morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2003-05-02
To: View Entry
Miles today: 8.0

holy cow, lucky was awake before 6:30! we had a lovely sunrise and were on the trail a little before 7--i'm sure this is a record for him. we had 8 miles to hike to get to the road where we had planned to meet my mom and brother at 11am. we got there early and decided to air out our tents because of the condensation from the morning. my brother, ben, and mom drove up at 10:45 and it was happy times for the rest of the day. we all hiked 0.3 miles back to a shelter on the AT to show them where hikers sometimes sleep. from there, we got down to business--eating. the pizza hut buffet was the first on the list. and who do we run into, but skeemer! i haven't seen him for weeks! after catching up with him, we went to the post office and got a hotel room. then ben, lucky, and i walked over to the dairy queen, yum. by then, mom and ben were making some not too subtle hints that lucky and i stink really bad. so unless i wanted to be disowned, showers were next on the list. from there, some boring town chores and waiting for dinner time when we were going to meet up with some other hikers (skeemer, jasper, ben (hiker), and poppop) for the chinese buffet. yummy yumyum. ben (brother) and i were debating spliting a pint of ice cream but we decided to drive around town with mom instead. and what could make this day more complete and more wonderful?!? we found a place that makes snow cones!!! woo hoo! pure bliss! a perfect end to a wonderful day. and, although all the food that we found room for made it enjoyable, it was even better to see ben and mom again. they had to drive 6 hours to get here and i'm very grateful that they did it. Editor: For clarity's sake, I think I should just become Bro-Berry. And the snow cones weren't quite right. Apparently they don't know how to make a Tiger's Blood in Virginia.
Date: 2003-05-03
To: War Spur Shelter
Miles today: 12.4
Weather: light rain

today is my 50th day on the trail! and i got to sleep in a real bed to celebrate. i slept really well, it was great. we were all up and ready for breakfast around 8am...hmmm breakfast...pancakes. i've decided that when i get home i am going to eat lots of pancakes. yum. we ran into skeemer and charlie at the diner too. i tried to talk both of them into hitching a ride back to damascus VA for the Trail Days festival in two weeks.after the meal, a stop at the post office, and packing up our equipment, we decide NOT to stop at Dairy Queen (behold the hiker will power, it DOES exist!) my mom and ben took us back to the trail. i have to admit, it was tough saying goodbye. every hiker temps fate when they go into town to resupply: there is always, ALWAYS, a small part that says "you COULD have ice cream/cheesecake/fruit all the time if you just get on a bus and head home". it's usually easy to ignore, just 1% of my thoughts, but this time, with my mom and brother right there about to drive home i have to admit it was around 15%..nothing "dangerous" but it was enough to make the first couple miles of walking slow. it was a short 12.4 mile day to the war spur shelter. i took a break on Wind Rock with michel (guy from canada) and we talked about the feeling of homesickness a little while sharing an orange.the most interesting part of the day was the last mile that i ran. why? well for a couple reasons: because i had just gotten a shower that morning, my clothes (except for the sweat of the day) were relatively clean, and (most importantly) there were some VERY dark and spooky rain clouds blowing in, accompanied by thunder. at one point, i went past an overlook and it was really beautiful how the blue of the mountains and the dark blue of the rainclouds merged together so that you couldn't tell where one started or stopped. anyway, i didn't feel like getting wet and the shelter was just close enough to run for. and i made it with 10 minutes to spare before it began to rain. lucky was even luckier and got in right before it started.while i'm at it, i've been meaning to mention that lucky has a webpage with his trail journal on it. www.shadyoasis.com. i don't think he can update it as frequently as i can, but it's intersting to get another perspective.as i'm typing this in the shelter with the rain outside, 3 guys from chicago just walked up. it's 8pm and the shelter is already comfortably full. this is the kicker: they are not carrying any kind of shelter--no tarp or tent because they're trying to save packweight. so we (who got here when there was still room) are going to cram these guys into the shelter because they're idiots. future ATers: don't do this! going lightweight is one thing but assuming you're going to get shelter space on a rainy night is stupid and disrespectful of the prepared hikers. sigh, so now there are 9 hikers in a 6-person shelter.on a much lighter note, there's a weekend hiker sleeping here who is carrying a bake set and just offered us blueberry cake! wow, what a treat! good balances out the bad.
Date: 2003-05-04
From: War Spur Shelter

To: Niday Shelter
Miles today: 18.2
Weather: light rain

it rained all night--a good night to be in a shelter, even if we were sandwiched in there like sardines.i was on the trail by 7am. it was still raining and didn't really stop for the rest of the day. without mentioning the elevation specifically, my day started out low, climbed up high in the 2nd mile, stayed level for a while, went down low again, went up sinking creek mountain right after that, stayed level for a real long time with sharp pointy rocks along the ridge, and then went down to the niday shelter where i'm staying tonight. i'm sure that the mountain had some good views but not for today. once i got on top of the mountain, i was walking through a cloud, and a cold cloud it was too (it's May! it's suppose to be warm!).weird things that happened today: there was an old house right on the AT--looked like something out of the blair witch movie. there were lots of piles of rocks stacked along the trail. there is a shelter 6 miles south of here that is suppose to be haunted. so everyone at the shelter is convinced that this is the beginning of a scooby do mystery. as soon as scooby do was mentioned, Siesta (guy i met a couple days ago) went off on how scooby always, ALWAYS, is the one to solve the mystery. so without scooby, we're in trouble. hope we survive the night.there are a bunch of people here tonight: lucky, siesta, dez, hot foot, michel, sally, and team spud. good group. lucky got a fire going despite the rain that we had for most of the day. he rain has stopped for now, but someone said that it's suppose to rain all day tomorrow and tuesday. michel was just cleaning out his cooking pot with some water and went ahead and threw out the water behind him...without looking at what was behind him, which happened to be hotfoot's pack. it wasn't a lot of water, so it was very funny. his trail name might be "splash" because of this.today, my karate friends (kinda like superfriends but not as silly) had a tourney and testing yesterday and today. i've been thinking about them all day and hope everything went well. best of luck to all testing and competing. my dad also might have run cincinnati's marathon. i hope that went well too!anyway, all told, we hiked 18.2 miles today. tomorrow is suppose to be a longer day but it will depend on the weather.
Date: 2003-05-05
From: Niday Shelter

To: catawba mt. shelter 
Miles today: 23.8

it started out like a normal day. and just wend downhill from there, fast. this is officially the worst day i've had on the trail so far, and that's including Tray Mt. in georgia. it was a 23.8 mile day, which SOUNDS doable. LONGEST DAY EVER! it rained the whole time and most of the day was spent walking in a cloud. i've never been one to get claustrophobic, but that's the easiest way for me to describe the frustation of walking along the ridge in the mist. the trail climbed up to something called :dragon's tooth. next time i have to climb anything with dragon in the name, i'm going to make sure i'm only hiking 5 miles that day, not 23. my pace slowed down to about 1mph because of the rock climbing involved. AND i am SURE that the main reason the trail came up to this difficult area is for the spectacular view...which i saw NONE of. very sad. my 30 mile day a couple weeks ago felt shorter than today did and i'm soooooo glad i'm in my sleeping bag in the catawba mt. shelter now. lucky, sally, snail,drew, dez, and eli (just met him today) are here in the shelter. LT (Kitty) and Orb stopped by to say hi but they're going to push on to the next shelter. BUT, we all have plans to go to the econolodge in troutville tomorrow night. so i've finally caught up with Kitty, two weeks later.i'm not going to type much more--it's may 5th and my fingers are numb. sleeping bag time.
Date: 2003-05-06
From: catawba mt. shelter 

To: Daleville, VA
Miles today: 17.6
Weather: broken clouds

ah, there is balance, maybe not perfect balance, but it's close. i've said before (or at least thought it) that the good days outweigh the bad on the trail, and today Did make up for the yuckiness of yesterday. i was on the trail a little before 7 and climbed up to mcafee knob. this made up for all the views i missed yesterday. i got there after the sunrise but since it was overcast still, the sun was still struggling to break through the veil. the difference from yesterday is that i was no longer walking IN the clouds, i was walking above them this time. the valleys of virginia were buried in mist but the ridges grew out from them. so it was the opposite from yesterday: being up high was a good thing.Eli and i got there at the same time so we got the mandatory pictures of the overlook. the rest of the day was relatively uneventful, except for a pleasant surprise from an old friend: my shadow came back! after days of not seeing her, she decided to come back and visit. hope she sticks around for tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that...it was a 17.6 mile day into the town of Daleville VA. there are a total of 8 (or more) of us headed to the ecolodge to split 2 rooms for the night. i wanted to get there earlier to get cleaned up to avoid having a line for the shower and laundry. i got there a little after 2pm and booked a room. lucky came in after that, and kitty and orb later. the four of us are in one room; dez, drew, sally, and snail are in the other i think. this town even has a coffee house and i got a lovely chai tea, first one i've had on the trail. pizza hut for dinner, ben and jerry ice cream and fruit for dessert. they even have a waffle house up the road...maybe tomorrow. during dinner, the 4 of us were trying to come up with a new hiker game called the "hungry hungry hiker"instead of hippo.this day DEFINITELY makes up for yesterday. i know that as long as i can live through those bad days, it'll all be good and work out. that's a life lesson too. and we also passed the 700 mile marker today, although for the record, those markers have a lot less meaning now than they did at the beginning.ps: okay folks, i really don't care HOW you spell CASBAH/CASBAR/CASBA anymore. i've gotten so many informative and yet conflicting emails about it (that i do appreciate). but until i find a dictionary to look it up for myself, i'm just going to spell is CASBA and you'll all just have to live with it. so there. and for the record, i rock the casba.
Date: 2003-05-07
From: Daleville, VA

To: Wilson Creek Shelter
Miles today: 11.2
Weather: overcast clouds

the econolodge came with a continental breakfast and i was hoping and praying for milk and cereal, something i never get out here...but no, it was just doughnuts...sigh. someday, this i vow, i WILL have milk and cereal! i didn't go to the waffle house either, mainly out of laziness since it was a ways up the road but i also wanted to get on the trail at a decent hour (which didn't happen anyway). orb, lucky and i went to a chinese buffet for an early lunch but i decided after i sat down that i wasn't hungry enough and left to get a snack or two at the gas station and be on my way. we were all headed to the same shelter tonight and i wanted to get some alone-hiking in before the day was over. it was a sweet 11.2 miles to the wilson creek shelter and i was on the trail by 11:30. for whatever reason, i really went slow today and it felt kinda good. i feel fine and good, but maybe it was the heat of the afternoon that slowed me down. or maybe old man willow was trying to ! trap me in his web (LOTR reference). but i made it to the shelter before 5pm without old tom bombadil. stringbean (met him yesterday) and don (just met him) were already here. kitty, orb, and lucky should be showing up anytime now.later that night: oh my! i just had fresh bread ON THE TRAIL! i knew there was a reason for wanting to catch up with kitty! she carries a backcountry oven and she can bake things like bread, muffins, cookies, and brownies (which she's promised for tomorrow night). she's the best. lucky made some popcorn too. i love this life.
Date: 2003-05-08
From: Wilson Creek Shelter

To: Jennings Creek
Miles today: 16.9

i didn't sleep at all last night (do do dodo do). don, who said he didn't snore, did. kitty and i spent the night waking him up every couple hours to try to get him to stop the racket. the lack of sleep made for a long day.it's funny how it works: if the weather is horrible, then i'll hike a lot cause i don't want to stop anywhere. but if it's a nice day, nobody feels like going anywhere--kinda like today felt. i hiked alone for the first 4 hours and taking my sweet time. after that, orb, kitty, and string bean came up and we hiked a whole 5 minutes before we decided to take a break at a road crossing...for 2 hours...in the sun...good times. lucky came up later on. after that break, we had a change of plans. originally, we were going to hike 21 or so miles to a shelter. now, we were all going to meet at Jennings Creek and at least take a swim but maybe camp there too. i haden't been feeling great for the later part of the day so this sounded good to me. in our guidebook, they also mentioned that there's a campstore down the road from the creek--with ice cream! the question we're all thinking is "what kind of ice cream?" so what does orb do? pulls out his cellphone and calls the store--how's that for communication? turns out that they have the not so great ice cream but by then we realize that it doesn't have to be the good kind of ice cream for us to eat it. so the entire day's mileage was 16.9 (respectable) and we got to go swimming, and found some great tent sites, and kitty made brownies, and then orb and i walked to the campstore for various goodies and all's right in the world. i'm typing this while eating s'mores, gatorade, duncan sticks, doritoes, and pudding. (i would be eating fruit, mom, but they didn't have any at the store). what a day! the weather was great, the terrian was nice, the company was great, we got a swim, and i'm eating Lots of Sugar. oh yea... now's a perfect time to mention a common hiking quote circulating around "hiking is starting to interfer with my trail experience" ;-) hopefully i'll sleep better in my tent tonight and feel better tomorrow.
Date: 2003-05-10
To: View Entry
Miles today: 18.0

what a night! the bugs came out in force just before the sun went down and drove michel and stringbean to set up their tents to avoid them. i was hoping that they'd lessen a bit after the sunset so stayed in the shelter. the quarter moon was up around 9pm before i drifted off to sleepy hiker land. then around 11:30, the most impressive thunderstorm i've seen on the trail yet rolled in. Wow. the 4 of us in the shelter all sat up and watched it for a while. it was awesome--the rain came down hard at first, but after some time it was just the lightning dancing around with occasional bursts of thunder thrown in. it really was breathtaking and i'm glad i was in the shelter to be able to see it (and i didn't have a wet tent to dry out in the morning either).i was wondering if i'd see stringbean or michel running into the shelter from their tents, but they stuck it out--they're HARD CORE!goldberry-x was out on the trail by 7:30 (she really sleeps in now!). the next 12 miles to the shelter were very pleasant, a gentle rolling landscape with an overpowering aroma from the flowers. while i'm mentioning them, some of the flowers that i've seen that i know are:lady slipper, trillium, rhododendron, bluets, mayapple, jack-in-the-pulpit, and mountain laurel.with goldberry-x leading the way, i took a break when i caught up to eli taking a break...walked 2 more miles and am currently taking another break. and based on the clouds blowing in right now, this break might turn into a really long one. but we only have ~4 more miles to go, so i'm not worried. I'll write more later on today when i have more to write about.later today: i left around 2pm for a casual constitutional to the next shelter. stringbean caught up with me and we hiked the last 4 together. we crossed the James River and met up with smeagol and igor (met them near pearisburg) and their family who were visiting them--and they gave us water, woo hoo!it started raining lightly as we were coming up on the shelter. tang (woman hiker, just met her today, she has a journal on this webpage) came up soon after us, followed by lucky. then it started raining hard, just like it's done for the past week and a half. I'm getting use to it.later a guy named Camo comes up who is hiking a big section of the trail southbound. he's hiked a lot of the international AT and talked about it some. he also mentioned that there will be some serious trail magic waiting for us tomorrow--something to look forward to.i took a nap in anticipation of going to bed (how's that for laziness?). goldberry-x is here to stay baby! ollie (just met), snail, sieta, and sally are here too.
Date: 2003-05-11
To: View Entry
Miles today: 17.6

i was planning on sleeping in a little this morning, but someone else got up and was making some noise. i was on the trail by 6:45 or so. we had a big (well, big for virginia, small for north carolina/tennessee) uphill early in the morning. the climb wouldn't have been so bad except for the BUGS! there were just thousands of those annoying nats that decide to fly directly into your eyes, ears, and mouth. it's not easy to charge uphill and breathe hard when you inhale 3 bugs with each breath. the bugs have only recently gotten bad but, boy, they don't waste any time!it was an uneventful ~12 miles to Irish Creek... it rained on me a bit but i've gotten use to it. at the creek, some incredible trail magic was waiting for me. the guy in charge is called renegade and he is just camped out here, near a road, for a week doing trail magic for hikers. he's been doing this for years and is my hero. another name he's gotten is "the mileage assassin" because hikers just stay around his camp and eat all day...kinda like what i've been doing. it's 3:30 as i'm writing this and i got here at 12:30. i made myself some grilled cheese sandwiches (emphasis on the plural) and we're all waiting around for dinner (sausages and veggies). we (lucky, stringbean and I) are going to stick around for dinner and hike ~4.5 more miles tonight to the next shelter. this makes for a decent 17.6 mile day. eli, siesta, snail, sally, tang, lucky, and stringbean are all here for dinner. renegade rocks the CASBA.later today: dinner with renegade was great--hotdogs, baked beans, rice, cole slaw, and cokes...yea. we all rolled (felt like it anyway) out of there around 5:30. i thought the last 4.5 miles to the shelter would be long with our stuffed stomachs but i got an unexpected surprise--i was hiking with stringbean and lucky and we talked about Lord Of The Rings! they even listened to me tell them stories from the Silmarillion too so this all made the miles fly by for me. i'm still not sure if they were really interested or just humoring me. either way, i enjoyed it. and yes yes, i know it's not real. so here i am at the end of a 17.6 mile day after taking a 5 HOUR BREAK. i am a very happy hiker.
Date: 2003-05-12
To: Hog Gap
Miles today: 8.1

it's the beginning of the end of the world--lucky got up before me. and i didn't even sleep in this time: he was up around 6am! that...scares me. he, sting bean, and i had a 1.8 mile hike to a road which leads to the lovely town of buena vista where we were going to do some laundry, eat and buy some food, and meet stringbean's friends who are going to hike to waynesboro with him. I'm always in charge of getting the hitch (being female has its advantages) and this great guy, David, stops for us. after driving 5 minutes i realize that i left my trekking poles at the road side--so Saint David turns around and takes us back without thinking twice. that was such a nice thing for him to do. he drove us straight to a breakfast diner and even offered to drive us back to the trail after he got off work later that day. we had to say no because of timing, but i am constantly being amazed at the generosity of the townspeople i have run into since i've been hiking. models to live b! y...the 3 of us pigged out on pancakes, found the laundromat, met up with stringbean's friends (summer and ben), went to subway (1st time since march), bought groceries, and boring town stuff like that. string bean was going to drive around with his friends a little more before hitting the trail so lucky and i worked on getting a hitch back, which took forever. finally, a lady, jeannie stopped. she's going to college in the area and sees hikers around town all the time. jeannie wasn't even headed back in the direction of the trail but took us anyway--you rock! lucky and i were back on the trail by 4pm (carrying left over subway sandwiches). for the whole day it had been sunny but REALLY windy and by that time the wind had blow in some impressive looking clouds. the trail went straight up tp 4000 ft too so it just got winder. at one point when lucky and i were on top of a knob looking at the canopy of clouds, down in the valley was this small patch of woods that was getting the only sunshine around. we could see the beam of light hitting it and i'm sure i saw the glint from the pot o' gold laying there. very cool.we camped at hog camp gap, which makes for a 8.1 mile day--not bad considering we stayed in town for 8 hours :-)i can't believe how windy it is camping here. at one point it started drizzling but didn't last long (thank god!) I'm typing this the next morning, hiding in my tent for protection. i hope we don't have to hike in this for long!