morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2018-05-05
To: Observations
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

The last 400 miles for me was really good overall. How could it be otherwise, I was back on the trail and going to complete 'every' mile of the AT. With Amy slack packing me the first week, it got off to a great start. Was able to do fairly high miles at the beginning without over doing it. Mainly due to carrying light pack and having the luxury of dropoff and pickup each day. Good food and bed too. Amy really had a good time this week too. Lots of history and other sights to see in the area. She also looked up Kaitlin who lives in the area and is a top Harley Davidson salesperson at Old Dominion HD in Charlottesville.A one month duration hike is also a really good fit. Felt like I was doing a long distance hike and was in the groove of daily hiking. Had some good stops at hostels, normal resupply sources and intervals, etc. I hiked at pretty much the same pace as 2017. Averaged 15 miles per day. Did not take any zero days. Was motivated to get through by end of month. Had one day when I felt that I was really tired and needed a break. That was when I hit Duncannon. Turned it into a nero and got a motel room.  Only thing missing was some long duration hiking with new friends. Met lots of thru hikers, but most were either going SOBO or pace was slower than mine. Most I met were flip floppers starting out in the last week or so. Makes sense that they would be going slower at this time in hike. I did spend 3 days/nights seeing the Warner Family (dad and 3 teenage sons) near the end. They had started north on flip flop a week south of Harpers Ferry. Still keeping up with them as they hike north. Many other interesting people along the way. Usually got to know them in a single night together at shelter, etc. Just not able to stay with them for various reasons.  The other big factor was weather. It was much colder than normal and also pretty wet. Not sure it was really wetter than normal. I survived the weather just fine, although the cold was challenging. Spent a few nights on the edge of being cold, but never was miserable. Hiked most days with rain pants on for an extra layer and a mid layer over base shirt. Was hoping for a day where I could hike out of camp with shorts and t-shirt. I think that did happen, but maybe only one or two times. There was snow several days, but never more than an inch on the ground. I stayed inside shelters much more often. That was mainly for weather, but also due to fact there were not many people staying in the shelters. Sometimes just me.
Date: 2018-05-06
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

I did nothing major regarding gear compared to my 2017 hike. But there were several things of note. Most are additions which did not help my weight, but ended up being decent choices.  Sleep system. Used my 15 degree down bag. 15 degree means survival. Comfort level is about 25 or 30. I purchased a silk bag liner. Had wanted one of these before for help with being too hot. This time it helped as extra warmth. Took a little getting used to, but I'll be using it for most hiking trips in the future. Since I knew it was going to be cold, I got a foil backed foam windshield sun shade and cut it to about 3 feet long. That was to provide extra under side insulation and reflect back my body heat. Can't really prove it worked, but never felt like I was cold from below. Finally, I made an air mattress inflator that worked well. Garbage bag with small hole and rubber banded to a short hose that fit over my mattress nozzle. If I got a full bag of air (open end into wind), then I could fill the mattress full in single cycle. Love not having that task of about 20 big breaths to fill it up. Minimal weight for all three of these items.  I bought a good hiking umbrella and used it quite a bit. And it did really work. Kept me dry from belt up (except forearms holding poles). I got my system down for attaching it to pack so could be hands free. Attachment method was about 90%, but the best I could do. Main issues were wishing it was a little higher in front (vision uphill) and then if it was windy who knew what would happen. One day in hard rain from my left, I just held umbrella with one hand in the right direction. Not hands free, but dry. The durability of the umbrella was great. No turning inside out or damage from branches, tree trunks, etc.  No specific clothing changes. Just wore more layers on a regular basis. Took a folding stand for canister stove along, but did not use. Left it in a hiker box. Ate most of the same foods. Wanted to try some leaf spinach to see if it would last but never had opportunity.
Date: 2016-10-17
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

"Sandy has already started telling others that I am hiking the AT in 2017," Scout wrote back after I described my retirement plan to complete the triple crown of US hiking."Do you think that the world could take the team of Scout and Rolling Thunder?"And with that my AT hike changed instantly. Those who are regular followers of my trail journals will know that Scout ¢ Barney Mann in the other world, a former lawyer, erstwhile PCTA chairman, San Diego trail angel extraordinaire, author and, of course, thru-hiker ¢ and I have walked in each other¢s footprints for 10 years.I was hiker #2 at his San Diego home (still miffed that arriving one day earlier could have made me #1) before my PCT hike in 2006.He and Sandy ¢ the not-yet-named Frodo ¢ met my group along the trail several times as they prepared for their own hike in 2007, at one point carrying in a cold can of Fosters beer for me and at others providing both moral and legal guidance when the dramas of my off-trail life required that.To assuage a tiny part of my karmic debt, I flew back over to the US from New Zealand for their PCT thru-hike in 2007, hauling in with go-BIG a resupply so they could continue from Kennedy Meadows to Muir Trail Ranch in one hit. When I tackled the CDT in 2010, he walked with our group on the relatively meritless section between Grants and Pietown, after having carried up a cold can of Fosters up to the 11,300ft summit of Mt Taylor to surprise me. (The surprise was rather ruined when we failed to cross paths because my group followed the road instead of a new section of trail since we didn't know if it had been completed.) He and Sandy were my transcribers for my BurritoQuest trail journal on the CDT. A few years later, he hiked the CDT himself ¢ sometimes with Frodo, sometimes with her in support. So I shouldn¢t be surprised that now we¢re both retired, our paths should finally coalesce for a long trail ¢ southbound on the AT, starting with a 130-mile warm up wander from the Canadian border on the International Appalachian Trail.I¢ve been blessed with amazing hiking buddies over the years, but I can¢t think of one I¢d rather do a thru hike with than Scout.He¢s already started dreaming of the AT. (For my part, my dreams are currently consumed by the byzantine bureaucracy involved in leaving Abu Dhabi.) But, as he put it recently, this hike will not be like the others: ¢I guess that's another way the AT will be different ¢ no RT journal to whet my appetite.¢
Date: 2016-11-16
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

*did.So from today I'm officially retired, thanks in large part to earnings from eight years working as a journalist in the Middle East and selling my quake house in New Zealand.Half a world away in San Diego, Scout and Frodo responded to my retirement by raising a glass of champagne.First up is my year of hiking, about 6,500km that will culminate -- hopefully -- in the AT, sobo from June.So does that mean I'm I retired, or now a full-time hiker?
Date: 2016-11-25
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

The first project of my so-called year of hiking was about as different from the AT as it was possible to get: a camel-supported guided trek through the high desert of the Sinai peninsula.But since the effects of the Gulf's punishing summer climate meant that I was the least active and least fit I'd been in years, it seemed wise to ease into the hiking again. Camel support meant we could hike just with light day-packs. But by far the highlight of the trip was the insight it provided into Bedouin life. It took a while to fully appreciate their absolute mastery of this life -- a bit like a day-hiker joining a thru-hiker on the final month of their trek -- and to get into the comforting rhythms of desert travel.And better still, it allowed the Bedouins to make a living while maintaining their traditional lifestyles. This was why the trail was created in 2015, to reverse the disastrous decline in tourism revenues caused by Egypt's political unrest. This decline was accelerated when the local ISIL franchise smuggled a bomb onto a Russian charter flight from Sharm El Sheikh, killing all 224 on board and ending virtually all tourism.You can read a brief version of the trip here: http://www.thenational.ae/arts... or read my trail journal: www.trailjournals.com/SinaiTra... (which you can also find in the links to the left, under "2016")
Date: 2017-05-26
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

"So, what's your connection to the International Appalachian Trail?"The immediate and spontaneous laughter of those around me suggested that maybe, just maybe, I'd made another of my innumerable faux pas.Dick Anderson just smiled and replied: "Well, it was my idea."All I'd known was that I'd be with Scout, Frodo and our gracious Portland host, Seth, visiting someone connected to the international extension to the AT but I hadn't realised it was the person who, back in 1994, had the original idea of a hiking trail covering the full Appalachian range as it headed northwards from Mt Katahdin and into Canada.Once he'd voiced the idea, others then pointed out that, thanks to the vagaries of plate tectonics, the mass of rock which formed the basis for the range extended beyond Canada and on to Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Scotland, France, Spain and Morocco, among many, many others. I regained a tiny amount of lost credibility when I looked at the IAT's range and was able to inform them that I'd already climbed the highest peak of the IAT.Toubkal, a 4167m pile of choss in the Atlas mountains, happened to not just be the highest summit of Morocco and north Africa but also of the nascent IAT.Further redemption followed during an enjoyable and wide-ranging discussion on the IAT when I explained I'd also been to the potential northernmost part of the trail in Spitsbergen but, in truth, I remained deep in negative territory after my initial burst of ignorance.Our meeting with Dick was bookended by a couple of public lectures Scout had given about his PCT book.The first was in Redlands, outside Los Angeles, to a university crowd that was his biggest yet -- about 350 people filling a large auditorium. He's seriously playing some big rooms! We then took the red-eye flight to Boston, where we hired a car and drove to Maine The next, at Portland craft ale house following our meeting with Dick This was the polar opposite: a tough crowd that didn't really get into it until he started telling some of the fascinating stories from the earliest days of the PCT.After that, we headed north towards Houlton, where we'd booked a motel about an hour's drive from the northern boundary of the Maine section of the IAT.After a couple of months of helping out hundreds of PCT hikers at Scout and Frodo's and then at Casa de Luna with Terrie and Joe Anderson, I'm really looking forward to actually hiking.Except it'd be really nice if it could stop raining for a little while...
Date: 2017-05-30
From: Brookside Inn

To: Moro Road
Miles today: 13.0

"I saw your friend heading past so I put this together for you."And with that the woman on a quad bike from a nearby farm handed me a bag filled with crisp juicy apples and chocolates.She knew that the IAT used the otherwise nondescript rural thoroughfare that passed her farm. After all, there's no other reason why hikers would walk this way when there are so many other cool places to walk in Maine."Thanks!" I replied and said she was a very welcome trail angel on this otherwise dreary stretch. About five months earlier this year I'd skipped a 30km section of the Israel Trail because it crossed a hot desert plain where the IDF tank divisions trained. The trail was a meritless jeep track next to a highway, but that wasn't any different to this and I was wondering whether it was just the factor that the IAT/AT was a longer trail that meant I wasn't skipping this.Little moments of kindness like this helped.That wasn't to say this road was wholly meritless. I was surprised to encounter a series of horses and buggies driven by Amish or Amish-like religious adherents who eschewed modern technology.But the first six miles or so had been on a fairly busy road featuring a sloping verge that made it easier to walk on the tarmac itself, although that came at a cost to our feet.Just after the town of Smyrna Mills, which looked like an exaggerated parody of the pleasant New England town, I was grateful to turn onto the far less trafficked Moro Road, which ran dead straight westwards as befitted its alternative name of Town Line Road.Scout was a fan of early starts and had headed away about 20 minutes earlier. He was still ahead of me when our trail angel spotted him, collected her bag of goodies and emerged on to the road just as I was walking by.When I finally caught up with him, I was able to say that I came bearing gifts. He certainly seemed surprised when I handed him a cold crisp apple.Our finishing point for the day -- where we'd been told by Cheryl and Kirk about some ATV trails avoided an even worse road walk along on Route 11, a busy logging road -- was barely one third of a mile ahead. With even better timing, Frodo arrived a few minutes later to shuttle us to Mt Chase Lodge, an upmarket resort on Upper Shin Pond which was very IAT friendly. Her car support had allowed us to slackpack, making this section somewhat less taxing.The lodge was a little outside my usual budget but was a plush option, with comfortable beds and fantastic food. IAT lesson of the day: Our hosts, Lindsay and Mike, thru-hiked the AT, so we didn't have to answer the why of thru-hiking to them and instead found ourselves among kindred spirits.
Date: 2017-05-31
From: Moro Road

To: Shin Pond
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: overcast clouds

The single best bit of trail beta that IAT stalwarts Cheryl and Kirk gave us when we met for breakfast just as we were starting off this hike was about the presence of an ATV route that got us off sealed roads today.After the last two days of road walking, this could scarcely have been better timed and we sent a thank you in their direction as we turned off Moro Road and headed down an old logging road.We sent a second expression of gratitude when we saw what Route 11, the busy road that would otherwise have been our destiny, was like: lots of traffic and very narrow shoulders.Scout had had a taste of the potential pitfalls the day before, when he was walking -- sensibly -- against the flow of traffic but couldn't anticipate a car in the other direction passing within a foot or so of him as it overtook a truck. We were glad to instead face nothing worse than the bad spelling on some of the ATV trail markers. Once we'd crossed over Route 11, we were even happier to see that the onward route featured IAT markers.At the Mt Chase turnoff the eventual goal is for the trail to head over the top then drop down to Shin Pond directly, but landowner opposition was standing in the way of that plan, so instead we headed south and around the mountain.For all the greater appeal of walking on ATV roads compared to the highway, it was still a variation on road walking and these were miles to be tallied rather than necessarily savoured.As we were in the midst of a countdown towards an ice cream at Shin Pond and then reuniting with Frodo, we were boosted by a snowmobiler's sign announcing that the village was just four miles away.We were getting pretty good at judging distance by now and it seemed a little too good to be true so we weren't surprised when the next one announced it was five miles, which was closer to our own estimate.This process of optimistic, then realistic mileages continued almost until we followed a snowmobile trail down to a general store.Soon we were reunited with Frodo and then we were back in the welcoming enclave of the Mt Chase Lodge for yet more sumptuous food and wine in the company of AT alumni. And we're 17 miles closer to the end of the road walking.IAT lesson of the day: We'd been salivating at the prospect of an ice cream at the general store in Shin Pond but when we arrived they said they were out. We must have looked so downcast that the shopkeeper did a special search and found two ice creams at the bottom of the freezer that were of such ragged appearance that she gave them to us for free. WIN!
Date: 2017-06-05
From: Millinocket

To: Millinocket
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: moderate rain

Millinocket proved to be the perfect place for our first zero day, having an awesome diner, laundry facilities, a post office and wifi. What more could a hiker want?We also had the chance meet some of the other hikers who we expect to be leapfrogging for the next five months.The first one we encountered, however, cast a bit of a pall by explaining how some of his food had been stolen by fellow hikers while in the 100 mile wilderness, prompting him to have to backtrack to replenish his suppliesThis was both hard to believe but also confirmed some of what we'd been told about how the AT really was entirely different to the PCT and CDT, with people who lived on the trail while pretending to be hikers, scam merchants who conned fellow hikers with invented hard luck stories and other variations on a general theme of dishonesty.it was still difficult to believe hikers would steal what they know is another hiker's most valued consumable, although this was also in the nature of the mix of nobo and sobo hikers, with the former often running out of money towards the end of their hikes.With Frodo's departure, we also had to return to usual levels of self sufficiency, including mailing stuff ahead instead of being met with all our excess gear, chauffeured to us by her in an act of unremitting generosity.Even though our hiker hunger is yet to kick in, a fair portion of the day was set aside for eating, for which we had an enthusiastic participant in the form of Skippy John Joe, who was the third to complete the AT this year and was taking a few days off before hiking back to Georgia to complete the yoyo.Along with Janine, a German hiker who initially looked at the rest of us with a mix of fear and concern, as if we were white slave traders, Scout and Skippy joined in for dinner.We already knew that Millinocket was doing it hard, with the closure of the paper mill a few years before taking most of the town's jobs with it.But the epigram about any change always being good for someone was demonstrated when our waitress revealed herself to be a recent Massachusetts import who had bought a nine bedroom house here on an established lot for $12,000. Not $120,000 -- $12,000.AT fact of the day: The AT Hostel, where we stayed, is a fun establishment but not one for the taller hikers -- the ceiling of the attic rooms, where the 6ft1in Scout was originally going to stay, were low enough for me to graze my head and I'm a mere 5ft7in.
Date: 2017-06-08
From: Hadleigh Stream lean to

To: White House Landing
Miles today: 7.2

The 100 mile wilderness was a name we had time to contemplate as we supped cold beers while waiting for our burgers and pizzas to be cooked.After three days and about one third of the way through the "wilderness", we've already crossed three roads and are due to cross many more, as well as a railroad, before we're back in the non-wilderness. Even before arriving at the sybaritic enclave of White House Landing, just across Pemadumcook Lake from the trail, we'd wondered if the wilderness tag was merely a comparative one based on the rest of the trail.On the PCT, being designated a wilderness prevented any kind of mechanical assistance, be it mountain bikes or even a chainsaw for trail crews clearing blowdowns. Back in New Zealand, the definition of wilderness was even tougher yet, with helicopters being unable to land or sometimes even fly over the terrain and with no improvements such as huts or bridges allowed.My tongue-in-cheek reference to "Embrace the civility" -- a play on the CDT's unofficial motto of "Embrace the brutality" -- turns out to have more than a bit of truth to it.White House Landing has a storied history on the AT, involving a mile long spur trail that once led to a jetty fitted with an air horn, which was used to summon a boat to take hikers the short journey to this former logging camp.Now the "wilderness" has good enough cellphone reception that the boat can be summoned from only half a mile from the trail. Even better, our visit meant we could send a food package to collect here so our packs never had to be weighed down with more than four days of food.We were inestimably grateful.So too were Jude, Katbird and Trail, three other hikers who we'd met when searching for the trail when it was obscured by some blowdowns -- the closest today's trail came to being on the wrong end of the Smeagol-Gollum Index. While we found the trail, we filled them in on White House Landing -- then barely 45 minute's walk away, but they'd never heard of it -- and they opted to join us.They were a fun group and we were later joined by three young nobos -- Princess Leia, Spice Girl and Ramses -- on the last couple of days of their epic hike.We arrived just in time for lunch, had an indolent afternoon until it was time for dinner and now we're contemplating the sunset from our waterfront cabin, complete with a tiny beach. Life is good.AT fact of the day: We're lucky to be here because White House Landing was closed for some years while the owners opted for stability for their high school aged son. They're building their business back up again but based on how much we've enjoyed it, that shouldn't be a problem.