morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2017-01-17
From: North end of VA 612, Bland

To: VA 611
Miles today: 8.9
Weather: overcast clouds

I still needed to hike the section from Bland to VA 608, a distance of 1812 miles. Even through the AWOL profile makes it appear relatively easy, that distance is a stretch for me ¢ given the number of daylight hours at this time of year and the late start time caused by shuttling my car. Michael suggested splitting it into two roughly equal days. We dropped my car off at VA 611, and Michael dropped me off the north end of VA 612.It was drizzling when I set out, so I made sure my down vest, hat, mittens, neck warmer, and fleece were carefully stowed in the plastic bag inside my day pack. To start I wore my wool base layer and my rain jacket with the hood up. Even though it was in the 40s, the fog and rain made it feel colder. I soon put on my hat underneath the raincoat hood.The trail was relatively easy, with small ups and downs along a ridge top. At first the valleys on both sides were filled with fog. But after a while the valley to the east cleared, while the valley to the west remained fogged. As the terrain was relatively easy I was able to hike 2 miles an hour, and finished the hike around 1:30. I headed into Pearisburg to make some contact with the outside world. I don¢t get any AT&T cell coverage at the hostel or up in the mountains. So I had a big lunch at the Mexican restaurant, checked my email, posted some pictures to Facebook, and called Diane.         I bought a tuna sandwich and some milk to bring back to the hostel for supper. After I ate I settled on my bed to write about this hike. My plan is to have written entries about each of my practice hikes so that Diane and I can get my Trail Journals blog set up when we get together at QuiltCon in Savannah, Georgia in late February.
Date: 2017-01-19
From: VA 461/Cross Clendennin Rd. 

To: VA 635/Stony Creek Bridge
Miles today: 17.4
Weather: overcast clouds

This was another bright, clear, sunny morning. We left my car at VA 635/Stony Creek, and Michael dropped me at VA 461/Cross Clendennin Road. The first 2 miles were uphill through rocks but mostly not on them. From there the trail followed the ridge for about 10 miles through open fields with many pretty views, descended for 4 miles, with an additional 2 miles of small ups and downs along the creek. It was a beautiful hike. When I started around 8:45 the light was low and bright. At the top of the mountain there was a stile across a barbed wire fence and a large open grassy field. This ridge appears to be the border between West Virginia and Virginia. The view to West Virginia was of several ranks of mountains separated by farmland in the valleys. The trail continued through this open area, eventually coming to a nice view of the Virginia mountains to the east. After a time I came to an area that was still open but had widely spaced trees. It appeared to be an old abandoned orchard. I sat down on a rock and ate lunch. There were not many landmarks in AWOL¢s guide so I wasn¢t sure how far I¢d gone. At 1:20 I came to a sign: Pine Swamp Branch Shelter was 5.2 miles. I calculated I still had 7.4 miles to go. I decided I should pick up the pace and headed downhill. Partway down I met Bob and Mary, who live nearby and are hiking the AT in sections. They plan to complete 100 miles per month and hope to do much of it without camping. I stopped to chat with them. They were concerned that I was short of time to make it to where my car was parked at Cherokee Flats and offered to come pick me up from a side trail if I wanted. I continued hiking down the hill at a brisk pace.Near the bottom of the hill the trail passed through a rhododendron forest beside a stream with several places that had to be forded. I didn¢t reach Pine Swamp Branch Shelter till 4:30. I estimated that I would get to my car around 6 if I maintained a pace of 112 miles an hour. Not far past the shelter the trail reached the road, but a stream with no bridge separated the trail from the road. AWOL¢s guide showed that the trail continued another 2 miles up and down small but steep hills before finally reaching the road crossing. These last two miles seemed to take an eternity: I was tired, darkness was falling, and I was anxious to avoid hiking in the dark. When I finally reached my car at 5:50 it was almost completely dark.
Date: 2017-01-20
From: VA461/Cross Clendennin Rd.

To: VA 634/Cross Ave., Pearisburg
Miles today: 4.9
Weather: clear sky

As of this morning, I had three more short sections to complete the 117-mile section of Central Virginia. Since they're short -- around 5 miles each -- I planned to have Michael shuttle me to two of these today. I awoke to a downpour that had been going on all night. Michael suggested that I just do one section, and I agreed. I've been away from home for 11 days, and I'm anxious to get home. The remaining 10 or so miles can easily be done later. We parked my car on VA 634 in Pearisburg, and Michael took me to VA 461/Cross Clendennin Rd. It was still raining when I started up the hill but not very hard. Not long after, the rain stopped, but the sky remained dark and threatening. After a short uphill the trail descended about 3 miles to a stream. A sign warned hikers not to drink the water because of the nearby landfill. The trail ran beside the landfill for a ways, separated from it by a chain link fence. About half a mile further the trail emerged from the woods at US 460, a major highway. Arrows painted on the pavement and white blazes on telephone poles directed me underneath the highway bridge, up some steps, and around to a pedestrian walkway across the bridge. From there the trail entered a scrubby area overgrown with kudzu vines, past a very old cemetery, and eventually out to Pearis Cemetery trailhead. Crossing the road I continued through a pasture and into the woods. I stopped for a while to talk to a local hiker who was taking advantage of a day off. The last part of the section was a steep uphill to VA 634.When I finished my clothes were stinky; my hiking boots and pants were muddy and wet. I headed back into Pearisburg. When I reached a Dairy Queen I pulled in. I got dry, clean clothes out of the car, went directly to the women's restroom, and stripped. Getting into clean dry clothes felt wonderful. As I changed I realized I'm getting used to the hiking life. It seemed totally natural to change my clothes at the first opportunity to preserve body heat.   After a quick lunch I headed home.I feel really fortunate to have had such unseasonably warm weather during the time I've been here. Most of the days it was in the 40s and 50s although humid or drizzly. It's really easy to get chilled -- even at these relatively warm temperatures -- if you take more than a short break from hiking. It's been an opportunity to learn just which layers to wear in these conditions. I've also been lucky not to have to walk in much rain. It rained all but one of the 11 days I was here. But most days it rained overnight or before or after I hiked. I spent only about 20 minutes hiking in rain during this entire time, and I hiked 107 of the 117 miles I came to do. All in all, quite a good hike.
Date: 2017-03-25
From: VA 624, Newport Rd.

To: VA 311, Catawba
Miles today: 5.9
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was as easy as yesterday was hard. I got up at 7:30, ate in my room, packed up my car, and headed for Four Pines Hostel in Catawba around 8:15. I had arranged a shuttle to take me to the trailhead parking lot at VA 311. It was an hour and a half drive to the hostel. When we got to the trailhead, the parking lot was completely full. So we dropped my car back at the hostel and me back at the trail where it crosses VA 624. I got on the trail at 10:15.  I had already shed my windbreaker by the time I headed up the hill and soon shed my fleece as well. Coming down the other side of the hill a runner passed me headed in the other direction. At the bottom of the hill there was a stream. AWOL¢s guide said there was a footbridge there, but there was no sign of one. There was also supposed to be a stile, but that too was missing. Instead, there was the first of several V-shaped gates. These appear to be common in this area. They have no actual barrier. Instead, there¢s a slot, a turn at an acute angle, and a second slot in the opposite direction. Humans can make the sharp turn, but livestock can¢t. The trail followed alongside the stream, through a well-grazed pasture, across Blacksburg Road, and across a footbridge over Catawba Creek. From there it headed uphill through more pasture. In the middle of the hill two white blazes on a utility pole marked a turn in the trail. I looked uphill, and a black cow was gazing at me. I heard a rufous-sided towhee.At the edge of the pasture the trail entered the woods and continued uphill to the top of a narrow rocky ridge. The rest of the hike followed this undulating ridge. It was a warm sunny day, and in open places I saw lots of early spring wildflowers in bloom: heal-all, corn speedwell, a tiny chickweed, lesser pussytoes, and a small yellow flower that we later identified as corydalis. When I stopped to eat lunch I was swarmed by some kind of bugs ¢ a sign of real spring. I met three young hikers who had started past Tinker Cliffs, had already been to McAfee Knob, and were headed to Dragon¢s Tooth. In the last mile of the hike there were lots of hikers headed south for afternoon hikes. When I got within view of the parking lot I called the shuttle driver to be picked up. He took me back to my car, and I headed toward West Virginia. I had gotten a cell signal on the ridge so I texted my friends Susan and Glenn in Lewisburg and headed for their house for a visit on the way home. We got out their wildflower books and identified the corydalis.
Date: 2017-04-28
To: Dahlonega, GA
Miles today: 0.0

I got up at 5:45 this morning, after going to bed at 2:30 AM.  My friend Sharon drove me to the I-64 exit at Louisa, Kentucky.  There I met Expedition member Bill.  His daughter agreed to drive the two of us to Dahlonega, Georgia near the start of the trail.  Our plan was to stay at Days Inn there along with most of the other group members.  We left Louisa around 9 AM, and it took us till 5:30 to get to Dahlonega. We made one stop at Walmart because Bill forgot his jacket, and he wanted to buy a gardening trowel for digging cat holes.Tonight most of the group members had dinner together at Shenanigans in Dahlonega. Arlene (from California) was there with her mother, who is going to hike the first day with us. Scott (from Iowa) was there with his wife, who will drop him off tomorrow.  Terri (from Virginia) was there with her husband and son, who've been hiking and sightseeing with her for a few days.  Bill (from Ohio) was there with his daughter and her friend, who will head to Atlanta tomorrow for a long weekend of sightseeing.  Lizzie (from Florida) will be arriving tomorrow from Asheville, where she's been hiking and visiting friends.  We don't know where Rennie (from Florida) is.  It was a lovely cordial dinner, and I feel quite at home with these people.  I expect that they'll feel like family by the end of the hike.This past two weeks has been a frenzy of last-minute errands, purchases, and packing.  It will be a great relief to finally start the trail tomorrow.  We meet at noon and start hiking at 3 PM.  At the end of the day we'll have completed 6.2 miles of the trail and have 2182.6 left to hike.
Date: 2017-04-29
From: Springer Mountain

To: Hickory Flats Cemetery
Miles today: 6.2

It was a great first day.  We met at a Baptist Church near the Forest Service road that leads to the top of Springer Mountain.  Although our meeting time was noon, most of us were there early, so we got an earlier than planned start.  What a great hike!  The day was sunny and lovely, and it's spring.  On the way to the top of Springer, the starting point, I saw dwarf crested irises, blue violets, white violets, and painted trillium (see photo), which I've only seen once before.  I heard scarlet tanagers, phoebes, and wood thrushes.  At the top of Springer Mountain we took a lot of pictures and had a short meeting. Then we set off on the trail.  After we crossed the Forest Service road we walked through some truly lovely places -- an area with very tall pine trees (see photo), streams surrounded by rhododendrons, and a beautiful waterfall, Long Creek Waterfall (see photo).  At one point we came around a corner and Maria, Arlene's mother, screamed with excitement when she saw a pink lady slipper.  She recognized the flower from seeing it in quilts!  We stopped at the footbridge at Three Forks, took off our socks and shoes, and soaked our feet in the water.  It was very cold or, as Maria said, refrescado.  At Long Creek waterfall Bill started wading out with all his clothes on.  Once there, he was overtaken with a desire to get completely submerged.  He sat in the water with the heavy flow landing on his head.  Because we were only hiking 7.2 miles (6.2 official trail miles plus a duplicate mile up to the top of Springer to the start), we had plenty of time to stop and see the sights.  We left the top of Springer at 2:15 and arrived at our stopping point shortly after 7 PM.  There's a picnic shelter at the cemetery, so we're sleeping inside the shelter tonight.  Since we had no tents set up for privacy I headed into the woods to do my little spit bath.  I'm hoping to stave off extreme stinkiness by cleaning up with wipes every night and wearing mostly wool clothing, which doesn't retain odors like synthetics do.  It's now 9 o'clock, and I'm headed off to bed.  It was a fantastic first day!
Date: 2017-04-30
From: Hickory Flats Cemetery pavilion

To: Woody Gap, GA 60
Miles today: 14.9
Weather: scattered clouds

We stayed last night in a picnic shelter at a country cemetery.  We spread out our ground cloths, sleeping pads, and sleeping bags on the concrete floor and went to sleep.  During the night it rained on and off, and there was a periodic breeze.  When the breeze blew it was pleasant, but when it stopped it was quite hot.  When that happened everyone got hot and restless.  I set my alarm for 6 AM, but people started rustling around 5:30, so I got up at 5:45. I had left my breakfast biscotti out on a table, and some critter, a mouse I guess, ate about half of it.  I didn't figure this out until after I'd eaten the rest, so let's hope the critter was healthy. I was on the trail at 6:35.  The day was very foggy.   Although it didn't rain, so much water blew off the trees that, although we had on full rain gear, we still got quite wet.  But it was about 70 degrees, so we didn't get cold.  It stayed very foggy all morning, but it was still beautiful.  Eventually the sun came out around 12:30.There were many beautiful wildflowers, including Catesby's trillium, wild columbine, wood betony (aka lousewort), toad lily (?), yellow-eyed grass, plus all the flowers I saw yesterday.  In several places there were large masses of flowers -- pink lady slipper, columbine, wild geranium, and a hillside of mayapple.  I also saw one flower I'd never seen before (see photo).  I ran into a ridge runner and showed him the photo of it, but he didn't know it either.  The most spectacular sight was wild azaleas (pinxster plant) that were bright orange and were trees rather than shrubs.  They were especially striking against the gray fog (see above photo).I hiked with Lizzie for most of the day.  She likes snakes and identified a tiny black snake as a ring neck.  We also saw two tiny red-spotted efts (see photo).  The hike was on relatively easy surface --  mostly dirt, hardly any rocks or roots. The whole day was a series of ups and downs over several mountains and into several gaps, none of them very steep or long.  We passed through or went over Hawk Mountain, Hightower Gap, Horse Gap, Sassafras Mountain, Cooper Gap, Justus Mountain, Gooch Mountain, Gooch Gap, Lisa Gap, and Ramrock Mountain.  I got to our camping spot about 4:30 and have now set up my tent.  After I finish this I'll fix something to eat.  Most of my food is pretty unappetizing.  But tomorrow the trail goes right through a town, so we'll be able to go to an outfitter and get real food for lunch.Another really great day!
Date: 2017-05-02
From: Hogpen Gap, GA 348

To: Unicoi Gap, GA 75
Miles today: 14.3

Last night the wind was ferocious and threatened to tear our tents up.  In fact, Bill's rain fly blew completely off.  Life on the trail gets down to basics.  Can I keep my tent standing?  Do I have enough food?  Where can I poop?  Before bed I needed to poop, but the place where we were camped was covered with poison ivy.  So I didn't want to have to find a place in the dark.  Just in case, I took my toilet paper out of  my pack and put it in my tent.  At 3 AM I woke and really needed to go, so I put my headlamp on and took my chances.When we woke it was still very windy, but it was sunny.   Scott, who had had atrial fibrillation going up and down Blood Mountain yesterday had fibrillations all night.  So he is going home to Iowa for a medical procedure.  He hopes to be back, and I certainly hope he'll be back.  He's a key part of our group.We left at 6:45 and were on the top of a mountain when the sun came up.  It was a beautiful day, and the trail for the day's hike was relatively easy.  Our support van was not going to be at our end point till 5 PM, so we had time to stop along the way to talk to people more often.  I hiked with Terri for the day and chatted much of the way.  The woods we passed through were light and open.  The leaves on the trees were that beautiful shade of yellow-green that's the first color of spring (see photo above).  We passed through several areas that had whole hillsides of pink lady slipper plants that were not yet in bloom.   We heard a lot of scarlet tanagers.  Once I located the tanager song coming from a particular tree.  I stood for several minutes trying to see the bird but had no luck.We stopped to talk to Daniel and his sled dog Coda and spent half an hour talking to Bob Man, a member of the 2015 Expedition who's joined us for a few weeks.   We got to the top of the last mountain at 2:45 and only had 1.6 miles left to hike.  There was a sunny clearing there.  Since we were early, we lay down to relax.  I spread my rain jacket on the ground and lay down using my pack for a pillow and my brimmed hat to shade my face.  I didn't sleep, but I thoroughly relaxed and enjoyed the feel of the sun on me through my clothing.  The woods were completely silent except for the occasional song of a bird.  At 4 o'clock we got up and headed down the mountain thoroughly relaxed and refreshed.When we got to Unicoi Gap, our stopping place, we found that a trail angel had left a ton of goodies for hikers (see photo).  There were Moon Pies, peanut butter crackers, sunflower seeds, chilled soft drinks, potato chips, and bottled water.  Chilled drinks at the end of the day are the very best treat.  Later we met the trail angel.  He through hiked the AT in 1975 and provides trail magic frequently.  Tomorrow is supposed to be another sunny day with a longer and more difficult hike.  I'm looking forward to it.
Date: 2017-05-03
From: Unicoi Gap, GA

To: Dick's Creek Gap, US 76
Miles today: 16.7
Weather: clear sky

We did a lot of plodding today.  We got onto the trail at 6:30 AM and finished the hike at 5:00 PM.  We reached the top of the first mountain, Rocky Mountain, in good time without too much effort.  We felt elated that we seem to be getting better at this, even though it's only our fifth day.  It was a three-mile climb to the top of Tray Mountain, the tallest peak the AT crosses in Georgia.  We reached it  by 11:00.  Lizzie, Terri, and I stopped to have our second snack there.  We thought we had knocked off two of the hardest parts and the rest of the hike would be relatively easy until one last steep mountain at the end.  But the day started getting hot, and the hike was much harder than it looked on paper.  We planned to drink all of one bottle of water before we reached the first water source so that we could fill up a bottle there and have plenty of water to get up Tray Mountain.  This is the first time we've gotten water from the trail.  The source was a piped spring quite high on the mountain.  Nonetheless, we treated it.  Lizzie is using some drops that purify the water in 30 minutes; I'm using tablets that take four hours to purify the water.We kept walking up and down one hill after another, as the day got hotter and hotter.  Lizzie and I stopped often to get water and to drink. Our group leader Warren is always talking about how it's safe to drink spring water if it's located in places that are likely to be unpolluted.  So at the second spring we bottled water and just drank it.  We refilled our bottles again at a third spring.  Lizzie is very heat-sensitive, and we both wanted to find a stream to soak our feet in.  But we had a lot of miles to do, and each time we came to a marked water source it was .5 mile downhill.  So  that would add an extra mile to an already long and difficult hike.  Terri finally decided to go ahead, and Lizzie and I finished together.Today is a town day.  We went to town to get groceries, ate real food at a restaurant, got showers, and are now settled into bunks at a hostel.  I have a top bunk, which I'm much too old for.  If I have to get up in the night I may kill myself.  Tomorrow we have an even harder day.  Although the terrain doesn't look difficult from the profile, we've learned that looks can be deceiving. It's supposed to be cold, windy, and rainy. The following day we'll be at elevations above 5000 feet in North Carolina and it may snow.  This trek is not for wimps!