morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-03-17
From: Shelter, Hawk Mt. 

To: Shelter, Gooch Mt. 
Miles today: 7.3

Today we hiked in the snow. We started the day at a balmy 34 degrees. Then as we hiked it started spitting snow off and on all day. Everything seemed easier today. I am slow. On steep upgrades I stop every 20 to 50 steps and lean my head on my poles to catch my breath. On moderate upgrades I am just really slow and don¢t stop so often. And then on the downhills I am also slow. Of course I also go slow on the level spots to take advantage of how nice they are. Troll and Oblivious are nowhere near as slow as me. On the uphills they are faster than me, on the downhills they are faster than me and on the slow spots they scream ahead of me. Injury update: Bill's right knee is in a brace. I put moleskin and duct tape on two hot spots on my feet. Other than that we are doing ok. Gear update: Trekking poles are awesome. I think I will never walk anywhere without them. I plan on using them at the grocery store, the mall, everywhere. They are that good. On up hills, I stick them in the ground ahead of me and use my arms to pull my fat ass up one more step. I use them like canes on the downhills to keep me from falling. Since we went down muddy downhills like those out of "Romancing the stone" it was good to have something that kept me from rolling down the hills like Kathleen Turner. Frogg Toggs raingear tops are great. Frogg Toggs raingear pants SUCK. Two words: gussets and suspenders. They don¢t have a great range of motion. See yesterday¢s entry. The pants tend to shift south and west. Pantyhose wearers know what I mean by that. I can tell you that having a cross-wise Toggs crotch mid thigh makes walking really fun. NOT. Currently, I am wearing Trolls blown out crotch Toggs pants with my tee shirt and my Frogg top. Troll is wearing his kilt, tee and Togg top. Oblivious is wearing long johns, his underarmour tee and his Frogg Toggs. Stink factor update: I am too cold to be able to smell much. I also have not been that close up to Troll or Oblivious. This morning I kind of got a whiff of myself as I put my Togg top on. Apparently tee shirts start smelling after 4 days of wear. I have started to use leaves to try and control the female drip-dry dilemma. Overall the day was better than yesterday. I got a trail name - Anchor. Because of my Navy chiefs anchors and because I am the anchor of our team. Slow and dragging them down. Well that is all for tonight. Oblivious wants me to tell our friends and family that we miss you already. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-03-18
From: Shelter, Gooch Mt. 

To: Tent, Dan Gap
Miles today: 7.1

Today we received our 1st trail magic! A guy and two of the cutest little trail angels (ages 6 and 10) were doing a day hike from Woody Gap to Ramrock Mountain. They were handing out cookies. It was just the sweetest thing. On top of Ramrock we had some beautiful views. As we were stopped to have lunch, a local couple doing a day hike passed us. They were very kind and took a picture of the 3 of us. The 1st part of the day seemed to go by fairly quickly. And then Cedar mountain just seemed to keep going up and up. Just when you thought you were at the top walking along a flat stretch, there was another incline up. And another. Coming down was not as bad because it seemed like we did not go all the way back to the bottom. I have to say that the trail maintainers do an excellent job. I often have very colorful comments for them (drawing from a Navy Chief's vocabulary) as I walk down yet another dug in rock step or dug in log step. Then a little bit after I am past said ^%$^%$^*$!!!! step, I have to appreciate the amount of back breaking work that must have gone into putting that step in place. Big Kudos to all those trail maintainers, this wouldn't be possible with out them. It was a better hiking day and the three of us stopped to camp alongside the trail somewhere by Dan Gap. I am pretty wiped out and will cut this short. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-03-19
From: Tent, Dan Gap

To: Hostel, Neels Gap
Miles today: 8.5
Weather: overcast clouds

As I write this I am roasty toasty and in CLEAN clothes. I am sitting on a couch in the hostel at Neels gap. As you notice our miles went up today. Yippee! Today was another beautiful day. Sunny and not too cold. Somewhere in the 40's. It was a pretty easy hike in the morning. I had heard horror stories about Blood Mountain. And that was the big hurdle for the day. It didn't seem as bad as Cedar Mt., which we went over yesterday. It was steep but didn't seem that bad getting up there. Once up on top it was beautiful. The views went on forever. Now let me tell you a little more about Blood Mountain. They say it got its name from a Cherokee battle that was so fierce that the mountain ran with blood. Personally, I think it got its name when the first person that took the Neels Gap to Blood Mountain trail route went looking for the trail planners' blood. They say that 40,000 people visit Blood Mountain a year. A huge number of those people park at Neels Gap and then hike up a truly evil steep rocky (did I say steep and really rocky) climb. After they get to the top, they just have to turn around and go right back down this steep rocky path. 40,000!?! These Georgia folk must be some hiking @#$%^%$#'s. Grandpas handily passed us with their entire families. I wouldn't take my family or friends on that trail, and I would think twice before I took an enemy. I asked a 20 something guy I saw happily walking up as I was on the way down "How... much.....further....?¢ I then commented on how slow I had to go on the steep hill and how I don't like the large rock beds that I had to go across. He said it wasn't too bad but did get more technical on the rock fields. Technical, my dying a**!!! Hard would be the gentlest word I would use. Troll's knees did not like the downhill. His left one decided to stop bending 3/4 of the way down. It was angry with him. All of my joints from the waist down were speaking very unkind words to me. Oblivious' only comment was that some of the rocks came up to his waist and they were harder. It seems so funny how much seems to happen in so few miles. I get in a hiking groove and don't notice anything at all - like the view. But I do notice things like a whole complete snail shell, ring fungus on trees, fallen bird feathers or a broken bird's egg. I could probably go on and on about all the tiny details but I'll save that stuff for another day. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-03-21
From: Hostel, Neels Gap

To: Tent, between White Oak Stamp & Poor Mtn.
Miles today: 7.8

Today was hard. I called my sister while troll and oblivious were getting ready to hit the trail. My sister told me that my dad had died yesterday at 1:25. It was not unexpected. He had been sick for so long and was so tired. When I had spoken to my sister and brother the previous day, we had made tentative funeral plans. I called my brother and talked to him for a while. I then had to tell troll and oblivious and cry for a bit. The week before we left for the trail there was a big conference call between my siblings, my uncle, my step-mom and my dad's doctors. That was when we finally got the big picture and realized how hard my dad had been fighting to hang on. My brother and sister told me to keep my AT plans and to follow my dream. So I did and I left for the trail. And I knew my daddy would die before I came home. And he did. Today I was glad just to be walking. I thought about my dad and who he was. In many ways I didn't know my dad. He was secretive and often very disengaged. As he got older or maybe as we all became adults who had learned hard life lessons, he became even more secretive and jealous of his independence. It was hard to tell his doctors that we had absolutely no idea what the terms of our father's living will were. I know things that he did in his life, but I don't think I ever knew what a single one of his dreams were. I can't say that I ever even knew what some of his personal goals were. So I walked and I thought about my daddy. I felt the breeze through the trees. I felt rain sprinkle on my face and I thought about my daddy. I climbed down steep hills and up even steeper hills and I thought about my daddy. When I had almost reached the top of the highest hardest mountain of the day. My husband and son were waiting for me. My son yelled out that I needed to say YIPPEE because I had reached the top. After I yelled YIPPEE!! My husband asked me to come to the overlook because he had a surprise. I went over and he showed me a patch of daffodils. "Look that one just opened today. You can tell by looking at the base of the flower. And over here are some day lilies that are coming up". There was only one daffodil just opened up. The rest were all buds. I looked over that beautiful view with my family. I knew my husband and I were there sharing one of our long held dreams with our son. I looked at that one cheerful sunny yellow daffodil and I thought about my daddy. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-03-22
From: Tent, between White Oak Stamp & Poor Mtn.

To: Tent, between Red Clay Gap & Blue Mtn. Shelter
Miles today: 9.1

Happy Birthday Renee! My little sister is 40 today. This morning as we all woke up I heard a little shrill voice singing "There are evil little monsters sleeping in my tent. There are evil little monsters sleeping on my left." Oblivious decided that he needed to serenade us. His odd sense of humor just kills me sometimes. Today was good hiking on the whole. We hiked our most miles to date. Most of the day was fairly easy. The typical ups and downs. We made a pit stop at Low Gap shelter to get water and have lunch. We had not had very good luck with water the previous day. Water sources mentioned in the data book were not actually on the trail. Quite a significant detail. Around twelve thirty the fog started to roll in. It was just as if a high budget movie director said cue the special effects. Of course then the trail seemed to go up and up. Around one it started to rain. At first I was really enjoying the sounds and smells of he rain in the woods. But after about an hour of trudging thru the cold rain and wind it kind of got old. I particularly didn't like the thunder and lightening that decided to accompany the rain. Around two thirty we reached the Chattahoochee Gap. It was not hotter than a hootchie cootchie like Alan Jackson's song. It was cold and muddy. There was no place to even think about pitching a tent. The next place in the data book to camp was 1.2 miles away. That seemed like it would be doable. We were already cold and wet so how much worse could it be. It could get much worse. About half of those 1.2 miles was a rocky nightmare. It seemed like some giants had just strewn random sized rocks around. Of course the trail went right thru that rocky mess at least three different times. I wish that I had taken a picture, but I just didn't want to stand still in the cold rain. Finally, we got to the campsite. We found 2 pieces of plastic that someone had left. We put Oblivious and our packs under one piece of plastic while Troll and I scurried around putting the tent up. I can't even begin to describe what we did to get inside the tent. Let's just say all of our wet things are in the tent vestibule and we are inside in our bags wearing only our fleece jackets. Now we are listening to the rainfall and the wind howl. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-03-23
From: Tent, between Red Clay Gap & Blue Mtn. Shelter

To: Hotel, Helen
Miles today: 3.1

Well last night was something else. I went to sleep with the pouring rain and howling wind. I woke up when Oblivious got up to go to the bathroom. He got back in the tent and fell right asleep. I, on the other hand, started noticing there was quite a fireworks display going on directly above the tent. Of course I started counting the seconds between the bright light and the big boom. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, boom!! I couldn't remember the formula for converting seconds counted to distance, but I knew that little numbers were bad. I started wondering exactly how tall were the trees near our tent. One Mississippi, two miss, boom!! I heard Troll ask, "Are you awake?" "Yes, I'm counting." "Me too." "Seems awfully close huh?" So we stayed there counting seconds for about an hour before we drifted back off to sleep. Morning brought sunshine. Yea!!! We were able to emerge around 0730 and hang our wet things up. We were treated to another morning serenade by Oblivious. He has added a tinny Transylvanian accent to his "There are evil little monsters sleeping next to Me." song. Yesterday, as we were hiking in the rain, we decided to take a nero (near zero miles day) in Helen. Putting on cold dampish clothes in the morning did not change our minds about that nero. So we hiked to Unicoi Gap caught a hitchhike the 9 miles into Helen. Thank you William Smith! Troll and Oblivious stayed in the hotel room drying out all of our gear. I toted a full hefty garbage bag of dirty wet clothes to the laundry mat. I was quite the fashion plate. I had on my one clean shirt, Troll's kilt and my green rubber clogs. Think bag lady and you pretty much have it. I think that we are starting to get our trail legs. We did our big 3 miles in about 2 hours. Very cool. We are also getting our hikers hunger. Next door to the hotel was a pizza place, which has all you can eat on Wednesdays. And today was Wednesday. It was the 1st all you can eat that I have ever been to that the waitress brought you each round - one slice of pizza or serving of pasta. We ran that poor waitress ragged. I lost count at about plate 30. What was amazing was that we didn't leave stuffed and uncomfortable. Well take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-03-24
From: Hotel, Helen

To: Tent between Tray Mtn. Shelter & Blueridge Shelter
Miles today: 8.0

Today was absolutely beautiful. It was in the 70's. We got a quick hitchhike out of Helen back to Unicoi Gap. We started the day off with a bit of trail magic. Honey buns and Mountain Dew by the side of the trail. We took one honey bun for Oblivious. And then we started climbing. We went up Rocky Mountain 1st. It had a pretty little waterfall going down the side of it. I saw a gray squirrel and a little brown chipmunk. At Tray Gap Troll pointed out a red headed woodpecker to Oblivious and I. The forest seemed to be made up completely of rhodendrums. The undergrowth looked a lot like the coral bells plants that I have at home in my flowerbeds. In the shade the leaves were green and in the sun they were a beautiful chocolate red brown. I think that some poison ivy is starting to come up. Leaves of three and all that. I think we also passed a huge patch of violets that had not yet bloomed. We stopped for lunch and a water refill at Tray mountain shelter. It was a nice break. We talked with August, Turbo Joe and Rigortortoise. We read the shelter journal to look for hikers that we have already met. Darcy from Maine started at Springer with us and passed thru this shelter on the 19th. Wow, she is hauling. Chestnut was there on the 20th and left a note for torch and calicoe and mentioned footloose and fancy free. Gypsy Lulu and Touk, Hairball, Snowbunny, Rawhide, and Brownie were there three days ago. Brownie left us a note. Draggin, Cupcake, KTR, Ranger, Grunting Bear and Capt. Chaos were there 2 days ago. KTR left us a note. Footloose and Fancy Free were there yesterday and left us note. It is really neat to track the progress of people that you have met along the way. We left a note for Panoramic. Troll's knees are doing better since picking up a new knee brace in Helen. Mine started to really bother me on the prolonged gradual downhill off of Tray Mountain. Troll adjusted my poles to be a little longer and that seemed to make quite a difference. But the day had taken its toll on me and we stopped early at 1530. We are at another little unmarked campsite with a fire ring. The biggest news item for the day is that oblivious lost a tooth after we set up camp tonight. We are hoping that the tooth fairy will be able to find this campsite. We had to make a few adjustments. The tooth is in an empty snack bag in a cup. Oblivious is very worried about the lack of a bed and a pillow. We'll see what the morning brings. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-03-26
From: Hotel, Hiawassee Ga

To: Tent, Bly Gap
Miles today: 8.7
Weather: few clouds

WE ARE IN NORTH CAROLINA!!!! Georgia certainly tried her best to kick our a** before we left. The entire day seemed like it was all uphill. Oblivious was yelling at the mountains in his best kung fu movie accent. "I have defeated all of your brothers to the south and I will defeat you also". Troll wanted to know who pissed off Georgia to make her want to punish us so badly. We limped into Bly Gap with sore and weary bodies. There were 4 other tents with wiped out hikers. 1st and most important item - camp shoes. Even Oblivious had sore feet and legs. Troll said he had blobs of pain at the end of his legs connected to even more painful spiky things. Every joint below my knees felt like little shoe making elves had been hammering on them all day. We all soaked our feet in the cold spring before Oblivious found his first salamander in a new state. Today started out fairly nicely. The weather was great and the hiking was fairly easy. I made it to the Plumorchard Gap shelter at 1210. That was 4.4 miles in 3 hours. Pretty good, going another 4.7 miles couldn't be that bad. Wrong. I think 90% of every step of the next 4.7 miles was uphill. Oblivious found more salamanders today. He played in the Plumorchard Gap shelter spring for a while. He said that he loves salamanders and thinks that everyone should have the same passionate love for salamanders as he does. I like salamanders, but not as much as Oblivious. I like them because they are one of those bio indicator species. They only flourish where the world is doing ok. So it is very cool to see them. As you can see this entry is jumping all over the place. No chronological order for me. We have started using this journey as our bedtime story. Troll and oblivious make their suggestions for the journal. I exercise final editorial approval and only add, delete, or modify what I see fit. Last night we stayed at the Hiawassee inn. It is a very hiker friendly place. Loaner sweats to use while your laundry is in progress. Shuttle rides to food and the trail. Breakfast in the kitchen in the morning. All in all pretty great. Also great was seeing old trail friends. We saw Footloose and Fancyfree (from trail journals and hiker hostel). They are becoming stronger hikers every day. We saw Humble Thoug and Squeaker (from Neels Gap), and Sunset Screamer and Turtle (from hiker hostel). While in Hiawassee we picked up some beer which Troll left as trail magic along the trail to Deep Gap. We also met the trail maintainer for the Plumorchard Gap shelter and the trail near it. He was hiking in a duffle bag of pine mulch for the privy. He has been maintaining that section for 10 - 12 years. It would not be possible for us to even attempt this hike without his hard work and the thousands of other maintainers like him. Take care and we will see you down the trail.
Date: 2005-03-27
From: Tent, Bly Gap

To: Tent, Bly Gap
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

We are still in North Carolina in exactly the same place that we were yesterday. Last night the wind gusts and rain started. In the morning everything in the tent was ok - only slightly dampish. Outside of the tent, the wind was blowing to beat all and it was raining. All of the other tenting hikers packed up and left. But, not before Oblivious shared his Easter Bunny trail magic (chocolate eggs). So we spent the entire day in our tent. We napped. We snacked. We played 20 questions (Troll rules and Anchor and Oblivious do not). Oblivious did math problems. We giggled. We kept waiting for it to get nicer - but we seemed to be in the middle of a cloud. Sometime around noon, 2 hikers stopped to get water. Those were the only people who passed by today. Around 1 or 2 pm the rain and lightening and thunder returned with a vengeance. Of course, we counted the seconds between light and boom. The closest boom was less than 1 second away. As the day went on the rain stopped and the gusty wind had virtually dried the tent. Of course that was the cue to start raining again. We are hoping tomorrow brings some better weather. Since you can tell that nothing overly exciting happened today, I will finish this entry with some random things from Georgia. I knew that Georgia was famous for its marble. There are monuments made out of it all over the place. I guess that I just thought it all came from quarries. But you can just find it lying all around the trail. The last time I saw that many weathered marble chunks laying around, I was at the Acropolis in Athens. Of course, when I saw those weathered marble chunks I started thinking about where they came from. Was there an abandoned Roman, Greek, or Elvin temple just up the hill? If I saw smaller chunks of marble on the trail, I started wondering about the sculptor who had left this mess behind. I also think I solved the mystery of the garden stake green splinters on the trail. I kept seeing all these large garden stake green splinters. At first I thought that some poor hiker had a disintegrating hiking stick. And it probably had been hand painted that green color with love somewhere back at home. Well my last 2 days in Georgia I found sticks with the outside bark still attached that had a garden stake green layer of wood right beneath the bark. I have no idea what kind of tree produces that color but it does seem to be a naturally occurring thing. Well it is still pouring and gusting. We are still all toasty and cozy inside our tent. Hopefully tomorrow's weather will be better. Take care and we will see you on the trail.
Date: 2005-03-28
From: Tent, Bly Gap

To: Shelter, Muskrat Shelter
Miles today: 2.9
Weather: snow

Well today was not another zero day, we decided to vary it up with a nero (near zero). Last night was pretty awful; the wind howled and blew the tent right on me all night. Got kind of dampish. When we woke up it looked like it was going to clear up. So we started packing up and of course the weather immediately got worse. It started raining and hailing. That made packing the tent up really fun. North Carolina welcomed us in fine fashion. Of course there was a steep hill. My calves and achilles were screaming - hey we're cold and what do you think you are doing. I had to stop and turn around the other way to try and relieve the stress on those muscles. And let me tell you, they really loved it when the hail decided it should be snow. There is nothing more fun than navigating down a slick muddy trail covered with slimy leaves and snow. Can you detect the sarcasm? We got to this 8-person shelter around 1130. That's when we got out of our cold clothes and into our sleeping bags. We took a little nap and then just watched trail life happen. There are currently 12 people on the sleeping platform: August, Bad Knee John, Humble Taug, Squeaker, Oblivious, Troll, Birdhouse Bob, Cola, John, Chris, & Yappy. Brian in a tent under the shelter overhang, Jukebox (Betsy) and Be Money are under tarps under the overhang. It's like watching the clowns squeeze themselves into that tiny Volkswagen. The colorful sleeping bags, tarps, and tents add to the circus-like atmosphere. I can only imagine what it will look like in the morning. We will see what tomorrow brings. I am looking forward to a warm cozy night of cuddling up to Troll and Birdhouse Bob. Take care and we will see you down the trail.