morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2007-07-02
From: Leigh Gap, PA

To: Leroy A. Smith Shelter
Miles today: 16.1
Weather: overcast clouds

(Erin) We got back on the trail today at 9:00ish, after a hurried morning to pack the car and have breakfast before hitting the trail. It was great to have a zero with Will¢s parents and for Steve and Amanda to come as well. While sitting at the trail head eating some fruit before starting the crazy climb up from Lehigh Gap we ran into ¢Uncle Tom¢, a hiker that we thought had gotten off the trail because of a bad ankle; he was back on the trail and doing better.   We then started the famous climb out of Lehigh Gap. A very steep, very exposed rock scramble to the top. We had cool views from the rocks and took a few pictures. We reached one spot that had a painted American Flag on the rock, felt a bit patriotic being so close to the 4th of July. Once at the top we had a long flat rocky road to follow and on both sides of us it almost looked like we were walking on the moon. At least what I would think it would be like to walk on the moon, lots of rock and dead trees. The zinc factory in the area killed everything and now things are starting to grow back. We hiked down to Little gap and then back up again to the other side for more ridge walking to the shelter. We made it to the shelter by 7:00 and at about 7:30 ¢Life Traveler¢ and good ol¢ ¢Radar¢ showed up. They had some funny stories about their time in town, Life traveler winning a $90 lottery ticket and splitting it with Radar to buy a suite for the night at a hotel. Radar¢s hour long shower, and loosing multiple times in arm wrestling and drinking their way up the mountain to the shelter. Sounded like some fun times in Wind Gap.Into Delaware Water Gap tomorrow¢¦ Tick Count: Willie 39 Erin 15
Date: 2007-07-03
From: Leroy A. Smith

To: Delaware Water Gap, PA
Miles today: 20.2
Weather: overcast clouds

(Willie)It seems pretty weird that after so many really really hot days that I could actually start out the day today with slightly numb toes. It probably wasn¢t that cold, but it was cold enough that we had to start walking as soon as we took our fleeces off in the morning. It definitely felt good not to start sweating first thing in the morning. Most of the morning was actually pretty close to perfect hiking weather. The trail would have been perfect too if the PA rocks felt the need to escort us all the way to the border. We spent most of the day tip toeing along the top of one long ridge line after the other with only a few sort climbs here and there. You¢d think that would be perfect to bust out 20 miles and to get in to town early right? That was the plan at least, and it probably would have happened had it not been for the rocks. We spent the last week or so going over huge boulder fields, but today we learned first hand that small rocks could be just as big of a pain as large ones. For most of the day we were crawling over lots and lots of little wobbly ankle twisting rocks for as far as the eye could see. That wasn¢t really what we were hoping for, but we made it through one step at a time, and neither of us got injured so I guess it was a success.I guess it¢s a little easier to put up with a rough trail when it¢s leading us to a town, and tonight¢s destination was the Delaware Water Gap. As you could imagine it was a long steep rocky drop into the gap, but Robo was there to meet us at the bottom. We haven¢t seen Robo since just past Damascas, VA, over 800 miles ago. When Radar got to town a little before us he told Robo that we were coming and he actually walked back on the trail to meet us. It¢s really neat how the trail jumbles people up, you never know where or when you¢re going to meet an old friend.Robo gave us a tour of the hostel at Church of the Mountain, before showing us to the diner where we had dinner. The chicken dinner and the French dip sandwiches hit the spot. We took showers at the hostel and set out tents up on the back lawn of the church. Town food, umm. Shower, good.Life Lesson: (given by Robo) You don't take diet advice from fat people, you don't take financial advice from a broke person, and you don't take relationship advice from Robo.
Date: 2007-07-04
From: Delaware Water Gap, PA

To: Delaware Water Gap, PA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

(Erin) We got up early today and packed up the tent and our gear and then walked down to the gas station to re-supply on food. We then had some time to kill before the outfitter opened so we went to the Diner again for breakfast. Then we went up to the outfitter to look at new shoes for me. The shoes I have been using I bought in Daleville and after all of the rocks in PA I think my feet need new shoes before these ones die on me. So I got Vasque trail shoes to replace my Hardrock Montrails. Anyway, then we went back up to the hostel to figure out if we really were going to hike out of town today and what the weather report was. From the look of the sky and the weather report things didn¢t look too good. Calling for thunderstorms mid-afternoon and then thunderstorms all night didn¢t sound good if we were going to most likely be tenting. So somehow we decided to stay in town for our 6th zero day. We were not the only ones that stayed in town so we had plenty of people to hang out with. We had caught up with a man that we had been following since Damascus name ¢Robo¢, he had told us his weather report as well, ¢that we were going to have a storm of biblical proportions¢. He was going to start on the ark and Will and I were to start finding the pairs of animals. So we sat at the hostel and played Monopoly and waited for the rain to come. The rain wasn¢t as bad as predicted but it was still nice to have a day off, even if we did just have a day off on Sunday. (and another this Saturday for my birthday). We had pizza for dinner and now are attempting to go to bed so that we can get up by 5:00am and make up the miles that we didn¢t do today. I think we are planning on hiking about 24 miles tomorrow¢¦geez
Date: 2007-07-06
From: Brink Road Shelter, NJ

To: County Road 519, NJ
Miles today: 20.9

(Willie)Catch up day 2 on tap for today. After doing almost 25 miles yesterday, would we turn around and do another big day? Today¢s plan was to get up a little earlier, walk a little faster, and take shorter breaks to get in close to 27 miles before we met Erin¢s parents somewhere north or our current location. Yeah, that didn¢t really happen. We kind of failed at step one by leaving at 6:30 so the 27 mile day was pretty much out of the question so it was time to figure out plan B.We spent the morning cursing with Radar about the poor NJ trail conditions that we were going over. Man, I love rocks so much that I was even more thrilled to see the miles of rocks covered by thick wet grass. Some sort of grass cutting and/or trail trimming would have really been helpful, but instead we slipped over rock after rock that we couldn¢t see because the grass was so high. Good thing that we are in tick country too! At least the weather was nice, the skies were clear, and the ridge line views were decent. If the trail stays like this I won¢t be terribly disappointed when we see the welcome to New York sign in a couple of days to see if they do any trail maintenance over there.We stopped for a lunch break after a little more then 15 miles and we were once again reminded of yet another reason NJ hasn¢t been our most favorite place. Within seconds we were covered in flies. Those big suckers just won¢t go away. They aren¢t really the biting kind, but they are still quite annoying. When we went to leave from lunch there were probably more then 20 flies on Erin¢s pole handles alone. Yeah, they¢re pretty nasty. I guess we¢ll have to get use to eating with flies all over our arms and legs.When we got to High Point State Park Erin called her parents, who were driving up to meet us for Erin¢s birthday tomorrow, to see where they were. They compared their schedule and maps with where we were and the decision was made to meet at a road crossing about 3 miles up the trail. So we ran up the tallest mountain in the NJ (about 1700¢) and saw what looked like a huge thunder storm headed our way. After putting on our pack covers and water proofing everything that needed it we ran down the other side of the mountain to try to find the Joneses. We found them on the trail a bit up from the road just as it was becoming clear that the storm had gone the other way. Whether or not they saved us from a storm, we were still really glade to see them and to be getting off the trail for a couple of nights to spend some time with them.
Date: 2007-07-07
From: County Road 519, NJ

To: Hotel in NJ
Miles today: 0.0

Erin My 26th birthday has finally come. I thought about how far away it seemed when we started hiking and I had no idea where we would be. I didn¢t know we would be up in New Jersey and that my parents would still come. Today I woke up in a nice hotel with Will. We got up and went to breakfast and we all tried Taylor Ham. I guess it tastes more like Spam but it wasn¢t too bad. Then we went to Sussex, NJ to do our laundry and found a library to update our journals. We still had time to get in the pool when we got back to the hotel and play 3 rounds of horse shoes. Will and my mom won.. Then it was off to dinner at the Sussex Inn. We were able to sit outside on the balcony and to look at the town and the cars driving around below us. We had thought about going to a movie and there was a drive-in near by but we ran out of time. I think we all might have fallen asleep in the car. All and all I had a great relaxing day off the trail with my parents and my Will.
Date: 2007-07-08
From: Hotel in NJ

To: Pochuck Mtn Shelter
Miles today: 11.1
Weather: clear sky

WillieMan, I could tell right when I stepped out of the hotel room this morning that today was going to be a hot one. Good thing for the AC in the room or I surely would have worked up sweat just packing my stuff! While we were packing Mrs. Jones was nice enough to sew yet another critter-chewed hole in our tent. What the heck would we do without parents around to help us out? We got back to the trail around noon, after grabbing some breakfast and going to the store to pick up food for the next 5 days. It was a little bit harder to say good-bye to the Joneses today knowing that this was the last visit with them until we get to Maine. They really helped us out a lot over the last 3 months. Too bad that we¢ve out walked their driving reach.The sweat started to pour right when we got out of the air conditioned car but it got even worse the second we started walking. Good thing the terrain wasn¢t that bad today. It finally seems like the rocks have settled down a bit. The only tough climb came at the end of the lead up to the shelter. We took a pretty long break at the secret shelter, which had running water, electricity, a shower, a fan, and a heater. It would have been nice to stay there, but we¢d only gone about 4 miles so Erin wouldn¢t let me stop just yet. We got to the shelter with plenty of time to set up camp and to play with the stove that Mr. Jones made for us before settling in for a hot night in the tent. We had to do some improvising with the stove, because the ground was too hard to get tent stakes in to use as a pot stand. But after twisting our wind screen into a pot stand we had boiling water in no time.
Date: 2007-07-09
From: Pochuck Mtn Shelter

To: Camp site near dry stream in NY
Miles today: 19.3

Erin Today was a very hard day but started out easy. We had some ups and downs then the Jersey boardwalk. It is a little over a mile long boardwalk that goes through a marsh/swamp land. If the whole trail was like this I¢m sure anyone and everyone could hike the AT. I took a lot of pictures of the boardwalk and how it zigzagged through the marsh. At one point we saw a doe with her twin babies. We had scared them and the mother was on one side and the babies were on the other side. We walked passed a little bit and then turned around to try and get a picture of the cute little babies. The grass was over their heads so they were jumping really high to get though the grass. By about 11:00 we made it to a nursery/farm where we sat outside and had ice cream, a plum and sodas. It was really starting to get very hot and we stayed for a bit too long but it was better then hiking in the crazy heat. The next 6ish miles were very slow moving. It felt like forever to get to the shelter for lunch. We were sweating like crazy and hoping the shelter was close by. On the way we did find more trail magic. All day we were finding coolers with sodas and jugs of water, it¢s so nice to know that people in the area are thinking about the hikers in this heat. Later in the day we had some ridge/rock walking till we reached the NJ/NY boarder by 5:00. It was getting late and we knew we would not make it to the next shelter that was over 6 miles away. So we tried to keep plugging along on the rocks looking for the brooks and streams that we were suppose to cross. We were hoping that there would be some camping near one of the streams but as it got later and later we realized that there wasn¢t going to be any water. One brook was flowing but the water was very dark and didn¢t look good and the other streams were completely dry. We almost couldn¢t tell where the stream beds were. We finally found a camp site and set up with another hiker name ¢Silver¢. It was after 9:00 by this time and we didn¢t have enough water to cook a dinner so we ate some snacks and saved the water for our hike out to the next water source.Life Lesson: Never let anyone, not even your hiking partner convince you that you're carrying too much water on a hot day.
Date: 2007-07-10
From: Camp site near dry stream in NY

To: NY 17/Arden Valley Rd
Miles today: 14.4
Weather: scattered clouds

WillieWow, was that an uncomfortable nights sleep or what? I don¢t think that I stopped sweating until about 4:00 in the morning. Good thing the alarm was set to go off at 5:30 so that we could get up early to try to find some water. We figured water was more important then sleep, so by 6:30 we were moving up the trail. Luckily we were only about 2.5 miles from the next road and more importantly from an ice cream place that had a water spigot on the side of the building. We chugged the water until we started to feel sick and then filled up every container that we had to help us get through yet another extremely hot day. The thermometer on the side of the building (which was directly in the sun) already said 106, and it was only 8:30 in the morning!It was pretty clear that the rest of the day was going to suck, and suck it did. To make matters worse, we soon discovered that just about every water source in NY was either dry or undrinkable. Thank God for all the nice people who left water jugs at just about every road crossing. They quite honestly might have saved our lives today. In addition to the heat the trail today was harder than expected. We were going up and down short steep rocky mountains all day long. On a nice day things would have been challenging at best, but today it was just brutal. For the second day in a row it was obvious that we weren¢t going to make it any where near our goal. After only 14 miles we had had more than we could take, and we were ready to call it quits. When we got to the road we decided to hitch into town for a cold shower and a night in an air conditioned hotel. I hope the weather starts to improve soon! Happy birthday Julia
Date: 2007-07-11
From: NY 17/Arden Valley Rd

To: West Mtn Shelter
Miles today: 12.8

Erin After a night in the hotel we were refreshed and felt much better to start hiking. We called a taxi to drive us back to the trail and we were hiking by 8:30. It wasn¢t too hot today but just as humid. We started up the first uphill and we met another hiker, ¢Bonafide¢ and her dog Bohneca. She had taken a zero day yesterday when the dog and she were just too hot to continue. She had called her sister-in-law to come save her from the heat. We told her about our story and that we had been struggling the last few days as well. We chatted and hiked with ¢Bonafide¢ for most of the day. We made it to the first shelter (the one we had been aiming for last night) for a snack and then the second shelter 5 miles later. Because we had only planned on doing 12 miles today I wanted to take a nap at this shelter and so we stayed longer than anticipated. When we left we could hear the thunder starting to get closer so we had to try and get to the next shelter before the storm hit. We made it within .1 of mile of the shelter and the rain really started to pour. The lightning was right over our heads and one of the lightening bolts struck so close that Will almost hit the ground. We stopped hiking and jumped into some bushes without our poles. Then we decided to go down a little to some over cut rocks so we could sit under them and wait out the storm. After another ten minutes it was much safer to keep walking to the shelter. This shelter happened to be .6 of a mile from the trail; that is the longest we have had to walk to get to a shelter. It was on the summit and once the clouds went away we could see the NYC skyline. We had time to rest a little. I was able to take a quick nap and we talked with the only other hiker there, ¢Life Traveler¢. The temperature dropped a lot and I was actually chilly just before we got in the tent.
Date: 2007-07-12
From: West Mtn Shelter

To: Stream before Denneytown Rd
Miles today: 18.8

(Willie)Wow, what a difference a storm can make. After days of hot, humid, and hazey weather, this morning we woke up to a clear sky and a cool breeze. Heck, it was so clear that we even had a nice view of the NYC skyline from our tent when we got up! You could just tell that it was going to be a better day.The cooler temps were perfect for our little walk through "Bear Mountain" country. No, we didn't see a lot of bears on the trail today, by "Bear Mountain" country I mean that we walked up and over Bear Mountain, through Bear Mountain NY, through the Bear Mountain Zoo, and over the Bear Mountain Bridge. Dispite hiking through civilization for most of the morning, including next to kids in the zoo who kept saying "who smells" there were some good parts. First off, we were able to pick up hambergers and pizza at the concession stand. Heck, we even got to see 3 bears. They were behind bars, but they posed for a picture a lot nicer than the ones in the woods.After we crossed the Hudson River, it was back to the woods and thankfully off of the pavement. The next stop on the hard search for water in NY was at the Graymoor Monastery. That would have been a nice place to stay, seeing how it had running water, electricity, and a shower, but we had more important things to do. We had to go a few more miles so that we could meet up with my mom tomorrow for dinner. So at 4:45 we started walking north again. Our plan was to go to the Denneytown group campsite, but we ended up stopping at a stream about 1.5 miles short that actually had water in it and a flat spot for camping next to it. Only 17 ish miles to go to get to NY 52 to meet my mom for dinner!Life Lesson: If you're hiking with us and want to see some bears, try walking through the zoo. That seems to be our best bet.
Date: 2007-07-13
From: Stream before Denneytown Rd

To: NY 52
Miles today: 17.3

Yesterday after stopping a mile or so before where we had planned, we had a bit more to put in today before meeting Will¢s mom. The trail didn¢t start out too bad, lots of rocks and some ups and downs of course. It¢s been much of the same for a few weeks now. At about 5.5 miles we passed a trail register that had 20 other hikers signed in for that day and it was only 11:00am. We think that everyone has grouped together because of the really hot weather we had last week. Many people took some time off or did fewer miles. Now we have a crowd just like when we started in Georgia. We made it up Shenandoah Mtn. and then down to the RPH shelter where we met up with a few of the 20 that had signed in earlier. Most of them were heading to the next shelter so it was good that there would be two less tenting there tonight. The RPH shelter was a nice one though, it looked like an old school house with one wall taken off it also had a hand water pump that had a notice, ¢water tests sometimes come back positive for bacteria, treat water¢. Many people had not seen the notice and were already drinking the water¢¦oh well they are taking a chance. We did the next 5.5 miles very quickly. The trail was very well maintained and a lot of the rocks had been placed to form a wall along the trail. The blazes on the trail were very well done and the person that did them had some fun with it, and painted rocks on the ground as well. We made it to the meeting spot right on time and Will¢s mom was walking towards us. She took us back to Fishkill, NY to the hotel where we cleaned up and then went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner. It was really nice to have a shower and to feel clean again even if it was just for a short while.
Date: 2007-07-14
From: NY 52

To: Telephone Pioneers Shelter
Miles today: 11.5
Weather: few clouds

(Willie)Wow, that must have been one heck of a comfy bed last night; I was completely out of it when my dad called at 6:30. I could hardly even remember how to use a cell phone, let alone open it and say hi. But seeing that he was calling from South Africa I guess I¢ll forgive him for the early wake up call. Once my heart stopped pounding I was able to go back to sleep for another hour and a half before getting up for breakfast and start the wash. We got back to the trail at about 1:00 after a tough battle with the lady at the photo center in Walmart. It ended in a draw (we didn¢t get our pictures, but she didn¢t get our money either. It was a little later then expected but that seems to be the norm. Sorry Trish for making Mom late for your house warming party. From the parking lot, the nice New York trail took us 11 miles to the shelter. It was pretty much an easy stroll the whole way. One thing that I¢ve been noticing is the number of stone walls that we¢ve been seeing since we¢ve gotten up north. I¢m not sure how they got there, but I sure as heck wouldn¢t want to be the kid that got in trouble and had to move all of those rocks!