morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2016-08-08
From: Redington stream campsite

To: rangely me
Miles today: 8.0
Weather: scattered clouds

It was nice fast 8 miles into town and we're looking forward to our second zero, or less judgementally, donut day (thanks james) in rangeley. We shelled out for a nice room at the farmhouse and had a fancy meal with wine in town to finally celebrate kate passing her boards. There had been a bachelor party at the hostel recently and they had donated a ton if food and beer to the hiker box. So that more than made up for the extra expense. The place was full of nice sobos we hadnt met yet too. I only discriminate here because of late we've run across some snarky nobos, which thankfully are in the minority but we must've just been passing thru a rough patch of em. To the point, there was a nobo today, who I think goes by popper, who stopped just to give me a worthers candy while I was huffing up some climb. And he apparently makes a habit if doing that for climbing sobos. That was so nice it inspired me to do the same when I've got my sour patch kids handy. It's pretty easy to be the magic. Although one lady flatly refused and looked at me like an ax murderer when I offered (I suspect she's either a day hiker or completely mental), the next guy lit up like a birthday cake gave me the reverence of Santa. And all for the small price of a couple sour then sweet gummies. We made excellent time into rangeley due in no small part to kate's competitive side getting stoked but a couple of fast day hiking teens on our tail off of saddleback. Saddleback was one of my favorites too. We lucked out with the weather and it was a few great miles of above treeline, 360 views. A couple fun boulder scrambles too.
Date: 2016-08-09
From: rangely me

To: rangeley
Miles today: 0.0

Zero day nomero 2! It felt very choresy though since I had some lingering emails to respond to that I'd put off for months and was starting to hate myself for how much a slacker I'd been. Got em done though. Felt weird to do stats in a cute resort town library. Surprise surprise there was no statistical software on the library computer so I had to use some extreme mental math, basically guessing. I didn't bring my phone into town either so getting into my Gmail was actually herculean task. There were five security options, only one not involving my phone. One of the security questions was what month and year did I open my Gmail account. That was like 12 years ago!, what month?!. I kept answering it wrong and getting frustrated and somehow it eventually let me in. So much for security questions. We had a great breakfast lox at moosely's that morning with mcfly and Anthony, then put zed around town for resupply and had a beer and watched some Olympics at a sports bar. the town had our first big supermarket, an iga, and they had liquor! I got a couple airplane bottles if bourbon. Nothing like a nip or hot tea toddy n a cold night end of a long day.
Date: 2016-08-10
From: rangeley

To: dirt rd near oquossoc
Miles today: 14.2
Weather: overcast clouds

We got a shuttle to the trail from the farm house at 730 sans town breakfast, which was a bummer. I was jonesing for another lox bagel frome moosely's and had gotten up early to have time to hitch into town and back. I was calling to place the order waiting for a hitch and there was no answer. Luckily a farm house guy walked by and I mentioned they must be opening late and he told me oh yeah, they're closed wednesdays. At least I didn't go all the way in to find that out. Farmhouse was great but I'm not a big fan of out of town hiker hostels. This was only like 1.5 miles out but it feels like you're a teenager without a license asking your folks if they can drive you around. Anyway, nothing special on the day. Just relatively easy miles out of town. I got a nice swim in at sabbath day pond and ran into our new rangely sobo friends, legs and shepherd with her awesome dog bela. ( I'm Mr. Tuxedo by the way. Not sure i ever mentioned my trail name in here. ) Who apparently doesn't swim and can't stand clapping. Pretty weird for such a smart, normal looking aussie/collie mix. Shepherd smacked a bug on her arm and bela got up and went to the other side of the beach in protest, clearly pissed off. On the way down to the road to oquossoc we started passing some weird people. One even tried to find out where kate was gonna be camping, so pretty freaky. That made me even more wary of sleeping near a road but we knew there'd be a crowd of sobos there at least. Rolling into the campsite we missed yet another awesome trail magic cookout. The sign was still out but a nobo relished in telling us we just missed it. To cap it all off, and I'm so mad at myself, I got impatient with a can of clams when my Leatherman didn't have a good can opener. I was thinking to myself this is probably a bad idea as I was forcing it and I sliced open my thumb. I'm so bad with blood and I knew it'd be a bad cut so it was great t have Dr kate to help. She bandaged it up and gave it a 3/10 in severity which I didn't believe but gave me hope I'd play guitar again since she's usually a worst case scenario prognosticator. It's on the left side of my right thumb so hopefully shouldn't give me issues with the poles tomorrow. First trail injury! And it's a bone head cooking flesh wound. So upset with myself.
Date: 2016-08-11
From: dirt rd near oquossoc

To: Andover rd 1
Miles today: 12.2
Weather: broken clouds

I'm writing this one post facto and the main thing I remember about this day is how hard it sucked. It was probably the hardest day for me to walk. You look at the miles and elevation profile and it looks like cake, but for me I felt like a wounded elephant seal trying to make miles. It was hot as hell and all water sources were dry or super shitty so I had to camel up. I got to Bemis mountain shelter where I caught up to kate who was chatting with a slack packing nobo. This dude was very friendly but was talking a mile a minute and as I was soaked several times over with sweat I scrooged out on him and just tried to ignore him. Good news is some other slack packing nobos had passed through and given everyone blueberry pancakes so kate snagged me one of those. Later on When we got to the peak of old blue mountain I laid down on some cold rock and could have slept there comfortably until morning. Kate had pulled away from me on the climb and so thought I was near death and refused to let me sleep. Which was a goid thing. She gave me candy and somehow I got a second wind and handled the really steep descent to the Andover road.
Date: 2016-08-12
From: Andover rd 1

To: Andover rd 2
Miles today: 10.1
Weather: scattered clouds

Another wet day only this time from rain. I was actually praying for rain at the beginning I was so sick of the heat and humidity. How quickly your body adjusts to the new normal. I would not have even called this humidity back in NC. Eventually though I was just wet and not particularly thrilled about. We pushed on in the rain after lunch at least knowing we'd be having a town dinner. When we finally got to the road the hitching situation didn't look to promising. There were a half dozen nobos who'd been waiting there an hour and had only seen 2 cars that didn't stop. Then kate and I and one more nobo showed up. There was zero cell service so I wasn't too hopeful as it was a barely paved side road. Ended up not being an issue at all though. Some dude in a suburu picked up the whole first group and shortly thereafter a truck swooped the remaining three of us. He was a couple beers into a six pack of Sam adams oktoberfest and gave us each one, instinctively opening the bottles with his seat belt. It was 5 o clock on a Friday and he seemed experienced so I wasn't too concerned. It was pretty great trail magic. A little slice of Nola up in the north woods! We got into town and ate some terrible, undercooked fried everything at the general store. The whole town was booked up because of the rain and we were kinda dreading having to hitch back and stealth camp when word got round that the little red hen was letting people camp out back for free. They seem like great folks. Besides the free tenting they gave a bunch a people low on funds free leftovers and even made them some pizza. Anthony, I think noe OTB, was really nice to grab me a slice when I told him how terrible our dinner was. We also met ninja something or other who is attempting to break the sobo unassisted time record. It's craziness, she basically is hiking all day and night and has pulled a 50 mile day before! I was just thinking how am I even talking and drinking a beer with you right now? She's trying to start something like walk off the war for vets that I wish I could remember the website to. It sounded nice so I'll have to post later.
Date: 2016-08-13
From: Andover rd 2

To: baldpate lean to
Miles today: 8.0

The mountain reminded me who's in charge today. We were coming over east peak of baldpate mtn and had just come above the cloud line. It was really beautiful and had a weird mystic look to everything. While we were walking down to the little valley between east and west peak though we got hit with some cold and fast moving fog and were in white out conditions. It was all exposed, wet granite and when we got to this one cairn we couldn't tell where the trail went. I went down this one slope to look for a blaze and bit it hard after slipping on some black moss or something. I landed pretty weirdly and hard on my right knee and was thinking the worst. Thankfully all the moving parts still work and I just got a skinned up knee and what will probably be a pretty nice goose egg in the morning. I knda braced myself with my hand with the clam can cut and was worried that might've torn open too but I lucked out again with that. I took it real slow into the shelter after that! Scored a chocolate chip peanut butter cookie from a father son that came out for the night at least. The day started and ended wet. We got a great breakfast from the little red hen in Andover, plus pie, ice cream, muffins, and coffee. It was tough to pack up and get moving though having been wet all yesterday and knowing we were gonna be wet again all day. After hearing the pine Ellis was charging 12 bucks a person for a ride back to trail we went to go stand on the corner and hitch in the rain. We weren't having much luck and almost went back in for lunch when a nice bear hunter picked us up. That was an informative ride. For starters, I'm glad I have my blaze orange bandana and yellow pack cover because this dude baits bears in some spots within a mile of the trail, and apparently it's close enough to hunting season already and you can kill as many bear as you want. He likes to bait them with marshmallows and then bow hunt them. And he doesn't like people that hunt them with dogs. On that we agree. He gives the meat to elderly and charities in the area too, so I don't really have a problem with it I guess. Just something I couldn't do.
Date: 2016-08-14
From: baldpate lean to

To: mahoosuc notch north end
Miles today: 9.3

We just did 1.5 miles in about 3 hours and change. That section is called the mahoosic arm and after lunch at speck pond we planned to do that, plus the mahoosic notch, plus a couple more miles to the full goose shelter. But when we rolled up on this campsite and realized it was 7pm, that was that. We probably went about that same speed coming down to speck pond off of old speck mountain too. It was just treacherous. Super foggy and misting on an already damp ground of mostly super steep and very wet granite that alternated between sharp and slippery and just super extra slippery. The terrain and conditions today were harder than katahdin. I picked up a few more scrapes and cuts and Kate took a few turtle falls but luckily we're functionally unharmed. I've got pretty scant rations if we're doing two more full days before town so we're hoping to get up early tomorrow and pull a big day to make up some lost miles. The prognosticators are saying the sun may finally show its face tomorrow for the first time in a while. I'm really looking forward to the mahoosic notch first thing tomorrow with a fresh pair of legs. It's supposed to be the hardest/most fun mile of the AT according to the guidebooks. Just a giant boulder field scramble that's one big puzzle. The day started off with me waking to find my food bag with three freshly gnawed holes in it. The little bastards ate two big holes in my bowl and stole some of my cheese. That's the first and last time I'll ever hang my bag at or near a shelter. Everyone else was doing it and I got lazy and did too. Oh well, lesson learned. It was a damp but not rainy start hiking and about 3 or 4 miles in we got some awesome trail magic from a beautiful family set up at the grafton park parking lot table. They made us egg and cheese sandwiches on a toasted bagel, real coffee, ice cold soda water, zucchini bread and brownies. Omg I love them. Emily and Dave thru hiked sobo in 02 and then with their two adorable kids and dog nobo a couple years ago, when the kids were 7 and 9. That's pretty impressive. They were out there waiting to meet up with her parents who are thru hiking nobo right now, and were going to join them for a week. So they've got thru hikers from 7 to 70s in the family, plus dogs. Pretty amazing. It was funny, as kate and I were wrapping up a nobo showed up and said he'd met her folks last night and had just passed them on the way down. When the kids heard that they flipped out and started running down the trail with their two dogs while the dude tried to clarify that by "just passed" he meant like a mile or two ago, but they were going for it anyway. We saw them again all together well into our climb out and gushed to the grandparents how much we loved their children.
Date: 2016-08-15
From: mahoosuc notch north end

To: Gentian Pond shelter
Miles today: 12.3
Weather: broken clouds

When you do all the math, we went around 1 mph average today. And when you throw in lunches and other what have yous, it was a 13 plus hour day. I'm obviously exhausted and sore right now but there was a lot of good today too. Foremost, we're in New Hampshire! It felt really good to walk out of Maine. And the last mountain we climbed, mt. Success (couldn't help but spout cliches the whole time about what it takes to be successful), had gorgeous sunset views of the whites and what I think was mt. Madison and washington. I'm super excited for the presidentials, not to mention a zero day in gorham. We had hoped to make 15 miles today to leave us less slog to town tomorrow, but as it turned out it was all we could muster to get here and had to hike the last hour or so down yet more granite slab in the dark. Although thankfully mostly dry. A big part of that delay was the Mahoosuc notch, which we started our day with. That mile alone took us just shy of 3 hours. It was a lot of fun though. We had to take our packs off several times to squeeze through holes and were bouldering the whole way. And it was a nice change from yesterday in that it was scary in the sense that you might twist your ankle instead of scary like slipping off a wet granite cliff to your death. There were a couple times I was literally hanging from hand holds trying to catch a splits foot hold to go down gently. Even saw some ice sheets in some of the caverns. After that we ghought it'd be smooth sailing but the next 2 hours I only got 3 and change miles and it was more steeps, granite slabs, ladders, stairs, etc. I had a nice little rest nap atop one of the goose eye peaks and actually got to dry out some gear and clothes in the sun finally, including my guitar. It's a clear night now too and the full moon is blaring. Kate and I are both feeling optimistic and didn't put our tarps up over the hammocks.
Date: 2016-08-16
From: Gentian Pond shelter

To: gorham
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Got up early to try and go talk to a moose, but no luck. Kate went back to bed and slept in which made for an approximately 4.5 hour morning prep time for me. In general, from eyes open to pack on I usually take a solid 2 hours. Taking my sweet time in the morning is nice benefit of still being faster than kate. Although today I barely caught her each time. On the flats and uphills we're evening out. Today I made a couple rounds of coffee, read a bit and watched the fog and mist burn off. Gentian pond is another beaver dam pond and they've got a cool hut structure right in the middle. It was finally able to do some faster miles which was nice, and we made it to the white lodge around 3 or 4. Basically had food and beer delivered by a combo of mr. Pizza, and the nice lade marney that runs the place. We got in just before another heavy rain hit. It was just drizzling th ed last few hours of our hike so we felt pretty good about watching the rain from inside.
Date: 2016-08-17
From: gorham

To: gorham
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

Man its easy to hitch in gorham. Avg wait time: 2 minutes. Good people. Got some delicious breakfast at the hostel then putzed around watching the Olympics and playing guitar while kate got her 15 hours of sleep in. I finally got signal and was able to call home for the first time too. I lucked out as the folks and sister were all at the same table having breakfadt. It was good to talk to them. I've been texting, but talkings nice. We picked up a great package my dad sent and bounced our box on to hanover. Did the town chores and such and then hung around the house. I under-ordered dinner and had to buy a pizza from the house, which only had meatlovers left. It's hard to stick to vegetarian without a lot of careful planning, which I did zero of, and I do the non veggie ramen all the time, and accept whatever food people make or offer me.  This was serious though. Thankfully my stomach took it like a champ and I didn't really notice. Hit the hay early.
Date: 2016-08-18
From: gorham

To: past imp
Miles today: 8.3
Weather: broken clouds

Poor kate had a rough night and day out of gorham. Her stomach had her up overnight, then with our heavy packs out of town we cut the day short to get some rest. Post town days are rough for me too but not quite as bad as she deals with. Her knees have time to remember their pain. Couple nobos have said they stop zeroing altogether for that reason. We're not there yet tho, zeros are still awesome. Right as we were making dinner macroman walked by though and named her slope turtle, so she's got a trail name now! It's appropriate because when she's on she can steam up those hills but on the way down she pulls like .5 mph, and turtles often. I witnessed a slowmo turtle today in fact that she capped off with a beach whale slide. I had to unhook her out of her pack so she could get up. She was just so exhausted we knew then it was best to call it a day and sleep for 12 hours. Earlier we got another delicious bfast from white mtn hostel, and I misread awol again to take us out of the way by about a half mile right off the bat. Luckily this other hostel worker pulled off the road to tell us with maximum vulgarity that we had missed the trail. She had stopped by the day before to swear at me how much she enjoyed my guitar playing in the lawn. Nice lady. Probably saved us another couple wasted miles. I was all full of new music too. Before breakfast I'd been asking everyone to quickly name one of their favorite albums. Not THE favorite, just any album that they love. I guess it shows my age but a lot if the youngins this is an impossible question. They don't think in albums. One girl told me the guardians of the galaxy soundtrack. I balked at first but that's like a curated list and is actually really good. Hong Kong Steve gave me a few Chinese folk and Opera tunes but also couldn't name an album. I did get blood on the tracks from this brit marmalade. And realized that has literally all of my favorite dylan songs on it too, so that was nice. Another of note is a George Strait album who Vicky c described as classic country.  So that might've led to some pontificating on my part about country history, but was great exchange. I like George strait. And I introduced him to gram parsons and the drive by truckers. Who by the way are some of my favorite albums on the trail. Couple days ago I probably listened to "righteous path" like 6 times. They have so many songs where's there's barely a chorus or any melody change, just long meandering stories that are great for walking and then walking some more.
Date: 2016-08-19
From: past imp

To: before pinkham notch
Miles today: 11.6
Weather: scattered clouds

Kate felt way better today, and it was a beautiful day. Double bonus. Climbed a bunch of carter named peaks and domes and then descended the wildcats. There was a sweet view of the upcoming presidentials from mt hight too. The wildcat descent wasn't bad eithet. It was really steep but dry and in my opinion not as bad as the descent off old speck. The white mountain hostel people tried to convince me that not slacking that section was certain death, but I'm glad we didn't. I wouldn't call myself a purist, but the thought of doing a section northbound does make me bristle a bit, and so does slacking, and so does blue blazing, sooo...  maybe I'm a purist now. I guess of all those, slacking bothers me the least, if it's in the right direction. Weird. We ended the day trying to get close to pinkham notch to make it a quick hike to ayce breakfast in the morning but entered another "forest protection area", which is really an AMC protection area since there's pay camping at pinkham. I don't quite get that since this is national forest. Obviously if there's a trampled down, growing camp site you gotta put a stop to that, but in NC national forest means you can blow up toilets in the woods using your ak47 while driving your jeep through the brush. A lot of ski resorts are national forest land too which means you gotta pay if you want to ride the lift, but if you want to hike up that slope and ski down for free, this land is your land. Anyway, think I'm disproportionately bitching again since so far the AMC'S been just a minor inconvenience with real food in between.
Date: 2016-08-20
From: before pinkham notch

To: Madison hut
Miles today: 9.0
Weather: overcast clouds

We visited our first AMC hut and got work for stay. Haven't been able to sleep to we'll because the other two dudes that are doing work for stay are snoring up a god damn hurricane. Nice fellas but damn. I'm not sure if it was worth it. It's kind of weird. We got in around 4 and had to wait until 8 to eat. Leftovers were fantastic but th hen it was a bit odd scraping grime off the oven overseen by a power hungry college kid treating us like Cinderella. He was the only bad one though. Rest of the croo were nice. Its kinda cool scene you got a statistician, veterinary cardiologist, nasa chief engineer, and i forget what thd other guy did, all cleanung the kitchen under the micromanaged supervision of that little twit. We're all vagrant hobos now. The work and time it took to do it were no big deal either, I just couldn't stand that pinche esquincle. It did save us a 1.5 mile hike to the only other spot to camp round here I guess. We sleep on the kitchen floor but at least it's warm. I dunno. I'm undecided ig I'd do it again but on this stretch of trail there just aren't that many options since it's all above tree line. Speaking of which I finally got to experience some epicness of the whites. We hiked in from our stealth otsidd the consumer protection zone and got an all you can eat breakfast at pinkham visitor center. Then we got a stellar day to hike up mt. Madison. Once out of treeline it was really great. All craggy boulder fields with 360 views. I was ahead of kate and the weather was stable enough at the top I got to play guitar for an hour or so behind a cairn and watch the clouds whip past my face.