morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2017-04-14
From: Nantahala Outdoor Center

To: Sassafras Gap Shelter
Miles today: 6.7
Weather: scattered clouds

I woke with the sun, as usual but rolled over a couple times until I heard Liz get up and head to the bathroom. I emerged from my tent and sat watching the river for a few minutes until she returned. The water had dropped a couple inches overnight due to the dam that NOC used to control the river level for rafting and water sports. After a quick fix inventory so that we could resupply, Liz and I headed back to Rivers End for breakfast. We both got a Fontana Hashbrown: potatoes, broccoli, peppers, onions, and sausage served with 2 eggs and cheese on top, and some french toast. We hung out there eating, chatting, and charging our phones for an hour and a half.We made a quick stop at the general store for a resupply... I picked up another days worth of food to ensure that I had enough to get to Fontana, and then headed over to the outfitter's. I bought a cheap headlamp to serve as a short term replacement to my current headlamp, which won't hold a charge, until I can get a new one. I also printed my permit to hike through Smoky Mountain National Park, and Liz caught up on some work she had to take care of.Afterwards, we headed back to camp and packed up. The heat of the day had really taken hold, and we were sweating just packing our bags. We headed back to NOC, dipped our feet in the water for a bit, and then headed out. The trail from NOC rises continuously for 2500ft over 5 miles, and so we began our slow upward slog, cresting false summit after false summit. We stopped occasionally to refill water, have a snack, or tape feet to prevent blisters and thankfully some clouds rolled in and blocked the sun which made the hike a bit easier.While hiking we watched a C-130 weave through the Nantahala valley twice at an altitude lower than we were, presumably training pilots for low flying in mountainous terrain. We also noted that this was the 3rd Sassafras Mt we had climbed on the trail and each had seemed harder than the last... a trend we hope doesn't continue.Throughout the afternoon we had watched rain showers to the south and sunny skies to the north, but as we summited the rain seemed to start moving in so we raced it down to the shelter. Though the skies threatened, the rain never arrived, but we elected to sleep in the shelter anyways. We met Missionary, Lipstick, and several others at the shelter, and cooked and ate dinner. One of the guys at the shelter is a yoga instructor and so offered to do a yoga class, which Liz and I, in addition to a number of other hikers took him up on. I've never attempted to do yoga on a 45deg slope before, and it certainly made it a bit more difficult, but I don't think I've ever felt so good heading to bed after a day of hiking.
Date: 2017-04-20
From: Clingman's Done

To: Clingman's Done
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

Since we had stayed up so late last night, we slept in... Till like 8... Hey, better than normal! We gathered up our laundry to do later and headed over to Sunny Point Cafe, recommended to us by the hotel staff. We had THE BEST BREAKFAST of the trail so far... We split some fried green tomatoes and I had an omelet with peppers and onions and tomatoes and bacon and chipotle aoli with chipotle cheese grits and a biscuit and a kids order of french toast (with fruit!!). We were all stuffed afterwards... great cure for hiker hunger.We headed over to Ingles, resupplied with another day of food to get us out of the Smokies, popped into the adjacent laudrymat (my turn for rain jacket laundry), headed over to REI to do some gear changes (I got a drybag for my sleeping bag since it had gotten damp a couple times on rainy days, a small drybag to replace the Ziploc holding my AWOLs guide, a small mesh sack to replace the one I was using for my bear throw, and a can of fuel for my stove). While shopping we got called out as Thru hikers after an employee caught Lookout and I comparing sock tans and got talking about the trail. This REI had done some trail maintenance and had removed 20trees from the trail recently, so props to them!We headed back to the hotel to drop everything off and were assaulted by the smell of wet hiker... What can you do though? We turned the AC on to try to clear the smell and headed out for an afternoon on the town. We tried out a couple of breweries, getting a couple flights at each to sample as much as possible, before grabbing BBQ for dinner (I had a slice of strawberry pie for dessert... gotta get fruit while you can!) and hitting a couple more breweries. We decided the best brewery we had visited was Funkatorium which specializes in sour beers. On our way back to the hotel for the evening we got yelled at/called hiker trash by someone across the street... good to see that someone understands us!We chilled back at the hotel for the rest of the night, repacked our bags with our now dry gear, and watched The Big Lebowski.
Date: 2017-04-30
From: Erwin, TN

To: Curly Maple Gap Shelter
Miles today: 4.3
Weather: overcast clouds

We had a lazy morning charging our electronics and hanging out at the hostel. I packed my food bag with my resupply stuff, changed my contacts (I have the ones you wear for a month at a time, so it's much easier to change them while in town than on the trail), and de-splosioned my pack. I weighed my pack on their scale, I'm at 20.6lbs base weight (no food or water... I started at 17lbs but have added some stuff: a dry sack for my sleeping bag, wet wipes to wash off some of the sweat off with at camp each night, a spare headlamp (from when mine broke... Need to send the spare home when I can), etc) and 31.5lbs fully loaded with 1L of water and 4 days of food. It's not the lightest (there's a guy with a fully loaded weight of 19lbs), but it's manageable and working well for me, which is what counts.Classy and her mom, who had been dubbed Mrs Pots during their week on the trail, got here at around 11 and we headed into town to get some lunch. We ended up a Bojangles, a chicken place that I've never been to before, but it ended up being really good (at least by hiker standards). I got a garden salad (greens are sorely lacking on the trail) and a Jambolia bowl (rice, chicken, beans, etc... It's 1200calories, which is pretty efficient calories/$). Mrs Pots dropped us back at the hostel (which is basically on trail) and rather than saddling up immediately we ended up chilling for a couple hours until some of the heat of the day passed. We planned for the next couple days of hiking and finally motivated ourselves to hike at around 3pm.Once we started hiking we took our time, trying to keep from getting too gross in the warm weather, but the first decent hill had us all sweating again. Thankfully we only had one climb for the day and it was relatively short, and soon enough we came to a helpful sign someone had left on the trail telling us that the water source at the shelter was dry and that we should fill up at the stream. We tanked up and soon reached the shelter.We reached the shelter to find it "full" with 4 people taking naps. Since they were managing to take up the entire shelter, we couldn't unpack or setup our gear, so we hung around and made a little fire to pass some time (and the hatchet left at the shelter was dull as a hammer, so using it to chop some wood for the first might've helped wake them up). Eventually they woke up, packed up, and moved on so we could move into the shelter. We made dinner and settled down for the night. The shelter, being only 4mi from town, wasn't heavily used, and we were only sharing with one other person. We had a mini movie night in the shelter, using Lookout's phone to watch the first 1/3 of the movie Braveheart before we all got too tired and decided to finish it another night.
Date: 2017-05-01
From: Curly Maple Gap Shelter

To: Greasy Creek Gap
Miles today: 20.0
Weather: moderate rain

We woke up in the morning to find that no rain has fallen overnight like it had been predicted, which was just as well. We hiked through the morning, Classy fell in a stream, and we watched as the rain moved in throughout the morning. We got sprinkled on in the morning, but overall stayed pretty dry.As we ascended we started to feel the full force of the wind, which was blowing up to ~35mph. We caught up with BirdPerson on a bald ridge and watched the clouds flow over nearby mountains until we nearly got blown over by a particularly strong gust and decided it was time to move on.We hiked on, climbing a mountain up into a dense spruce forest which had a very alpine feel. Though the rain started warm in the morning, throughout the day it turned cold and by lunch time we had all donned rain jackets to keep warm.The rest of the afternoon passed pretty slowly to me, the rain and wind kept up and the miles started to wear on. None of us were in much of a mood for conversation and I'm still trying to get a new headphone cable, so I can only listen to things through my phone's speakers, which I can't do in the rain. We hiked through an old apple orchard with a couple of large trees which were in bloom and probably provide a nice treat to SOBOs in the fall. Eventually we got to Greasy Creek Gap (not the most attractive name) and headed down an old forest road. We had decided to head for a hostel for the night since it was only $10 and was only 2 miles short of our intended destination, which we could easily make up tomorrow without changing our plans. We hiked the 0.6mi downhill to the hostel (I'm sure we'll looove the extra uphill in the morning), checked in, grabbed showers, hung our clothes to dry, and then chilled for the afternoon. Gadget, one of the owners of the hostel, has 955 movies on his laptop (he's proud of that number) and so we watched Passengers (recent SciFi movie) and O Brother, Where Art Thou and then the other hikers decided on watching Mad Max. The other hostel owner (NAME) had kindly offered to pick up food for the hikers while she was in town and that food was promptly demolished when it arrived during Mad Max.The movie ended at ~11pm, way past our bedtime, so we headed out to the bunkhouse for the night. The storms must've been a cold front moving through because it's turned fairly chilly outside. I'm nice and warm in my sleeping bag in the bunkhouse for the night though.
Date: 2017-05-05
From: Kincora Hostel

To: Iron Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 24.5
Weather: light rain

This morning Scuttles, a hiker who stayed at the hostel with us, cooked a big skillet of a dozen eggs he had bought last night and some hash browns and was kind enough to share with everyone, so we ate well this morning.Before we left at all took the opportunity to backflush our water filters, but not much actually came out, which indicates that we've been filtering pretty clean water.We hit the trail by 830 while the sun worked on burning off the rest of the fog. The trail led us down a steep rocky embankment to the Laurel falls and the Laurel Fork River. The river and falls looked lovely in the morning sun as we hiked along. Eventually though, the trail took an upward turn and we began ascending Pond Flats Mt, the only real mountain we'd see all day. The trail was very well graded and had lots of switchbacks, so we cruised up and down the mountain, eventually reaching Watuga lake. Along the way we ran into Tarzan, which surprised everyone since both parties thought the other was ahead on the trail but both parties  had stayed at (different) hostels last night.We crossed a road and emerged onto the picnic area at the lake and won the lottery... we had a lake, a picnic table to eat lunch on, working bathrooms, and a water spicot! You can't ask for more than that! (Note: that may sound like sarcasm, but it's actually not... That's better than most lunch spots have). As we were eating the superintendent of this section of trail stopped by to chat and get our opinions of the trail bend before hiking off into the woods to experience it for himself.After finishing lunch we headed out, cruising around the flat terrain as we circumnavigated the lake. The trail spit us out at Watuga Dam and we crossed the massive earthen barrier which had created the lake. Not quite as interesting as Fontana dam, both since it was smaller and because it had less obvious engineering involved in it's construction, but still a unique landmark.After the dam we took, what I dubbed, the On Ramp to the Highway to Damascus. The trail for the next 40miles looked very flat according to AWOL, no more than 100-200ft of elevation change at a time... probably a ridge that we'd run all the way there, maybe one of the ones we had seen from the balds a few days earlier. To get there we just had to climb about 1500ft to get onto the ridge. Once we topped out the trail got really easy... flat, dirt trail, without too many obstructions. We stopped for a bit to get some water and the rain that we had been expecting all day finally started. We hiked the afternoon away, the rain, wind, and chill keeping conversation down and us moving to stay warm. I was leading and ended up pushing the pace a little much, which I tend to do when I just want to get to a place, especially when it's raining.We finally reached the shelter, having completed our 24.5mi for the day. There was space in the shelter so the 3 of us piled in and setup camp, listening to the rain on the roof throughout the evening.
Date: 2017-05-07
From: Damascus

To: Damascus
Miles today: 0.0

Zero day!We had breakfast at Crazy Larry's, which he prepares for his guests, consisting of eggs, sausage, and big, thick chocolate chip pancakes before moving our gear from the cabin over to the bunkhouse, where we'd be sleeping tonight.After breakfast we headed out on the town, heading over to the outfitter to look around. I picked up my package, which contained some goodies from friends at home. This time I got chocolate bread, cider, whiskey, and postcards! In addition, I also got my resupply items I requested... more toothpaste, hand sanitizer, earplugs, a converter cable so yay I can use headphones with my phone, and my quilt (which is about a pound lighter than my sleeping bag and should keep me warm enough now that (hopefully) the cold weather is behind us).After dropping our packages back at the hostel, we all headed over to Mojo's, a local cafe, for some good food. We hung out there for a while, caught up on the internet, and did a bit of planning for the next couple days. It's been a long time since our last zero and I'm on schedule, so we're going to double zero (today and tomorrow) and bike the Virginia creeper trail tomorrow. After Mojo's I picked up another smartwater bottle to replace my platypus. The platypus, while slightly lighter and smaller than a water bottle, is getting dingy and is hard to clean, so I'm replacing it with the bottle because I can replace the bottle on trail easily when I need to... A small optimization that makes sense on a trip of this scale but didn't necessarily before.We spent most of the afternoon hanging with BirdPerson, Goose, Tarzan, and Pigasis, who are all staying at the hostel for the night. Bird brought beer leftover from a family wedding, so we drank for a bit before heading over to the local brewery. On the way over we realized that it had closed, but we did get TRAIL MAGIC on the street from some guys who gave us each a beer (technically the street through town is the trail, so it counts).We ended up having dinner at BoBos again, heading back to hostel, and then drinking around a campfire that Larry made us.
Date: 2017-05-09
From: Damascus

To: Saunders Shelter
Miles today: 8.4
Weather: clear sky

We had breakfast at Larry's again this morning, this time biscuits and gravy. Mmmmm mmmm. Tattoo showed up at the hostel and Larry offered her breakfast in exchange for doing the dishes, a deal she promptly accepted. She calls our tramily "The Flash" because we always shoot past her pretty quickly while hiking. She was making fun of us a bit... she keeps expecting us to pass her and for her to never see us again but she keeps catching up. Just goes to show, slow and steady gets you to the same place as hiking fast.We hung around the hostel most of the morning... It was raining pretty hard and consistently and hiking IN rain is one thing, but hiking INTO rain is something that we just couldn't get up the motivation to do this morning. Lookout got his resupply figured out, Classy arranged her transportation back to the real world after trail days, and I journaled (I'm perpetually 2 days behind, usually more when a town is involved). Around 1130 the rain abated and we took advantage and hit the trail. The AT followed the creeper out of town but then promptly diverged from the nice, flat creeper and headed straight up a mountain. We climbed said mountain, climbed down said mountain, rejoined the creeper trail for another short section, and then split off again to climb another, steeper mountain. Some people suggest just blue blazing the creeper trail because it's flatter and the river is more scenic, but we stuck with the AT because Classy and I had just biked the creeper yesterday. Anyways, the creeper trail had a bathroom (with TP provided!) just before the AT split off again, luxury! Some unfortunate hiker had forgotten their TP in the bathroom... Not a good piece of gear to forget.Up and up we went and eventually we reached the shelter at around 3pm. The shelter had a lot of grassy flat space around it which would make it nice for tenting, but we elected to use the shelter because of the chance of rain tonight. Thankfully, the forecast for the next couple days seems to be improving, so we may not get as wet as we thought.We had just finished dinner when we noticed some rather dark and ominous clouds from what we could see of the sky through the trees. Sure enough, a couple minutes later, the first rumble of thunder echoed through the mountains and a few fat drops of rain fell. The rain fell hard as we watched the storm roll through from our sleeping bags nestled in the shelter. We watched as the sky lightened, returning to cheery white clouds, in the wake of the storm.We had the shelter to ourselves so we watched the first half of the Fellowship of the Ring before getting too tired to continue. Tonight is my first night on trail in my quilt, so we'll see how it goes!
Date: 2017-05-19
From: Perisburg

To: Damascus, Trail Days
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Not much to report on... Plenty of free food, showers, foot massages, doctors, music, etc. Went on an edible plants walk which was interesting... should be able to find some of that along the trail.Also tons of gear vendors here showing their wears, giving away gear, and offering repairs... largest collection of backpacking gear I've ever seen.Also, we're running into basically everyone we've ever met on trail... It's good to see everyone again and hear where they are on the trail and about their experiences.
Date: 2017-05-20
From: Damascus, Trail Days

To: Damascus, Trail Days
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Good day today... Got some free gear... A Gregory day pack, flask, and another buff.Did the hiker parade, got rained on (which made the squirt guns somewhat redundant), got hailed on... We're hikers, it's not the first time it's happened.Classy and I did the contra dance tonight, which was SUPER fun.
Date: 2017-05-29
From: Buena Vista

To: The Priest Shelter
Miles today: 20.6
Weather: broken clouds

Executive summary due to extenuating journaling circumstances (will be described in time):- Late start due to hotel and trail magic- 2000ft climb - Bald knob is not bald, Cole Mt is bald- Back into section I've hiked before- Visited place I got my trail name- Spy Rock- The Priest
Date: 2017-06-01
From: Waynesboro

To: Blackrock Hut
Miles today: 20.7
Weather: few clouds

Executive summary due to extenuating journaling circumstances:- Not feeling great in morning, queasy- Lookout see another bear- By evening had a fever, felt like what I ate wasn't going to stay down- TRAIL MAGIC delivered to shelter, couldn't eat it- Food poisoning?
Date: 2017-06-03
From: Ivy Creek Overlook

To: Bearfence Hut
Miles today: 22.2
Weather: clear sky

For those who are wondering, I haven't given up on journaling, I'm just really behind. I got pretty sick for a couple days coming out of Waynesboro... not enough to get off trail, but enough that hiking was pretty miserable for 3 days, and so I didn't have any motivation to document it. Nothing too serious, probably just food poisoning, but when you can't eat the ~4000cal you're burning each day and when it's ~10mi between bathrooms, life gets a bit rough.I'm back to normal health now and still hiking, in fact Lookout and I just walked out of Shenendoah this afternoon. Exciting and interesting things did happen during that time though, and I do intend to journal them, but being this far behind it's not feasible to do that and keep current. I think I'm going up pick up journaling from here (hopefully tonight) and use my long weekend off trail this weekend to catch up on some of the missed entries.
Date: 2017-06-09
From: Crampton Gap Shelter

To: Foxville Rd
Miles today: 22.0
Weather: broken clouds

Well, the plan was to be on the trail by sunrise, but I had been hiking until almost 10pm last night so that didn't happen. I ended up hitting the trail at about 630. I stopped for a few moments at White Rock cliffs to admire the farmland spread out below me but otherwise kept moving. The plan was for me to get picked up by TopBunk in the late afternoon but we hadn't decided on a location yet. Though it would be another 30mi day, the terrain would be pretty easy, so finishing Maryland today wasn't out of the question, but that would require some pretty fast hiking to accomplish.I took another break at the Washington monument (the one in MD) and ate a couple snacks at the top of the stone tower which had been closed due to a lightning strike the last time I had hiked this section. From my vantage point I could see the sun shining down on the rolling ridge to the north and the agriculture down below and enjoyed the light breeze which took some of the edge off the warm morning.From there it wasn't far until I crossed I-70, a road I've driven many times, and headed up to Annapolis rocks. As I was enjoying my lunch I was surprised to see a helmeted head pop up over the rock face and then clamber up onto the shelf. Shouting a couple commands down, he set about setting an anchor to allow more climbers to ascend under a top-rope, which I watched for a time before moving on. By this time the heat of the day had hit fill force and even flat sections were drawing sweat. Passing some snacking section hikers I received some TRAIL MAGIC in the form of a handful of grapes and a clementine. The hikers lived in New York and did a section of the trail each year and, as they had with me, would sometimes hand out a few snacks as they went. The combination of the moisture and sweetness of the grapes were delicious on this hot afternoon and I tucked the clementine away for later as I thanked them and moved on.The ridge I was hiking stretched on for what seemed like forever and became very rocky in parts, requiring some rock hopping to traverse, which slowed my pace. I made my decision... finishing Maryland today (another 12mi) wasn't worth it, so I called and setup my extraction at the next major road crossing (4mi ahead) and then stopped to enjoy my clementine and the next shelter while I killed some time. It was an easy hike the rest of the way to the road and just before crossing I found TRAIL MAGIC of a couple gallons of fresh water left for hikers. I didn't partake because I'd soon be picked up, but especially on a day as hot as this the thought was appreciated. I changed into camp clothes, hopeful (mostly in vain) that it might improve my smell, until TopBunk arrived and we headed home.I'm planning on getting back on trail Tuesday and don't intent to cover my activities at home in this journal, so there will be a couple day gap.