morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2013-01-22
From: Check station

To: Blue mt shelter
Miles today: 19.1

It got cold last night. when i walked out of the check station, it was bitter cold. they kind that hurts your face. i met up with tony from work who gave me a ride back to the trail since leon had to leave out at 5 this morning. i checked the weather and it's supposed to rain on friday when i had planned to go up springer. i'm looking at how i could go thursday instead, but it would require a 30 mile day. it's a possibility. hiking in familiar trail is great. i'm surprised at how easy it is now. i'm in another world of shape than last spring when i hiked Georgia. what used to take me a full day i did before lunch. it's amazing. i didn't see anyone on the trail today but there is another nobo at the shelter. he is chatty. i think in towns, i talk alot or when i'm with people i know, but when i'm on the trail and tired i don't talk much. it's supposed to get real cold tonight. the low teens in the valley and we are pretty high up. gonna really test out my bag tonight. its gonna be a cold finish. but my friend Wesley is coming up friday to pick me up and we are gonna have a party at his house. my brother and roommate are coming up and a few other friends as well. i can't wait to see everyone. it's been so long.
Date: 2013-01-23
From: Blue mt shelter

To: Woods hole shelter
Miles today: 22.4

it was easily the coldest night on trail last night. i checked the weather and it was a low of 15 in the valley. i used my bag liner for the first time since i got my 10 degree bag. even with that i could feel i was barely warm. i was comfortable but i think 5 degrees colder an i'd of been in for a long night. i remember one section from last year being "very rocky" it was nothing now. its amazing how much of a different perspective i have now. it was cold till lunch. i hiked with my pullover and my ears covered. there was a few people on the trail today. i talked a while wit everyone. when i first started, i was congratulating everyone on there thru hikes. now people are doing that for me. i am less than 30 miles. at neels gap they gave me free ice cream. i asked how many sobos they had seen and they guessed about 80. thats more than last year. i wonder when the sobo completion will reach 100 in a year. blood mt did still leave me breathing hard by the top. not as bad as before but thats still a climb. the view was good and i met smokey up there. he attempted a thru but got hurt. he may get out again this year. i hope he does. i've got the shelter to myself. it's in a a small valley and much more protected from the wind. i can stand to be out of my sleeping bag tonight. leon gave me a book to read and i'm starting to get into it. i can't count how many books i've read out here.
Date: 2013-01-24
From: Woods hole shelter

To: SPRINGER MOUNTAIN!!!!!
Miles today: 28.1

I couldn't sleep last night. i kept waking up and it still wasn't morning. at 6 i was up and packing waiting for there to be enough light to hike. at 7 i was gone. i was hiking fast today with a feeling of expectation. the wind was crazy all day and bitter cold. but hat just kept me hiking faster. i met a nobo who said i wouldn't make springer today. it bugged me all morning. why would someone say that on my last day. i turned it into a challenge. i'd make it to watch the sunset. i'd also write in every journal so word would get to him that i did make it. if counting the shelter blue blazes, my final day was 31 miles. i'm sitting on springer right now watching the sun set. i asked a guy at the last shelter to take my picture, he's noboing in march. he asked me for advice and i told him all the things people told me when i first started. after he left i just sat here. big happy tears rolling down my face. 5 months and one week. 161 days. 2184 miles. hundreds of new friends thousands of memories. i made it! after so much time and hard work. hurricanes, a month of rain, feet of snow. people saying i'd never make it and a million amazing things that over ran all the bad. i'm so happy to be here. i'm proud. i'm awestruck. i'm even sad. but i wouldn't change it for anything in the world. for everything i've lost, i've gained something else. i am the "Silly Sobo Caboose" and i am done! or at least for a year, then i'm gonna knock out the PCT.
Date: 2013-03-03
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

We'll it's been a little more than a month since I finished the trail. I understand why they call it reentry. It's almost like going back into a totally different world. There's been lots of good things and lots of different things. The different things aren't different, I just see them differently than I did. When I first got back I realized how tired I was. Apparently I'd been running on nothing but grit and habit by the end. The first week back was spent as a vegetable on the couch. Simple trips to wal-mart left me tired as could be. But I did get to see all my friends I have sorely neglected for half a year. Everyone from my church wanted to congratulate me. I never stopped shaking hands the first sunday, and I still missed half the people I needed to shake hands with. The news paper from my home town of Toccoa did a story about me. I got a page and a half in the paper and they used a bunch of my pictures. I've had multiple people ask me to give speeches about my hike and I'm working on a slide show now. I've got at least three groups who want me to speak so far. I'm looking forward to starting to do some trail magic now. I'm going up to unicoi gap tomorrow to hang out with the nobos and leave food. Then next week, I'm picking up a girl from the airport and taking her up to the trail. Living in GA does make doing trail magic easy. I look forward to attempting to pay back some of the magic that was given to me. I'm still trying to figure out what all is different. I realize how loud living in athens is. It's crazy noisy it seems. And I joke around that not everyone is an instant friend like they were on the trail. It's kinda strange. My feet are still recovering. After I got back, I had a little trouble with my left ankle from where it got hurt. But I've started walking again. I'm also looking into a bike for commuting to work. I never realized how much we are inside, especially during the winter. It seems like most people are only outside the distance from door to car. I hope that if I start biking, it'll make me feel a little more outside. Every now and then I get a little stir crazy and have to get out. The first time I wound up 6 miles from the house. One of the things that seems most strange to me, everyone asks if I'm glad to be home or glad to be back. I say it's ok. It's funny, most people seem to think I went through some horrible ordeal and that it would be so wonderful to be back in "civilization". But I miss the woods. I am happy to see everyone at work and to see all my friends and family. But given the chance I'd run back to the woods first chance I got. But now I have to opportunity to tell people about my trip. To encourage others to go. And to help those who have already begun. And I'll take that for now. Because it's not a bad place to be in.
Date: 2012-02-06
To: The Big Picture Plan
Miles today: 0.0

My 2012 AT Section Hike has no scope to it this year. I have no idea where we will be hiking or for how long. Last year, I had my plans all laid out months in advance. I poured over maps, researched everything, and organized every aspect of that Section with precision. And here it is, February 2012, and I don't know anything about this year's adventure. I did start my practice hiking though back in October of 2011. Bandit and I were road walking about a mile 3 or 4 times a week. Light stuff. Then in November 2011, I acquired my next Agility project, a black lab puppy that I named Jackson. A few days later we were blessed with a foster dog that was rescued from Wind Lake. It was a cute little black female who was extremely skittish and came with no name. We called her Kate as in Princess Kate. Kate and Jackson were both such project's in and of themselves that all our plans for practicing went up in smoke. I was able to place Kate in a wonderful Forever Home late December, and following a family vacation to Las Vegas early January, Bandit and I kicked the practicing back into gear.We tried road walking but quickly discovered that doing so with a 6 month old puppy in tow wasn't fruitful practice. So we moved our practices to the Wisconsin Ice Age trails which was much safer for Jackson. This is a picture of us at the Ice Age Shelter #1. We are currently hiking about 4 times a week for 40 mintues each which is about 2 miles. I'm carrying a pack with only water so about 4 pounds and Bandit is hiking naked.My concern about when and where to hike this year has forced me to do some serious soul searching on my approach to completing the AT. If I continue to hike with Fat Grandma each year and only hike 100-120 miles each year, that leaves me with about 16 more years of hiking. That puts me at 66 years old climbing Katahdin! Wow! So I sat down and laid out an 8 year plan to finish the AT at 58 years old, hiking 220 miles/year. Unfortunately, that means I won't be hiking a lot of it with Fat Grandma, but instead doing it solo, ok with either Bandit or Jackson.Here is my plan:2012: Roan Mtn, TN to Pearisburg, VA (Miles 389.7-627.3) 237.6 miles2013: Pearisburg, VA to Waynesboro, VA (Miles 627.3-854.0) 226.7 miles2014: Waynesboro, VA to Fayetteville, PA (Miles 854.0-1073.8) 219.8 miles2015: Fayetteville to Delaware Water Gap, PA (Miles 1073.8-1285.7) 211.9 miles2016: Delaware Water Gap, PA to Great Barrington, MA (Miles 1285.7-1513.1) 227.4 miles2017: Great Barrington, MA to Hanover, NH (Miles 1513.1-1739.2) 226.1 miles2018: Hanover, NH to Rangeley, ME (Miles 1739.2-1960.9) 221.7 miles2019: Rangeley, ME to Katahdin (Miles 1960.9-2181.0) 220.1 milesWith that I now just need to figure out which section I should do this year and when.
Date: 2012-02-11
To: The Scope Narrows
Miles today: 0.0

One of the big issues about selecting which of those 8 sections to do this year is deciding whether or not I will be going to the CPE Agility Nationals in New York or not. They are in June. The Nationals are being held 1 hour from the AT and I could easily incorporate doing both the four day Nationals followed by possibly hiking 100 of New York followed by going to Tennessee/Virginia and hiking with Fat Grandma.So I checked with all my CPE buddies and it seems that many of them are not going to the NY CPE Nationals this year for many reasons. Well, that isn't going to be any fun going alone or at least a small group. Seems like EVERYONE is going to them next year in Ohio. Ok, nix the CPE Nationals for this year. Problem solved.But that going in June instead of May this year sounds much nicer. Maybe I'll finally see some of those Rhododendrons in full bloom. I quick ran the idea past Fast Grandma and yeah, he was down for going a month later this year. Should also put us behind the big bolus of people who are trying to thru-hike.Wow, so much sorted out so quickly, now back to that practice hiking. In addition to hiking now with light weight, I have also started doing daily situps. I am able to do 30 of them now but will continue to build that, add pushups, and knee exercises.Last year, prior to my hike, I was accustom to drinking roughly 8 cans of Diet Pepsi per day, bad habit! When I started my hike, I went cold turkey and man did I have a caffeine headache for about 4 days. Not a good plan! So this year, I'm going to try and reduce my daily caffeine to 0 before my adventure. I have now been able to reign that back to 5 cans per day. I will continue to work on reducing that to 0!
Date: 2012-03-18
To: Ditching the heavy Water Filtration
Miles today: 0.0

Fat Grandma's and my approach to getting safe water on the trail is using a water filter. My preference for years has been the First Need XL Water Purifier. This puppy can take a mud puddle and turn it into a beautiful, sparkling glass of water. Unfortunately, it is very, very heavy. So for Christmas this year, I received a SteriPen from my husband. It is the size of a small maglight and uses UV light to destroy bacteria, viruses and protozoa. I won't be able to use it to get water out of a mud puddle though. You have to have clear, running water like a spring or river to get your water source from. Thankfully, there are typically plenty of these types of water sources on the trail. You simply stir the water with the pen for 90 seconds and wa-la! you have safe water. And this little bitty baby saves me 1-1/2 lbs of extra weight. Great Christmas gift!
Date: 2012-03-29
To: Getting a new Backpack
Miles today: 0.0

As you can see from the gear list under my 2011 journal, for the past three years, I have been carrying a Kelty® Comanche Backcountry Backpack. It weighs 5 lbs and holds 5,600 cu inches or 90 l of gear. It is massive and heavy but it has served me very, very well. I never got any soars from any of the belts or straps and all my gear always fit in it, even when I carried more than 45 lbs. But it is bomb proof and hot and heavy. I don't think I EVER filled it completely up with gear. I got it at Gander Mountain knowing nothing about backpacking or about backpacks and actually did pretty good picking out my first ever pack.But last year, I saw so many small and lighter packs on the trail that were not so 'hot' when you hiked in them. So this year, I went shopping at REI and visited with my favorite employee there named Chuck. He's an older fella that only works at REI part-time and is hired by UW-Milwaukee to teach outdoor survival. He hooked me up with a 3 lb pack, the REI Flash 62 Pack. It is 62 l or 3,783 cu inches. Chuck is right that it is going to be a tighter squeeze to get all my gear in but there is no reason why I need to carry more than 62 l anyway. I admit Chuck is probably right but I'm still not sure I can get it all in! Better get to work on reducing stuff.I am thrilled though to have dropped 2 lbs from my normal weight!!!
Date: 2012-04-24
To: Our 2012 Section is selected
Miles today: 0.0

Yippee! Plans have been finalized for Fat Grandma, Mouse Hunter and I to do our 2012 Section Hike from Roan Moutain, TN to Troutdale, VA. Then Mouse Hunter and I will forge on alone to Pearisburg, VA. For a total of 237.6 miles for 2012. Once complete, we will have done 627.3 miles of the 2184 mile long AT!!! Just shy of 1/3 of the entire trail.
Date: 2012-05-11
To: Hiked through dog field trial
Miles today: 0.0

Yesterday, Bandit, Jackson, and I set out on a 1-1/2 hour hike on the horse/snowmobile trail from Scuppernog to the dog trial grounds and back. There is one good climb and decent along with numerous smaller ones scattered on this route. Usually it is very quiet and uneventful except for the occassional wild turkeys. The first sign that this wasn't going to be your normal boring route was when I heard a clucking sound and Jackson came scrambling back around the curve in front of us in a panic. A huge white Tennessee Walker and his rider came quickly behind Jackson! It was hilarious for both the rider and myself.Later, when we popped out of the woods into the huge dog trial grounds way at the back of the field, the clubhouse far off in the distance was littered with huge horse trailers. We were too far away to see any more details than the trailers and the entire field was completely empty. So we proceeded to make our way through the field to the clubhouse. As we got closer you could see many horses staked around eating their dinner and there was lots of barking but you couldn't see any dogs. Once at the clubhouse, I gave my two labs water while talking to a woman about what was going on. There was a field trial going on for pointers and Weimaraners which were staked everywhere. There were many beautiful gaited horses as well. Boy, did I feel out of place with two labs!It was a really good practice experience especially for Jackson though because I had to leash up the dogs right before the clubhouse and they had to behave with all that chaos. They both behaved beautifully while I spoke with the woman, must be the Agility trial experience. Neither barked once!I am now daily up to 67 situps, 12 pushups, 90 seconds standing on each of one leg, 10 dips while standing on that leg, and 30 squats. Not bad for a 51 yo with a few too many pounds. And speaking of pounds, I have gently lost 4 pounds over the past few months. As usual, I wish it were more, but it is a good start.I am officiallly down to only drinking 3 cans of Diet Pepsi per day. I have hit a brick wall on going down to 2 so yesterday I decided to try a new tact. I am going to buy some caffeine free, drink only two cans of caffeinated, and if I must have more drink the caffeine free. At least I will be reducing the amount of caffeine I'm drinking and hopefully avoid that terrible caffeine headache I had at the start of last year's hike.
Date: 2012-05-12
To: Ice Age Shelter #3
Miles today: 0.0

Today, Bandit, Jackson and I hiked for 2 hours or roughly 5 miles of the Ice Age Trail about 6 miles south of Palmyra. It was a good hike with moderate climbs and drops. I carried about 22 lbs and Bandit about 8. We started out by making our way up to Shelter #3 as we'd never been there before. It was a really nice shelter. There was a father there with his two small boys spending the night in a tent. They too had their dog with them. The father noted he had just completed the Presidential Range Traverse in April which follows the AT briefly. I forget where they camped but it was on top somewhere and they had 70 mile an hour winds. He said it was pretty exciting in a tent with that kind of wind!!Yippee! The scale showed I lost another pound this morning and my theory on only drinking two cans of caffeinated soda followed by caffeine free is working wonders to reduce my can count to two cans/day.One of the important components to all this practice hiking that I'm doing is to condition my feet. You have to hike long distances with weight and get your feet good and tired. Then hike a longer distance until they get tired again, over and over until they are used to hiking 15 miles/day. This helps to not only break in your boots but prepare your feet properly so you reduce the chances of blisters.In addition to my feet, the hiking toughens up Bandit's foot pads. It kind of like builds up calluses on them so he too is prepared for walking many, many miles in a give day carrying weight. Bandit also carries with him special boots that have rubber gripies on the bottom just like your tennis shoes. Then if he tears one of his pads or like last year, wears down his pads, he can wear the boots so he can continue to hike. The gripies give him traction then on the slippery rocks and muddy trails.
Date: 2012-05-14
To: Bandit's New Fleece Coat
Miles today: 0.0

Bandit and I went shopping today. Last year, he slept on a matt in the tent and I attempted to use my rain coat as a blanket for him. Yeah, that didn't work. Several of the real cold nights when it would get just below 32 degrees, poor Bandit would start shivering, so I would unzip my sleeping bag and wrap it around the two of us so we could snuggle and both stay warm. It wasn't the best approach but it it worked.For this year, I wrestled with the option of just buying a simple fleece blanket for him, possibly cutting down a child size sleeping bag for him, or buying him an actual dog coat. I assumed that only the blanket would be viable as the lightest option as it was one of the most common recommendations on the web (after using your raincoat) that I could find. But I was concerned that the fleece blanket wouldn't stay on any better than the raincoat overnight. So we went shopping at a nice dog store. They had this wonderful waterproof, fleece lined coat that could just be thrown in the washer. It has an added benefit of covering his tummy as well which many dog coats don't do. Weighing it at only 0.8 lbs made it a good pick. So we bought it. Now you should stay warm Mouse Hunter!!! :-)
Date: 2012-05-17
To: Adding Extra Weight
Miles today: 0.0

Since I was able to carry the 22 lbs for two hours without sore feet last Saturday, I upped my pack weight to 28 lbs and then brilliantly yesterday headed out for a 1-1/2 hour hike. Bad decision. Too much additional weight for too long a period of hiking equals sore feet and tired muscles. Ouch! Had to soak my feet when I got home but thankfully no blisters, hot spots, or strained muscles. Whew! That was lucky.It was a beautiful night for a hike last night though with a gorgeous sunset. Unfortunately, the late start put us returning to the truck slightly past dusk. Lucky for us, no skunks were discovered.Husband returned from his Canadian ATV adventure today with many wonderful stories. He tagged along while I attempted to hike the same route as yesterday, carrying the same 28 lbs, but for a reduced time (i.e. 3 miles instead of 4). LOL I was so sore. It was a real slow 3 miles!Up to 77 situps, 14 pushups, 1 minute 45 second one leg stands with 20 leg dips, and 35 squats.
Date: 2012-05-19
To: How my stove works
Miles today: 0.0

After all the sore feet and muscles on Thursday, I gave myself permission to take three days to rest. My right foot has some minor pain behind the three middle toes and its best not to aggravate that. So I decided that three full days of chores and yard work was a good idea! Today is the second of those three days and we had an impromput steak cookout with all the fixings following all the yard work. The wine and beer flowed freely and then out came my camp stove in both an attempt to remind myself how it works and to show a good friend of mine how I cook and eat on the trail.I carry a Primus Micron Stove w/ a Piezo Igniter. You screw this 3.3oz stove onto a bottle of butane, open the valve, spark the auto-ignitor, and presto, a few brief minutes later you have all the hot water you need for your dinner. Beautiful thing to have that auto-ignitor because it starts your stove in all kinds of weather. If you look at my gear list under the 2011 Journal, you'll see the titanium pot and spork that I use. The rubber base of the pot comes off and you can use it as your bowl while drinking your hot chocolate out of the pot. The pot lid duals as a pot holder. I have a wind screen for my stove that is simply an aluminum sheet about 6" x 12" that unfolds into a semi-circle that you can shelter the stove from the wind with. I didn't find it very useful last year and mailed it home. I found I could either body block the stove or put it in a less windy location easier than carring and messing around the wind screen. So I guess this means I remember how to feed myself on the trail.I'm proud to report that the decaffeinated soda trick is working. I am officially now down to ONE can of caffeinated soda per morning and two decaffeinated sodas during the rest of the day. The feeling of being tired and having a slight headache from no caffeine is thankfully fading.