morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2006-05-10
From: Niday Shelter

To: Stealth Camping
Miles today: 16.6

We originally planned to hike around 22.5miles today to Catawba. We were low on food but thought we had enough. Virginiamay not hagve treally ytough climbs as often as other states, but when it goesup, it goes up for awhile. Our first climb was 3.5 miles long and took us almost3 hours. Waiting at the top for us was nice surprise: a park bench. Weird tofind one sitting in the middle of the woods, but we did take a nice rest on it.Next up wasx something I've looked forward to for a long time: the Audie MurphyMemorial. I read a few books about him and he was a great man and patriot. Thehike down the other side was just as long as the hike up, so we ate lunch atethe creek at the bottom. Huzzah!! The sun comes out! Oh wait, we have to climb,another big climb... oh well, at least the sun is out. Next came a beautifulpoplar grove filled with 70 odd foot magestic trees. Words and pictures can'tdescribe it. The hike up to Dragons Too! th was another for-e-ver climb. Saw our first rattlersnake though, got a couplegood pictures. We were too tired at the top to really enjoy the view, but theclimb down woke us up. Imagine, instead of hiking, you just boulder scrambledown a mountain, thats what the north side of Dragon's Tooth is like. We were sotired we decided to go to the store at the road just down from Dragon's Tooth.We're stealth camping now (won't say where) with Sanford and his father in lawTom. Gonna eat some good breakfasxt in thre morning.
Date: 2006-05-11
From: Stealth Camping

To: John's Spring Shelter
Miles today: 6.9
Weather: light rain

Location: John's Spring Shelter   Miles: 6.9Wow, did we sleep awful last night. Apparently people love racing in Catawba VA,because everyone speeds as fast as they can go on highway 311. The ground wasall uneven and full of rocks (stealth camping has its downfalls) so when I wokeup I felt like I hadn't slept but a few hours. We got some good breakfast at thegas station, 3 sausage and egg biscuits for me, and then headed back to theTrail. It usually takes most of the day to sort everything aout once you headinto a town, so we decided to only do 6 or 7 and get to ther first shelter afterCatawba. Still not surre if we'll make it there, we're sitting in Catawba rightnow waiting for the Homeplace resturant to open. This place supposedly has thebest food on the entire trail. I think I prefer hiking longer days to the shortone we did today. When you're only hiking a few miles and know you'll be donesoon it's harder to enjoy yourself. Picked up the mail drop from my folks(thanks guys) filled with goodies (really ! thanks!) I suppose I'll take a nap and write more later. Peace out Boy Scout.
Date: 2006-05-12
From: John's Spring

To: Daleville
Miles today: 18.8
Weather: broken clouds

This first part is the end of my dayon the 11th. If there is one piece of advice I can give to hikers whso have notyet gotten to Pearisburg it would be to either slow down or speed up so that youcan eat at the Homeplace Resturant in Catawba. Even if you do five 5 mile daysor five 25 mile days, it will be completely worth it. Roast beef, chicken, leekwhipped mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, pork bbq....oh god was the porkbbq good. GO TO THE HOMEPLACE!!! After we ate, it took us about 2 hours torecover. Poles and I hitched a ride up to the trailhead with a man with aroofrack. (People with roofracks will give rides more often than theroofrackless.) He even gave us a four pack of La Fin Du Monde, an awesome highgravity canadian beer. The shelter we werre staying at was only 1 mile up thetrail, so we were expecting it to be packed. Only Sanfotd had taken a spot, soPoles and I optec to stay inside too. Pretty soon Mi! ss Parkay, The Tortoise, Crake, and Hu-i showed up with beer as well. TheTortoise has this thru-hiker created game called blisters that we played for agood while, it was hella fun. (I won.)The next day we woke up early so that we could make it into Daleville in time toget a room. Poles and I leftg first, because we knew (or thought we did) theclimb up McAfee Knob would be awful. Before you knew it, we were at the top,hardly any climb at all. The day had decided to clear up so we had beautifulweather to take one more required thruhiking photo (the one of us sitting on theknob.) After getting lost a few times on the way down the knob we started makinggood time up the tinker cliffs. I counted 12 squirells in 5 miles, and we heardbut didn't see a wild turkey. A nice snack on the cliffs had us ready to get tothe shleter and get lunch. (I got an awesome spider picture from a spider thatwas on The Tortoise's jacket. Poles fell behind right before wew got to theshelter, her water bag was spilling in her pack, and then she packed up and leftbefore I was even halfway done with lunch. So I hiked the rest of the day withThe Tortoise, we talked about everything! from king kong and video games to politics and music. We caught up with Polesand Crake in Daleville. Poles was buying new boots, her feet had grown a sizesince she started hiking. After supper we hitched a ride up to thew HollinsMotel, a little far away but everything else in town was full. The Hollins is byfar thre seediest motel I've seen on the trail, if not in my whole life. Therewere dozens of strange rules like "only one bucket of ice per day" and "onlyfive phone calls per night." Not only that, but the decoration in the room madei look like a scene from some bad 70's porn/ the worst horror movie you've seen.Nothing special happened after that, just zoning out on the TV and bed.
Date: 2006-05-13
From: Daleville

To: Fullhardt Knob Shelter
Miles today: 5.0
Weather: broken clouds

Slept late today, almost seven o'clock! I walked across the street and got arazor, I had decided I looked a little too muhc like a bad 80's TV star with myhalf grown mustache. It took us awhile to get a hitch into town, butwe finallygot to Bojangles for some breakfast. (Poles ate at the Kroger, he wasn't in themood for fast food.) The Tortoise left to wash some clothes and I did someshopping for the next few days. I tried several times to call my sister inEngland to no avail, but was able to confirm my ride to Trail days with myfriend Casey in Boone. We dilly dallied for a littlewhile since we were onlyhiking five miles, ate some baked goods from a sale, a half a watermelon, andbasked in the sun. Eventually we got our butts into gear and started hiking. Itwas a quick and easy hike, nothing sooper dooper to mention. (All hiking issooper dooper, so I did have fun moving north.) We're sitting at Fullhart KnobShelter right now, The Tortoise came and left, trying to! catch Miss Parkay. With Little Engine and Gotta Go gone we're now alone in theshelter. More may show up from Daleville, at least Crake I hope since he'ssuppose to come to trail days with us. More later?
Date: 2006-05-14
From: FullHardt Knob

To: Bobblets Gap Shelter
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: moderate rain

It rained off and on all afternoonyesterday, but since we were at a sheltrer it wasn't too bad. This morning itwas obvious that it was going to rain all day. It started as soon as we started,pretty hard but fairly warm. We passed by The Tortoise's hammock pretty earlyon, she was still in it, so we didn't bother her. Made it to the shelter inrecord time, just as the rain stopped. Miss Parkay was still in her sleepingbag. The sun came out as we were eating our snacks and we were able to dry off agood bit. After taking a 20 minute break, we hiked out in the sunshine. Polesfell behind after we reached the Blue Ridge Parkway. The trail stayed beside theparkway for a good while, crossing it three different times. I stopped to talkto a British couple that was having a picnic. THUNDER!! I could hear a stormgetting closer and closer, so when Poles caught up we got outta there. Hiking agood clip faster than we have ever have, we made r! eally good time. The views from the Parkway crossings were awesome and scary atthe same time- beautiful mountains and little towns, all being covered up by thehuge storm heading our way. The thunder was getting closer and closer and thewind was whipping really hard. Just as it seems we are gonna get rained on, wesee the turn for the shelter. None to soon either, it rained as soon as we gotinto the shelter. The storm was fairly bad, so Little Engine, Gotta Go, Polesand I just hung out. Tortoise showed up looking like a drowned rat, and not longlater Miss Parkay. Little Engine and Gotta Go left, but the rest of us decidedto wait out the storm. It didn't end untill about 5, and by then we were dry andcomfy, so we're staying here at Bobblets. The shelters full now, Hind's Feet,Tinkerbell, Sir Lancelot, Hui, and Snapper. Should be a loud nightnof snoring.
Date: 2006-05-15
From: Boblets Gap Shelter

To: Cornelius Creek Shelter
Miles today: 18.3
Weather: overcast clouds

Poles woke up early this morning and left without me, so I took my time eatingbreakfast and getting ready to go. The terrain was fairly easy since we werefollowing the Blue Ridge Parkway again, an since I was alone I moved prettyfast. I got to the first shelter 6.4 miles away in around two hours and fifteenminutes, probably the fastest I've moved on the whole trip. After a quick snackI decided to see how fast I could move if I wanted. Jennings Creek was 3.4 milesaway so I timed myself going there. (interesting note- Jennings Creek is thefirst time on the Trail that we've dropped below 1000 feet.) I made it to thecreek in one hour, fairly fast if you ask me. Poles was waiting at BryantRidge Shelter, definatly top 5 coolest shelters I've seen, and we ate lunchtogether. Since it was only five miles to the next shelter we pushed on. I againtried to see how fast I could hike: the 95% uphill from Bryant Ridge toCornelius Creek took me a scant 1:35 minutes. It was fu! n, but I don't think I'll be doing it again anytime soon. It's about 4 now,wecould make it to the next shelter but are going to call it a day since we'vedone 18.
Date: 2006-05-16
From: Cornelius

To: Matt's Creek Shelter
Miles today: 17.7
Weather: overcast clouds

It's amazing hiking in these spring days. When we woke up this morning it wasfreezing cold, we could clearly see our breath in the air. Now, at 3 in theafternoon its hot out. We have gotten in such good shape that we can hike 17miles by 3 oclock. It used to take all day to do around ten. When we get backfrom trail days we are really going to be able to up our mileage. The hike was agood one today. It started out fairly cold and windy, so we didn't do muchtalking. Poles once again stopped to do something without saying anything so Igot ahead without realizing it. I ate half my lunch at the first shelter afteronly 5 odd miles, then started trucking to home for the night. Even withoutpushing myself I made great time. The day got warmer and prettier as time wentby and I was having a great time "promenading" as Crake would say. Stopped andate lunch at a nice little creek two miles from the shelter and am now justsitting around waiting till supper. (later) wow, I just ! soaked my feet in the stream and let the minnows pick them clean, and theyfeel/smell like they havent hiked at all! I'm gonna do that more often!
Date: 2006-05-21
From: Trail Days

To: John's Hollow Shelter
Miles today: 1.7
Weather: clear sky

Tired, not gonna journal much. Wentto traildays- it was awesome. Broke my camera- that was unawesome- Baloo gave mehis camera- he's awesome. Got ride back with 2 former thrus- carride wasawesomely stuffed- back on the trail at John's Hollow Shelter. bedtime.
Date: 2006-05-22
From: John's Hollow

To: Brown Mountain Shleter
Miles today: 17.9
Weather: broken clouds

I have forgotten to write about this for a few days, but I have a new reason theTrail is awesome: The Trail is one of the only places in the country where a guycan find five beautiful girls getting excited over how nice an outhouse is.Today was a fairly good day. The first few miles were all uphill, and Poles andI were still feeling blah from traildays, but we made good time. I am probablyscrewing us and every other hiker out there by saying this, but I think itsgonna start being warmer from now on. We officially formed the A15 Team, a groupdedicated to finishing by mid August. Memebers include Poles- Tortoise- myself-maybe Snapper- and Crake (as an honorary member.) welp-off to bed.
Date: 2006-05-23
From: Matt's Creek

To: Seely Woodworth
Miles today: 15.6

Wow, I know we only did 15 odd miles but they were a hard 15 odd miles. Stillnot in the swing of things from traildays and over 4000 feet of uphill do notmake for an easy day. Even so, it as a good day. The weather was perfect, springis in full swing, and...well..I'm hiking the Trail- whats not to love? Poles andI stopped for two and a helf hours at what we decided was the best campsitewe've seen. It was in the middle of a nice open field, had a tree swing andfrisbee, and a deep ice cold spring. The last 7 miles took forever!! At least wepassed the 800 mile mark, it rested on a beautiful ridge, so we got a greatpicture from it. Sitting at the shleter now, after an unfilling supper (guesshiker hunger is really here) listening to Lephracan play his didgeorydoo (bothlephracan and didgeorydoo are spelled wrong I'm sure.) Going to bed early so I'mcompletly recharged tommrow.
Date: 2006-05-24
From: Seely Woodworth

To: Rusty"s hard Time Hollow
Miles today: 20.5
Weather: scattered clouds

I was the first to leave the shelter this morning- good thing too because inabout five miles there was some major Trail Magic. A 2005 thru named Tractionand his family were cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner for hikers for a fewdays. He's in the process of raising money for a PCT hike later- he is sellingsome cool t-shirts and stuff and still spending oodles of money and time to helphikers out- so support him a bit if you can. www.helptractionhike.com Thanks foreverything Traction!!! We hiked over pour last 4000 footer today. (Well, lasttill New England.) Poles was waiting for me at the Tye river- she had just goneinto town to resupply and wa alright. YAY!!! Dirt and I hiked the rest of waytogether- swimming in some waterfalls on the Mau-Har Trail. Now we're all atRusty's- going right to bed!!
Date: 2006-05-27
From: ?!?!?

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Today is the three month anny of Toroise's start date! I am not the only onetaking their sweet time. We packed up and left as quick as we could today,but still didn't get out to the Trail till 11. This put us in a dilly of apickle. The first shelter was 7 miles away, while the second was 20. If we wentto the first sheltetr and stopped we would have nothing to do for a good bit ofthe afternoon, if we went to the second we would have to nighthike. We discussedall sorts of plans, but finally just ate supper around 3 at the 1st shelter andthen walking to the next one. It was fun except for the fact that Tortoise losther headlamp so we were one short. Owell, in bed now and it feels oh so good.
Date: 2006-05-28
To: Hightop hut
Miles today: 21.4
Weather: broken clouds

Cooked food!! The SNP is known for being an easy place to find food every fewmiles. It's more of a tourist park than a backcountry park. So we were excitedwhen we realized that there was a place to eat lunch at about 8 miles away.Little did we know that the food was more than a mile off the trail and twice asexpensive as it was worth. So, twenty dollars poorer and an hour later I headback to the Trail. The days have gotten HOT, tempatures jumped into the eightieswith bad humidity, making hiking a good bit harder. I walked thre last 8.4 milesby myself, wanting to see how fast I could move if I really wanted to. Made itthe 8 miles in 2 hours, not too shabby. After ana invigorating bandana bath andsupper, I sat down to talk and do some journaling. Normally in a shelter, micewait till after you've gone to bed to come out. They are confident at thisshelter though, just sitting down I had two run across me. That, and the colonyof ants living in the shelter, precipitate! d my moving into my tent, which is where I am now. Looking forward to more ofthe same tommorow.
Date: 2006-06-07
From: Pine Knob Shelter

To: Harper's Ferry
Miles today: 23.4
Weather: clear sky

Today was a sad day. Poles was not able to get the money that she needed tofinish the Trail, so she went to her cousins place in DC. Hopefully she'll beable to finagle something so that she is able to hike. Hiked a little over 23miles today, with a stop in Boonsboro to mail some trail magic food ahead. Had agood bit of beer at lunch, then found myself at the shelter. sooper de dooper.
Date: 2006-06-08
From: Pine Knob Shelter

To: Devil's Racecourse Shelter
Miles today: 13.1

Didn't sleep well at all last night- all the beer I had for lunch. Woke up late-so I didn't leave till around 8 o'clock. The terrain today was easy- apparentlyit will be like this for a good long while. Thats fine by me, bigger mileagedays are fun! Ate one of those Mountain House lasagna deelys for lunch- it wasamazing! I'm buying mpore of those asap. Did a short day so that Tortoise cancatch up (hopefully) if not I'll have to wait somehwere else near the halfwaypoint- don't want to celebrate alone! Just hanging out with Upload and Stitchesright now- probably head to be early so I can get up early and make it to theSouth Mountain PO before it closes.
Date: 2006-06-10
From: Quarry Gap Shelter

To: Toms Run Shelters
Miles today: 13.6
Weather: overcast clouds

Every hiker knows that they'll have to pay the price for an extra long day orextra fast day. Usually it means sore muscles and tiredness the next day. Forme it meant a stress fracture in my foot. I had trouble sleeping all nightbecause it was bothering me, didn't feel like muscle, thought it might betendon. I was going to do a really short day today because I want Tortoise andCrake to catch up so we can cross the halfway mark together. So I didn't evenbother to get up until I heard numerous voices outside.Turns out it was Scout Troop out for the weekend. Almost immediatly in in myconversation with the scoutmaster he noticed my foot. Upon closer inspection byhim and Freefall (who had had a stress fracture earlier in the trip) theyrealized what I had suspected. At some point yesterday I must of just beenmoving on the rocks too hard and caused a fracture. It hurt fairly bad- but the medic of the troop gave me some tylenol in case itgot worse. There was nothing to do except go hike. It hurt like hell to get myboot on, but hiking wasn't so bad. As long as I kept off that side of the foot Iwould only feel a little pain. I was able to keep a good pace, about half mynormal speed. Still got some looks, half the normal speed of a thruhiker isstill faster than a huge scout troop. "Walking pretty good for having a brokefoot!" I heard more than once as I limped past people. Walking like that definitely wears you out fast, so even the easy 7 mile hike tothe first shelter wore me out. So I sat around for awhile, ate 2 lunches andconsidered staying there. Boredom won out in the end and I hiked on. I'm glad I did too, after a little over a mile I came to a campsite with a bunchof college age people doing trail magic! Fruit and juice and hamburgers and hotdogs- man I REALLY considered staying there. Thankfully, I moved on. I couldhave eaten a lot more, but now that I am at Toms Run I can give my foot a chanceto rest most the day tommorow while I wait for Tortoise and Crake.Tommorow....the halfway point!
Date: 2006-06-12
From: Pine Grove Furnace Hostel

To: Half Way Point AND BEYOND!
Miles today: 0.0

I wrote a regular sized email that talked about the end of the day on the 11thand what happened on the 12th, but it got deleted. So here's the shortenedversion: ate a half gallon of ice cream (thruhiker tradition) thought I was goingto die. Walked to midpoint marker with Crake and Tortoise- then walked toBoiling Springs with Tortoise. Foot hurts- Slept in a playhouse in the backyardof some trail angels. The end!
Date: 2006-06-19
From: ?!?!?

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

I'm not sure exactly where I got the idea in my head- but I wanted to try andmake it to Port Clinton by 1:00. 23.7 miles. It was supposed to thunderstorm inthe afternoon- so it would be a plus to get in before that. So I took as littleas I could- 1 cold cut sub, 3 snickers, 1 liter of water, and one bag of beefjerky- all stored in my sleeping bag stuff sack. I left at 6am and started aneasy jog. After about 5 minutes I realized I wasn't feeling right.......oh wait!I forgot Tai Chi! I almost always do it before hiking in the morning, and on days that I don't I can feel a difference while hiking. The first section was fairly rocky and slowed me down, but I split most the daybetween a fast walk and jogging. (Maybe 70/30) I want to once again tallk about how awesome it is to be in thruhiking shape. Iwas pushing myself for hours and just loving it! Uphills, downhills, rocks, itwas all great! Of course, even in thruhiking shape my body could only take somuch. Towards the end I had a constant cramp in my right hamstring. Thankgoodness I was close enough to make it before it got too bad.Like I said, I left at 6 and was aiming for 1- but I was able to get there by12:15. Between lunch and water breaks that means I was moving 4 miles an hour. I made it to town just in time it seems. As I finished chugging three gatorades,Welsh Nomad pulled up with a bunch of hikers- they were going on a tour of theYuengling Brewery! Yuengling is the oldest brewery in America and it's stillmade in the original building. (They do have 2 other newer factories.) The tourwas awesome, especially the caves. The caves were dug in the side of themountain in the 1800's as an easy way of keeping beer cold. After the tour, Welsh Nomad took us to dinner. Thank you so much for the awesomeday Nomad!!
Date: 2006-06-20
From: Port Clinton

To: Port Clinton
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

The pavilion was packed with people last night, but with my earplugs I was ableto sleep ok. I think because I left for the brewery tour as soon as I got intotown I wasn't able to get the proper nutrition my body needed after that fasthike, leaving me feeling like crap. Tortoise did not feel well either so shewent back to sleep whle I got my maildrop (from myself) and we dilly dallied forawhile. To cheer our spirits I bought us some candy at the candy shop. As we were eating our candy we noticed the hotel was going to serve lunch soon.So we went there and ate steaks- again hoping to feel a little better. We wereso bummed out about the really rocky section coming up we almost decided toyellow blaze to Delaware Water Gap. We decided to get a room at the microtel(expensive!) and see how we felt in the morning.
Date: 2006-06-21
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Wanna hear something funny? When we woke up in the morning, we decided we weretoo lazy to hitch to Delaware Water Gap, so we would just hike the 16 odd milesinstead. Wow, weird what passes for lazy these days. We ended up getting to theTrail at about 10:30 and started the climb out of Port Clinton. The profile mapshowed the climb to be awful- but as usual- it lied. The climb was over beforewe realized and the three of us (Tortoise, Freefall and I) were making goodtime. I got a little bit ahead but stopped at Pocahontas Spring for water. Whoshould show up unexpected again with Tortoise? Crake! He's good at playing thecatch up game. So, once again united, we made our way to the first shelter forlunch. All I had to eat was some noodles and summmer sausage, not a goodcombination. Something must not of been right with the sausage- after sitting at the view atPulpit Rock my stomach started killing me. So much so it was hard to enjoy theviews. With only five miles left I decided to hike by my self till I feltbetter. The trail was easy, a nie road path with slight downgrade. It was sonice I walked right by the road turnoff for Eckville Shelter. After turning around and comingback I found on of the strangest shelters yet. Itis located right on the road beside a caretakers house and has a flush toilet!After a disappointing supper (you always run a 50/50 chance eating out of thehikers boxes) I went to bed.