morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2015-05-04
From: Near summit of Mt. Rogers

To: Near Hurricane Mtn Shelter
Miles today: 15.3
Weather: clear sky

This is a typical scene from the Grayson Highlands and the rocky grasslands seemed to go on forever. It was like a scene out of the movie Braveheart.I started the day sitting on a log eating breakfast overlooking a similar scene as pictured. The sun came up casting a pink glow on the patchy clouds and I could see the wild ponies filing down paths maybe a mile or two off. Quite a sight and a great way to start a day. I stopped at a shelter for a brief break and one hiker offered me some sour chewy candies. After hauling food up steep hills and across distances, an offer of food is especially generous. The accepted practice is for the giver to pour food into the receiver's cupped hands in order to avoid any touching. This is just another way to be cautious about norovirus. A group I've seen periodically invited me to camp with them. While I've been enjoying my camping alone, I knew they like to have camp fires and it'd be fun. It was pretty fun with friendly conversation and more sharing of food. The main group of guys was Easy Strider, Amish, and Yeti. Joining us tonight was a couple of young women, Tinkerbell and Red Panda. I believe they are all in their low or mid twenties. I was the first to go to "bed.". It's kind of nice as I write this to hear the nearby fire crackling, talking, and laughter. Nowhere I'd rather be.
Date: 2015-05-05
From: Near Hurricane Mtn Shelter

To: Partnership Shelter
Miles today: 18.8
Weather: clear sky

I just had to stay here tonight to experience actual pizza delivery at a shelter. It's practically next to the Mt. Rogers Visitor Center where a nearby Pizza Hut will deliver and this shelter is a bit of a legend on the AT. It's a lot of the same crowd of folks I camped with last night so more good times. A few other hikers are here as well and everyone's amicable and easily bonding. There's an instant friendship among these strangers all challenging (torturing) their bodies in the same way. An interesting common question is "when did you start?". It's basically a nicer way of asking "so how fast do you walk?" (how many days did it take you to get here?).Today was the third day in a row of really beautiful sunny weather. My favorite section today was a big meadow covered with stunning yellow buttercups and the place was alive with birds and buzzing with bees. For you bee-phobes, they buzzed all around me but since I'm a surprisingly poor source of nectar, they totally ignored me. I also encountered another large black snake on a narrow part of the trail with a steep incline on both sides. I would have had to put my foot inches from his head to get by. Now I know he wasn't poisonous but I wasn't so sure he wouldn't latch onto my ankle if frightened. And I didn't want to walk into the shelter trailing a long snake like some buffoon trailing four feet of toilet paper coming out of the bathroom. So after nudging him unsuccessfully with a pole, I climbed the incline behind him and left him to his sunbathing. It's starting to get dark (8:30) and everyone is preparing to go to sleep. Over a month in and, for the most part, we all just get up and go down with the sun. Nowhere I'd rather be.
Date: 2015-05-06
From: Partnership Shelter

To: Marion
Miles today: 0.1

When the trail passes through a cow pasture, how does one get over the barbed wire fence? With this little ladder contraption. But the cows were standing on their hind legs and drinking tea from little tea cups and didn't even notice me anyway. I've noticed something occasionally and I thought I may as well comment on it. I think as my body and perseverance get stronger my emotions may be getting softer. Maybe it's a yin yang thing to keep me in balance or something. For instance, the owner of the B&B in Damascus was telling me what a wonderful mother my daughter in law is and what a happy secure baby she's raising. Hearing that made my eyes well up with tears because I believe the same thing and I'm so grateful to witness that with her and my little grandson. Another example was when I was talking to someone on the trail and the subject of my father came up. My throat tightened as I talked about him in kind remembrance. That hasn't happened to me in a couple of years. Finally, sometimes I just look out at the rising sun and see all the spring life bursting forth and hear all the chirping and chattering of little creatures and I'm just overcome with the beauty of this earth. I have always appreciated nature but this is something deeper. I'm not going wacko or anything, as these instances are only occasional, but it has surprised me what an emotional softy I maybe becoming as I'm gritting my way through the physical stuff. I'll probably really get it from some of my guy friends for admitting all this but what the heck is the use of a blog if you don't just get real. So there it is.I caught a shuttle into the town of Marion today to resupply and get some R&R. Ahhh, a hot shower, clean laundry, and hot food. A good day of catching up.
Date: 2015-05-07
From: Marion

To: Marion
Miles today: 0.0

These are two innovations I came up with before I started hiking that seem to be working out. The black box is a turbo charger (charges fairly fast) for my Android phone. My concern was that with all the cramming I do everyday to close my backpack, that the prongs would get bent or tear through the dry bag where I store it. So I got a small piece of styrofoam, wrapped it in duct tape, and made two slits for the prongs to fit in. It's lightweight and so far has protected the prongs.Also pictured is the yellow underside of my sleeping pad. The sleeping pad had been slipping on the tent floor when there was even a small incline. I adhered those black sandpaper strips to the bottom of the pad. The strips are from a hardware store and are used to affix to the edge of deck steps to keep people from slipping. So far it has worked well; my sleeping pad doesn't slip inside the tent and the sandpaper does not seem to hurt the tent floor. It's time I gave proper props to my wife, Beth, who has been proofreading my entries. She's quite adept at that and has corrected contractions, clarified pronoun references, moved paragraphs for better flow, and changed a word here and there. She's definitely made some nice improvements. Thank you, Beth. This week, however, she's on vacation and you've been getting these postings raw and unedited. Hopefully, she'll be back to polishing them up again next week and they'll be more goodly. I decided to take a zero in town today to rest up a little more. I definitely feel refreshed and am ready to hit the trail again tomorrow.
Date: 2015-05-08
From: Marion

To: A few miles past Adkins, VA
Miles today: 17.6

This was a typical scene today as I hiked through many meadows. It was a nice change from the standard forest trail and it felt good for a while to experience no roots and few rocks. Speaking of the forest trail, I've discovered a little trick to ensure I'm still on the AT and haven't accidentally strayed onto one of the many trails that cross it. I'm always checking for the 6" x 2" white blazes appearing occasionally on the trees but sometimes I may not see one for a while as I'm headed North. My trick is to then look behind me and see what a Southbounder would see. Often I find a white blaze on that side of a tree confirming that I'm still on the AT. Ta Da!At one point today, a tiny gnat flew into my eye and despite my best efforts to blindly remove it, I could still feel it in there. Frustrating. I tried using my phone on selfie mode, but couldn't get the clarity or lighting needed to see the little bugger. I then recalled something I've never used: on my whistle is a very small pull-out mirror. It's just big enough to look into my eye and, voil , I was able to see and remove the gnat! What a relief. I recall considering, before coming out here, removing that very mirror that I thought was useless weight. I'm sure glad I had it and once the bugs really start appearing, I'll probably use it time and again. A couple of weeks ago, I used a scale and found I had lost weight and had gotten down to my 17 year old weight. It somewhat concerned me that perhaps I wasn't taking in sufficient calories which might threaten my hike if I lost too much weight. The Mt. Roger's visitor center had a scale and I was pleased to see that I was still the same 17 year old weight. Hopefully, my body has stabilized at my current weight. Late in the day, I came across Iron Lady, a fellow student from my AT Institute class. We're camped in a nice flat area near a stream. Another couple of hikers joined us and we all had friendly conversation before turning in. Nowhere I'd rather be.
Date: 2015-05-09
From: A few miles past Adkins, VA

To: Near Chestnut Knob Shelter
Miles today: 17.6

How about that. This is a sign that I passed today. Now that I think of it, I'm over six weeks into this trek. There's an expression on the trail that says it takes six weeks to get your hiking legs and six days to lose them. It's kind of a warning, I guess, about leaving the trail for a period of time. Many of my new twenty-something friends are having to leave the trail for a week here and there to go to their friends' weddings. As to me, well, I may have my hiking legs but I'm not sure about my hiking feet yet.The Appalachian mountains are evidently famous for a certain line of large salamanders. Well now I have seen one that was maybe 7 inches long and and 1 1/2 inches wide. He was just hanging out in one of the streams. There are plenty of regular sized salamanders, too, but this guy was pretty cool.Something I'm doing now is stopping a couple times a day to soak my feet in the cold mountain streams. Really rejuvenates me. I found a spot by a stream today and sat down on some rocks to soak my feet and was just listening to the water gurgle and the birds in the trees. But then, after about 5 minutes a chorus of frog croaks rose from an area not too far from me. I suppose the frogs had been talking to each other like that before I arrived and then hushed up when I appeared. But with me being still like that, they either accepted me or forgot about me and started having their little croaky conversations again. I like being able to witness that sort of thing.I want to give a shout out to all the mothers I know here on Mother's Day. Especially a certain one in particular. The self sacrifice, devotion, and ceaseless focus on a day by day and year by year basis makes what I'm doing seem trivial. Happy Mothers Day! I'm comfortably in my tent way up near the top of a high knob. I hear the wind blowing fairly hard at the top of the knob, but I'm in a sheltered place a bit below that area. Nowhere I'd rather be.
Date: 2015-05-10
From: Near Chestnut Knob Shelter

To: Campsite near I-77 and US 52
Miles today: 23.4

I thought I would show you my water purification system. I use a Steripen which uses a UV light which essentially kills all bacteria including giardia. I fill my one liter gatorade bottle in a stream or spring, sometimes needing my Siera cup to scoop and pour. Then I turn on my Steripen and twirl it in the water for about 2 minutes until the light goes off. Can you see the purple light in the bottle? Hospitals use UV light to clean their surgical equipment and these devices are used effectively all around the world in much dirtier conditions. Frankly, it's a bit of novelty out here as most hikers use a Sawyer filter system that pushes water through a filter. But I like my Steripen because its easy, lightweight, and it works. I had fairly easy terrain today so I put in quite a few miles. It was a lot of ridge walking and, although generally flat, it did have a lot of hills. I've heard these called PUD's meaning Pointless Ups and Downs. But for me, I like the variety of going up for for a while and then down for a while with some occasional flat walking.I didn't see a single person all day until around 4 o'clock when I came across Easy Strider and Amish napping by a stream they had just bathed in. So the three of us hiked to a distant campsite and found a couple of others we already knew and even more came streaming in. It ended up kind of a party with lots of joking around and laughter. It's so interesting how I know almost everyone I come across now. I seem to be the only one over 30 but I'm treated as just another one of the thru hikers. And since inside, I still feel like kind of a big goofy kid, it all plays out pretty naturally and fun.My tent is in a Rhododendron canopy a few feet from a babbling creek. I'm also a couple hundred yards from an interstate so the pristine sound of the running water is somewhat impacted by the 18-wheelers rumbling by, but that's fine. Nowhere I'd rather be.
Date: 2015-05-11
From: Campsite near I-77 and US 52

To: About 20 miles from Pearisburg
Miles today: 22.9
Weather: broken clouds

This box turtle was also hiking on the AT today. I watched him for a while and man, it's going to take him forever to reach Maine!Remember how I was sleeping right by a creek last night? Well, several times during the night something jumped against my tent and startled the heck out of me each time. I'd say loudly and deeply "get outta here!". I think it might have just been frogs and they did not listen one bit. Bad frogs! Bad!It hadn't rained in a while and the forest was dry so I didn't mind getting caught in intermittent thunderstorms today. After one of the storms the sun came out and all five of my senses took it all in. Sight: The myriad varieties of green became almost neon in the dappled sunlight coming through the canopy. Hearing: The birds were particularly energetic with their songs and chirping, as if they were really happy to come out after the rain. Touch; I decided not to put on my rain pants so my khakis were completely wet and glued to my legs. Smell: This might have been the best sense of all with that wonderful clean fresh forest smell you only get after a rain. Taste: Well, make that four out of the five senses I enjoyed after the rain.I also saw two box turtles, toads, frogs, a lizard, and a rabbit in between showers. I ate dinner and hiked about half an hour more and then found a nice spot in a pine forest. Before I write my standard sign off line, I need to give proper recognition. I had an email friendship with a successful thru-hiker named Right Here. He would often sign off his blog saying "there's nowhere I would rather be than", and then he would sign his name, Right Here. Don't they say plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery? He's also the same guy that stressed staying in the moment and staying positive. So thank you, Right Here for helping me enjoy this trek and for my sign off:Nowhere I'd rather be.
Date: 2015-05-12
From: About 20 miles from Pearisburg

To: Pearisburg
Miles today: 22.0

I'm loving me some Virginia. This is such a beautiful state and from the high ridges I saw scenes like this view. Go ahead; touch the picture to zoom in. Absolutely gorgeous.I mentioned in yesterday's blog that I stopped and ate dinner prior to finding my tent site. I was in a low boggy valley and for the first time felt some apprehension of what may have been lurking out there. I often eat in my tent but last night I chose to leave the odors from eating a good long ways from where I was sleeping. I just had kind of a wary animal sense. I suppose I am becoming more animal-like out here being alone practically 24 hours a day. One clue was when I ate a live porcupine ;-) Backpacking 101: The natural feel for a backpack belt is to position it near the middle of the hips. But a seasoned backpacker showed me about a year ago how much easier it is to carry a backpack load when the belt is tightened on top of the hips.Everyone out here has lost a good deal of weight with the constant exercise and sweating. I had gotten to where I could no longer sufficiently tighten my backpack belt to ride on the top of my hips. So I ordered and got a smaller backpack belt which now works like a charm. I also pull my pants up under the backpack belt because they no longer fit and are crazy baggy. I've also ordered a new pair of smaller waistline pants, infused with tick repellent Permethrin. Ordered it from ExOfficio, if anyone is interested.I'm in a dive of a hotel in Pearisburg tonight in a room with cigarette burns everywhere and cigarette smell, but with an actual bed and with clean running water and a hot shower. For me: luxury. Its funny how your perspective can change. Simple pleasures.
Date: 2015-05-13
From: Pearisburg

To: Pearisburg, VA
Miles today: 0.0

This picture was one of the rare instances when I was walking along a road. I have found that I can cover much greater distances as long as I'm walking on my circus stilts.I believe that this hike is teaching me patience, or at least to better deal with disappointment. For instance, a common occurrence is hiking up a long ascent and seeing the top finally approaching. But once there, I can see another ascent that had not been visible. This is called a false summit and it happens all the time. I have learned to not even set myself up for that expectation, and instead go almost meditative just staring a couple of feet in front of me as I climb. Some of these climbs can last for hours and the dashed expectations can be draining. "Not at the top? No worries... Just keep pressing on." Another example is when I can see up ahead that Trail Angels have left coolers and boxes of trail magic out. Unattended trail magic is actually more frequent than encountering the Trail Angels themselves. So for those couple of hundred yards as I approach the coolers, I start imagining all sorts of thirst quenching and gastronomical delights. But most of the time there is nothing there other than empty cans and wrappers. So I don't let myself get too excited when I see something like that up ahead anymore. I also acknowledge that I'm no worse off than before I encountered it, and in fact had a few moments of excitement that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Another example is when I have targeted a certain destination for the day requiring covering a certain number of miles. But then I encounter rocky terrain or thick mud that slows me way down and prevents me from attaining that day's goal. I'm learning to accept that that kind of terrain can appear at any time and to just take it slower and adjust my expectation. "Just chill, 3D, chill." My final example is when I am counting on a water source only to arrive at a dry streambed. I might pick up a small pebble and roll it around in my mouth to generate moisture as I walk additional miles to the next water source. I feel like I can go four or five miles fairly easily now with no water if I have to. In all of these examples and others, I hope that I can transfer this patience I'm learning out here back into the real world.I arrived early at a B&B and I'm waiting for my wife Beth to arrive; I'm totally enjoying a zero day. I'll take a zero day tomorrow, too, so that we can have some time together. This has been one of our planned rendezvous points from the start so that I can give her my winter gear and she's bringing my summer gear. These couple of days are a welcome respite for my body and I'm looking forward to a nice reunion and fun time with Beth. I can't wait to share with her how beautiful this countryside is out here. Oh yeah, I can wait...I have newfound patience.
Date: 2015-05-14
From: Pearisburg, VA - B&B

To: Pearisburg
Miles today: 0.0

Here's my wife Beth and me at a hotel near Pearisburg. It's been a great visit going out to dinner and experiencing this beautiful countryside together. She brought my summer sleeping bag and is taking home several winter items. This will lighten my load some and she'll mail my winter stuff back to me in August. Today was full of errands made much easier with a car. Here's a typical in-town day. I do laundry while wearing my rain jacket and rain pants, although this time Beth brought me civilization clothes to wear during her visit. I then pour through my trail guide to estimate distances and destinations for the next several days before the next resupply point. I look at terrain, weather outlook, and possible campsites for each day. Once done, that determines how many meals I'll need. I go grocery shopping and come back and consolidate food in ziploc bags. Normally I may have a couple of miles to walk to do these things, but having the car was really nice. I'm all set for tomorrow and eager to heft a lighter summer load.
Date: 2015-05-15
From: Pearisburg

To: Pine Branch Swamp Shelter
Miles today: 19.5
Weather: overcast clouds

I had a posting delay today. Evidently my mission is to boldly go where no cell phone signal has been before. Here's what I wrote yesterday:Today is the start of Trail Days, an annual three day hikers' festival in Damascus, VA. What you're seeing is a cropped pic of a banner in Damascus when I passed through there a couple of weeks ago. Almost all of my twenty-something hiker friends are there. I'm not exactly sure what all goes on, but it does sound like a big party for thru-hikers, current and past. There's a thru-hiker parade, vendors from all the major hiking equipment companies are there, and all the hikers stay in an area dubbed tent city. I've heard numbers ranging from 2,000 to 30,000 attend. The trail seemed fairly empty today because of it. I did have a good quiet day of hiking, however it was punctuated by 30 minutes of terror. Well, at least of strong concern. I hiked up about 2,000 feet out of Pearisburg and stopped for lunch at a shelter before starting a long stretch of ridge walking. A guy I met there, Just Mike, noticed a dark storm moving in. So we both hustled on out to the ridge to try to beat the weather. He got a head start and I didn't see him again on the ridge. I started hiking quickly on the exposed grassy ridge way up high with views over valleys on both sides. In front of me was blue sky and behind was an ominous dark gray mass. I kept glancing back and the gray was gaining on me and I heard thunder. It's not a good thing to be caught up there with thunder and lightning. I kept hurrying and it was just starting to sprinkle when up ahead I saw the trail was going to take me right under about a seven story electrical transmission tower. Have you ever been near one of those things? They're gigantic metal monsters with four outstretched arms seemingly saying, "C'mon lightning, strike me, strike me good." So now I was practically running to get by that enormous lightning rod. I got by it and was now simply under the heavy transmission cables leading up to...ANOTHER TOWER EVEN HIGHER UP. So I increased my already accelerated pace as the rain got harder and I kept my head down as I didn't even want to look up at the demonic structure. Now the fact that you're reading this rather gives it away that I did not instantly become Carbon Boy in an electrical flash. I sped by the second tower and the trail headed into some trees and lower ground. But it was not a good situation and I was sure glad to get the heck out of there. I decided to press on to a shelter where I'm now about to sleep next to a young woman named Ha Ha. She has a puppy with her in her sleeping bag. Three other hikers are in here, as well, including Just Mike. Nowhere I'd rather be.