morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2010-04-01
From: Unnamed Bald (Mile 317.2)

To: Whistling Gap Tentsite
Miles today: 9.2

Hiked up Big Bald today during beautiful weather. The top was wide open and grassy and the views all around were spectacular!Me being the sun worshiper that I am layed out all afternoon to try and put some color on my winter coat (pastey white skin). I begged and begged to cut the day short and just cowboy camp up there but my meany boyfriend said no! Humph!Well goooood thing we didn't stay because the few hours we were up there I burnt to a crisp! It hurt just putting my long sleeve shirt on let alone the pack! Uh...and my skin started bubbling...gross. I didn't want to add this next part but everyone insists:While we were up top, some other AT hikers arrived and asked, "Are you AT hikers?""Yea.""Oh, you guys look too clean to be thru hikers."My response: "Well you should look at my underwear"Really??? Did I really just say that? To make matters worse, there was a period of silence for about 2 seconds that to me felt like forever before everyone responded to my remark. They probably couldn't believe I really said that either...and they still have yet to stop bringing it up...Well anyways, later in the day despite it being over 80 degrees and sunny, we ended up hiking through snow; some parts past our knees.That evening, after camp was set up and our super-sized supper had been consumed, Shakes, Matt and I hung around the fire talking.In the mean time, another guy showed up and started setting up camp quietly and prepared his food. All of a sudden he speaks, "Have you guys been to town in a while?"Us: "Yea, why?"Him: "Since I've been here you've been drool talking about food and nothing but food."Laughs and giggles.Him again: "Have you all eaten supper yet?"More laughing and giggling.
Date: 2010-04-02
From: Whistling Gap Tentsite

To: Uncle Johnny's Nolichucky Hostel
Miles today: 13.5
Weather: clear sky

A scorching walk into Uncle Johnny's!Matt and I pitched our tent out back and hung out with Johnny and his crew, including a cat and 2 dogs (one being a stray that just hangs around)Later that evening we went to Azteca, a Mexican restaurant where we discovered that around these parts, you can only order up to 3 beers! Whaaahhht? (Also, Azteca is the only place in that town that serves beer.)Oh, have I mentioned that in the south there's like no alcohol? All these towns latey have been not dry, but damp. You can only get beer and even thats inconvieniant to find.The food was good anyway and I ended up boxing a lot of it and taking it back to the hostel with us. I didn't get to eat it though because Johnny's cat knows how to mooch. Cutest thing ever. She would pat me with her paw and if I didn't give her the chicken fast enough she would bat me and meow. She had me wrapped around her paw the rest of the night.
Date: 2010-04-03
From: Uncle Johnny's Nolichucky Hostel

To: Uncle Johnny's Nolichucky Hostel
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Zero day!Shakes discovered why my pack wasn't riding right: the left stay is broken! How and when did that happen?! Osprey is closed on Sundays but they'll get a call from me tomorrow!We met a girl from Machias, Maine who is thru-hiking. Her name is Switchback.There are 63 Baptist churches in the small town of Erwin.And Happy Easter!We saw a mother and her toddler son both sporting mullets. I know its wrong but I had to snap a pictures. Had to. Sorry sorry sorry!Oh, hiking the AT is like a mullet, business in the front and party in the back.
Date: 2010-04-04
From: Uncle Johnny's Nolichucky Hostel

To: Deep Gap Campsite
Miles today: 12.1

Left Uncle Johnny's and had a pretty mundane day.Went over 'Beauty Spot' where again I wanted to stay but the water sources were too inconvieniant. My sun burn looks more like sun poisoning now and are bubbling even worse than before. Must...Get...Sunscreen...Skin...Parched...Shakes, Matt and I ended up setting up camp next to a dirt road that leads to the beauty spot. (Cheaters!) A handful of cars drove by...awkward.Shakes had words with a little bird who mocking laughed at him (or so it sounded like) Fist shaking and all but the bird was not threatend. Eventually they seemed to come to an agreement and the bird let us be.
Date: 2010-04-06
From: Greasy Creek Friendly

To: Roan Mountain Knob Shelter
Miles today: 8.4
Weather: clear sky

So today is rumored to be the toughest climb to date! We totally dreaded the climb but it wasn't what it was cracked up to be! Thank heavens! We ran into Shakes going the other way of course, and had lunch together before he headed back to Greasy Creek Friendly and we headed to Roan High Knob Shelter, the highest shelter on the AT. (It had 4 walls and a door! Wow! High class! Guess it used to be a fire wardens cabin.)Towards the top of Roan, we trudged through lots of snow and where there wasn't snow, the trail was a stream. On another note, we can't remember if we mention the wildlife we've seen thus far. Back in the Smokie's we saw three deer and the day we came into Erwin we saw two more. We actually watched these two deer play fight not too far from us! Is that not cool? They did not seem at all bothered by our presence. That was just so cool.
Date: 2010-04-07
From: Roan Mountain Knob Shelter

To: Apple House Shelter
Miles today: 16.1

We hiked about 2 miles to a road intersection where we'd meet Shakes and Reverend being dropped off. I was so excited to find they had the piece to my pack! Osprey was prompt in sending it on time! So I emptied my pack and took the metal frame apart and put the new piece in. For some reason it wouldn't fit properly so I let Mattt handle the engineering. He couldn't get it either. Unfortunately in the process we broke the other side of the frame. BUMMER! But I didn't freak out¢¦I'd been hiking with a broken pack for so long, what's another week. Only thing is, I was used to the weight distribution being on one side and now it was swapped to the other side so I had to go through the bruising process over again. Good grief. I hate my pack. I kick my pack. I call my pack bad name!We hike on.We go over several grassy balds, one of which during the later season is inhabited with goats that help to keep it a bald. If you want you can sponsor a goat (smirk) and if you do, the organization will send you a picture and a lock of fur (BAHAHA!) I drew one in a register and named it Honey Goat even though I only met her a handful of times and she died the day after I fed her an apple.We met a couple out for a walk with their two dogs: a black labradoodle and a white golden doodle. The labradoodle was very big for his breed with long wavy wiry hair and the golden doodle was kinda small with curly fluffy locks. Neat how different their fur was. Oh, have we mentioned that we are hiking with a gentleman who is blind? I don't think we have. His name is Bulldog and I'm sure you can google him. He is hiking not with a dog but with a GPS and a friend (Hitchcock) who is filming him. I recommend you look him up, pretty neat stuff. We've run into him a handful of times so far.
Date: 2010-04-08
From: Apple House Shelter

To: Mountain Harbor Bed and Breakfast
Miles today: 0.5

Only hiked a half mile day, you cannot beat that! Rumor has it that is going to be a very rainy one today.The four of us hike into town to resupply. First we go to breakfast of course, and the meals were AMAZING the best so far for sure! I will go there again if I happen to be in the town of Roan. We then head to the grocery store where Shakes and Reverend seem all secretive and funny acting. By the time we leave the store we find out we're staying at Mountain Harbor Bed and Breakfast/Hostel. Unfortunately or fortunately, the hostel was booked (which is in the renovated upstairs of a 100 year old barn) so we were forced to stay in a $60+ bed and breakfast room for the price of a hostel (which Shakes paid for!) The house was beautiful and the host was too kind. Not a spot of dirt anywhere. I had my first shower without my crocs on, now that¢s a big deal. She even had three horses and three goats! To top it off, she served us a huge buffet-style-made-from-scratch breakfast the next morning. We thought the other breakfast was great, this was great times 4. That¢s was such a cool place to stay and we stayed out of the rain! I almost forgot! Our shuttle driver from Uncle Johnny's gave us a ride into town today! We happend to see him dropping off hikers and he offered to get us into town! Sweet deal!
Date: 2010-04-09
From: Mountain Harbor Bed and Breakfast

To: Upper Laurel Fork Campsite
Miles today: 7.5

Nobody wanted to leave the B&B today but we had too¢¦that¢s about our attitude for the rest of the day.We tented next to some small falls. Big deal. We were at a sweet B&B last night.P.S. The invention of the Fart Hole.P.S.S. To the guest book signer who asked what Putin was (sorry I forgot to answer you sooner!) Putin is a concoction of French fries topped with melted cheese topper with brown gravy. I've actually never had it until recently but Matt's familiar with it.
Date: 2010-04-10
From: Upper Laurel Fork Campsite

To: Braemar Castle 
Miles today: 11.8
Weather: clear sky

Don't really remember much of today just that we had to rush to get to town before the store closed to get our packages. Matt's a much stronger hiker than I am so I set him loose like a hound dog and he covered 6 miles in about an hour and a half (Very fast) to get to Kincora Hostel to shuttle into town. He got their about 40 minutes before the shuttle was said to leave but unfortunately it was already gone and nobody was there. I arrived 30 minutes after he did so we decided to walk to road into town, leaving our packs there. After about 2 miles, we were picked up by an older man who drove like a mad man down the long narrow windy road into town (didn't take me long to fasten my seatbelt) and we thanked him over and over because we wouldn't have made it to our package in time if it weren't for him.After we picked that up, we went over to the Braemer Castle, where we met Reverend and decided that was a way cool place and we had to stay. Soooooo¢¦.we were able to get a long ride back to Kincora, grab our packs, rescue Shakes (as he put it) and go back once again to the Castle. Really neat old building. I'm actually having a brain cramp right now on the history of it so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was¢¦um¢¦rad. Today we cleaned our ears with some sort of drops. That was so weird! We also got a sheet of Sham WOW. Perfect tool for backpacking with, no question. You backpack, you carry a shamWOW.Oh, today we met up with Reverend during the hike helping a trail maintainer out. He had been helping him for a while and we joined in during the last few miles to a shelter. Well, I only kicked and threw the small stuff, but Rev and Matt cut and hauled the big trees. It was fun. Hopefully one of these days we can spend a whole day or two or three volunteering.
Date: 2010-04-11
From: Braemar Castle 

To: Watauga Lake Campsite
Miles today: 5.0

Slack packed Laurel Falls. That was a first slackpack and it was wonderful! How much easier and faster you move when you are free of the monster on your back! We got our first glimpse of hiking in an attraction area on the weekend. Backpacker courtesy does not exist. We are going to hate weekends, I can already tell. We met Grandma and Butter today. Went back to town and had BBQ, went back to the Castle to find Reverend painting a room to help the owner get it done and over with. Met Catman, a man who works at a feline shelter I believe. I told him I trained my kitten how to come and how to sit. Some how, even a Catman finds that weird. After leaving the Castle, we hung out on a public beach on Watauga Lake before heading to a campsite with an order of pizza and tall boys. (Matt humped most of the tall boys for all of us)There were millions of pinecones which Matt proceeded to gather and throw into a heaping mound in the fire pit. "How will we light it?" They ask. "Here, I have a tampon. I hear they work great, especially dipped in fuel." I answer. We stick it under the mound, light the tail of it and like a stick of dynamite, the flame crawls up the string until it hits the fuel and BAM! Huge 7 foot tall ball of flames. T'was a magnificent fire.P.S. Grandma is a boy our age incase you had it in your mind it was an older lady.
Date: 2010-04-12
From: Watauga Lake Campsite

To: Campsite 
Miles today: 11.4
Weather: clear sky

The four of us made a deal that who ever woke up last in the morning had to carry out all the cans and trash back to the public beach where there was a trash bin. Matt lost! Neither of us remembers anything about the hike. All we know is when we got to Shakes and Reverend, they were seeing many people pass by and they had a bet how many people they would see until the rest of the day. I think Reverend won.
Date: 2010-04-13
From: Campsite 

To: Campsite
Miles today: 13.1
Weather: clear sky

Matt and I hung out at the campsite all day (unplanned but sort of just happened). By 5:30pm we set out and did our first night hike in a near full moon and on a boring ridge with no views. The time seemed to fly and we hiked rather quickly and tirelessly. In all it was rather fun. The city lights and light pollution was neat to look at in the distance. Unfortunately, Matt's knee started bothering him (it hasn't bothered him for a long time) so we had to slow down and stop sooner than we had planned. We were actually planning on staying a few miles past where Rev and Shakes were (they had no idea we were going to night hike) and in the morning they would find us still sleeping since they start their day earlier than us. What actually happened was we found them off the trail and decided to stay there. We cowboy camped right between both of their tents so that we didn't wake them with all our noise and saw 4 shooting stars! We found it was hard to fall asleep after a night hike since we're used to down time after a hike on a normal day.About 1am, Shakes climbs out of his tent and we looked right at each other, he then takes a sharp right, walks a little past his tent and starts peeing 3 or 4 feet away from my head! Matt asks me if he knows we're here, and I thought he did but he never pees this close to us! It was so close we were grateful we weren¢t being splashed on! It was so close I had to get up, turn my light on and make sure his urine wasn't flowing down towards us! We didn't say anything while he was peeing because we were too scared we'd jump him and he'd turn and wee wee right on our heads! Well. In the AM, Shakes crawls out of his tent and was startled to see us. That answers that question. We told him what he and we haven't stopped talking about it. He was so embarrassed!And then we had the talk about how our curfew is 7pm and they were both worried sick all night. So sick to the point they fell asleep and didn¢t stay up waiting for us. But they did agree it was the perfect night for a night hike.
Date: 2010-04-15
From: Campsite

To: Damascas 
Miles today: 2.3
Weather: clear sky

Short day into town today and Rev hooked us up with a sweet apartment for 2 nights. And cheap too! We each had our own rooms, our own bathrooms, two living rooms with flatscreens, a full kitchen, and a washer and drier! We ate at a small diner and each ordered 3 meals. Brought my pack to Mt. Rogers Outfitter's to get it fixed and left it over night. Grandma and Butter ended up staying the night with us even though they had intentions of leaving today and they supplied the beer. Oh how quickly alcohol effects our bodies out here...
Date: 2010-04-16
From: Damascas 

To: Damascas
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

Today we went down to Mt. Rogers Outfitters to pick up Erika¢s pack; turns out he broke it while trying to fix it! Looks like I¢m not the only one who can break a pack while trying to fix it, but at least he had the parts in the back to fix it up good as new. Erika decided that if the pack broke again than she would be getting a new one, so she tried on every pack in the place. She loaded up each of them with her gear and walked around, then unloaded and loaded the next one. Last, she loaded up her own pack and decided that was the most comfortable one. After spending the day shopping we headed up to the grocery store to pick up food for a big joint dinner at the apartment. Great chicken and potatoes, but I think that the salad was the best part (Erika made it).
Date: 2010-04-17
From: Damascas

To: Campsite on VA Creeper Trail & AT Junction
Miles today: 11.1

I got a hair cut today! Then the very nice lady trimmed my beard for me. The plan was to leave town today, town is very comfy. After spending some time at the library and the outfitters we had some lunch and prepared to leave. As we walked out the door Grandma pulled up. He informed us that he was getting off of the trail for a while but Butter would be continuing without him.We took the Virginia Creeper Trail out of town for a change of pace. That is not a good idea on a Saturday; everyone else on the trail was going downhill on bikes. Shakes said that the only time he was in fear of his life on this trip was when a mob of boy scouts on bikes ran him off of the trail. Lucky for us it was 3pm before we got out on the trail and all the boy scouts had gone home, but we still had plenty of bikes to dodge. I always thought that walkers had the right of way on a trail but it turns out bikes hurt.
Date: 2010-04-18
From: Campsite on VA Creeper Trail & AT Junction

To: Campsite on Mt. Rogers
Miles today: 15.1

It turns out that thru-hikers are a novelty on the Creeper Trail; we had out picture taken by a stranger. As we were eating breakfast this morning Erika saw a hawk pin a blue bird to the ground 2¢ from the open door of the tent. When she and the hawk made eye contact he let the bird go and they both flew off in different directions. I missed the whole thing!After getting a late start, when we got to the horse pasture the day was getting away from us, but we still had time for Erika to pet each horse and feed them some crackers. When the sun started to get low we stopped, built a fire and cooked dinner. After a break we broke out the head lamps and hiked into the night. At midnight we called it quits even though we were only a half mile from the shelter that the wild ponies hang out around.
Date: 2010-04-19
From: Campsite on Mt. Rogers

To: Fox Creek Campsite
Miles today: 13.2

Today Erika met the wild ponies! We spent a lot of time lounging with the little guys in the morning. When we got to the shelter that the ponies were suppose to be at there were none in sight. Erika went in search of them while I made my breakfast. When she returned she was followed by a dozen little ponies, one of which was just a little foal. Erika and the foal bonded and they played together then took a nap together.After leaving the ponies we were stopped by a forest ranger, the trail was closed due to a controlled burn. After inspecting the map we headed cross country to find another trail, which lead to a trail that would take us around the burn area. When we rejoined with the AT we stopped for lunch and watched the rangers start a forest fire with a helicopter about 15¢ from us.I forgot to mention that when we left Damascus we left so late in the day that we never caught up with Shakes or Reverend. We weren¢t able to catch them yesterday either, today we caught Shakes. Sadly he informed us that Reverend had gotten off the trail. He left Shakes a parting gift of 12 beers. By the time we reached Shakes he was full as a bug egg and the beer was drunk (maybe Shakes was a little too).
Date: 2010-04-20
From: Fox Creek Campsite

To: South Fork of the Holston River
Miles today: 15.2

The highlight of the day was dinner. When we rolled into the Trimpi Shelter to cook our dinner we discovered four other people already in the shelter. There were six of us in the shelter; all of us were from Maine! After dinner we moved on to find Shakes.The Trimpi Shelter is the best shelter we have seen yet. All the walls are stone; it has a fireplace in the center of the back wall with bunks on each side.
Date: 2010-04-21
From: South Fork of the Holston River

To: Partnership Shelter
Miles today: 7.8
Weather: light rain

We told Shakes that we would be at the Partnership Shelter by noon so we could go into town for lunch. After a rainy morning and slow start we had to almost run to make it to the shelter by noon, we were two minutes late. We still made it into town (50 cent shuttle) for the all you can eat Chinese buffet. Erika had 5 plates before she was full. Then we discovered the ABC store, the first liquor store we have seen since leaving Springer.
Date: 2010-04-25
From: Picnic Area

To: Walker Gap
Miles today: 12.5

At 11:30 today we crossed a bridge with a nice brook and a gravel beach, we didn¢t leave until 3pm. After eating lunch we went crawdad fishing hopping to get enough for a snack. I caught one big one right away but the rest were too small. Then finally I caught another big one! When I put it with the first one I discovered that the first had escaped! So there was no crawdad cake today.
Date: 2010-04-26
From: Walker Gap

To: Big Walker Motel
Miles today: 20.4

Long day in the rain! We broke down and the four of us (me, Little Spoon, Shakes and Traveler) got hotel rooms. Erika¢s Feet looked like prunes from being wet all day. Had some trail magic which made the rain a little less crappie. When we tried to order food, the Pizza Place wouldn¢t deliver! We had DQ, their food is not very good either and we had to walk to get it. Bland is not getting a very good review. We did luck out and get picked up by Shakespeare (a hiker shakes met earlier) Aunt and Uncle, who brought us all the way to the hotel.
Date: 2010-04-27
From: Big Walker Motel

To: Helveys Mill Shelter
Miles today: 2.6
Weather: light rain

When we rolled into the shelter Shakes informed us that the grumpy old men in the shelter had insulted him. The three of us were tenting 50¢ behind the shelter so shakes told us this story while we were setting up our tent. When he got to the shelter at 4pm most everyone who was there was already finishing up dinner and turning into their sleeping bags, trying to talk someone into getting water for the whole group because it was so far away. Shakes struck up a conversation with one man who ended up asking when Shakes had started. When Shakes told him how long we had been on the trail he asked Shakes how he could be going so slow that he was only at Bland. He then proceeded to brag about how many miles he was doing each day and how few zero days he had taken. Shakes promptly responded with, ¢Did you spend three hours crawdad fishing, a few hours fossil hunting, ten hours swimming and fishing at Dismal Falls?¢ The grumpy old man responded, ¢Well I didn¢t even like crawdad fishing when I was a child.¢Erika decided that we should play a joke on the grumpy old men. We headed down to get some water, the trail passes in front of the shelter then goes steep downhill for a quarter mile. When we got in front of the shelter Erika was holding only a small mug, she asked if anyone needed water since we were headed down. I had the dunk bag but it was in my pocket so it couldn¢t be seen. When we got to the bottom we filled the bag and headed back up, Erika with here mug-full and me with the dunk bag hidden under my puffy down coat. At the shelter Erika, holding up her mug, offered ¢anyone need some water?¢ Everyone looked at her like she was nuts, someone asked if we had gone all the way down for 10oz of water, I responded ¢that¢s all that we needed.¢ The two of us walked off and had a good laugh when we told Shakes what we had done knowing full well that they would be making smart remarks about us.Not long after we were back with our water Sticks came out of the shelter. He told us that the grumpy old men had kicked him out of the shelter if he wasn¢t going to sleep. We told him about the dunk bag and he got kick out of Little Spoons prank. Sticks is one of the Syke Brothers, they have a website http://www.aquonelogcabinrentals.com/AT.html they are hiking for ¢Help For Heroes¢.