morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2008-04-25
From: Dennis Cove Road/Kincora Hostel

To: Kincora Hostel
Miles today: 0.0

We got up early this morning and left on an 8am shuttle into town to re-supply. We stopped at McDonalds and picked up some breakfast sandwiches on the way back, and then I got back in bed and took a nap for 2 hours. Eric and I decided we're going to take the day off today and slackpack tomorrow. Bob Peoples, the wonderful owner of the hostel, shuttles hikers 10 miles north every morning for them to slackpack back here. We decided that rather than slackpack southbound, we will just drop our packs off (hide them) in the woods 10 miles north, and then get a ride back here and slackpack up to our packs. We took the nightly shuttle into town, which actually went to a bigger grocery store than we went to this morning. We picked up a few more things, and I grabbed dinner at an Arby's across the parking lot, while Eric picked up a frozen lasagna. Now we're back at the hostel, packing our bags and getting ready to head out in the morning. Shiloh and Me slackpacked 10 miles southbound today and are back here tonight. They'll be heading out in the morning as well. It should be a good few days until we get to Virginia. Spring has finally arrived and everything is starting to bloom. It is just gorgeous!Oh, I almost forgot... Bob, the guy who owns the hostel, used to live in Vermont, and his daughter currently lives and teaches preschool in Middlebury, which is where I went to college! Bob taught for two years at Norwich College, which is a big hockey rival of Middlebury's. So for fun, his daughter had a Middlebury hockey jersey made with his name on the back. He put it on and modeled for me. What a small world!
Date: 2008-04-26
From: Dennis Cove Road

To: Watauga Lake Shelter
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: few clouds

I forgot to mention in my previous entry that we hit our 400-mile mark on our way to Kincora. Yea!This morning we caught an 8:30am shuttle to drop off everybody who was going to be slackpacking back to the hostel. Eric and I went along for the ride and stashed our backpacks off the trail in the woods. Then we rode back to the hostel, picked up our daypacks, and left. Eric and I are the only people we know who carry their own daypacks. Before we left for the trail, Eric contacted Brian, the guy who started ULA Equipment, the company that makes his backpack. He asked Brian if he could take a normal stuff sack and sew on some straps for us, and Brian kindly obliged. So now we have these custom daypacks to use for slackpacking, and all of our friends are jealous. Everybody else has to borrow lightweight backpacks from hostels. We love our daypacks and think Brian should sell them regularly on his website. Check out his merchandise at www.ula-equipment.comSo we slacked about 9 miles up to our packs, and on the way we saw our first and second snakes of the entire trip. One was grey and patterned and the other was black. We don't think either was poisonous, but we startled the first one by rounding a bend and it slithered right out between Eric's legs. It surprised us both a lot and came a little too close for comfort, so after that we were both a little on edge. After we picked up our packs we stopped at the Watauga Lake Recreation area, a beautiful beach and swimming area right on the trail. We walked in the lake up to our ankles and the water was freezing, even though it was in the 70s outside. We continued on to a shelter a little bit further up, where we decided to stop for the night. There are no tenting spots because the shelter is on a hill, so for the first night since the snow, we're sleeping in the shelter. Also here are: Yazzie, Mike, and Site See.
Date: 2008-04-27
From: Watauga Lake Shelter

To: Vandeventer Shelter
Miles today: 7.0
Weather: overcast clouds

It rained for about 5 minutes during the night and woke everybody up. The shelters have aluminum roofs so it was very loud, but by morning, everything was dry and there was no trace of the rain.We hit the trail by 9am and hiked 7 miles to the next shelter, where we stopped to break for lunch. Gucci, Bearfoot, Yazzie, and a few section hikers were there eating, and we hung out for about 30 minutes. Everyone else left before we did, and as we were packing up, it started raining, so we sat a little bit longer, looking at the map and reading the shelter register that everybody signs.And then we suddenly had a wild and crazy idea. Back in 1992, our friend Sharkey, along with several other hikers, started the Twinkle Toes Yellow Shoelaces Club. They hiked from Vandeventer Shelter (where we are now) all the way in to Damascus (a total of 33 miles) in one day, starting at 4 in the morning. Sharkey was back out on the trail this year, inducting new members into the club. New members all get a pair of yellow shoelaces and go out to dinner in town to celebrate. Two days ago, on the 25th, Sharkey and a group of hikers left this shelter at 4 in the morning to make the journey, and tomorrow, another group of hikers will be making the same trip. And Eric and I decided we will attempt to be part of the club tomorrow. Now I realize I was just complaining a few days ago about having hiked 18 miles in one day. So before you decide we are absolutely out of our minds, listen to this: The next 33 miles are the flattest trail we have hiked the entire way so far. There are a total of 3, 500-ft elevation gains the entire way, and that's it. It's flat and small downs the rest of the way. According to Bob Peoples, the Kincora Hostel owner, the average hiker gains a half a mile per hour on their pace on this section of the trail because it's so easy. Eric and I decided at lunch that we would stay here for the rest of the day, rest up, and head out at 4am tomorrow. Also hiking with us for club membership will be Pearl & Trainwreck, and Nest, all of whom we just met at the hostel. And Leaping Turtle, who we also just met, and who has been hanging out here at the shelter with us all afternoon, has decided he will be attempting the challenge starting right now, at 8:00 at night. He will be night hiking and hopes to get to Damascus by 10 or 11am. If all goes well, the whole group of us will be celebrating membership in the Twinkle Toes Yellow Shoelaces Club tomorrow night, once we all get there.I figure the worst that can happen is we get too tired or sore to make it the whole way, and we stop to set up our tent or stay in a shelter. And then there's no harm done-- at least we will have tried. Also here at the shelter with us tonight are V8 and Auntie Mame, who will not be participating in the challenge with us.Wish us luck!
Date: 2008-04-29
From: Damascus, VA

To: Damascus. VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant and spent the night last night at a Bed & Breakfast called Augusta's Appalachian Inn. Eric's parents made us reservations there for two nights as a bit of trail magic!The B&B is beautiful inside, with hardwood floors throughout the entire house. We are staying in "The Virginia Suite," with a king sized bed, an attached living room with a pull-out couch, and a bathroom with a large old-fashioned, free-standing bathtub. I'm a little bit rusty on my interior decorating terminology, but suffice it to say that it is absolutely beautiful and charming. Mango returned from her weekend sailing regatta and met us in town here last night. She and Canuck are staying on the pullout bed in our suite, and Leaping Turtle is staying in another room down the hall. Every room has a flat-screen TV in it with satellite TV and a DVD player. Downstairs they have a large collection of DVDs you can borrow, along with a TV in the living room and a laptop computer with internet access. In the dining room there are cans of soda, ice, and snacks for us all day long, and in the evening they put out some cold beers for our enjoyment.Sissy and Terry, the owners, made us a large, homemade breakfast this morning that was fantastic. There were scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, blueberry pancakes, fresh fruit, and Amish friendship bread, and they even made us a breakfast dessert of caramel apple turnover things that were delicious! I went back to bed after breakfast for a very relaxing 2-hour nap. After that we walked around town, went to Subway for lunch, and spent some time at the two different outfitters here. Eric bought some new trail running shoes for the summer months, and he and Leaping Turtle and I bought yellow shoelaces to celebrate our 33 mile trek and switched our old laces out.We went out to dinner in town, came back and watched American Idol on TV, and then took bubble baths. It was a wonderful day. We're so happy to finally be in Virginia!
Date: 2008-05-01
From: Damascus, VA

To: Damascus, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Some sort of cold/flu has been going around all the hikers on the trail. I got it a couple of weeks ago; Mango got it when she went home for the weekend and is still sick; Canuck woke up with it this morning. So we all decided we would take the day off and stay in town to rest.Eric and I went to the outfitter again and talked to the knowledgeable sales guy there, Jeff. We ate lunch at Subway, again (yay, $5.00 footlongs!), I took a nap, we went on the internet at the library, and we packed up our packs. We ordered dinner from Pizza Plus, which delivered. And now we're off to bed. Hopefully we'll hike again tomorrow.
Date: 2008-05-02
From: Summit Cut

To: Massie Gap
Miles today: 14.0

We slackpacked again today. This time Eric and I hiked together northbound, and Mango and Canuck went southbound. We passed in the middle and exchanged the car key. Heading north, Eric and I had a 1500-ft elevation gain in the beginning, but once we got up to the 4,000+ foot range, we stayed up for most of the way. The landscape was absolutely beautiful. We were walking through gorgeous highlands of grassy balds, the sun was shining, and wildflowers were blooming. We saw a rabbit hop down the trail in front of us, and then, even more exciting, we came across some feral ponies!A herd of 6 ponies was wandering through the woods grazing right beside the trail. We approached them quietly, trying to take pictures, and then as we followed the trail around, it took us much closer to where they were. They were eating grass and heading right towards us, and as Eric started taking a video of them, two of them walked right onto the trail, and one came right up to me and sniffed me and let me touch it! It was very exciting. Apparently they are pretty used to people hiking through the area, but they really live in the wild, so it was pretty amazing, nonetheless. As we hiked a little further and entered Grayson Highlands State Park, we encountered many more ponies. The trail often goes through gates and fenced in areas, and standing right by a fence we crossed through were a bunch more ponies looking for food from passing hikers. These ponies weren't afraid of people AT ALL. They weren't as exciting as the first herd we had encountered, which seemed to be more wild. These just stood by a fence all day long, where they knew hikers would pass. It was all exciting, though, and by the end of the day, when we got back to the car at the state park, we had seen more than 20 ponies, including many colts.Eric and I took the car back south, to where Mango and Canuck would be arriving, and then we all went to the grocery store and picked up some rotisserie chickens for dinner. Tomorrow we'll be heading back out with our full packs. Although I've been spoiled after 2 days of slackpacking, I think I'm really going to like using my new backpack. We've only got 33 miles to go until our next resupply in Marion, VA (no, we won't be doing it all in one day), and tomorrow we'll be passing our 500 mile mark! Oh yeah... and today we hiked the highest point in the whole state of Virginia. We're looking forward to some really nice miles in the coming weeks.
Date: 2008-05-03
From: Massie Gap

To: Wise Shelter
Miles today: 2.1
Weather: overcast clouds

We slept in until 9 this morning, took our time packing up, and caught a 1pm shuttle out of town back to where we had left off the trail yesterday. Mango is leaving her car in town until Trail Days, the big hiker festival we'll be going back to in Damascus in two weeks, so she and Canuck shared the shuttle with us.It was cold and windy and started raining when we got up to the mountain, and by the time we got to the first shelter, we decided to call it a day. Our packs are heavy, having just filled them up with lots of food in town, and we were all feeling tired. You would think that after staying in town for 5 nights we would be well rested and ready to do some big miles. On the contrary, both nights we slackpacked we didn't get back to town until 9 or 10pm, and then we had to eat dinner, and we didn't get to bed until after midnight. Plus, sleeping in a hostel is not very restful, kind of like sleeping in a shelter. Other people snore and talk loudly late into the night and early in the morning, and it's generally very hard to sleep. And now, unfortunately, we're sleeping in a shelter again because it's been raining off and on and is supposed to thunderstorm tonight. Also sleeping here are 4 section hikers, and Mango & Canuck are tenting nearby. Eric and I hate packing up a tent in the rain so much though, that we'll risk getting stuck with a snorer to stay warm and dry in the shelter. Leaping Turtle stopped in and made dinner as we were getting ready for bed, but he's going to be moving on tonight to do some more night hiking. Eric and I would like to try night hiking sometime soon, but only when we're sure of good weather. Hiking in the dark and the rain is NOT something we plan on repeating anytime soon. In my last entry I had said we would be hitting our 500-mile mark today, but I hadn't planned on hiking only 2 miles. We'll definitely be hitting it tomorrow.
Date: 2008-05-04
From: Wise Shelter

To: Hurricane Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 11.0
Weather: clear sky

We've hiked over 500 miles! Yay! We slept in until 9 again this morning. I could get used to this! It rained some during the night and then got cold, but by morning it was clear and sunny. We took our time packing up and ate breakfast in the sun, and we finally started hiking a little before 11. The Virginia highlands are absolutely gorgeous and unlike anything else we've hiked on. We stopped and broke for lunch on top of a beautiful grassy hill scattered with large boulders. We hiked another hour and then took a long break in the sun beside a shelter, where Auntie Mame & V8 joined us and chatted for a while. Finally, we hiked on a couple more hours to the shelter where we decided to stop for the night. Mango and Canuck hiked with us for a little bit, but were slightly ahead of us for most of the day. We saw them when we had our break at the earlier shelter, and they're here now. There are no tentsites right beside the shelter, so we all pitched our tents a little ways away, beside a stream. Canuck started a campfire and we all sat around eating dinner, laughing, and being happy.
Date: 2008-05-05
From: Hurricane Mountain Shelter

To: Trimpi Shelter
Miles today: 9.1
Weather: clear sky

Eric and I started hiking around 9:45 this morning and went an easy 5 miles to a road crossing with a nice grassy area where we stopped to have lunch. While we were eating, husband and wife Steve and Carol rode up on a tandem bike, and told us they were on the transcontinental bike trail and were biking their way to California. They stopped and chatted for a while, and we compared our two journeys. As we were talking to them, a van pulled up and dropped off several hikers who were getting back on the trail. At the exact same time the van pulled up, Mango and Canuck appeared, coming up off the trail. The van driver was Jerry, the owner of a restaurant and resupply shop that was about 2 miles off the trail. He offered us a ride to town, and since Mango was expecting a package, we accepted his offer. We went to his restaurant and shop, bought more food for the trail, and ordered food from the restaurant. He also had a computer with internet access for hikers, which we happily went on. Mango tracked the package she was expecting and the FedEx website said it was on the truck, out for delivery. It was supposed to be delivered to Jerry's restaurant, so we decided to wait around for it. Five hours and two meals later, the package still hadn't arrived. Mango went back on the website, and it said her package was undeliverable due to an incorrect address. She called FedEx to try to straighten it out. They read her the address listed and it was correct. What?!They couldn't get hold of the truck driver and it was too late at night anyway by that point (6pm) to have it delivered, so they agreed to forward her package to another town. How frustrating! Jerry gave us a ride back to the trail and we hiked about 4 miles in to the nearest shelter. We had planned on hiking a lot farther today, but sometimes the day has other plans. One of these days we're going to start hiking some real miles again. All of these short-mile days have me feeling less and less like a thru-hiker. I'm getting antsy and want to start moving north!
Date: 2008-05-06
From: Trimpi Shelter

To: Partnership Shelter
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: scattered clouds

We were on the trail by 9am this morning and hiked a fairly easy 10 miles to the next shelter, Partnership Shelter. It is a really nice, new, big shelter next to the Mt. Roger's Recreation Area headquarters. Because it's near a building, they hooked up running water at the shelter and put in a shower (with only cold water, unfortunately) and a big sink. We decided to hitch into town from the road crossing by the shelter, because we weren¢t able to get enough food at Jerry's resupply yesterday. We needed more lunch food, like meat and cheese, which Jerry didn't have. Our next resupply is about 4 days away and we weren't convinced we could make it. So we went out to the road and a guy named Tracy picked us up and dropped us off at the Food City, about 5 miles away. We bought groceries and walked across the street to Wendy's, where we had a bite to eat. A nice couple we met at Wendy's named Jim and Charlotte offered us a ride back up to the trail. When we got back to the shelter, Mango and Canuck were there. They had not gone into town, and although we had all originally planned on hiking 7 more miles to the next shelter, they had decided to stop at Partnership Shelter. Mango's knee is a little bit swollen and Canuck's legs are swollen from horrible shin splints. So, the combination of their pain and the fact that a local restaurant actually delivers food to the shelter, convinced them to stop for the night. So when we got back from town at 5 something, we decided to stay, too. Eric and I took freezing cold showers and did laundry in the sink--luxury!The shelter is packed and we are tenting nearby. There are 4 other tents and a hammock set up, too. I don't know most people's names, but I do know: Mango & Canuck, the G'Town Colonel, Bad Idea, Brown Bag, Sherlock, and August & Poppins.
Date: 2008-05-07
From: Partnership Shelter

To: US 11/ Relax Inn
Miles today: 11.6
Weather: clear sky

We got a late start this morning after making a couple of phone calls and sending my journal entries out through the phone. As we were hanging around the Mt. Roger's visitors center using their phone, we met Stumpknocker, a sort of AT legend we had heard about but never seen. He spends a lot of time in Florida and is friends with people at my local outfitter. What a small world! We finally left the visitor's center/Partnership Shelter around 10:15am. We hiked about 7 miles to the next shelter where we stopped to take a food break. After that the trail passed by a living settler's museum and we went inside an old one-room schoolhouse and looked around. From there it was a few more miles to a major road crossing at US-11. The trail wound through beautiful rolling hills with flowering trees all around. At one point we rounded a bend and there was a turtle sitting right in the middle of the trail! I stopped short and Eric being the TAILGATE(r) that he is, of course ran right into me. (I was thinking about starting to keep a count of how many times Eric runs into me each day, and posting it in my journal every night. Something tells me Eric wouldn't be very happy with that. Hmmm...)Finally we arrived at the road, which had a restaurant, motel, and gas station right where the trail met it. Even though we had just re-supplied in town yesterday, we hadn't done laundry in about 8 days and we hadn't taken real showers (not counting the freezing cold rinse-offs at the shelter) in 5 days. And since there happened to be a motel conveniently located ON the AT, and since it was affordable and had laundry machines, we decided to stop for the night. We went and had dinner at the nearby restaurant, where we ate with Doctari, a section hiker who had just finished hiking, and his wife. We went back to our motel, did laundry, and watched the American Idol results show on TV. Now we're off to bed; we've gotta get back out there tomorrow and try to catch up with Mango and Canuck, who didn't stop for the night.
Date: 2008-05-08
From: US 11/ Relax Inn

To: O'Lystery Pavilion
Miles today: 11.8
Weather: clear sky

We had wanted to get an early start this morning so we could catch back up to Mango & Canuck, but something about the soft motel room bed led us to sleep in until 9am. Then we showered, packed up, and went out to eat breakfast at the place we had dinner last night. All of this resulted in us not getting on the trail until 11:30. Whoops.We walked 2 miles to the shelter we had originally planned on staying at last night, and we were very surprised to find a group of about 20 members of the Konnarock Trail Crew there taking down the shelter! Apparently there was too much partying going on at the shelter because it is so close to a major road. So they were dismantling the whole thing and said it would eventually be replaced with tent platforms. It was so odd to think that only yesterday we could've slept in it, but today it no longer exists! We continued on from there, towards the next shelter which was about 9 miles away. Several times the trail went across private property, including many cow pastures. It's weird walking so close to cows; sometimes they stare at us and make me a little uncomfortable.Late this afternoon we were about to go into a big cow pasture up on a hill when a thunderstorm came through. We sat it out for about 45 minutes under some trees at the bottom of the hill until it was safe to go on. Afterwards we ran into Preacher, who we had just met earlier today when we stopped for a lunch break. We hiked with him for a couple of miles until we came to a road crossing. Just down from where the trail crossed the road was a pavilion with picnic tables under it. It was still raining at the time, so the three of us decided to duck in to get out of the rain and cook dinner, before going on the 2 more miles to the shelter. While we were cooking, it got dark and started raining even harder. None of us wanted to night- hike for two miles in the rain, so we decided to just pull out our sleeping bags and stay here for the night. We thought about hiking to the shelter, but it could've been full and there might not have been anywhere to tent nearby. I'm happy that we stayed here and we're warm and dry.