morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2017-08-02
From: Great Barrington

To: Great Barrington
Miles today: 8.6

Thunderstorms and long-distance hiking are not often a good combination.But there are exceptions to this rule, and one is when we got to witness this meteorological phenomenon -- and possibly the biggest downpour of the trail so far -- from the deck of an unexpectedly excellent Mexican restaurant, having completed our day's hiking several hours before.The previous evening's luxuries of a hot shower and brewpub had already fully justified the push to get into Great Barrington. Today's sub-10 mile day was helpful after my week of roughly 20-mile days, but avoiding the downpour was just a serendipitous bonus.As the three of us headed out this morning, the previous evening's hitching success proved to be no fluke. A woman drove us a mile past where she was headed to take us to the trail, and as she was picking us up, another car was in the process of turning around to pick us up.The hike itself was easy enough, going up a hill behind a local ski area and then back down the far side to Route 7, the highway we were originally aiming for.We knew the forecast was for a storm on the way and soon thunder began reverberating around, out of an incongruously blue sky. Grey clouds soon followed, as did a light drizzle that in the scheme of things was a pleasant change from the heat and humidity so we welcomed it rather than taking out our rainwear.The final part of our route has it following the Housatonic River, a watercourse that would dominate our next week, until we were nearly out of the next state, Connecticut. We didn't know that at the time and our focus instead was on a worrying warning sign advising us not to eat fish out of the river because of PCB contamination.All this took us to Route 7, where the hitch back to the community center was more problematic because we were now on the opposite side of town. But we needn't have worried. After a few minutes, a tree surgeon called Marco from Guatemala pulled over and proceeded to give us the extended tour of his favourite restaurants and bars in town.This included visiting the booze shop (alcohol isn't sold in supermarkets in Mass) and finally to Xicohtencatl restaurant, where we were just finishing the most authentic burritos this side of Trump's wall when the huge storm rolled in. The rain was hard enough to make us move in from our seats on the verandah.But we'd also learned that when the rain is torrential, it also tends to be short-lived, so we waited it out then walked back to our tents in the forest behind the recreation center.Life is good.AT fact of the day: The hot tub at the community center has been my goal for days. But as I headed on to use it after our nero, it turned out that it's a "therapy pool" rather than a classic hot tub,you and that today is the day it was closed for cleaning...
Date: 2017-08-06
From: Kent, CT

To: Pawling, NY
Miles today: 18.4
Weather: clear sky

Today was quite a day for milestones. After a few hours of hiking, I crossed the unmarked line which signifies the one-third point of the trail. Then after lunch I crossed out of Connecticut for the final time (the trail had earlier briefly crossed into New York and back again), with this border marking the end of not just our fifth state but of New England as a whole. But probably of the greatest significance, given the central role that food now plays in my hiking universe, I did my first bout of "deli blazing" -- hiking from deli to deli, the compensating counterbalance for the less-wild and the more densely-populated nature of New York state.If Toni's Deli is an accurate introduction, I'm in for a fun time in this state. The hot roll filled with enough melted cheese and deli meats to choke a horse was the perfect end to a hiking day.I'd started that morning in Kent with a town breakfast, which always seems to set me up well for the day. A local filling his car with gas then drove me a mile out of his way to drop me back at the trail.There was a short steep climb to regain the ridgeline and that's pretty much where the trail stayed for the next five miles before dropping down to Bulls Bridge, a historic covered bridge at a point where the Housatonic squeezed through a set of cataracts exploited for hydro electricity generation.I blue-blazed down a side trail to see the bridge, which remains in use, and then took advantage of the convenience store nearby to slake some cold soda ready for another afternoon of climbing and descending.I'd already crossed briefly into New York on the stretch before Bulls Bridge and the bottom of the hill was roughly mile 729.9, which my internal calculator seemed to think was one third of the current AT distance of 2189.5 miles.The next section of trail took me across the Connecticut-New York boundary for the final time.I had a powerful incentive to haul a few more miles: Toni's Deli, about which nobos had been waxing lyrical.And it was work the extra effort, even if my ass was definitely dragging on the ground a little by the time I finally arrived an hour before dark.The sandwich they created revived my spirits and then the updated forecast on my phone -- calling for rain from soon after dawn, totalling an impressive-for-these-parts half an inch -- was enough to confirm my original plan for tomorrow to be a zero day.Life is good.AT fact of the day: The deli people seem to be used to hikers too -- they understand about enormous portion sizes and of the importance of WiFi and the provision of power outlets. And they let hikers sleep on the side lawn for $2, where they have the opportunity to be, um, serenaded to sleep by highway noise on one side and the blaring horns of passing Metro North trains on the other.
Date: 2017-08-07
From: Pawling

To: Pawling
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

It's set to rain all day and I'm tired from 12 days of hiking, so I'm taking a zero day.And I'm doing exactly that: zero.Life is good.AT fact of the day: The rain supposed to be the heaviest in some time, with more than half an inch forecast. But it never really fulfilled its billing and there was just light drizzle for the second half of the day. I was still happy to be indoors though, watching bad American daytime TV.
Date: 2017-08-30
From: Rocky Run shelter

To: Harpers Ferry
Miles today: 15.6
Weather: clear sky

¢I¢m hiking the AT,¢ I explained. ¢I think I¢m supposed to drop in here?¢The staffer at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy beckoned me outside, where he photographed me against a backdrop I¢d seen in a gazillion other thru-hikers¢ photos. The resulting photo went into a binder of similar images of nobo, sobo and flip flopping AT hikers.This is how I discovered I was the 32nd sobo to have reached what¢s known as the spiritual halfway point of the trail, in the historic township of Harpers Ferry.This was the final of the long series of halfway points on the AT, beginning with the half gallon challenge, the formal halfway marker, the accurate halfway marker, crossing fom the North to the South on the Mason-Dixon line and now this, the spiritual halfway point of the Applachian Trail because of the presence of the ATC. I was surprised that Juicy Fruit and Suches, hikers who go way faster than my geriatric pace, were not in the book ahead of me, but they rocked up to the ATC about an hour after I¢d arrived and while I was enjoying a rest in the hiker lounge. Not for the first time, I used the phrase: ¢I was sure you were ahead of me?¢ They said they got sick of walking in the rain the day before so they¢d hitched into a town at a road crossing after they¢d last seen me because there was said to be free massages offered to thru-hikers from some kind of therapy school. Alas their timing was off and they picked the one day it was closed, although they were able to have a free hot tub session.We wandered back into town together and found a burger place for lunch and a pint, then booked into the bunkhouse at The Town¢s Inn, run with quirky charm by a former Texan academic, Karan. Even though the 16+ miles we did today is roughly six times what the average American walks each day, it was a short day by our standards and felt like a rest day, especially when my specific goal after a few longer days is to do absolutely nothing other than lounge around for the rest of the afternoon. Life is good.AT fact of the day: We¢d barely finished our burgers and might have been on to a second beer when Juicy Fruit, Suches and I looked at each other and all said words to the effect of ¢Is it wrong to already be hungry again?¢ Hiker hunger is certainly kicking in.
Date: 2017-08-31
From: Harpers Ferry

To: Washington DC
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

After a week of solid hiking, a day of indolence sounded like just the ticket. Just 60 miles away in Washington DC, there was a friend from Abu Dhabi who I hadn¢t seen since her job was emiratised and she headed back to the US a few years before. And after 1150 miles, there were a few bits of equipment I needed to replace.Life is good.AT fact of the day: My options to get into DC were to take the two commuter trains in the morning, which occur at commuter hours and way earlier than I wanted to rise on a zero day, or take the Amtrak at 11.30am. That was a no-brainer, allowing a leisurely morning in a diner, drinking coffee and reading The Washington Post before getting into town at a far more civilised hour. The only flaw in this cunning plan was this was a train that originated in Chicago and ended up running four hours late...
Date: 2017-09-06
From: Timberville

To: Timberville
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

It'd be wrong to say that we did nothing during our two days at Sweetblood's grandfather's sumptuous mountain house.One activity was our continuing cultural elucidation of Dirt, whose movie knowledge reflected the narrow compass of deemed acceptability one might expect from a bible college student who came from a deeply religious family. This had led to constant refrains of "What do you mean you've never seen [insert iconic movie here]". And we're not talking about her failing to have seen movies like Debbie Does Dallas or Straw Dogs or even The Omen. Going through the collection of DVDs at the home led to Dirt admitting she'd never seen either The Princess Bride or Monty Python and the Holy Grail.So we watched both of those. And drank beer and cider. And chatted to John and Dave. And generally chilled out. I tell you, our days were full! AT fact of the day: I'd been falling behind on this journal while on the trail so most of my time at the house was spent catching up. And after doing eight days of entries using the crappy swipe-typing on a dodgy five-year-old smartphone bought second hand in Jerusalem last year, something went wrong* and I lost them all, prompting me to give up on updating this journal contemporaneously, although I took notes to do now I'm off the trail. .(* Full disclosure: previous experience would suggest this is most likely caused by what's known as a PEBKAC error: Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair).
Date: 2017-10-08
From: Damascus

To: Damascus
Miles today: 0.0

After more than a month since I last hiked in rain lasting more than a few minutes, it seemed like the universe was smiling on us when our double zero with Dirt's family in Damascus coincided with two days of precipitation caused by the tail end of Hurricane Nate. Just how blessed my walk in the southern AT has been was demonstrated by remembering the last few times it had rained, one of which was when we took a double zero at Sweetblood's grandfather's home and another was when we were in Charlotteville with Pepa as the tail end of Hurricane Irma soaked everything. That's ridiculously lucky.But it's not like we were doing nothing in Damascus -- there was a Harry Potter marathon to play. The sobo demographic meant the others in Team KRT were the generation whose childhoods were intrinsically tied with JK Rowling's tales of the young wizard, whereas I had neither read the original books or even seen one of the movies. This double zero turned into a triple zero because Sriracha had come down with some kind of intestinal distress. After making a visit to a doctor's clinic in Abingdon, he was prescribed antibiotics and, although he didn't ask it, he was happy to accept the benefits of taking an extra day off to recuperate. The fact that it was also raining on our third zero-day was just the icing on the cake.Life is good.AT fact of the day: On our third night, we went to town for a meal and met a bunch of sobos who'd been following us for months but who we hadn't met. Then we dropped in to Crazy Larry's hostel in Damascus, where I encountered Beast and Packaged Meat, who I hadn't seen since Lincoln, New Hampshire, and the 100 Mile Wilderness respectively. And in turn we met the southern superbubble he was hiking with, which included many of the people we'd hike with for the next month. There must be 30 sobos in town tonight. Crazy!
Date: 2017-10-29
From: Gatlinburg

To: Gatlinburg
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: snow

The snow that was falling at our mountain mansion, 5000ft lower than we'd been on the AT, made it very easy to decide to stay an extra day here and abandon our plan to hike out.What made it even easier was getting messages from the others we knew in front of and behind us.The Second Breakfast Club had headed back to the trail on the day we came down but encountered truly miserable weather. Many of them are pretty minimalist in terms of gear -- as shown when they posted photos showing them wearing puffy jackets with cheap plastic rain jackets over the top as they headed through a foot or more of snow -- and we knew these were unforgiving conditions in the mountains.Fern, Gully, Wrong Way and others were behind us by a couple of days on Max Patch, where they also encountered snow a foot deep and cold blustery winds.And us? We did battle with a hot tub and drank beer... http://www.trailjournals.com/j...And in case some people think we were shirking, we continued Dirt's catch-up of iconic movies that she missed because of her deeply religious upbringing. Last night was The Big Lebowski and today was Fight Club. A true sign of a quality movie is they stand up even when seen again -- particularly Fight Club -- so this was truly no hardship.Life is good.AT fact of the day: It'd be tempting to think that because we didn't hike today, there wouldn't be another "last thing", where we're doing something for the last time on the trail. But that's not so. Giardia takes two weeks to incubate and with our projected finish date of November 11, today is the last day we need to treat water if we want to avoid getting afflicted by intestinal distress on the trail. (We'll keep treating it anyway, since giardia isn't much fun even if you do have easy access to porcelain, but it's just one more landmark on the way to Springer.)
Date: 2017-10-30
From: Gatlinburg

To: Gatlinburg
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

After the torrential downpour of two days ago then the blizzards yesterday, today dawned with clear blue skies so we cleaned the house, packed up and squeezed into Jamey's truck for the trip back to Newfound Gap....and found the road was closed.The culprit seemed to be the national park's environmental rules that prevent salting the road so that even a remarkably modest quantity of snow was able to keep the road shut even after temperatures had risen.After faffing for a while, we headed back to Gatlinburg, which was even less lovely than it had seemed two days earlier and we understood why it was informally known as the Redneck Riviera. Apart from the existence of Dollywood, the -- and I'm not kidding -- Dolly Parton theme park outside town, there were T-shirt shops portraying Trump as Superman, some kind of Jesusworld Christian-themed attraction and lots and lots of places selling things like corn dogs and funnel cakes.Jamey headed back home with our thanks for his generosity over the previous few days and then we spent the afternoon waiting to hear if there was any news on the road. The prospect of the road opening today seemed unlikely so 2am looked online for a place to stay in town and found two rooms in a motel that could take all of us for $100. That included an all-you-can-eat breakfast where I'm pretty sure we can get our money's worth...We'd just booked that when we received a text message from the rangers that the road was open... Of course!I was happy to head up now and forfeit the hotel booking but it seemed like I was alone in this so instead we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the awesomeness that is an abandoned mini-golf course, then whiskey tasting and dinner at a pub-restaurant after which we took part in the quiz night as "Team Hiker Trash", blitzing the first two rounds but then falling at the end.All this might explain why the evening ended with all of us getting "This ass climbed Mt Washington" -- a tattoo we'd half-seriously talked about getting as a tramily -- written on our asses in Sharpie. Hmmm. Maybe you had to be there...But life is good, and tomorrow we're due to go higher than than Mt Washington for the first and only time on the AT. Life is good.AT fact of the day: We wandered around all day in our halloween costumes. www.trailjournals.com/j... Sweetblood was in an Eeyore costume, Sriracha was Super Mario, 2am was in a bull outfit and I was in a bear costume that was supposed to be a Thunder Buddy from the movie Ted. How could I resist that, and especially when I used the ass Sharpies to change it to "Rolling Thunder buddies"? Except my costume really really looked like Pedo Bear instead! And especially after we started tasting whiskey and drinking beer, we kept forgetting that we were in costumes and only realised by the expressions other gave us as we walked around.
Date: 2015-03-02
To: AT Kick-off
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

I've been contemplating starting this journal for months. I've actually been writing my thoughts and plans for years. This weekend we are heading to Georgia to the Appalachian Trail Kick-Off, so this may be the perfect time to Kick-Off our journal. I will be posting our weekend events here, and then will post some flashback entries...how we came to know about the AT, what kind of hike we have planned, and what we have been doing to get ready to hike the trail.One week ago I could say we have a tent we've never put up, backpacks we don't know how to pack, a stove we've never lit...and lots of shopping still to do. Obviously we are not experienced hikers. We will not be of those of whom people will say, "They will be ones to make it!" Nope. We're out of shape, we are in our 60's, and we have a lot to learn.We sadly have limited time to hike. Dave still farms...central Illinois corn and soybeans...so we have to be home to plant and then to harvest the crops. Bummer! But let's be real...we are going with the expectations we might make it a few days...then maybe a few weeks...and I'd love to be gone a few months if we can!*Quote: ¢It¢s impossible,¢ said pride. ¢It¢s risky,¢ said experience. ¢It¢s pointless,¢ said reason. ¢Give it a try,¢ whispered the heart. ¢ Anonymous
Date: 2015-03-03
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

So this week we are in high-gear preparation phase. I am nearly done shopping. We have been experimenting with our gear. The tent is set up in our basement and we have been packing our backpacks. I am very curious to see what our pack weight will be, and how much we will be having to pare back on our supplies. Today I bought food for a 5 day hike. So what is our plan for the weekend? We will head out Friday morning for a 10 hour drive to Amicalola State Park in Georgia. We will spend Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday attending the various speaker sessions and visiting with the various vendors. Our secondary goal is to hike the Approach Trail. We will climb the steps and hike the 8 miles to the top of Springer Mt. and the beginning of the AT. Depending on the weather, we may begin to hike the trail itself. Yikes! In March? That was never in my plan...to hike in the cold or possibly in the snow. So we'll see.*Quote: "My goal is to find courage and strength to get through my 1st night. If I survive, then the next night, etc...."
Date: 2015-03-03
To: Confusion
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

I am struggling a bit with the journal. I have written posts over the last few years in preparation for going live with a web journal. So now...where do I start and how do I organize it? These first entries are live time...happening now...regarding the AT Kick-Off weekend we are anticipating. I want to journal about the upcoming days on the mountain, the Kick-Off activities, and then any days that we might spend hiking. Then I guess I will flashback to my earlier thoughts and how this whole thing came to be and what landed us on Springer Mt. to begin with. It's been a long time coming and you will laugh, maybe shudder, and definitely shake your heads at a woman and her dreams...and the poor man she drug alongside her. *Quote: "It is so easy to romanticize about the hike from my desktop computer or while shopping at REI, but I'm sure reality will hit me that first week on the trail."BTW, the quotes at the bottom of my posts are all coming from my notebook. My HUGE notebook of everything I've read and know about the Appalachian Trail. So they are not original quotes from myself, but things others have said that I thought were significant.
Date: 2015-03-05
To: Packed!
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Well, we're packed as much as my mind and body can handle. There are a few pieces missing yet, and apparently much that we need to take out because those packs are heavy! I was surprised how much food weighs. We won't need everything that we packed on this preliminary hike, but we want to see what works and what doesn't and decide what we really do need. There will be people at the Kick-Off who will go through our packs and make recommendations for us. We need it, that's for sure!The weather has played havoc with the roads between Illinois and Georgia. But we are hoping that by mid day tomorrow when we will be going through Kentucky and Tennessee, the ice and snow will be cleared off the roads and we will reach Amicalola State Park in good time and in one piece. Speakers start at 7 PM.Last night we stayed with our grandchildren overnight. I was cold in their house and when I went to bed, I did do a little whining about how freezing I was and I had a hard time getting to sleep with my cold nose and hands. I admit I kept thinking, "This is nothing! Wait till I try to sleep outside in the cold!" Oh dear.*Quote: "If you're going to be stupid, you better be tough!"
Date: 2015-03-06
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

We have arrived at the top of Springer Mountain! It wasn't even too bad! Oh wait! That was driving...We had a long drive through some backed up traffic on snow and ice packed roads. We checked into the lodge at Amicalola State Park and went to the Visitors Center and weighed our packs and hiked around a little. We came upon a shelter and found a young man wiping some tears as he had just said goodbye to his loved ones. There are a lot of hikers here who are starting their trek from Georgia to Maine.To clear things up, we are on a practice hike. we plan to only be here for a few days to learn and test our gear (see first days entry). Then we will return after planting crops.We are heading out now to our first class.*Fact: About 2 to 3 million people walk a portion of the AT every year.