morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2012-07-15
From: Poplar Ridge Shelter

To: Hwy 27
Miles today: 21.0

15 July, 21 miles to Hwy 27.  Only 188 miles left!        7/15/12  "Today we hiked 21 miles. It was hard. We had a VERY VERY long day. We hiked with Peeps. We met a family of 3, two brothers, and one sister. No parents, they were around college aged".              ~Sunshine:-)  Long day, but good.  We are both pooped!  Every muscle in our bodies are jello.  We are defiantly sleeping in tomorrow!  At this point, I may need to be carried to the car in the morning, ha, ha jk.  No really, I can't get up. No, I'm kidding. The weather held.  We were concerned after last nights surprise storm.  It's been our experience out here that rainy days come in at least pairs... or so it seems.We climbed Lone, Spaulding, Sugarloaf, South Crocker, and North Crocker Mountains. We had many steep gains and losses, but a fair amount of gentle grades as well.  I guess the word to describe the trail difficulty today would be varied. We continually tried with no success to pick up our pace.  Tomorrow looks similar, but then Maine seems to flatten nicely soon.  We hope to pick up our pace soon to give ourselves an extra travel day on the way home.  We met/passed 7 north bound Thrus today.  By the looks of the shelter registers, we are closing in on a large group (12ish) of north bounders in the next day or so.  It's fun meeting new people. Sunshine was given Bearbell Chicken by "Walking Home" to carry for the Wounded Warrior Project last night. She handed it off today to other Nobo's. The point is to take and upload FB pics to raise awareness while it makes its way up the trail.
Date: 2012-07-16
From: Hwy 27

To: Long Falls Dam Rd.
Miles today: 20.0

miles to Long Falls Damn Rd.  168 miles left to Katahdin!  Look! I can spell it correctly now!  We slept in today after a solid 10 hours of sleep.  It was wonderful.  We have a tendency to push too hard when we get close to a goal, so we are aware of this and are taking the appropriate steps to not burn out.  From this point on we will both have 10 hours sleep minimum, hiker midnight will be strictly enforced at 8:00pm, we will continue to top off our water at every source (no taking chances with dehydration), Teresa will pump us up on fresh produce every time we meet, and double up on our Emergen-C packets.   So, there are less roads in Maine and they don't always come in the intervals we would like.  You may have already noticed that our support isn't always over night anymore.  The other day we met at lunch, walked another 10 miles to a shelter, then hiked 21 miles to meet Teresa and Butterfly for that night.  There's going to be more of that coming up.  Looking at the elevation profile, today was the last of the big mountains, but there's often hidden difficulty not associated with elevation.  We worked hard today in the muggy heat.  We both were sweating like pigs.  At this moment, my clothes look like I've been swimming.  The rocks, roots, and steep down hill portions slowed us down quite a bit.  Sunshine is becoming excited with the end of our goal in sight.  Our feet were soaked all day from all the standing water from last night's storm.  Oh, I didn't mention that huh?  It rained hard all night.  It was quite the thunder storm too.  The humidity is so high right now that I wouldn't be shocked if it stormed again soon. We broke 2,000 miles hiked on the AT today! That gives Sunshine a total of 4,650 miles in the past 16 months.
Date: 2012-07-17
From: Long Falls Dam Rd.

To: Moxie Pond, ME
Miles today: 30.0
Weather: light rain

17 July, 30 miles to Moxie Pond.It rained the first half of the day, but because of good company, time flew by.  We ran into Polaris and Sketer first thing this morning and talked with them all the way to the Ferry.  It's always great comparing stories with other hikers that hit places at different times than us.  We last saw them in VA 2 months ago.  That's right, there is a ferry/canoe that ferries hikers across the Kennebec River.  It is considered official the AT route across by the ATC.  In fact Fording the river on foot is considered "blue blazing" (blue blazing is using short cuts or alternate routes)  Apparently there have been some close calls there in the past, plus there used to be a real ferry there that hikers used on the original trail of the 30's. We ate lunch there after 18 quick miles, while waiting for the ferry to resume at 2:00pm.  We chatted with Mother Teresa and Butterfly for a few and hit the last 12 miles if the day.  Everything is wet and slippery!  The last 12 miles were over a mountain, so we had to work quite a bite harder in the afternoon.  It was foggy so there were no views to be had.  We ran into some great people tonight that let us set up camp with them and invited us to their fire.  Thank you Paul and Missy!
Date: 2012-07-18
From: Moxie Pond, ME

To: Hwy 15, Monson, ME
Miles today: 25.0
Weather: light intensity drizzle

Only 114 miles left! We are both beat! Today was only 25 miles, but yesterday's 30 drained us, and we've been wet for 3 days now. I think the wet really messes with our (Especialy mine) "Give-a-Damn". As you know, thru hiking is 90% mental discipline. We had our first ever AT fords today. 3 to be exact. The first one, was so insignificant that it wasn't even marked as a ford. Of course this seasoned PCT 2011 thru-hiker has so much experience that stopping to survey the proper route wasn't necessary. Oh, you see where this is going, Huh? My foot slipped, and I crashed backward into the river with tremendous momentum, soaking Sunshine with my fabricated tidal wave. The next two fords went much smoother with some attention to detail. Since we were already wet, we enjoyed some swimming in the third river crossing. Sunshine had a blast jumping in up stream, and floating back down stream with the current.   Tomorrow we enter the famous 100 mile wilderness and plan to Summit Katahdin the 24th!   I'm bushed, good night.
Date: 2012-07-19
From: Hwy 15, Monson, ME

To: Third Mountain
Miles today: 22.0

19 July, 22 miles to somewhere between Fourth and Third Mountains.  91 miles left! 7/19/12       "We figured out that we will be done in 5 days!!!!! We can not wait!! We are at the point of every hike that we are ready to go home because we are sick of stinking, waiting FOREVER for a shower and being mistaken as HoBos.  We hiked about 22 miles. WE ARE COWBOY CAMPING!!!!!!!!!!!! Right now every star in the sky is out and shining!! We are happy to be in the 100 mile wilderness(that is only 90 miles long). It is pretty cool. We also hiked a bit with Kittens(a man who enjoys Kittens  so he was talking to his dad about a trail name and his Dad said "dont pick something stupid like Kittens" so on the first day he told someone that so his name had to be Kittens.) We are tired.  Katahdin here we come!!!!"                        ¢Sunshine:-D As to maximize our rest from the motel, we slept in late today.  Teresa made us a delicious breakfast with bacon, eggs, hash browns, and gravy.  Because of this fine luxury, we started late (10:00am).  Teresa and Butterfly are camping at a road 30 miles ahead, where were originally aspiring to walk to today.  Well, we knew that ship was sunk before ever leaving the motel, so we packed to camp tonight. And so we are.  In fact, we are cowboy camping (no tent set up) on a rocky ledge just off the trail.  We did this a lot on the PCT and really enjoyed it.  Sunshine hasn't been willing to do it out here until recently when we were told that we were out of poisonous snake territory.  Every star in the sky seems to be out, so rain shouldn't be an issue. Hopefully, our first moose sighting, won't be while being stepped on by one, ha, ha.   We met 3 NoBos thrus today, but apparently passed several that went into the last two towns unbeknownst to us.  There were several names we've been closing in on in the trail registers that aren't there anymore.  Too bad, we really wanted to meet them.     We had two river fords today.  They went much smoother then yesterday's.  Of course Sunshine expertly crossed another stream on slippery rocks only to slip once on shore and fall into a calf deep puddle.  Just enough to get her shoes nice and wet a couple hours before bed time.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and I enjoyed dry feet all day for the first time in days. It was wonderful! The terrain was quite hilly today, but not like the treacherous mountains we recently scaled.  We should see Mother Teresa and Butterfly early tomorrow morning for breakfast, then continue on for the day.  We are in the "100 Mile Wilderness", but there are logging roads where you can drive cars to the trail in several places.  Not exactly what we're used to in an area called wilderness.  We had a good laugh when just 4 miles after the sign warning hikers to pack 10 days of provisions, we happened into 2 coolers full of drinks and candy bars for sale and a lock box for payment of said goodies.
Date: 2012-07-20
From: Third Mountain

To: Little Boardman Mountain
Miles today: 28.0

20 July, 28 miles to Little Boardman Mountain.  Only 64 miles to Katahdin, and the end of our second jewel.          7/20/12 "Only 4 more days then we will have only 3,000ish more miles left to our goal... The CDT and Triple Crown. We can even SEE Katahdin now!  We hiked 28 miles and hurried to meet mom and Annika for breakfast. Mom made us PB&J's to carry for lunch.  It was awesome. We arrived to camp at dark."             ~Sunshine:-D  We are beginning to develop end game strategies already.  Maybe a 32 tomorrow the 21st, a 24 on the 22nd, and  a 7 to the summit on the 23rd!  We'll see how tomorrow goes.  Today started out slowly.  After 8 hard miles, we joined Teresa and Butterfly for a 10:00 breakfast.  Descending those steep mountains was so slow and arduous, that we couldn't make any time.  The afternoon went much more smoothly and we made up some time.  We've both been rolling our ankles a lot the past few days.  My left ankle is a bit swollen now.  Oh, up date.  I mentioned falling on my hand a couple weeks ago.  It's still very sore and I can't grip anything very well with it yet.  There is some sort of little varmint harassing me right now as I type.  It sounds small, but sure is squealing loudly from tree to tree around us.  I've never heard one so wound up before.  I wonder what's it's deal?
Date: 2012-07-21
From: Little Boardman Mountain

To: Pollywog Stream
Miles today: 32.0

21 July, 32 miles to Pollywog Stream. Only 32 miles left!7/21/12 "1 more hiking day left(tomorrow)!!!! We figured out that today 28 and tomorrow 30. Then Katahdin the next!!! We hiked 28 miles. It was hard. We can't wait to be at the top!!!   We had a long day and are hiking very hard!"               ~Sunshine:-D  Ok, remember yesterday's story about the angry little critter in camp?  You're going to love this one!  That crazy thing kept me up literally all night.  I hardly got a wink of sleep.  Every time I fell asleep, or was about to, It started running towards me in the bushes.  I'd have to turn on the light and shoo it away.  I remember thinking " what's this little guy's problem, doesn't he ever sleep"?  While we were packing up at first light, I recognized it as a red squirrel.  It then ran up the tree above us and deliberately chewed several pine cones off the branches and tried to drop them on us while squealing wildly.  Later in the day while telling this bazar story to Teresa, I noticed a Red Squirrel carrying leaves down a hole in the ground.  Then it hit me... I was sleeping on it's home!  I made the poor little fella stay outside all night, oops. No wonder he was so irate. I don't blame him.  I thought squirrels lived in trees.     The trail was great today, but I was so tired.  That last 2.5 miles seemed like it would never end.  We went for a refreshing swim in the afternoon to keep me awake.  I was dizzy and nauseous most of the day.  Now imagine feeling like that while trying to keep a 3 mph pace for 12 hours.  I have to go to bed.  Tomorrow is the last 27 miles of hiking before our early Monday morning ascent of Katahdin.
Date: 2012-07-22
From: Pollywog Stream

To: Katahdin Stream Camp
Miles today: 27.0
Weather: scattered clouds

22 July, 27 miles to Katahdin Stream Campground.  5 miles from the summit of Katahdin and the end of the AT.   7/22/12 "Today was our LAST HIKING DAY!!! All that is left is one BIG HARD climb, Katahdin!!!! We hiked 27 miles. It was flat and easy. We REALY enjoy Manie!! We hurried and are spending the night at 'the Birches' in Baxter State Park."            ~Sunshine:-DFinally!  I got some sleep last night, and right on schedule for even more tonight! You probably want some sort of deep meaningful reflection of our journey since it's our last night.  Sorry, but I'm still recovering from all the Squirrel drama the other night.  I promise to reflect throughly on our finish day.    We met a triple crown hiker helping a friend start a Sobo hike.  It was great visiting with Tommy and picking his brain for CDT advice.  Chatting with such an accomplished hiker made our morning fly.  Our pace even quickened.  The trail was wonderfully flat and easy tread the last 10 miles so that, with the fact that we were excited to finish, gave us a steady 4mph pace into camp tonight.  We followed a beautiful river much of the way.  The trail meanders gently through a beautiful evergreen forest.  It really was a classy finish to the hiking portion of our second amazing journey.  We plan to wake early and begin our climb up Katahdin at first light!  The AT ends at the summit and after hundreds of celebratory pictures, we backtrack 5 miles and drive home.  We were North Bound Thru-hikers # 70 and 71 to register at Baxter State Park, where all the thru-hikers stage to Summit.  Not bad since we were number 481 and 482 at Neels Gap GA.  Sunshine is so excited to finish and I am very proud of my amazing little girl!
Date: 2012-07-24
To: Rochester, MN
Miles today: 0.0

Here's a funny story I forgot to tell you earlier.    When we arrived to Baxter State Park, we had to register with the ranger there before staging for our final ascent up Mt. Katahdin and the completion of the AT.  While finishing the safety briefing, she mentioned that there was an adolescent bear frequenting that particular site due to the carelessness of another thru-hiker previously.  She told us how to scare it off and that it would leave fairly quickly if we didn't feed it.  However, if it did get food from us, it was ours for the rest of the evening.  She chuckled a bit, but wasn't joking.    Before we left for our camp, I foolishly asked if there was a soda machine in the park.  She jokingly replied, "Yes, it's right next to the pool and spa".  I said. "Sorry, we thru-hikers are addicted to sugar like it were crack, because of all the calories we burn each day.  If you hear us rummaging through your fridge tonight, don't be alarmed.  Just come into the kitchen banging pots and pans together or clapping your hands loudly.  Then raise your hands over your head to look bigger than you really are, but don't look us directly in the eye so we don't become aggressive and bluff charge.  We will then run off like chickens back into the woods where we belong. But if you feed us, we'll never go away"!  Well... She thought it was funny anyway.  We have almost raised enough charity funds to place one clean drinking water well in a village in Zambia Africa. With the dollar for dollar match by a generous reader, we only need $700 more for one well, but have the potential to purchase two! Please consider giving to our Active Water campaign if you are able. Just think how many lives we can save together!  Here is the address to our fund raising page.  The money goes directly to Active Water and is recorded towards our goal.  Your donation is of course tax deductible.  You will need to cut and paste it from this page.  Thank you!www.active.com/donate/activewaterupick/sunshine2012at  We will be announcing our 2013 hiking plan soon!  We will also be blogging here periodically through August before closing out this journal.  Thanks for following us!
Date: 2012-08-02
To: PCT
Miles today: 0.0

Aug 2nd, to Phantom Natural Bridge, OR and Bull of the Woods Wilderness, OR.  11 miles total.  It's the 19th anniversary of my 21st birthday today.  In celebration, the whole family joined me on two hikes.  We are leaving to do PCT trail magic for the rest of August and I had to submit 2 of my hiking columns to the Statesman Journal (Oregon's capital city's news paper) before I left.  We had a great day and I accomplished my recon mission!    Sunshine is very excited to begin supporting Monkey and Momma Bear through Oregon.  Monkey is 9 and has a real chance of beating Sunshine's age record on the PCT.  Sunshine likes the idea of helping her do that.  I think it's great and look forward to meeting them as well as Chili, who is 13 and has hiked the AT already.  We will be feeding hikers hotdogs and cold drinks on the OR/CA border for a week until Monkey and Momma Bear arrive.  Stay posted as Sunshine and Butterfly will be journaling here for you about their Trail Angel adventures!
Date: 2012-08-04
To: CA/OR border
Miles today: 0.0

Trail Magic Day 1 "We slept in very late. We had one hiker early. Dad made him breakfast. Then we meet Hasty, he is waiting for his girlfriend who is hiking the trail. Annika and Hasty made up a welcome to Oregon song for people. Then at noon we saw Sweep, San Jay(Sun jay, real name),and P-Track. Butterfly and I walked to and from the Oregon border(we probably made a world record) all the time. It's just a 1/4 mile from camp. Then when it became afternoon Sutterbug and Ice Man(not David) came. This has been fun blowing up balloons and helping people."                           -Sunshine:-)"I woke up late, because we drove forever yesterday and set up in the dark. I ate breakfast and decorated our magic. We blew up a lot of ballons. I liked walking to CA with Sunshine. I talked Sunjay and P-track into playing Ballon Stomp with us. It was fun"!                           -Butterfly
Date: 2012-08-05
To: Ca/OR border
Miles today: 0.0

"We more than tripled our hiker attendance from yesterday in just 5 minutes today! All total, almost 50 hikers came thru today! The girls blew whistles and horns while the hikers came out of the woods in bewilderment and excitement. They gave everyone party hats to wear and showed them around the magic while I cooked hot dogs. Everyone loved it."-Balls   "I talked to A LOT of hikers today! And I ate a lot of hot dogs! Sunshine and I played Ballon Stomp while everyone watched. I love nature".            -Butterfly
Date: 2012-08-06
To: CA/OR border
Miles today: 0.0

6 August OR/CA magic  "A nice reporter named Amelia let us Stay the night at her house last night. She filmed the TV episode of Sunshine for OPB last year.  She is very pretty and has long brown hair.  Sunshine and I slept on air an mattress and Dad slept on the floor (he's not picky).   When we drove back to camp on the border there were tons of hikers waiting for us.  I love talking to hikers! It was very windy and stormy last night, so when we got back our tent was upside down."        -ButterflyTrail Magic day 3 "Today we met Chili and Pepper. It was fun hanging out with Chili. He is one year older than me.  We talked and played tick-tack-toe. They spent the night here.  Chili has already hiked the AT, so we had a lot to talk about.  We found out Monkey and Mama Bear might be here tomorrow."       Sunshine
Date: 2012-08-07
To: CA/OR border
Miles today: 0.0

Trail magic day 4Today we met Mama Bear and Monkey! It was very cool to meet them! Monkey and Annika were only seen for 5 mins then we only herd giggles. They played and ran around aimlessly though the woods. I played Balloon stop with them(5 mins) and talked with Mama Bear. They are very nice people!!-Sunshine
Date: 2012-08-09
To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

9 August Ashland   "Yesterday, I climbed a real mountain over 6,500 feet!  It's name is Mt Ashland.  But I think it should be called Ashland Hill because it is smaller than most mountains here. It was easy to climb. It started easy then harder and harder on the rocks.  Then finally, the top was easy again.  I did not do this alone, I was with my new friend Monkey and Sunshine.  Monkey and I have so much fun together exploring in the woods.         -Butterfly"Butterfly, and I climbed Mount Ashland. When we got to camp tonight, they took off for the mountain.  They said they were exploring. After a while they were way up the mountain (you cold see them, it was rock and a grassy meadow the whole way). So I left to see what was going on.  I was a bit worried.  When I asked them what they were doing, they said "We ARE going to the tippy top". So I climbed the rest of the way with them. You know, to make sure they were safe. It was lots of walking up sandy banks. Then walking though thorns, which ended with rock scrambling".      -Sunshine   "Momma Bear and Monkey arrived to our trail magic around 4:00 pm  on Tuesday the 7th.  Monkey and Butterfly hit it off immediately.  They are both 9 and going into the 4th grade.  They are both so full of energy and love to explore.  They disappeared into the woods while the rest of us visited.  We knew the girls were near by because we could hear loud squealing and giggling from the bushes periodically.  Momma Bear and I worked out a plan for slack packing them and they left around 6:00 pm to put in a few more miles for the day.    Early Wednesday morning we met them at Sheep Camp Spring to pick up their gear so they only had to carry snacks and water for the day.  We returned to the border and fed hikers until early afternoon. We gave a section hiker a ride out on that nasty little road, on our way to Ashland.  It took 2 hours to drive just 25 miles.  We refueled, resupplied, recycled, and returned to the trail.  We met Momma Bear and Monkey and drove to a public camp with, yes... Toilets!  All three girls had a blast exploring the area.  Finding kid time is always so hard for Sunshine along the trail, so we know what a recharge this can be for Monkey, and that's really our mission here.  We are now set up with Magic along another road to drive hikers into town as needed.  A local woman named Dominique dropped off Busted Magic this morning and returned later with a large box of fresh organic local fruit for us to give the hikers!  Wow!  Trail magic for the trail magic!  It never ends!  The PCT is an amazing community, and we are thrilled to be "home"!    We will pick up the girls further north of here and shuttle them back to a town where they will zero with "Papa Bear".  We will go home for a day to see Mother Teresa who has been diligently working on finding a teaching job for this school year.  We will return to support them on the PCT again.  We also look forward to giving out cold drinks, water, and snacks to Thrus while we wait for Momma Bear and Monkey.  More of a mobil magic now of sorts".-Balls
Date: 2012-05-20
To: Hard Core
Miles today: 0.0

The Damascus Hard Core event was Sunday, May 20th and Monday, May 21st. This is the largest trail maintenance event involving hikers on the entire Appalachian Trail. In spite of the obstacles, the hikers, club members and friends stepped up and volunteered in numerous ways to make this 12th annual outing a huge success.We worked only Sunday and then we rode back to Hot Springs with Chuck & Tigger to spend the night before heading home on Monday. What was accomplished was impressive to say the least. You can check out the new trail sections for yourself. On Sunday, 1200 feet of new side-hill trail was built and the two final relocations on south side of Pond Mountain were opened!On Monday, about 1300 feet of new side-hill trail was built and a major relocation of over 800 feet was opened!Well over 1000 lb of equipment went up the mountain with 90 people on Sunday and about 80 people on Monday. Additional tools were available for more people.The Tennessee AT License Plate program generously provided the funds for the Sunday dinner. It was coordinated by Ed Oliver and consisted of barbecue sandwiches, baked beans, tossed salad, pasta salad and brownies at Watauga Point Recreation Area.