morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2007-06-08
From: Blackrock Hut, SNP

To: Hightop Hut, SNP
Miles today: 21.4
Weather: broken clouds

(Willie)Today was definitely a day to follow the Public Service Announcement about being outside in the high heat. To say the least, it was pretty darn hot out there. How hot was it? Well, we found 2 thermometers, the one we saw at 1:00 said it was 86 degrees in the shade, and the one we found at 5:00 said it was 92! How did we handle it? Well like I said, we followed the PSA and took plenty of breaks, and drank a boat load of water. It sure wasn¢t easy though. The heat turned a not so hard day terrain wise in to a down right grueling day from start to finish.The long day revolved around when and where we could take brakes. The first place on the list was the Loft Mountain campground. On our way to the campground, and more importantly the camp store we had our second bear sighting. This one was about 15 yards off the trail and walked around just long enough for us to get a picture of the black fuzz ball before it disappeared. After that we were able to get within feet of a tick covered deer (I guess I¢m not the only one the ticks like) that was eating along the trail. Speaking of eating, after we saw the deer, we got to the campground and headed right for the store. Radar had bought some sandwich stuff so lunch was taken care of, but we couldn¢t resist the ice cream sandwiches, chips, oreos, and some flavorful drinks.We sat outside in the sun a little longer then we should have talking with Radar and Bonafide before moving on to the Ivy Creek maintenance hut for a wash in the spring to cool us down and eventually we crawled to the Pinefield Hut for a snack. From there, it was only 8.2 sweat filled miles with 4 mountains to climb to our final destination. Of course we had to stop at the Simmons Gap ranger¢s station to fill up the water bladders and to cool off with the help of a nice water hose. From there we had to hurry because a thunder storm thought it¢d be nice to race us to the shelter. I¢m proud to say that the results are in, and in a photo finish we pulled out the victory. And I do mean a photo finish. The storm was on top of us less then 5 minutes after we got to the shelter! Surprisingly the storm only lasted a couple of minutes so after diner we set up out tent with thunder on one side of us and a beautiful sunset on the other side.Tick Count: Willie 24 Erin 5Life Lesson: Double check to make sure that you¢re not stuffing an inch warm in with your tent when you pack up. Apparently they like the taste of tent mesh and will eat through it to try to get out.
Date: 2007-06-09
From: Hightop Hut, SNP

To: South River Road Trail Magic, SNP
Miles today: 6.4

Today was the day we had been waiting for; my parents were going to be somewhere up the trail doing trail magic. We weren¢t sure of where they were going to be but we were told there would be signs. We slept in a little because we knew we weren¢t in much of a hurry and to give them time to set up. We hit the trail by 9:00am unsure of where we were going to start finding signs leading us to my parents. We hiked a few miles and then through Swift Run Gap and kept on going. I was starting to get anxious and was looking far down the trail if I could see a sign on any trees ahead of us. We passed a few day hikers that gave us a little clue. They had just passed the signs and we were only 15 minutes away, we I started to walk a little faster. Finally we found the sign. It said ¢trail magic, 200yds¢. We started to walk down the fire road and then found another sign ¢trail magic, 200yds¢. I thought that was odd that we didn't seemed to be getting any closer, then another sign ¢trail magic 100yds¢. We kept walking and more signs lined the trail with the count down to when we would get there and then we turned the corner and saw everyone. They had moved a picnic table and there were people everywhere. People started to clap for us and my parents came up to give us hugs. Some good friends of ours Bob and Dandy and their son Taylor had come to help out with the trail magic. It had become a little party in the woods down the South River Fire Road. (Erin) When we showed up Radar and Bonifido were already on their second hot dogs and hikers had already come and gone. They had a great set up, with hot dogs, drinks and more grapes than I¢ve ever seen. My dad even pulled out the ipod for some music while we sat around telling stories and answering Taylor¢s Youtube video questions. A few hours passed and Will and I had gotten comfortable and had taken off our shoes. I was starting to not want to leave and was thinking that we could go back with them to Skyland for the night. After getting the ¢OK¢ from Will after packing up all the food and cleaning up around 4:30 we drove to a look out called ¢The Point¢. We sat out on some rocks with drinks and took some pictures as we looked out to the amazing view around us. After that we headed to Skyland for showers and then to dinner. Even though we only did 6 miles today we had a great time and it was well worth taking a short day to spend the time with my parents and Bob and Dandy. Thanks everyone for coming out with the Trail Magic!!
Date: 2007-06-10
From: South River Road Trail Magic

To: Rock Spring Hut, SNP
Miles today: 17.5
Weather: few clouds

(Willie)Wow, now that was a night on the trail. To bad we had to drive back south this morning so that we could spend a full day walking back to Skyland. It was tempting to just start walking north from there, but we both knew that we wouldn¢t be able to live with ourselves if we didn¢t walk the whole thing so after packing up Erin¢s parents, Bob, Dandy, and Taylor brought us back to where we left off and we started the walk back to Skyland. We didn¢t get far before we had to perform some foot surgery, and surprisingly it was actually on me this time. Apparently my foot thought that it¢d be a great time to get my first in grown toe nail and by this morning it was nice and white and puffy. I told Erin that it didn¢t look right so she was nice enough to push on it, which unleashed a flood of nasty gooey stuff. Ok, now I really had to do something about it. I cleaned it up with some alcohol wipes, put on some Neosporin, put a band aid on it, realized that the band aid wouldn¢t stay, and duck taped the band aid down. Disaster averted, hopefully.We couldn¢t spend too much time dressing the wound, because we had some ground to make up due to our short day yesterday, and because Erin¢s friend Naomi was supposedly meeting us at some point down the trail today so we had to keep moving. Or so we thought. Instead of moving right along at a lightening pace we stopped at Bootens Gap for some more trail magic. There was a guy in the parking lot giving out fried chicken, potato salad, beans, cake and drink. It was tough to stop seeing how I was still pretty stuffed from everything I ate yesterday but we managed to find someway to fit the extra food in to our already full stomachs. That probably wasn¢t the best idea, because I had to walk a bit afterwards with my hip belt undone because things were getting mighty uncomfortable. We managed to keep going, and met Naomi about 3 miles later at Milam Gap. She came baring gifts of soda and popcorn. There was no way I was going to eat anything at that point so she agreed to carry the food 3 miles back Big Meadows where she had parked. We hung out a while with her before saying good bye and moving on another 3 miles to the shelter. We weren¢t able to eat all of her gifts then, but they sure made a great diner seeing that we were still way to full to eat a full diner. So instead of pulling a big day to catch up for a short day yesterday we ended up taking another short day today. But hey, that¢s what the trail is all about, throwing away all your plans and just going with the flow. Once we did that, we had a great day in which we got some trail magic and spent some time with family and friends. Of course we¢ll more then likely have to pay with a big day tomorrow, but it was well worth it.Tick Count: Willie 25 Erin 6Life Lesson: Lay on both sides of the tent when testing a possible tent location. Apparently Erin¢s side was nice and level, but somehow I was on the worst slant possible. Some stakes would have been nice to nail my sleeping bag in one place.
Date: 2007-06-11
From: Rock Spring Hut, SNP

To: Gravel Spring Hut, SNP
Miles today: 28.4

(Erin) HOLY COW!! What a day we had. I¢m starting to re-think the short day we took with my parents the other day. We had a big catch up to do to make up only doing 6 miles on Saturday. We started by 7:00am with the hopes of at least getting 24 miles today so that tomorrow we would have another 24 miles. Well with some night hiking we made it to the shelter by 10:30pm! The trail wasn¢t too bad, I¢m glad we decided to do such a big day in the park instead of outside the park. The terrain was much easier and the grade was more gradual. Once we made it to Thorton Gap we still had 13.1 to the next shelter to be set up to get to Ashby Gap on schedule for our zero at my house in Fairfax. We looked at the book and saw that there was a wayside (gas station, food and grill) open until 6:30pm and we figured that we wouldn¢t make it in time to get dinner. So we thought. As we hiked and got closer to the wayside we realized that we may have a chance to make it for dinner before they closed. We just about ran the last 2 miles to reach the wayside with 6 minutes to spare. Too bad it had closed at 5:30 because it¢s not on summer hours yet!! So instead we heated up a mountain house dinner and split it before finishing the 6 miles to the shelter. The last 6 miles weren¢t too bad, considering we did 4 of them when our head lights on. It¢s not something I would want to do alone, walking in the woods at night. But Will and I continued to talk as we followed the blazes to the shelter. We didn¢t want to startle any wildlife that didn't hear us coming, and just so we didn¢t freak ourselves out. We made it to the shelter tonight at 10:30pm¢¦.the longest day ever!! No one was in the shelter so we quietly set up the tent in the shelter to not wake people near by in tents. My legs are feeling very restless and I¢m sure I won¢t get much sleep tonight because of that. But we are here and tomorrow we can take an easier, slower day with only 19 miles to get to the Jim and Molly Denton shelter. What a day!Tick Count: Willie 27 Erin 10Life Lesson: Find out the locals definition of "Summer" before assuming that it's summer and running to a wayside to get there before it closes, only to find out that it's not summer and it closed and hour before you got there.
Date: 2007-06-12
From: Gravel Spring Hut, SNP

To: Jim and Molly Denton Shelter
Miles today: 18.6
Weather: few clouds

(Willie)Yeah, we definitely didn¢t get up early this morning. We were sure that someone would have come to the shelter to have breakfast and would have woken us up earlier, but luckily everyone else in tents must have been in no hurry to get up early either. We took our time getting ready, but we knew that we couldn¢t take forever, we had 10 less miles to do today, but 18 miles is still a long day so we forced our feet to start walking at about 9:30. It was kind of weird to think that today was going to be our last day in the park. We¢d been waiting to get here for so long, and now it was almost over. But all things must come to an end and after a climb up South Marshall and North Marshall it was smooth sailing to the end of the park. Not only was it the end of the park, but it was also the end of the nice smooth SNP trails. About 10 yards after we passed the SNP sign it was straight down some rock cliffs. Oh well, I guess it¢s time to relearn how to recover from tripping every other step. We had a long lunch at the Tom Floyd shelter to try help our calorie depleted stomachs and then it was time to tackle the last 8 miles to the spring fed shower at the Jim and Molly Denton Shelter. You¢d think that after a day of sweating a cold shower would have felt really good. Well it would have, if we didn¢t get pounded by a thunder storm a couple miles shy of the shelter. We thought we were a lot closer then we were so we started running to get out of the down pour. That run soon slowed down to a slippery rock hop and after 45 minutes of walking through the storm we got to the shelter, in no mood to take a cold spring fed shower. Oh well maybe next time.Tick Count: Willie 28 Erin 11Life Lesson:You can¢t out run them all.
Date: 2007-06-13
From: Jim and Molly Denton Shelter

To: Ashby Gap US 50, VA
Miles today: 14.7

(Erin) The day has finally come. We had about 14 miles to Ashby Gap for my mom to come get us and take us back to my house for our forth zero day. I tried not to think about that too much because we still had a full day of hiking ahead of us, but I couldn¢t help it. I couldn¢t help thinking that tonight we would be at my house watching a pre-recorded episode of Lost! I was a bit anxious. The hiking went well, not too hard and not too bad. We did have wet clothes to put back on in the morning and I figured they would have dried while walking but nope. We walked down a tight trail and then through farm fields with tall wet grass over my head. So needless to say we were wetter after the fields then when we started. I couldn¢t think about how wet my feet and shoes were, we would be dry and clean by tonight! We were starting to cut it close on time, and so Will took the lead for the first time since we started the trail. He took off and I tried to keep up all the way to the start of Sky Meadows State Park. We took a quick break on a wooden bench and then still had 2.9 miles and one hour to get to Ashby Gap, good thing it was down hill. We flew down the hill and reached the road by 2:06. What timing if you ask me. We walked across the busy 4 lane road and then saw my mom coming up the road. She had come by once and then asked a UPS guy where the AT was. So we didn¢t give her any time to do her crossword or read while she waited for us. She had sandwiches and sodas for us to scarf down on the way back to Fairfax! We left our packs in the garage and took showers as soon as we walked in the house. We smelled pretty ripe after a few days on the trail. Once we were clean and smelling better everyone hugged and then we took a much needed rest on the couch before dinner. That night we decided to have dinner at M & S Grill where my brother Ryan works. Feels pretty nice to be back at home for a few days!Tick Count: Willie 29 Erin 11
Date: 2007-06-15
From: Ashby Gap US 50, VA

To: Buzzard Hill
Miles today: 9.1

(Erin) We got up bright and early at 8:30 and started to fold clothes as I attempted to sew a patch on our tent. My mom ended up doing a better job on the sewing and I was able to watch the season finale of Lost. After packing and organizing and updating our journals online we left the house at 2:00. We ended up hitting some traffic and getting to the trail a little after 3:00 and started hiking by 3:30. We had planned on hiking 10 miles to the second shelter. Today was the first day trying out the Chaco sandals I had bought at REI. My heels feel much better but the bottom of my feet hurt pretty bad from all of the rubbing and pounding. I¢m not sure if I can totally make the switch to sandals but it was a nice relief from my shoes. I also had a sort of fall, I thought my ankle had twisted but actually my foot had slid to the side of the sandal and had made my whole leg shift to the left and I landed on my knee. I think it scared me more then it actually hurt but I cried anyway. We stopped early at a cute camp spot because we were not going to make it to the shelter before dark. We set up the tent and made dinner and then caught up on a few journals entry¢s before going to bed. Tomorrow will be a 23 mile day now that we didn¢t get as far as we thought today. We are meeting a college friend of mine in Harpers Ferry. Can¢t wait to see you guys, Melissa and Kenny! We¢ll see how my feet hold up in the sandals tomorrow¢¦Tick Count: Willie 32 Erin 13Life Lesson: Don't stand directly under the branch you're testing for bear bag durability. When it breaks, you'll be in a less then ideal location to see the branch come down.
Date: 2007-06-16
From: Buzzard Hill

To: Shenandoah River, WV
Miles today: 23.4

(Willie)Man there are a lot of things out in the woods that can wake you up earlier then planned. This morning it was a whip-o-will singing right above out tent. Those are some really loud birds; it almost hurt our ears to be that close to it. After struggling to sleep through it for over an hour I was finally about to ask Erin for ear plugs, which apparently weren¢t helping her very much, when our 5:30 alarm went off. It was a bit earlier then our normal wake up call, but we had 23 miles to do today to meet Erin¢s friend Melissa and our projected ETA was about 7:00 so we had to get moving. We had about 1.5 miles to the next shelter where we stopped in for some water and to use the facilities, and then it was off for a fun morning on the roller coaster. In all there were about 15-17 300¢-500¢ ups and downs spread out over about 15 miles that made up the roller coaster. The climbs weren¢t that bad, they just kept coming and coming and coming with no end in sight. That had to be the classic definition of MUD (multiple ups and downs). The coaster did roll us into West Virginia. 4 states down, 10 to go. It also brought us close to the 1000 mile marker which we passed a little after lunch! Wow, it¢s hard to imagine that we actually just walked 1000 miles. Only 1174 miles to go! After lunch Erin realized that we were going to be very late if we didn¢t start to book it, so the race towards Harpers Ferry was on. The rocky terrain didn¢t help much, but we managed to only be 20 minutes late when we met Melissa and Kenny on the bridge over the Shenandoah River. They were nice enough to let us crash at their place for the night, wash our close (which already worked up a good stench after only one and a half days), take showers, and we spent the rest of the night catching up and eating pizza and cookies.Life Lesson: A visit with friends is always worth a hard day. Especially when they have food ;-)
Date: 2007-06-17
From: Shenandoah River, WV

To: Crampton Gap Shelter
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: clear sky

(Erin) After a late night chatting with Melissa and Kenny we went to bed after midnight! We woke up around 8:00 and then waited until Melissa and Kenny came downstairs before they headed out the door for church. Once they left we took showers and took turns updating journals. Mel and Kenny returned around 11:30 and drove us to Food Lion to re-supply and then drove us to the ATC building to get out pictures taken and our numbers. We are numbers 321 and 322 for people to cross Harpers Ferry heading north.      My parents met us at the ATC and then drove us to get some food really quick before dropping us off by the Shenandoah River Bridge.    We said our goodbyes and then walked across the street to head back ¢north¢ by crossing the street again. It sounds stupid but it¢s the only way to do a true ¢thru¢ hike, then we started up the hill. Will and I were chatting as we hiked and then we came around a corner and there was a guy with his camera pointed straight at us. I stopped suddenly because I didn¢t want to be in his picture and then saw a lady in a pink shirt hiking behind him, it was my parents. They had driven around the block and up to the other side of the trail and cut us off to surprise us. We walked with them up a side trail to where High Acre House is (a Potomac Appalachian Trail Club cabin) and gave us sodas and then we said goodbye again. We were on the trail alone again. We walked down the trail a bit to Jefferson Rocks and then pass some church ruins. As we walked down the rock steps to the main road in Harpers Ferry down at the bottom of the steps I could see my dad again taking our picture. They had driven around the block and were at the bottom of the stairs again. Weirdo¢s! It was funny to see them again and say goodbye again. When I saw them drive away I still wasn¢t sure if it was the last time I would see them today, but we were finally alone again. We walked over the Potomac River Bridge out of West Virginia and into Maryland. We then had a 3 mile walk down the C&O canal and then up hill to the first shelter for a quick break. We then had another 4 miles to the second shelter for the night. What a nice visit with Melissa and Kenny and to see my parents again¢¦   Tick Count: Willie 32 Erin 14
Date: 2007-06-18
From: Crampton Gap

To: Ensign Cowell Shelter
Miles today: 20.7
Weather: haze

(Willie)Another hot one on tap for today. With the scorching sun and no breeze to speak of, I¢m sure it was in the mid 90's again today. Man, I can¢t wait until summer starts in a couple of days so that it can really start to get hot! When I start sweating on the walk from the shelter to the trail in the morning, you know it¢s going to be a hot one.We ended up doing just about half the state of Maryland today, and I can see why some people try to do it in all in one day. First of all, there are a lot of long flat smooth miles that just scream for a long day. There are a few sections of rocks that must have migrated down from PA, but so far the smooth stuff as won out. Secondly, there really aren¢t a lot of great things to look at. We spent most of the day walking a long a forest covered ridge, which resulted in very few decent views. Seeing that it was so hot and we were not going to do the MD challenge, we were in no hurry to get out of the state so we took our time and just tried to get through the heat. First we stopped at the Dahlgren Back Pack Campground. Seeing how it¢s the only state run free campground on the trail we felt it was necessary to take advantage of the refreshing showers before moving on. Next up on the MD tour was the original Washington Monument. From the top of the monument we could see into four different states MD, VA, WV, and PA. The worst stop on our tour was to see the devastation that the gypsy moths are causing. We walked through miles of forest that looked completely dead except for all of the caterpillars that covered all of the trees. It almost sounded like it was raining, which we figured was a mix of dead leaves and caterpillar droppings falling from the trees. We did our part by killing as many of the buggers as we could either by foot or by trekking pole. I¢m not sure we accomplished much, but at least it made us feel a little better. I guess we had a pretty full day after all. No wonder why it¢s 10:30 and I¢m still writing in my journal. Time for bed.Life Lesson: Full caterpillars explode when you stab them with a trekking pole. Try to avoid the ones above your head.