morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2015-05-12
From: Stan Murray Shelter

To: Campsite near the Elk River
Miles today: 17.1

Day 36 - I got off to a slow start today and things just went downhill from there.   A front came through yesterday and by this morning the weather still hadn't cleared up. Today I had to climb over an extensive series of balds that were mostly fogged in and very windy. Balds are ok in good weather though I prefer the woods because they tend to be cooler and the path tends to be in better shape. While walking over one of the balds, I aggravated the injury to my right foot that had been recovering nicely. The pain extended into my shin as if I had a shin splint injury like my sister No Spring Chicken had. I recalled that she used a shin compression sleeve to treat her shin splints, so I took my second compression sock and pulled it up onto my shin. Surprisingly this seemed to do the trick and with the help of a couple of ibuprofen pills, I was able to continue hiking with little discomfort and made it to the campsite by the Elk River-where the sounds of rushing water and tree frogs guarantee me a good night's sleep. I'm camping here tonight with Goatsbeard, Ambush, Mantis, and a couple others whose names I can't recall now - it's a good group. I have resolved to eat more. I cannot continue to lose 5 pounds per week. This means I will need to eat about 1 pound more per day than I have been eating. The Kincora hostel is about 18 miles up the trail - that will be my goal for tomorrow and I will resupply there- making increasing my food intake a priority.
Date: 2015-05-13
From: Campsite near the Elk River

To: Black Bear Resort
Miles today: 16.5

Day 37 - Dear readers, I had an opportunity to photograph some real bear poop and show it to you, but the thought of photographing it didn't occur to me until I was up the trail a quarter of a mile. Rest assured that when the opportunity once again arises, I will spare no expense in getting a very detailed photograph. I left the Elk River campsite around 8:00 AM and planned to end @ Kincora Hostel. The AT followed the Elk River for about a mile. It was indeed a very beautiful morning and setting. I was the second one out of the campsite (Goatsbeard was first), but was soon passed by Ambush, who I saw several more times during the day. While hiking, I changed my mind and decided to stay at the Black Bear Resort as they have a hiker bunkhouse and a resupply store.   In keeping with my decision to up my calorie intake, I need to get more food to get me to Damascus. The fact that they have pizza may have factored into the equation as well. The distance to both hostels was the same.  I expect to do about 18 miles tomorrow and again on Friday. That should get me to Damascus on Saturday, in time for some of the festivities.   I will probably miss the hiker parade and the hiker talent competition, which I would have won by designing a 480VAC electro-hydraulic actuator with accumulator on the spot. My Rotork friends should understand.   Rock Steady is here at the resort - I know he was on the shakedown hike with NSC - he remembered both her and Emily.
Date: 2015-05-14
From: Black Bear Resort

To: Vanderventer Shelter
Miles today: 17.7
Weather: scattered clouds

Day 38 - At Black Bear Resort last night, I had a whole pizza and a burrito; for breakfast I had another whole pizza and a burrito. I'm going to stop this weight loss even if it kills me. After breakfast, as I was talking to my wife on the phone, Katwalk - who hiked through the Smokies with my sister (NSC) and my brother, apparently now known as PQRST - came walking by and I introduced myself to her. What a surprise. Katwalk's also met a couple of my other sisters. Today's walk took me along Laurel Creek, which is well known in the area for it's waterfall 'Laurel Falls'. When section hiking the AT a couple of years ago, my brother Cotton, my sister Spyder and I had a great time swimming there. After Laurel Falls, it was up and over a mountain, then down to Watauga Lake and then a climb back up into the hills toward Vanderventer Shelter, where I'm staying tonight. I was expecting the trail to be mostly empty since most thru-hikers have jumped ahead to get to Damascus. In fact I expected Vandeventer Shelter to be empty but there were 8 section hikers (all related) here to keep me company. I have a long day planned for tomorrow - maybe 25 miles so that I can get into Damascus at a reasonable time on Saturday.
Date: 2015-05-15
From: Vanderventer Shelter

To: Abingdon Gap Shelter
Miles today: 22.7
Weather: clear sky

Day 39 - Sometimes your legs just refuse to listen to reason when climbing a hill. "I'm not going another step", they say. "How do you expect us to get over the mountain"? I reply, "Do you think a Sherpa is just going to come along and carry us over?" Now there's a non-zero chance, maybe 1 in a billion, that a Sherpa will come along, throw me over his shoulder, and carry me over the mountain, but it's not something that I can count on. So I just have to convince my legs that they need to stop goofing off and get to work. Usually they can be convinced. Today was my longest day yet. I do NOT plan to be making a habit of 20+ mile days. I expected this shelter (Abingdon Gap) to be empty, but evidently it's a staging area for a mass assault on Damascus tomorrow and is currently overrun with young hikers. Some can not wait and are night hiking into town even as I type. My hike into Damascus for Trail Days 2015 will only be about 10 miles and I should be able to accomplish that by midday. With any luck, I'll be there in time to participate in the hiker parade. I promise to document the activities via photographs so that you, my readers, will feel like you're there. This is of course assuming I don't consume too much alcohol and forget how to operate my iPhone. So, until tomorrow.....
Date: 2015-05-16
From: Abingdon Gap Shelter

To: Damascus Va.
Miles today: 10.0

Day 40 - Trail Daze - I made the mistake of pitching my tent near the trail. The assault on Damascus started around 3:00 am as waves of hikers left their tents and the shelter and headed north past my tent- headlights ablaze. It greatly interrupted both my sleep and my nightly 3:15 am outing to empty my bladder. When I awoke at 6:15, the shelter area was mostly deserted. I was on my way by 7:15, hoping to get to Damascus by noon - in fact I rolled into town around 10:30 - 10 miles in 3 hours, a speed record - because the trail was so easy and my pack, with little food, was so light. At 3.5 miles from the town, right at the Virginia line, a small black bear ran across the trail about 60 ft in front of me, making a hell of a racket as it crashed through the woods. My first bear sighting at a place I would least expect it. Here's a summary of the highlights of the Saturday events at Trail Days: #1 - The hiker parade- AT hikers are grouped by year with the 2015 hikers bringing up the rear. The streets are lined with lots of kids (and some adults) with supersoakers who hose down the hikers as they pass. #2 - The hiker talent competition- Most of the entries were musical or stand-up comedians. No, I didn't enter.#3 - The equipment vendors- They were showing off their latest stuff and giving a lot of it away. I got my 10 year old trekking poles completely overhauled to the point where only about 20% of the original poles remain. They did this for free!#4 - Seeing fellow hikers- Most of them I hadn't seen for weeks, almost all of them are behind me and they had shuttled ahead for this event. #5- The hiker prom- I can't report on the hiker prom because I didn't go! My prom sweetie is back home in New York and today is our 28th anniversary!! I can say that a tie was required for guys @ the prom. The local thrift store was selling ties for a dollar, so lots of guys were walking around in hiking gear with a tie around their necks. #6-Hiker parties- I understand the parties in tent city extend into the wee hours of the morning. I finally met up with Subman, Trailchef, Zipper, Wildcat, Hanna, Beth, Mama Sunshine, Sonny, Karaoke, Not Swiss, Papa JC, Goatsbeard, and others I have hiked with over the past 6 weeks and it was fun to swap stories with all of them. There's more photos of the festivities on my photos page.
Date: 2015-05-17
From: Damascus Va.

To: Damascus Va.
Miles today: 0.0

Day 41 - A zero day. Trail Days pretty much ended yesterday aside from the drumming and wild shrieks from the pagan dancers prancing around the bonfire until 2:00 am this morning. In addition, every 15 minutes from 10:00 pm on, there was someone blowing a horn (not a car horn but instead the kind that is in an orchestra) and yelling "It's time to sleep!!".   Fortunately I had no problem sleeping through all this; the drums just lulled me back to sleep. When I woke up this morning, 'Tent City' had pretty much evaporated before my eyes. After breakfast, I, too, tore down my tent and decided to wait until tomorrow to leave town. This will be my 3rd zero day since hitting the trail - I think I've earned it. I'm staying at the Methodist Church Hostel tonight. It's the same place I stayed at last year on my section hike with some of my family. No other new hiking news today. Tomorrow, and the many tomorrows after, however, hold the promise of new adventures to come.
Date: 2015-05-18
From: Damascus Va.

To: Lost Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 15.6
Weather: clear sky

Day 42 - I heard a story today about Damascus Trail Days: There was a stoned hiker who tried to force one of the local police officers to smoke a bowl. He kept saying "smoke this, pig" while shoving his pipe at the policeman - who promptly locked him up for the night and confiscated his weed. I also heard about quite a few bear confrontations in the Watauga Lake area where the bears got several groups of hikers' food and could not be scared away. The hikers thought they were outside the "Closed for Camping" area but were actually still in it and had set up camp. Anyway... a small portion of today's hike was on the Virginia Creeper Trail (rails-to-trails). It was once used to haul timber out of the mountains of the western part of Virginia, but is now a 16+ miles long scenic downhill bicycle path that follows Laurel Creek down to Damascus. This is part of the AT section I hiked last year and everything is very familiar. I am looking forward to getting into parts of the AT I have not section hiked. Here at the shelter I ran into Gorp Gobbler and another 'Pockets' still wearing his tie from the hiker prom. Quite a few of the younger hikers seem to be skipping sections for one reason or another. I won't do that - the integrity of this endeavor is important to me. Everyone draws their own lines as to what constitutes a meaningful thru-hike for themselves, however. This hike is as much mental as it is physical and taking shortcuts, yellow blazing, blue-blazing or temporarily skipping sections takes a heavy toll on the mental aspect. By the end of tomorrow I hope to arrive at the south entrance of Grayson Highlands State Park.
Date: 2015-05-19
From: Lost Mountain Shelter

To: Wise Shelter
Miles today: 17.6
Weather: few clouds

Day 43 - There's maybe 4 main types of thruhikers on the AT: The young partiers, the young couples who hooked up on the trail (a lot of these are also partiers), the couples who started together, and the older hikers (of which I am one). The first two groups seem to have the highest attrition rate. They take a lot of zeros and tend to run out of money. The older hikers seem to have the next highest attrition rate, mostly due to injuries or other medical issues. The group that started as couples seems to have the lowest rate of dropouts. I'm back in the mountainous region of Virginia. I like that the terrain has kind of flattened out, but today I had a 2000 foot climb up Whitetop Mountain, then another climb up Mt. Rogers. I still don't like long steep climbs, but they don't bother me like they used to. Now they're something I just endure. Today was a 17+ mile hike to just inside the northern entrance to Grayson Highlands State Park. Also, I passed the 500 mile point just after entering Grayson Highlands! There are wild horses in this park and I saw a mare try to kick a hiker that got too close to her foal. Only a quick jump-back prevented the pony's rear hooves from breaking the hiker's ribs. I did take some pictures of them, but didn't get too close as you can see. Check out my photos page. The signs around Wise Shelter say tent camping is prohibited within the park, but that prohibition is being widely ignored tonight - there are about 8 tents scattered around the shelter. I haven't looked at the book to see where I'll be heading tomorrow - I'll worry about that in the morning.
Date: 2015-05-20
From: Wise Shelter

To: unnamed camp site
Miles today: 16.8

Day 44 - I awoke in the Wise Shelter to find that the wild ponies had arrived and one was attempting to eat the rain fly of Hollywood's (aka Kimberly - an aspiring actress) tent. For the most part though, the ponies left us alone. This has turned into one of the most enjoyable hiking days so far: beautiful weather with cool temps and a gentle breeze, beautiful woods and views, running into hiking friends (Goatsbeard, Wildcat, Mama Sunshine), and a great camping spot at the end of the day. Tomorrow should be an easy 13 mile day to Partnership Shelter. My siblings - Cotton, Snyder, and PQRST - will remember this as the shelter where you can take a shower and order pizza, which I will do! There was a great view of the Virginia mountains looking to the north today; I took a picture but distance photos have a way of not turning out as well as you think they will. Also, AT&T cell coverage is very bad in Southwestern Virginia and I have not been able to get either my journal updated or my photos sent out. I expect that will change shortly as I get closer to civilization - maybe at Partnership Shelter. One other note before I close for the day: I have decided I really prefer sleeping in my tent to sleeping in shelters. My tent has become my home away from home. It's comfortable, it's private, it keeps me dry, and if I need to find something (TP, headlamp, water bottle, etc.) in the middle of the night - I can find it without opening my eyes because I know exactly where everything is. All this in a package that weighs only 4 pounds! Everything in life should be so simple.
Date: 2015-05-21
From: unnamed camp site

To: Partnership Shelter
Miles today: 12.2
Weather: clear sky

Day 45 - For the first time on the trail, I had to pack up while it was raining. In the past, the rain had always stopped, at least briefly, allowing a normal camp disassembly. Not so today - I have always dreaded this. Normally the tent is the first thing to go into my backpack. That means everything must be out of the tent so that it can be taken down and put into the bottom of my backpack. Of course, if it's raining, then everything else scattered around on the ground is going to get wet. But necessity is the mother of invention so I devised a plan for the tent to be the last item into the pack instead of the first. The folded tent poles cannot fit into the top of the pack so the answer was to pack the tent without the poles. That allows the tent and tent bag to take on any necessary shape since it would have no rigidity and can be packed last. All the other stuff can be put into the pack while I'm setting inside the tent nice and dry. Then the garbage bag liner in my backpack can be folded shut, the pack can be put out in the rain and the tent be quickly disassembled and stuffed into it's tent bag without poles and put into my backpack. The tent's very wet but everything else, including me, can stay dry. The tent's not in the dry part of my backpack anyway. Then I attach the tent poles to the outside of my backpack using available attachment points on my pack. I know this probably doesn't make sense to you, dear reader. I guess you had to be there, but this was a major breakthrough for me. So the day started wet, but within a couple of hours the clouds brightened and by afternoon the sun started to make an appearance. During this hike toward Partnership Shelter, my foot and shin started acting up again with sufficient severity that I became concerned about my ability to keep hiking. When I got to Partnership Shelter, I decided to take the morning shuttle into the town of Marion to have a doctor at the urgent care facility look at it. With that decision made, I pulled my wet tent out of my pack to let it dry. Along with just about everyone else at the shelter, I ordered pizza (delivery right to the shelter!). We all had a great little pizza party around the campfire before retiring for the night.
Date: 2015-05-22
From: Partnership Shelter

To: Marion
Miles today: 0.0

Day 46 - Today was a zero mile day in the town of Marion - to resupply and to go to the urgent care facility- the first order of business. Now I thought urgent care facilities were open at least 12 hours a day since it's during waking hours that people injure themselves. But no, I guess that in Marion, VA people only injure themselves between the hours of 4 pm and 8 pm. After getting to the urgent care center about noon, I am turned away and told to return at 4 pm. Hikers generally walk everywhere we need to go in town: grocery store for resupply, drugstore for meds, restaurants for meals, laundry mat for clean clothes, urgent care facilities for injuries, etc., and these are hardly ever/never located near each other. So a return trip to someplace is really annoying. At 4 pm, I walk back to the urgent care faculty to see a doctor, who turns out to be an ob/gyn.   She tells me that right up front - I guess to lower my expectations about her ability to do sports medicine. But she consults her books and determines that I do indeed have a shin splint and she prints out exercises for me to do. In addition to that, she says I can take up to 12 ibuprofens (200mg) a day. Earlier today, my wife had tipped me off about KT tape, which I was able to buy at Walmart. So tomorrow, I will resume my walk north full of ibuprofen and swaddled in KT tape. It will be interesting to see how it goes. The plan is 11+ miles to the other side of Atkins, VA - which is where I believe Cotton, Spyder, PQRST and I started our section hike south last year. After that, I'll finally be on to areas where I haven't hiked before.
Date: 2015-05-23
From: Marion

To: unnamed camp site
Miles today: 13.2

Day 47 - Today was a slow 13 + mile day. I was protecting my foot/shin by being very careful where and how I was placing my right foot. My wife has arranged to have a shin compression sleeve sent to me 48 miles ahead (to Bland, VA) which should help heal my shin splint. Thanks go out to my sister, NSC, for helping with that. It should be there in 4 days, so I plan to only do about 12 miles a day until then. Another thing that should help is that since I've lost a little more than 30 pounds of weight and my pack weighs about 38 pounds, my legs/knees/feet/shins are only carrying about 6 - 8 pounds more than they did before I started hiking. I talked to one hiker today who had a problem with shin splints. He said he had to stop hiking for 9 day for his shins to heal. If necessary, I will do that, but only as a last resort. The hiker said that after 9 days his shins were as good as new. So, stay tuned.... As a result of this issue, I never once gave a thought to my pack, which is heavy with 5 - 6 days of food. The miles went by faster than expected as well. And now I am hiking a part of the trail I've never seen before. As I stopped for lunch at Chatfield Shelter, I realized that most of my 7 readers have never seen the artwork decorating AT shelters or have seen an AT shelter privy. So today's feature presentation is "Shelter Art" and "A Look Inside a Shelter Privy" (at this point, go to my photos page and look at today's pictures). A note about the privy - Virginia privies, so far anyway, are far better than the AT privies of North Carolina. I can only presume that Virginia takes a lot of pride in their privies.
Date: 2015-05-24
From: unnamed campsite

To: Lynn Camp Creek campsite
Miles today: 12.0

Day 48 - Last night as I set up camp, I thought I'll be camping by myself for the first time, but then City-Kick and Saw arrived. Just before dark, another 10-12 hikers showed up. They had been chased away from the Relax Inn Motel, which has the reputation of being the worst hotel on the AT. Some rooms don't even have a shower or bath - they give you a bucket to use to wash up. The owner checked on some of the rooms and saw that some had 6 or more hikers in them. Those extra hikers were the ones that were evicted and showed up at the campsite. In the morning, I made a makeshift compression sleeve from the KT tape and that seemed to help my shin splint issue. Between that and Ibuprofen, my shin held up pretty well during the day's hike. Western Virginia is a picturesque place and the hiking has been fairly easy. I passed a signpost saying I've walked 1/4 of the AT distance from GA to ME. So, yeah!! Go me! By 6:00 pm, I reached my home for the night, a campground 1.2 miles past Knot Maul Knob Shelter. HikerFamily (2 parents & their 5 kids) are also camping here tonight - they're using 4 hammocks/tarps with two hammocks under each tarp in a bunk bed arrangement. The biting flies are starting to make their presence felt - might need to break out the deet pretty soon. I'm on track to roll into Bland, VA on Wednesday where my calf compression sleeves will be waiting for me. I'm hopeful that this shin issue will soon be behind me and I'll be able to resume my 16-18 mile days or even more since the terrain is much easier than it was in NC and Tennessee.
Date: 2015-05-25
From: Lynn Camp Creek campsite

To: unnamed campsite
Miles today: 15.2

Day 49 - Memorial Day - Southwestern Virginia is dry. A lot of the AT water sources are at a trickle or already dry so I've been carrying far more than the one liter of water I usually carry.   Today I carried more than 4 liters, almost 9 pounds, which is very noticeable when hiking. The thing is, you can't allow yourself to run out. I ran out a couple of times in Tennessee when I wasn't paying attention to upcoming sources (or the lack thereof) and it can be scary. Dehydration is a serious thing. Fortunately, it looks like this area will be getting a fair amount a rain in the coming week - although that also means I'll be walking in it - not my favorite thing. I only wanted to do about 12 miles today to go easy on my shin. There were no camping areas after Chestnut Knob Shelter (@ 8 miles of today's hike) except the one I'm at (15.2 miles). The good thing is that between the ibuprofen and the compression sleeve I made out of KT tape strips, my shin feels pretty good. Not 'back to normal' good, but good enough that I probably won't need to take a break from hiking. In about 2 1/2 weeks, I'll be meeting up with my family & extended family for about 5 days for a reunion. I'll use that time to fatten up and rest my shin. Yogi Bear and his dog Lyla are at this campsite tonight with me. He's had shin splints that forced him off the trail for 9 days. There's a 20% chance of thunderstorms tonight (ATWeather.org). I really enjoy a good thunderstorm when I'm in my tent so maybe I'll get lucky.