morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2017-06-06
From: Appalachian Trail Lodge in Millinockett

To: Rainbow Ledges
Miles today: 16.8

On the 6:30 am shuttle from our hostel to the trailhead the driver said the first 10 miles will be some of the easiest on the trail, and then ¢ here he paused ¢ you will enter The Hundred-Mile Wilderness. He said the name as if invoking the bogeyman. The sign as we entered said it in no uncertain terms. This is wild; you are on your own. The first ten miles were as billed. Look at Rolling Thunder walking a billiard-table-smooth green tunnel. I¢ve never been to Niagara Falls. Have you? In the first ten miles we passed both Little Niagara Falls and Big Niagara Falls ¢ Maine¢s namesakes of the more famous New York landmark. Tell me if this photo of Little Niagara Falls doesn¢t resemble one of those near-impossibly-beautiful outdoor scenes from a beer commercial. What are these flowers? They looked carnivorous, fitting for having just entered the 100-Mile Wilderness. Flies and small fingers beware. (Frodo: Actually, they're very benign Lady Slipper orchids.  BTW, did you know that carnivorous plants get only minerals from their prey, no calories or organic molecules?  Biology is fascinating!) At the Hurd Shelter Lean-to, 3 miles into the 100-M-W, I saw one of the more astonishing hiker food strategies I have ever seen. The bulk of his food for the Wilderness is ¢ drum roll, please ¢ two 5-pound jars of Skippy peanut butter. But he¢s as happy as can be. HYOH (Hike Your Own Hike.)Most of our 7 miles into the 100-M-W today was dark, dense trees, roots snaking across the trail, rocks jutting out, dank leaves thickly strewn on the path, punctuated by mosses and lichens. But we aimed for a feature called Rainbow Ledges. There is no shelter there and no campsites mentioned, but we had a feeling. With a name like that, what can go wrong?After a climb and then a bend in the trail we hit the top of a rise and emerged into open air. Look at my campsite. That¢s Mount Katahdin framed ¢¦   (Frodo: and he didn¢t send me a photo of the last page of his journal. Oh, well.)
Date: 2017-06-07
From: Rainbow Ledges

To: Wadleigh Stream Shelter
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: clear sky

¢Scout?¢¢Rolling Thunder?¢We shouldn¢t be seeing each other. Something is wrong. I should be at least three miles ahead of RT, and I shouldn¢t be coming at him from the opposite direction¢¦It had been an idyllic morning. There had been a near-full moon last night , for once visible, and the sun had risen to peek over Mount Katahdin¢s shoulder. There was no condensation, no prospect of rain. With us actually on the Appalachian Trail, Rolling Thunder and I were each going to indulge our own preferences. That meant I would hike out early at 6:30 and planned to take a long lunch break. RT wouldn¢t start until nearly 8:00 am and would take a short lunch.I¢d been in a zone, legs feeling good; there had been a few sets of blowdowns, one a mass of small and large trees like a jumble of pick-up sticks. I¢d had to go a ways off trail to get around the mass of blowdowns and then picked up the AT white blazes again. I had been preoccupied and hadn¢t looked at my map.¢RT, are you going the wrong way?¢ Surely I couldn¢t be wrong. Not on this perfect day when I should be three miles ahead of him.¢Scout, I left camp 20 minutes ago.¢It hit me like a ton of bricks. I must have gotten turned around in the blowdown area and had been blissfully hiking back to our campsite where I¢d begun. I¢d been walking the wrong way for over a mile. Dang. Dang!When I realized what I¢d done, we both busted out laughing. Then I said, ¢It¢s Frodo¢s fault!¢ RT replied, ¢Of course it is. Blame the person who¢s not here.¢It was solely my fault, but most of the time I had been thinking about her. No, not thinking about her THAT way. I was thinking of our anniversary in 112 days and mulling over the germ of an idea.Man, what a doofus! Here I am, the PCT and CDT thru-hiker! But it was a needed wake-up call. These woods are dense, no landmarks to be seen, and one set of roots and rocks looks like another. I think it was in Maine a year ago an AT thru-hiker went off the trail to relieve herself, couldn¢t find her way back to the trail, got more and more lost and, I am sorry to say, she died.Here is the blowdown jumble that turned me around:We made the next shelter, nine miles, for a streamside lunch. Though I admit thinking a a few sour thoughts the last two miles, that I should have already been there relaxing.For brief periods the dense forest thicket gave way, so we saw lakes, and we hiked along one gorgeous gorge of tumbling water. None of my photos really sis it justice.And day¢s end was a kick-in-the-pants climb up Nesuntabunt Mountain with a double measure steep trail and irregular staircase steps coming down.AT 6:00 pm I was very glad to get to Wadleigh Stream Shelter Lean-to after 17, ahem 20, hard miles.Had a great time chatting over dinner with other hikers. Even laughed over my story today. And the germ of an idea I had about our anniversary for Frodo may be worth getting lost over.Scout
Date: 2017-06-08
From: Wadleigh Stream Shelter

To: Whitehouse Landing
Miles today: 7.2
Weather: overcast clouds

Heaven is called Whitehouse Landing. I am one-third of the way through the 100-Mile Wilderness. Thirty minutes ago I came across three hikers standing next to their packs as they¢d been for 10 minutes, wondering, ¢Where is the trail?¢ We were in the middle of another blowdown section. Rolling Thunder had dropped his pack there as well and was looking for the trail. They pointed, ¢Your friend struck out that way.¢ I ¢knew¢ the trail was 100 feet in the opposite direction. I struck out in the opposite direction, and this time what I ¢knew¢ was right.  The three of them had never heard of Whitehouse Landing. They had planned to slog ahead for another day. Instead, we all boarded a restored 1942 15-foot varnished wood motorboat to head across Pemadumcook Lake to half-pound burgers, lakeside cottages with beds and showers, and canoes.Whitehouse Landing. In past years, hikers signaled them with an air horn. Now there¢s a 21st-century moment of cell coverage and you call them to sweep you out of dense wilderness into a greensward, Tolkienesque Lothlorien. An 80-year-old teak and canvas canoe hangs overhead in the lodge. Next to the kitchen hangs this sign: ¢Papers: $40, Bowls: $50 Bowls and Papers come with 4 grams of complimentary ¢¦.¢ Can you guess the next word? It seems that for the past year in Maine it is legal to possess marijuana, but still illegal to sell it. But guess what ¢ it is not illegal to give it away. Hence with your $50 box of zig-zag papers comes a gift of weed. Merry Christmas in Maine.Heaven can¢t be absolutely perfect, but does it¢s flaw have to be black flies?? Couldn¢t they have stayed in purgatory or another of Dante¢s Circles? This photo says it all.Thankfully my black fly bites do not look anything like that. Here¢s another hiker¢s black fly defense strategy:For dinner in heaven the give you a whole pizza. And then they say, ¢I put those last two pieces in a baggy for you. Put them in the fridge and tomorrow morning you can pack them out and have them for lunch in the trail.¢It¢s Sunday day in Heaven. (Frodo: Scout¢s spelling, not mine.)  Catbird and Trail show off their new gold AT tattoos.Day¢s end in paradise was perfect. Get a load of this.Scout
Date: 2017-06-09
To: Crawford Pond
Miles today: 17.8
Weather: scattered clouds

Would it be cruel to describe today¢s breakfast to you? Now, normally breakfast is a two pack of Pop-tarts delicately brought up from being coddled in the ¢warming oven¢ ¢ my shirt pocket. Then I top it off with a crunchy breakfast bar. All consumed while walking the day¢s first few miles. At Whitehouse Landing eight of us hikers sat at a long trestle table with family-style service of English muffins (freshly buttered and toasted on the grill), scrambled eggs from their own chickens, deliciously crisp dark brown bacon, and endless blueberry pancakes. I am like Sidney Poitier in ¢Lilies of the Field,¢ who¢s eaten the Spartan nun¢s fare for days and finally goes in to a diner and orders a hearty, real breakfast.Here's the suspended canoe in the lodge:and here we are in front of the lodge:But by 8:30 we¢ve taken the old runabout across the lake and re-entered our real world ¢ hiking. We¢re in dense trees, thicker than my hair used to be, when Rolling Thunder stops and points. Not more than 40 feet in front of us a horse-sized moose breaks on to the trail, takes one look at us, and if mooses could point with surprise this one would have done so. But she did give us one long-nosed stink-eye stare and bolted noisily. Wow, a moose! And that close!Minutes later we ran headlong into Alpine, another AT northbounder. He started January 1st. Can you imagine? He endured minus 14 degrees and hiked through two-foot drifts of snow. And now he¢s days from finishing. ¢Alpine, we just saw a big cow moose!¢¢What?!? I¢ve walked this whole trail and haven¢t seen one moose. I¢ve seen so much (princess warning!) moose shit you could fill the Panama Canal with it! And you saw a moose! ¢(Said with just a slight bit of derision as if we hadn¢t earned the right yet.)  RT and I both felt terrible. That moose must have been waiting for Alpine, and we blundered along instead. It was the wrong moose! (And yes, the Panama Canal bit was my little embellishment.)Yesterday it heated up to 90 degrees. The Whitehouse Landing porch thermometer said 84 degrees at 5:00 pm. Today the sun stayed in bed. The light gray cloud cover kept the temperature down in the 70s and in the afternoon our umbrellas darted out from their pack pocket holders (Frodo: of their own volition?) There was on-and-off rain all afternoon until ¢Ker-bam!¢ A big thunderclap rolled through the forest and then it was just rain and rain.Rolling Thunder and I are set up in our dry tents in a stealth camp (probably no one has set up a tent here before ¢ we¢re well off the trail near Crawford Pond). We each cooked in our vestibule and turned in. There was the oddest set of birdcalls putting us to sleep. It sounded like the intelligent avians from Hitchcock¢s ¢The Birds¢ were plotting how to attack us. Or was it a dream?Scout
Date: 2017-06-10
From: Crawford Pond

To: Carl Newhall Lean-to
Miles today: 16.0
Weather: few clouds

What a difference a night makes. Last night we went to bed under thick clouds, that thunderclap still a fresh booming memory. But at 5:15 am, a bright sun peeked into my tent. We had sun all day. Can anyone tell me why, here in the land of high humidity, we have had virtually no condensation? In 15 days there has been only one morning with condensation, and that was just the teensiest bit on a sleeping bag. At the same time, back on the Pacific Crest Trail, in the ultra dry Southern California desert, we could have serious condensation half the nights. Shouldn¢t it be the opposite? Today was a day of Trail Maintainers. First, in the photo below, what does Maine Appalachian Trail Club volunteer Dustin have in his hand? (Hint: It¢s for the privy.) Answer: Privy microbes. Twice a year Dustin and his wife Hannah seed their shelter¢s privy with beneficial microbes. Nearing the Logan Brook Lean-to where I planned to have lunch, I ran into a dozen MATC volunteers. They were building ¢A privy to last the ages.¢ I thanked each one and then one looked at me and said, ¢You look familiar.¢ It was Tony Barrett who helped organize and publicize my PCT Book talk two weeks ago here in Maine. It seems like a year ago. We were both way pleased to meet out in the woods. (Frodo: Bug netting doesn't flatter you, I'm afraid. Not that it flatters anyone.) There was a lot of rough trail today. Steep up and precipitous downs. Here¢s a photo of steps up to White Cap Mountain. (Frodo: mmmm... sorry, folks, he didn't send me the photo.) White Cap was our biggest climb since Katahdin. Magnificent views. See the lead photo and below. We didn¢t finish hiking until 8:00 pm, after three more rolly coaster ups and downs over Hay Mountain, West Peak, and Gulf Hagas Mountain. We had a wonderfully convivial group eating dinner in front of the shelter, and a campfire. Trail chatter, deep talk, trail stories of what each of us has done wrong do far. One woman journaled how proud she was of herself today.  One woman whom RT and I had met four evenings before at a similar lean-to dinner chatfest said something so dear. She said that she and her friends had each commented independently that ¢We hope someday we¢ll get to meet Frodo.¢ (Frodo: Oh, man, now the pressure¢s on! No way can I live up to their expectations after my husband has talked me up!) I guess I weave Frodo into so many of the stories I tell. This is why I come out here ¢ to sit with and be one with these marvelous trail folk making this arduous journey. No one mentioned their job, their car, or the size of their house. No mention of politics. Just deeply honest and richly hilarious talk around the embers of a fire. IMF, I wish she were here listening, too. Scout
Date: 2017-06-12
From: 1.2 miles BEFORE Cloud Pond Lean-To

To: You'll have to read to find out
Miles today: 21.0
Weather: overcast clouds

I wake at 5:10 am. There¢s still a slim chance to make Monson, the next town. But there¢s 21 miles of the 100-Mile Wilderness between me and a town bed. The biggest day for me so far on the actual AT was 17.8 miles. How important to me is this journal? Last night I was asleep before I finished the entry for yesterday. A first. I try to religiously finish it the same day. How important? I journaled in my tent this morning. For 20 minutes I was willing to risk Monson, town, a soft bed, dinner.  I finally started walking at 6:10 am. We¢ll see. The day is hot. Over 90 degrees. I can¢t push water in me fast enough. I know it¢s not a good sign that I don¢t need to pee. I¢m not a big sweater, but my shirt is soaked and the waterproof maps in my pocket shine with moisture. I only take a 30-minute lunch. By 2:00 I have reached 11 miles.  I am racing darkness.  Here is the only switchback I saw in the 100-Mile Wilderness: But I begin to think I may make it. And at 8:45 pm, I emerge from the woods, the 100-Mile Wilderness behind me. Monson. At 9:45 I have the best the town has to offer at that hour ¢ gas station pizza. I down 5 slices. And in my tired glee, my discretion slightly impaired, I will share with you what I saw yesterday. [princess alert] At 5:30 pm, smack dab in the middle of the trail, two squirrels were copulating. Vigorously. I have photos. No, Scout, don¢t do it! You¢re lucky I¢m not that far gone. But not even 15 minutes later I turned a corner and there are two more squirrels going at it in the middle of the trail. What¢s in the air? Frodo has seen the photos and she will figure out what kind of randy squirrels or chipmunks these were. (Frodo: They¢re just big ground squirrels; definitely not chipmunks. And I don¢t have Scout¢s compunctions, so I¢ll post the better of the two photos at the bottom. And there¢s spring in the air ¢ it¢s just an evolutionary imperative!) Safe in Monson. Scout
Date: 2017-06-13
From: Monson, Manine

To: Monson, Maine
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

¢Scout, want to see my blackfly slingshot?¢ I¢d been reading entries in the shelter registers from Mary Poppins for almost all of the 100-Mile Wilderness. A female, right? No, a bearded guy, a Swede. He¢s called Mary Poppins because he carries an umbrella. He¢s also called Mary Poppins because he delights in showing people a heavy metal YouTube video of Mary Poppins and Bert the Chimneysweep singing ¢Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.¢ [Princesses, do you dare find it? We know what happened when you followed my Guy on a Buffalo¢ YouTube link.] But back to the slingshot. Every one of us, with our dozen blackfly bites each, would love to devilishly concoct methods of their destruction. But Mary Poppins has done so. He made his own blackfly slingshot exterminator. If I were to describe breakfast here at Shaw¢s Hiker Hostel, I¢d take up the rest of this entry and have you reaching for your car keys to go out and buy supplies. So I¢ll refrain, but I will give you this photo of Blue Beary pancakes (Frodo: that¢s how he wrote it, but I¢m not sure it was intentional.) they make piled up in the perfect shape of an AT mountain top rock cairn. Revenge is mine. Here are my before and after photos of tonight¢s heaping plate of pot roast. The ignominy of my defeat at the Blue Moose over two weeks ago is avenged.  It¢s been a wonderful zero day. Packed full of chores, seeing hikers we haven¢t seen for days, eating, eating, calling home and loved ones, and eating even more. It¢s 11:40 pm as I finish this. Up at 6:15 to pack up and head back out again tomorrow morning. Scout
Date: 2017-06-15
From: Moxie Bald Lean-To

To: Caratunk
Miles today: 18.8

I sense the change and hope it is real. Maine is a wet state. If it weren¢t this far north it would be a rainforest. So, so often the trail disintegrates into sucking mud, so wet it will soak your shoes and socks. Often split logs or risers have been set over these bog traps, or rock stepping stones. But all it takes is the slightest miss-step and those socks that have just started to dry ¢ boom ¢ soaked again. Try getting up in the morning, going to the refrigerator and putting on that pair of socks you soaked in ice water overnight.  But today I could feel the bogs drying up. There was even a stream ford billed as knee deep that I could readily rock hop and stay dry. Tonight I have blessedly dry socks. A snake guarding a rock cairn: There were two mountains to climb today ¢ Moxie Bald and the way-too-innocuously-named Pleasant Pond Mountain. But at the top of the second I had a moment of cell coverage, and the trail does pass within yards of the town of Caratunk in 7 miles, and the hostel there does make milkshakes. No brainer.  I write this lying on a bed, not an air mattress. I got in at 7:45 and had that milkshake, made on a 1955 Hamilton Beach milkshake mixer.  And I will be out of here bright and early after a family-style breakfast tomorrow.  I remain on track for Rangeley on the 19th.  I¢ve heard in Frodo¢s voice that she really didn¢t believe the degree of difficulty of some of this trail tread. Until she saw photos of some of the near-vertical rock scramble that masquerades as a trail. Now she¢s filled with righteous indignation, mostly aimed at the builders of the AT in this area. ¢You call that a trail???¢ Two of my hiking cohort: Dot and Frankenfoot Scat, turds, poo, poop. Rolling Thunder saw bear scat, some even fresh, on the International AT, our first 140 miles. But we¢ve seen none since on the AT. We¢ve seen moose turd clusters by the bucketful, the barrelful. And on that topic, Mary Poppins, who is Swedish, says when you put ¢moose turd¢ into Google translate, the wise silicon brain reports in German, ¢elk pigeons.¢ Go figure. But nothing explains the [princess alert] shit I saw today. Half-size versions of the moose standard ovoid. I figure it¢s either the near-extinct Maine pigmy moose or the world¢s largest rabbit. (Frodo: Umm¢¦ maybe deer turds?) Or maybe my mind was clouded by the thought of a milkshake at the end of my day. One hundred and fifty yards off the trail, 18.8 miles done and I walk into Paul¢s hiker hostel. Paul hiked the PCT in 1994! And again over ¢04 and ¢05. As I sip my milkshake we trade PCT stories while he makes me a hamburger. Eat, Scout, eat¢¦.. Happy on the AT. Scout
Date: 2017-06-16
From: Caratunk

To: West Carry Pond Lean-To
Miles today: 14.0

Did I tease someone? Did I tempt fate? I wasn't trying to. I was just trying to share with you how things were changing. The bogs were gone. There was so much less mud.The heavy rain started in the middle of the night. A Maine-type downpour, where heavy means buckets. And light means what we call heavy in San Diego.  I had a warm, homemade breakfast, farm potatoes with fried onions, three slices of French toast slathered in butter and powdered sugar, and three slices of bacon. A little different from the packet of pop tarts I would have talked into my shirt pocket, my "warming drawer."  I packed up without thinking about what it was doing outside, except everything inside my pack was put inside a waterproof stuff sack or trash compactor bag. What little I needed access to was put in my pockets.  Paul and I traded more PCT stories while he cooked. in 2004, Paul stayed with San Diego trail angel Bob Riess. It was two years before Frodo and I hosted our first hiker. Unprompted, Paul vividly recounted the 60 mile drive out in Bob's van to Campo, the PCT start. "On  One sharp turn, the van had only two wheels on the ground," he swore. Bob is a great guy, but Paul is far from the only one to claim that their most harrowing moment on their PCT thru/hike was that initial drive out with Bob.  All packed, rain pants and jacket on, pack wrapped in its rain cover, I slipped out the door, umbrella up in one hand and trekking pole in the other. Pretty much my stance all day. Mary Poppins geared up for rain.  Here's one photo of how bad the trail had filled with water.  But at the same time, there were three stretches with oh-so-civilized walkways over bogs.  And we did have stretches where the trail was more like it was channeling the PCT - few years roots and rocks and reasonable grade.  We crossed the Kennebec River, 200 feet wide, The AT authorities require hikers to use a canoe ferry The they provide. Hikers have died trying to ford the river. I was first across this morning. This time of year it's only manned from 9 to 11 AM.  But today they closed early after only 10 hikers, due to wind-webbed waves and the rain.Lunch was in the lean-to four miles out. There were nine  of us, wet  rats stripping off sodden clothes, each in our own few square feet of the wooden, dry floor space. I even took out my stove and whipped up a pot of hot chocolate to warm my core. After an hour and a half I re-put on my sodden socks and shoes for the 10 miles to the next shelter. Sure the trail was wet, bogs fully replenished, but most of that 10 miles was good tread and for the last few miles the umbrella was held closed in my hand.Tomorrow we have the highest point since Katahdin. I am hoping it will be dry.