morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-05-12
From: Shelter, Partnership Shelter

To: Hotel, Abington VA
Miles today: 0.0

Well today we got up early again, the joys of shelter sleeping. Everyone seemed to be up and hiking very early. I just don't know how they get up and going that early. I can never seem to get up that early and if I do, I am not organized enough to get out that fast. Night before last night while sleeping, Oblivious did a whirling dervish dance in his sleeping bag and attempted to pummel Cycle Hiker. To keep that from happening again, we put up Oblivious' hammock. Troll had also snored extra loud, so he cowboyed out next to Oblivious. He still snored but wasn't in the shelter. Last night, I was up late talking to my back home trail angel, Terri. Sometime around 1100 Silent Bob strolled over to the phone. He had not been able to sleep due to snoring and had thrown his sleeping bag and pad out of the window so he could cowboy it. But there were issues. He said that once he was outside of the shelter he could hear Troll snoring outside. Kind of a damned if you do or damned if you don't situation. He wound up sleeping almost in the direct path to the privy. So today was very lazy. We hung out with hikers as they came in and ate and went on. We waited for Padre's mom. She came and picked us up and dropped us off to get our rental car. We drove to Atkins to see if we could take anyone into Damascus. No takers, but we were able to take some hikers to the Atkins post office. We went to Damascus to check out trail days. One of the absolute coolest things we found was in tent city. Different manufacturers set up fix and repair booths for the hikers. They do all of this for free. We got our poles serviced and repaired by Leki. We talked with MSR about our MIOX battery life and got an extra set of batteries. Luckily, we had no broken gear to get repaired. But this was such a cool thing. We saw trail friends whom we haven't seen in a long time. Panoramic had just hiked into Damascus today. We saw Humble Taug and Squeaker is back out on the trail! Her foot was only sprained not fractured. We saw Rigortortise. It was so cool to see friends. Well take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-13
From: Hotel, Abington VA

To: Tent, Camping Cross Creek
Miles today: 0.0

Trail days. Troll got his feet fitted by the boot fit camp. We wandered and looked at gear and spent what seemed like oodles of money. Eek. I had several people come up to me and ask if I was Anchor. They recognized me from our journal. It was kind of cool to see what strangers thought about my ramblings. When I write my journal, it is mostly just to capture my whinings so I will remember the feeling (and maybe some of the facts) of this trip later. I then did the exact same thing. I saw Capt Hook and Dharma from GA-ME '04. I recognized them from their trail journals. It was so neat to see and meet these people whom I had read so much about. Not much to report. Typical small town festival. Oblivious saw his 1st poisonous snake. He, I and another hiker saw a copperhead by the parking lot. I had heard that they are aggressive. Well that doesn't appear to be false press. The snake kept advancing and posturing until we all left the area completely. It was really great to see so many people whom we haven't seen for a while. We also met both of the other families hiking this year. The Garland 5 from last year is completing the sections they missed due to illness. They have 3 kids (13, 12, 10). We also got to chat with Mamma Bear and her cubs. She also has 3 kids (13, 11, 8). We met before on Blood Mt and passed each other at Neels Gap. We are the only family with just one kid. It seems pretty wild to have 7 kids out here hiking the AT. We stopped by the tent city bonfire and drum circle for a bit. Luckily we left before the downpour started. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-14
From: Tent, Camping Cross Creek

To: Hotel, Marion VA
Miles today: 0.0

Two highlights today, the hiker talent show and parade. If you have ever been to a small town parade, you have an idea how long, boring and charming they can be. Well the hiker parade is definitely not your typical small town parade. It is fabulous. I've never seen a parade with audience participation. It poured down rain from the sky and the official parade was called off. That didn't stop the hikers. We marched and waged a mighty water fight battle with the townspeople. I saw a little boy yelling that he wanted to be sprayed. He was obliged. We passed 3 of the cutest little girls clad in garbage bags. They were pelting hikers with water balloons with all their might. It was so fun. Oblivious had a big water gun and waged mighty water battles. He thought it was awesome. The talent show happened before the downpour started. It was pretty good. There were people with actual talent and people with lots of guts. It was a blast to watch. The contest was sponsored and all participants got some sort of prize. So tomorrow we hike again. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-15
From: Hotel, Marion VA

To: Hotel, Atkins VA
Miles today: 11.6

Yes there was hiking after many days off. We started the day with big ideas. We were going to do a 20-mile slack pack since we still had the rental car. The day started well enough. Louisville and I got dropped off at Partnership and started hiking at 0730. Louisville got stuck with me because he has been off of the trail for a couple of weeks. It was nice hiking. Not too hot with intermittent drizzly rain. The oddest thing was hiking under one of those huge power line towers. It made a scary noise. We had hiked next to one and could hear noise from another one. Then we got the special treat of going directly under the tower that was making the awful noise. Louisville and I both stopped before the tower and rushed to get past the tower. It seemed like we had lots of field walking today. Or at least the last half. It was nice. I was glad it wasn't hot. We stopped at the schoolhouse at the Southeast Virginia Settler's museum. It seems like a really nice museum. I liked the McDuffy's readers and spelling books that were in each desk. Shortly after the one room schoolhouse, we passed some hikers who told us that Oblivious was sick and that Troll and Oblivious were in the Relax Inn at Atkins. So I spent the last hour all worried. I got to the Relax Inn and everything was ok. Troll had problems finding the road he was going to slack from. Apparently driving on these backcountry roads made Oblivious carsick. He told his dad that he wasn't feeling well. Troll told him "let me know if you need me to pull over". So it was a surprise when Padre asked Troll "why is he (Oblivious) hanging out of the window?" Oblivious was hanging out of the window, puking up chunks of chicken bathed in red PowerAde all over the side of the car. Silent Bob and Padre were quite disgusted. On their way back to Atkins, they picked up a hitchhiker. When Oblivious sat up, it was bad. He was in the middle of the back seat and unzipped his mostly empty backpack to puke in it. The hitchhiker kind of ran away when Troll pulled over and Oblivious got out of the car and was on all fours moaning and puking. I think that was when the slack pack was cancelled. Troll and I have a puke agreement. Unless it is I puking AND I am extra sick, I clean it up. So the pukey backpack was waiting for me in the bathroom. Yea. There is nothing like rinsing kid puke out of a backpack to make your hiking day complete. Luckily tomorrow is another day. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-16
From: Hotel, Atkins VA

To: Hammock, Knot Maul Branch Shelter Stream
Miles today: 14.1
Weather: scattered clouds

Tonight is the 1st night that the entire troll family will sleep in hammocks. We bought Hennessy hammocks at trail days. I guess we will wait and see how they work out for us. Oh my God, was my pack heavy today. It was the 1st time in what sees like forever that we were carrying a full 6 days of food. That food should get us to Pearisburg. It felt like I was hauling bricks. A heavy pack certainly makes uphill much more fun. Not. Today we did more field walking. These fields belonged to farmers who have granted easements. These farmers all raise some type of cattle. There were definitely land mines to avoid. I've been around cows before and I don't remember everything being quite so liquid as what we encountered today. Another thing that was really fun with a heavy pack was the stiles. I think we crossed over at least 6 of them today. Each stile was a ladder that went over a fence. I am not very graceful crossing these things. I climb up to the next to the top rung, move my poles to the other side, climb to the top rung on one side, put one foot on the top rung on the other side, pivot around, arrange my poles again, and climb down. Believe it or not, that is the graceful method. My 1st attempt had me sitting on the far side top rung and kind of sliding down one rung at a time. The heavy pack sure made it more adventurous. When we weren't field walking, we were walking into spring. All of the junior trees have leaves, which now provide welcome shade. The older senior trees have leaf budlets. The forest floor was covered in green foliage and wildflowers. I don't think that I will ever see another violet without thinking of spring on the AT. I started to see phlox in the mix today. Lots of fragrance. Many times the flower scent overwhelmed my body stench. And the nicest treat was to see the rhodendrums are starting to bloom. Isolated bushes have electric hot magenta blooms, which explode into spectacular pink blossoms. Troll and Oblivious found a large snakeskin today. It looks like it was shed by a black rat snake. Thankfully Troll did not let oblivious scare me with the snakeskin. Troll broke open a tent caterpillar web for oblivious to look inside. Oblivious had about 30 caterpillars crawling all over his hand. I'm tired and am signing off for the night. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-17
From: Hammock, Knot Maul Branch Shelter Stream

To: Hammock, seasonal stream by Chestnut Knob Shelter
Miles today: 10.2
Weather: scattered clouds

I'm not sure if the hammock is for me. I was pretty cold last night and didn't get a lot of sleep because of it. Tonight I will try to use Oblivious' sleeping pad as well as mine. I'm also not certain on how sold I am on not sleeping beside my smelly Troll. We'll see. Today sucked. My bag was still heavy. Really heavy. We started the day out with a 30-minute straight up followed by a delightful 30 minute straight down. It is always nice to get going with some killer trail. Why clutter your morning with easy hiking when you can punish yourself instead. But that wasn't the highlight of our day. Not by a long shot. We were fortunate enough to have a 4 1/2 mile climb of 2000 ft. Absolutely marvelous with a heavy pack. Troll stops and waits for me after hiking about 1 1/2 hours. On flattish or easy ground, he only has to wait 10 - 15 minutes for me to catch up. On this killer hill he had to wait 30 minutes. When I caught up with him we were only half way up the evil knob. My shirt and skirt had huge sweat spots all over them. I was so worn out that I needed a nap. Out came the sleeping pad and we all had a 30-minute lay down. Oblivious said that I was snoring. When we started hiking again I thought that I would never get to the top of Chestnut Knob. I passed over some beautiful balds on Chestnut Knob Ridge. All going up. We went to the shelter and kept going past it to water and called it a night. Everyone is tired. I saw my 2nd deer today. It was bounding thru the woods. Oblivious saw a brown and black newt that was about 3 inches long. He caught it and released it on some leaves next to a water source. Lots more spring today. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-18
From: Hammock, seasonal stream by Chestnut Knob Shelter

To: Hammock, campsite by Laurel Creek
Miles today: 13.3
Weather: scattered clouds

The highlight of today was snakes. Troll and Oblivious saw 2 black rat snakes. The 1st was little - only 2 or 3 foot long. The second was big. Oblivious said it was longer than he was tall. They got to see the defense mechanism that the black rat snake uses. It shakes it tail in leaves, which makes it sound like a rattler. Today was a dry day. We stayed by water last night. Well actually we were just past water but were able to send Oblivious to go get water back at the previous water source. We didn't send him in the morning so Troll and I started with only 3 full Gatorade bottles each. We normally carry 4 Gatorade bottles. Every time we pass water, we will fill up our empties. Got to love the lightweight and the cost of the Gatorade bottles. Of course we started the day with ups. That never helps the water situation. We had to go almost all the way to the shelter that was 8.6 miles from our camping spot. That is a really long way on a warm May Day with plenty of climbs and only 1.5 liters of water. We ended the day at a nice camping area across from Laurel creek. This is a pretty cool spot. A local church provides a shuttle and free breakfast several days a week. They also stock a cooler up here with soda and juice. Unfortunately that was empty when we got here. And saving the coolest for last - trashcans. We can dump our trash weight. Trashcans are truly a treat for a thru hiker. Well last night in the hammock was better. 2 pads made all sorts of difference in my sleeping. I think we have decided to send the hammocks (Trolls and mine) home and get our tent back. I miss my Troll. Virginia was not very flat or kind today. She was very rocky and filled with little to moderate ups and downs. She wore us out. Oblivious found a skinny hungry cat at our campsite. We fed her a slice of cheese and let her lick our salmon packet. Oblivious is trying to sleep with her. Although the cat is currently in the sleeping bag in the hammock with Oblivious, my bet is that the cat will be gone in the morning. I gotta go to sleep now. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-21
From: Shelter, Wapiti Shelter

To: Tent, Campsite/Spring
Miles today: 13.7

Well today's 800 foot climb from the power lines to the viewpoint was 2.8 miles away and mostly took place in 800 feet. That was fun. Troll took his pack off at the top to gasp and pant. The best thing about this climb was that it was the 2nd of 3rd big climbs of the day. Today was just hiking. Nothing really exciting. We passed a nice overlook and just sat there for a while. Troll was really hungry today. We picked up some Little Debbie¢s snacks yesterday and they just didn't quench that empty feeling in his tummy. I was still good from the cheeseburger yesterday. That and Gatorade sugar. Sugar, good.... Well, I know this is a pretty boring entry but that is what the day was. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-22
From: Tent, Campsite/Spring

To: Hotel, Perisburg VA
Miles today: 2.5

Today was a short walk into town. We were the 1st official hikers over a short new section of trail. The Konnerock crew was doing trail relocation and we just happened to be the 1st hikers over it. What was pretty neat was that we saw the trail maintainer lady from Partnership Shelter. Kind of like seeing an old friend. We have a mail drop here, which can't be picked up until Monday. We can't seem to make it into a town during postal hours. That is why we nero'd in and will nero out tomorrow. To say that Perisburg is pretty spread out would be an understatement. We are at the Rendezvous Motel, which is right off of the trail. We were planning on staying at the Holy Family Hostel, which we have heard is very nice. But it is over 2.5 miles into town. Now you would think that someone who hikes wouldn't mind walking. Of course you would be wrong. Town walking is just wrong, so very wrong on so many levels. We lucked out and got a room here. We were able to do laundry on site. Boy was that needed. We hadn't done laundry since our 1st time in Damascus. I had to run all of our clothes thru the machine twice. The 1st time to knock out dirt and the 2nd time to knock out stench. Then we lucked out and got a ride to Wal-Mart to restock AND a ride to the Chinese all you can eat buffet. We only had to walk about 1/2 a mile back. So not too bad overall. Weird Random Dude (Bear/Meatloaf) from 2 days ago showed up here at the hotel. He says he is camping out in the woods. Kind of creepy. Apparently he gets hitches in between roads. Luckily there aren't many roads in the next 20 miles. Well take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-23
From: Hotel, Perisburg VA

To: Shelter, Pine Swamp Shelter
Miles today: 19.6
Weather: scattered clouds

Tonight we got treated to real bagpipe music. Old Scrubs has a small bagpipe, which he carries. He serenaded all of us here at the shelter. I really wish Stilts could have been here. I think he carries a bagpipe chanter. I know he really likes bagpipe music. I also wish that Silent Bob and Padre had been here. It was certainly an unexpected treat. We didn't expect to be at this shelter today. We got a late start (1130) after finishing up our town chores. There was an initial evil climb, but after that we started flying. It was good hiking. I got fall number 8 today. It was spectacular. I was coming up on one of those huge boggy muddy spots. I was trying to figure out how to get across and somehow tripped my left foot and wound up on my right side in the mud. I had mud all over my right leg. I had mud all over my right arm. I had mud all over the right side of my skirt and shirt. And I had mud up my nose. Cool huh? Oblivious is up to 27 falls and that damn coordinated Troll still has none. One of the chores that we had to take care of in town was shoes. Guess what? My Saloman xcr+ shoes broke their KEVLAR laces again after about 250 miles. I called Merrill about Oblivious' shoes. His shoes were shot after 600 miles. He has been pretty rough on them. I explained that we were thru hiking the AT as a family. Oblivious will have a new pair of shoes about 9 days down the trail. We don't have to mail the icky pair back to them. The customer care lady even helped me figure out what type of shoe they were, as all identifying label information inside was gone. All in all Merrill is a treat to deal with. I unfortunately did not have the same luck at Saloman. I somehow think that a pair of trail shoes should last more than 250 miles. I think buying 8.7 pairs of shoes to do the AT is ridiculous. Saloman has a policy where you have to give them your credit card number, which they hold until you return the old shoes at your own expense. I didn't exactly care for that policy the 1st time around, but I assumed that I must have had a defective pair. This time I complained about that policy and was told that they could do a one time only warranty replacement without the shoe return. I was also told that 250 trail miles is pretty much the life expectancy of the laces depending on pack weight. Heck the Navy ties up ships to piers with mooring lines containing Kevlar and there would be huge problems if the lines were only good for 250 high tide/low tides. I will be shopping for another pair of shoes at the next outfitters. And they will not be Salomans. They will probably be Merrill¢s. In the meantime you can recognize my shoes as the ones held together with picture hanging wire. Well take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-24
From: Shelter, Pine Swamp Shelter

To: Shelter, Bailey Gap Shelter
Miles today: 3.9
Weather: light rain

It rained all night last night. This morning was cold. I'm wondering exactly when spring is going to get here. It was in the 40's when we woke up. That is too cold for May 24th. In less than a month it will be summer. Not that anyone could tell by the temps. We started the day with a road walk. A bridge was washed out. You had the option to ford the waist high deep river. We chose not to ford. It looked cold and yucky. As we did the road walk we saw yellow lady's slippers. An entire patch of them. They are also quite spectacular. What did strike me as odd was the completely different foliage that they have as compared to pink lady's slippers. It was very exciting to see these rare flowers. We got some trail magic. A sign pointed us to a person's house. Their front door had a sign "hippies use side door" and a sign pointing to trail magic. The trail magic was around back. It was a cooler filled with soda and candy. Soda is so good. Sugary liquid calories that are instantly absorbed by your body. It was raining as we were walking and the temperature didn't seem to be climbing. I was cold wet and miserable when we reached the shelter. We had planned to go more miles, but the warmth of sleeping bags just called out to me. When troll asked if I wanted to go on, I said no. Well take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-05-25
From: Shelter, Bailey Gap Shelter

To: Shelter, Sarver Hollow Shelter
Miles today: 21.0
Weather: broken clouds

I am nice and warm cuddled up to my Troll in a beautiful new shelter. It has a wonderful view and a lovely big covered porch. All that said, I am convinced that this shelter is someone's sick idea of a joke. It is over .3 miles off of the trail. Luckily all of those .3 miles are straight down. Approximately between 500 and 1000 ft straight down. It will be particularly fun leaving this shelter tomorrow morning. One of the less cool things is that the shelter elevation listed in the books is actually just the elevation of the sign pointing you in the direction of the straight down trek. Today Troll and Oblivious saw a dead deer. I walked right by and didn't notice it. I was not the only hiker to miss it. Troll said when he saw the deer, he wondered what had killed it and why whatever had killed wasn't there eating it. He said they passed by it quickly to let that mystery animal get back to its meal. I am really enjoying hiking in this section of Virginia. We are doing real ridge walking. We hike straight up to a ridge. Usually about 1000 feet in 1/2 a mile. That part really sucks. Then we go along the ridge for several miles. Then we go straight down. Again about 1000 feet in 1/2 mile. That part also really sucks. Then there is some flattish valley walking. Then we repeat. You can see why this perverted climb down for a shelter is really annoying. It is just adding in one more down & up that doesn't even count. Today we passed the famous Keffer Oak. It is a huge old oak tree estimated to be about 300 years old. It was really big. I thought it might remind me of the redwoods. It didn't. But it was neat to see. We got some very needed trail magic today. In the middle of one of our climbs, there was a cooler filled with sodas. Sugary liquid calories. They helped us power up the evil hill that followed as we crossed the road. Troll told me to check the calories on the sodas next time before I choose which to consume. I had the cola at 110 calories but apparently the lemon-lime soda had 130 calories. I could have traded caffeine for 20 more calories. Just some random things. Today I noticed that azaleas have a scent. We are doing big miles to get to our mail drop before the big holiday weekend. Tomorrow we will have less than 1500 miles left. I love my new Sony Walkman radio. I think it helps me hike faster. Well take care and we will see you on the trail.