read, ¢ Do not throw food trash in this garbage. Bears will enter and be trapped inside the restroom.¢ There has been a big problem of bears coming to the campground to eat. We were very careful to dispose of our food garbage in the designated containers, but we also hoped to see some bears once we got on the trail. We aimed to be on the trail hiking by 8 o¢clock, but we hadn¢t counted on how long it would take us to shuttle the cars into place. We started where we left off, at Sawmill Run Overlook, and hiked a short way to Turk Gap (1.6 miles). Then we moved the cars into position to hike the section we missed at the south end of Skyline Drive. We started at McCormick Gap and hiked south to Rockfish Gap, just south of the park entrance (3.6 miles). Finally we picked a longer section and hiked from Skyline 84.3 to the trail to Loft Mountain Store (5.7 miles). The day started out overcast, and the woods were very misty. Occasionally there were places where the trail overlooked the valley and the next mountains, but most of these places were fogged in. Around 1:30 the sun came out. From there on we were hiking on smooth trails through light woods. We reached Loft Mountain Store in late afternoon. After we had showers we ate and planned where to hike next. We had hiked a total of 10.9 miles for the day, but we¢d lost a lot of time moving cars. We decided to pick out a single hike of roughly that distance. We settled on Turk Gap to Skyline 84.3, which was 10.2 miles.
Date: 2016-09-21
From: Skyline 94.1, Turk Gap (southbound)

To: Skyline 84.3
Miles today: 10.3

We finally got a sunny day, and it was hot! Great for me, not so great for Bill and Susan, who hate hot weather. Much of the hike was through lightly wooded areas on smooth, rockless, well-trod trail. The day passed uneventfully until we reached Blackrock parking area near the end of our hike. Not far from where the trail crossed the parking lot we came to an amazing sight ¢ a huge pile of rocks above the trail. We followed the trail, circling the pile clockwise, till we came to a view overlooking the mountains to the west. This was even more amazing. The pile of rocks continued below the trail for a very long way. We stood and stared for a while, then headed on. We finished our hike for the day about a mile from there and headed back to the campground. A man in the campground store told us that the pile of rocks was a talus, a sloped area of broken rocks caused by repeated freezing and thawing. A truly impressive sight.
Date: 2016-09-22
From: Skyline 69.9, Powell Gap

To: Loft Mountain Store
Miles today: 11.3
Weather: overcast clouds

On our last day, we got some sunny, warm weather. While shuttling a car to Powell Gap we had a real treat. We saw a mother bear and two cubs. They crossed the road very close to the car. One of the cubs hesitated long enough at the edge of the woods for us to get a good look. They were moving too fast for us to get pictures though.Each day this week we¢ve met one or two southbound (SOBO) thru hikers, which surprised us.   Where we¢ve been hiking is 840 to 900 miles from the southern end of the trail, so it seems late in the season to have so much trail left to go. These hikers will be getting into some quite cold weather in the mountains by the end of their hikes.   The day¢s hike was a series of small ups and downs in woods that look just like the woods at home in West Virginia. We started at Powell Gap and hiked through Simmons Gap and and Pinefield Gap. We¢ve learned getting to a gap means hiking downhill into the gap and hiking uphill on the way out. We passed through one area that was extensively burned in the spring. The trail had been closed during the fire. In one area all the undergrowth had burned, and what remained was a ghostly forest of blackened tree trunks. Further on, where the area was more open the trail was surrounded on both sides by the types of weeds that grow in disturbed areas. We stayed together for the duration of the hike, chatting as we went. The hike sped by. We had time to stop at the Loft Mountain Wayside on the way back to the campground. I had a burger, and we all checked out the store. We left for home in late afternoon.
Date: 2016-10-01
From: Pen Mar County Park

To: Caledonia State Park
Miles today: 17.9

I woke to the alarm, got dressed, and ate breakfast ¢ really disheartened. I didn¢t have phone numbers for anyone in the group, and it was clear that Warren wasn¢t going to respond. So I figured unless I accidentally ran across the group I¢d have to go to Caledonia State Park and miss the day¢s hike. Shortly before 6 I drove out of the park and immediately saw headlamps in a field straight ahead. The group had car camped in that field overnight, but I never saw them the night before because of the dark. I pulled my car in and joined the group. Apparently Warren had told them an alternate place to park, in case the park gates should close, but I didn¢t hear it. Arghh! I felt both stupid and angry. We again left in the dark. The profile for the day showed only long gradual ups and downs, nothing that looked too steep. The day was cool and misty, so we put our rain jackets on and took them off many times during the day. The first time we stopped it was still dark. I turned to my left and discovered I was standing on the Mason Dixon line. Had we not stopped to take off our jackets we would have walked right by. One of the hazards of hiking in the dark. While we were stopped Bill, Arlene, and I exchanged phone numbers. After a while Arlene headed out at a faster pace, and I hiked with Bill for the rest of the day. A substantial part of the hike was on a wooded ridge covered with rocks, sometimes in great piles and sometimes scattered around. The mist and the lichen-covered rocks reminded me of Matthew Brady¢s Civil War photos of dead soldiers lying in places like this. It was eerie. Bill and I arrived at Caledonia State Park around 6. We found some cars from our group but no people. We figured they¢d gone into town to eat. We both had plenty of snacks left from the day, so we sat at a picnic table and ate. As we were loading our packs into our cars a park ranger came along and told us overnight parking wasn¢t allowed here. There was a place to park nearby, and he gave us directions to get there. Since we now had Arlene¢s phone number, we called her to tell her where the group needed to go to park overnight. Bill and I headed out to look for it but had a hard time finding it. By the time we got there the rest of the group was there settling in for the night.
Date: 2017-01-11
From: home

To: Woods Hole Hostel
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

The participants in the 2017 Expedition have agreed that everyone will start on the same day, finish on the same day, and hike the whole trail. That means if you need to leave the trail during the hike, e.g., for a graduation, wedding, etc., ¢ you must hike the miles scheduled for those days in advance to ¢bank¢ those days.I¢d like to attend may college class reunion in Middlebury, Vermont June 9th through June 11th. The Expedition will be in central Virginia then, which means I¢ll need two travel days each way ¢ a day to get home and pick up/drop off clothes and a day to fly to/from Vermont. This means that I need to hike the miles scheduled for June 7th through June 13th in advance. The scheduled miles are from Kimberling Creek Rd./VA 612 near Bland, VA to VA 311 near Catawba, VA ¢ a total of 117 miles. I drove to Woods Hole Hostel in Pearisburg, Virginia on Wednesday, January 11 to hike as many of those miles as possible while the weather in the mountains was good. The plan was to get shuttled to various spots on the trail to hike these miles.   My friends Sharon, Bill H, and Susan H came but drove separately. We started hiking the next day. The weather remained unseasonably warm through the end of that week and through the next week, so I was able to hike 107 of those miles without having to deal with snow, cold, or, for the most part, rain.
Date: 2017-01-12
From: Woods Hole Hostel (southbound)

To: Sugar Run Gap
Miles today: 11.1
Weather: overcast clouds

Michael, the hostel co-owner, shuttled Sharon, Susan, Bill, and me to VA 634 in Pearisburg, and we hiked back to Sugar Run Road southbound, and half a mile from the road crossing back to the hostel. The hike started with a 3-mile uphill, and the day was quite warm, so I was soon down to a single layer of clothing. Susan and I stopped to take pictures at Angels Rest. Approaching it we went through a big rhododendron thicket. There was still snow on the ground in a few places, even though the temperature eventually rose to over 60. At the top there was a beautiful view overlooking Wilburn Valley. We could see farms below with clear fields outlined in borders of snow and, in the distance, the next mountain. It was windy at the top, so we didn¢t stay long. Sharon didn¢t stop at all. I put my hat and mittens back on. After we got out of the wind we all stopped for lunch. Sharon had developed blisters on both heels, and Bill¢s chronically bad ankle was aggravated. Susan and I went ahead at a faster pace. Coming up one hill through a rhododendron thicket I came upon three light yellow stinkhorns with gold-brown veils growing on dirt. Susan and I waited for Sharon and Bill at Docs Knob Shelter. From there Susan and Bill went ahead while I hiked more slowly with Sharon, who was in pain. After a bit Sharon suggested that I go ahead at my own pace and pick her up by car where the trail crosses the road so as to save her the half-mile walk back to the hostel. Susan and Bill finished the section at 4:00, I finished at 4:15, and Sharon finished around 4:30. She was already walking down the road to the hostel when I reached her by car.
Date: 2017-01-13
From: Sugar Run Gap

To: VA 606 near Trent's Grocery
Miles today: 15.2
Weather: broken clouds

In the morning Sharon was far too sore to hike, and Bill¢s ankle had caused him great pain overnight. He decided to go the first three miles and then decide whether to continue. The plan was to have Michael drop us off where the trail crosses Sugar Run Road, we would hike northbound, and Michael would pick us up where the trail crosses VA 606. It was another warm day, already in the 40s when we started around 8 am.Susan, Bill, and I set off up the hill at a good pace. When we reached the top Bill¢s ankle was doing fine, so he and Susan decided to continue on with me. The view from the top (elevation 3899) looking across the valley was interesting. We could see the valley below clearly, and wisps of fog were drifting up from low places into a big cloud that the covered the top of the next mountain. Above that the sky was blue with puffy white clouds. The trail continued along the ridge a ways, then descended steeply for about 3 miles and more gradually for the remaining 8 miles of the hike. Much of the way we hiked through forests of rhododendrons, which I really love. These forests seem exotic and make me feel like I¢m in an enchanted forest in a fairy tale.         On the last part of the hike we crossed many footbridges. The AWOL guide, i.e., The A.T. Guide Northbound 2016, by David Miller, trail name AWOL, describes one point in this section as ¢the center of a one-mile stretch with at least 6 stream crossings by footbridge.¢ There were also numerous fords of smaller streams. We stopped counting after the twelfth bridge and remained clueless as to how far along we were. Then we crossed a woods road, and the habitat changed completely. We entered a forest of very tall deciduous trees, pines about 6 feet tall, and club moss as undergrowth. It was pretty and flat, and the trail was straight into the distance as far as we could see. For a long time we saw no blazes, but the path was very clear. Near the end of the hike we reached a side trail for Dismal Falls, but by then we were too weary to add another .6 mile to the hike and skipped it.Michael was to pick us up at 5:30, but we realized we were quite ahead of schedule. So when we reached a high point with cell coverage we called him. He met us when we emerged from the woods at 4:00. Sharon left that day, and Bill and Susan headed home after the hike, leaving me to hike alone. However, Michael expected four hikers to arrive that night and said he¢d ask them if I could hike and share shuttles with them.
Date: 2017-01-14
From: VA 621/Craig Creek Rd.

To: VA 624/Newport Rd.
Miles today: 15.4
Weather: light rain

I met the other hikers at breakfast at 5:30. They were: Robin, a tall slim, friendly black woman in her late 40s; Vince, a short, muscular 73 year old from Massachusetts; Bob, a 40-something man from New Jersey; and Frank, a quiet 50ish man from Pennsylvania. They hike together often and are all working on section hikes of the AT. Vince has completed 1800 miles and Robin 1200. This should have been a clue that I was in over my head to hike with them. They planned to take their car to VA 621/Craig Creek Road, and hike north to VA 624/Newport Road, where Michael would meet them at 4:30. This was based on their estimate that they would go two miles an hour. I suggested 5:30, but they were all confident that 4:30 was about right. The hike consisted of a steep 2-mile uphill, a steep 6-mile downhill, a more gradual 5-mile uphill, and a steep 3-mile downhill.I started off at their pace but was soon struggling to keep up. Not too far in Robin suggested that they wait for me at various spots. It was 34 degrees and very foggy. Nonetheless, I was soon down to one layer as I struggled up the hill. I took a 100-yard detour to see a memorial to Audie Murphy, the World War II war hero. The memorial is near where he died when his plane crashed into the mountain. I photographed the monument but only allowed myself to stop one more time to take a picture. I was in a hurry.The second uphill had a lot of rock scrambling, and I had some trouble following the trail there. Sometimes the white blaze was painted on the top of a flat rock such that it could not be seen by either a northbound or southbound hiker unless they crawled up onto the rock first. It wasn¢t hard getting onto and over the rocks, but finding the trail was. Coming around one corner I met a younger man with an older man and stopped to chat. The younger man had hiked the full Virginia part of the AT several times and was now helping his older friend do the same.When at long last I reached the top, Robin and Vince were waiting for me. Around the corner was the downhill ¢ a cliff with rebar and lots of carefully placed white blazes to direct exactly where to sidle along a ledge, slide down a rock, etc. The rocks were wet. As I carefully picked my way down, two young men, one carrying a boom box, came leaping down like gazelles. I was soon far behind the group again. There was a side trail to Dragon¢s Tooth, but I couldn¢t take time to see it because I was already going to make the group late for our shuttle pickup.I caught up at the bottom because they were unclear whether Michael was picking us up at the road or at the Dragon¢s Tooth parking lot. We eventually settled on the road and continued on. We arrived at the road at 5:10. Vince let me take the lead, and I hurried ahead to tell Michael that I¢d pay for the shuttle in thanks for their being so patient with me. I felt terrible that I held them back, and having to hurry spoiled my hike. It made me too anxious to enjoy it.
Date: 2017-01-15
From: VA 42/Sinking Creek

To: VA641/Craig Creek Rd.
Miles today: 11.4

I decided not to hike with the group. Instead, I did a shortened version of their hike, omitting the first 5 miles. Michael dropped them at VA 601/Rocky Gap, then dropped me 5 miles north at Sinking Creek/VA 42, and we all hiked to Craig¢s Creek Road, where Bob¢s car was parked. This was another warm (around 45) but very foggy day. My hike began with a 2-mile uphill. Not too far in I came to the Keffer oak. It¢s the largest oak on the AT, a truly impressive sight. From there the trail crossed a cow pasture where, despite the season, I heard a bluebird singing and what sounded like chorus frogs. There was a steep uphill, then a 5-mile walk across the top of the ridge. There I heard pileated woodpeckers, flushed two wild turkeys, and saw 4 deer and a squirrel ¢ the most wildlife I¢ve seen in a single area of the AT so far.About halfway across the ridge the terrain changed. The trail crossed some very scary rocks ¢ slanted sideways at about a 30-degree angle with no handholds and a drop off to the right. The rocks were covered with pale green lichen which looked dry but was wet underneath ¢ very slippery when stepped on. Every time I thought I¢d reached the end of them more would appear. Picking my way across them added a lot of time to the hike, but I regard this as good training. While I was carefully crossing the rocks the sun came out, and I got a good view of the valley and the next mountain. It¢s like the view you get from an airplane ¢ long waves of hills like the inside of corrugated cardboard with side folds perpendicular to the top of the mountain ¢ all very soft-edged. Finally despairing that I¢d ever see the end of the rocks, I took a break, sat on a fallen tree, and ate lunch. Almost as soon as I resumed hiking I came to the north end of the ridge crest, which had a sign marking it as the Eastern Continental Divide. From there the trail descended gradually but with lots of rocks. I practiced rock hopping.The last part of the hike was a gentle downhill on a pine-needled surface ¢ very pleasant. I got to the parking lot at 2:45, having started at 8:15. It was altogether more pleasant not having to rush. I stopped to look at things and to take pictures all day. The others arrived about an hour later, and we drove to The Palisades restaurant for dinner. It¢s an upscale eatery in an old hardware store. An old time band was playing. Frank was intrigued with it, apparently having never heard such music before.