morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2019-07-31
From: Katahdin Stream Campground/Millinocket, ME

To: Abol Bridge/Millinocket, ME
Miles today: 9.8
Weather: mist

We got up early again to go back to Baxter State Park. We left a little later but still made it to the park on time. There wasn¢t a line of cars waiting for parking passes this morning. I wonder if it¢s that there is a higher chance of storms today, if people prefer to climb on the first day of the month and are waiting for tomorrow, or a bit of both. Hiking today was rooty but fairly flat, especially compared to yesterday. I¢m very sore today. It hurts more stepping down than stepping up. My arms are even sore.We got to see some waterfalls and cross a couple of creeks. The guides said we would have to ford one, but I made it across by rock hopping, even with my short legs.At one point we ran into mosquitoes. People had warned us, ¢The mosquitoes in Maine are the size of birds!¢ They didn¢t seem bigger to me than the mosquitoes in Pennsylvania, but there were more of them and they were aggressive. I had on long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a bug headnet, and bug spray on the backs of my hands, so they bit the palms of my hands! The good news is, my immune system no longer feels like it needs to have a huge reaction whenever I get bit. The bites are annoying but after an hour or so they don¢t itch. The last few miles were along the Penobscot River. I saw a bald eagle flying downstream. We both saw 3 nobos that will summit Katahdin tomorrow and finish their thru-hikes. It¢s exciting to see their excitement.We left the park and got a beautiful view of Katahdin. The next half mile was a road walk. We got to a restaurant and my parents were there, so we joined them for lunch. We then made them drive back to the view of Katahdin and take our picture. The rest of the day was packing and organizing to begin the 100 mile wilderness tomorrow. Fortunately we can sleep in a little in the morning because we don¢t have to go into the park.
Date: 2019-08-01
From: Abol Bridge/Millinocket, ME

To: Rainbow Spring Campsite (ME)
Miles today: 11.5

Even though we could sleep in this morning, I woke up about 4:45. I went down to the hotel lobby and tried to update the blog but couldn¢t get the WiFi to work. I had yogurt and bananas for breakfast. My parents drive us back to the restaurant where we left off hiking yesterday.  We say goodbye and begin hiking. We are on the road for another half mile or so and then see the sign that we are entering the 100 Mile Wilderness!The mosquitoes are bad again. SC got out her bug spray and immediately ran out! She¢ll have to carry the empty can for the rest of the 100 miles.We asking people who we pass if they are thru-hikers. We meet a few, but most people are section hikers. I meet a guy who started a thru-hike in 2011 and is finishing up the last 850 miles. He tells me he¢s seen 2 moose today!Moose are something I have never seen in the wild, so I hope I get to see one. I¢ve started seeing moose poop, at least that¢s what I think it is. It looks like deer poop only 5x bigger. I also saw a moose track today. We stopped at a shelter (they¢re called ¢lean-tos¢ in Maine for some reason) and talked with a few people there. The plan was to hike to the second shelter for a total of 15 miles, but the hiking was very difficult today. It didn¢t help that I¢m more sore today from the Katahdin climb than I was yesterday. Also, I¢m carrying the most food I ever have at one time which also makes things harder. After the lean-to, we meet up at this place called Rainbow Ledges. The ledges are covered with blueberry bushes with ripe berries. SC picks almost 2 cups while she¢s waiting for me. There¢s a great view of Katahdin here. SC and I were planning on meeting up at a campsite with a spring to get water. 1.3 miles from the campsite, I fell for the 5th time on the trail. I¢m not sure what happened, but I figure I must have tripped because I fell forward and ended up with my face just inches from the rocks. It was the first fall where I had to take off my pack in order to get up. Anyway, not long after I came up on SC. She had forgotten where we were meeting. I told her we would just stay at the upcoming campsite because I had fallen and didn¢t want to go farther. When we get to the campsite, it¢s pretty full. There¢s a group of campers doing a 22(!) day trip from Stratton, ME to Katahdin. The counselors have some of the campers move so that we can have a space. In addition to the campers, there appear to be 3 nobo thru-hikers and a guy with a huge food bag, so I¢m gonna guess he¢s a sobo. We heard from a nobo that we don¢t have to worry about doing a bear bag hang here, which is good because our bags are heavy. We¢re going to sleep with our food and hope for the best. We can hear both loons and seagulls from the nearby lake.
Date: 2019-08-03
From: Nahmakanta Lake Campsite (ME)

To: Antlers Campsite (ME)
Miles today: 10.9

I heard a few loons last night, but not nearly as many as the night before. I woke up at one point and it was completely silent. As I was going to sleep, I heard the couple SC had helped walk out to the beach. I never heard them leave, so they must have been quiet or I must have been very asleep.I got up to use the privy this morning and had to walk by the 2 tent sites. There were no tent set up, everyone was cowboy camping. I do not trust the Maine weather enough to do that yet. Today was much easier hiking than the last 2 days. We got to this campsite before 3pm. We didn¢t climb any mountains today. I did kinda get lost after stopping at one of the lean-tos and I noticed some new rock stairs, but otherwise the hike was pretty uneventful. We even stopped before I was tired and my feet were mad. This was the first goal of the day. We had a secondary goal of pushing on to Jo-Mary Road, another 4.2 miles. I give SC the choice to stay here or push on. She doesn¢t like making decisions, so this is good for her. It isn¢t often that there is a decision like this to make. I think she wants me to step in and make the ¢adult¢ decision to move on. What we need to pay attention to is getting to Monson, ME by the time her parents come up on the 8th. We can stay here, average 11 miles a day, and still make it to Monson on time. It does make things a little tricky for tomorrow. We can either do 8 or 16 miles. I hope we can make the 16.The campsite is on Jo-Mary Lake, on a peninsula. SC picked out a tent spot right at the end of the peninsula. We should be able to see sunset and sunrise from here.Before making dinner, we went for a swim. The water wasn¢t as clean (a lot of algae) as last night¢s lake, but it was cooler, more refreshing. There are a lot of people camping here, and we got to talk to several. I count at least 3 nobo section hikers, 2 nobo thru-hikers, and 6 sobo thru-hikers. On of the sobos was the guy we saw at the first place we camped. I¢m surprised that there are so many sobos starting this late in the summer. We were both tired, so we went to bed early. SC was asleep by 6:30. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see the sunset. SC has asked that I wake her up for sunrise. I did have to wake her up just now to close up the tent because it is raining.
Date: 2019-08-04
From: Antlers Campsite (ME)

To: East Branch Lean-To (ME)
Miles today: 16.1

Last night I dreamed that I went to a pho restaurant. I was trying to figure out if they had anything I could eat given my allergies. Someone took me back to the kitchen where I was lectured by someone who had taken a class in ¢family development,¢ where she had learned that allergies were psychological. Meanwhile, SC was dreaming that she was in the house of someone she didn¢t know, but they had an amazing pantry filled with every kind of cereal. Apparently we were both dreaming about food. I woke up at 5 and the sun was not yet up. I woke up SC so that she could watch the sunrise. I went to find the privy. I finally found it on the other side of the trail. Inside was the register for the campsite. The privy had 2 seats, so most of the register entries referenced this. I got back to the tent just as the sun was coming up and decided to make breakfast on the beach. This added a little time to the morning routine, so we ended up leaving about 7:15. We stopped to have lunch at a lean-to with a beautiful swimming hole right in front. There was a Guthook comment that said, ¢If you don¢t swim here, you¢ll regret it.¢ It seemed too cold and too early to go for a swim, so I plopped myself down by the water where I could dangle my feet in. I was telling SC how good the water felt when I looked down and saw something black on the little toe on my right foot. A Leech! I quickly removed my feet from the water, and asked SC to pull the leech off. I then noticed another one on my right heel! SC couldn¢t get that one, so I had her get the salt from my food bag. I sprinkled some salt on it and it let go. I now wonder if the comment on Guthook actually was, ¢Don¢t swim here; you¢ll regret it.¢ or if it just was an older comment. The register entries from last year say, ¢Amazing swimming hole.¢  This year¢s say, ¢Argh! Leeches!¢I left that lean-to a little traumatized. We then climbed our second named mountain of the 100MW: Little Boardman Mountain. It wasn¢t anything too exciting, but I did see a hiker whose vlog I had watched. I managed to control myself and not go all fangirl on her. Anyway, even with the longer miles and crossing a mountain, we still made it to this shelter at a reasonable hour, and I don¢t feel like my legs or feet are mad at me. I would still like to put my feet in the water here (it¢s nice to stand in a creek at the end of the day while filtering water), but the water source here is full of leeches¢you can see them!!We are sharing the lean-to tonight with the sobo thru-hiker that was tented near us the first night in the 100MW. There is another sobo thru-hiker here and a flip-flopping couple we met when we summited Katahdin (but we don¢t know their names). There are at least 2 others tenting, but I don¢t know anything about them.
Date: 2019-08-05
From: East Branch Lean-To (ME)

To: Carl Newhall Lean-To (ME)
Miles today: 10.8

I didn¢t sleep well last night. It didn¢t help that some guy came in at 11:20pm and set up in the lean-to. Then his alarm went off at 5am. However, he appeared to be still asleep when we left at 7. Last night I noticed there was a ton of moose poop around the shelter. I was hoping that we might see a moose this morning but no dice. Today¢s challenge was White Cap Mountain. We stopped at the first lean-to, which was only 3.6 miles into the day. We talked to the sobo thru-hikers we stayed with last night and commiserated over the late-night arrival. Also, there was a really nice privy at this lean-to. The graffiti inside suggested it had been used as a shelter for sleeping. I could see staying there. The lean-to here was full when we arrived, so we are tenting on the other side of the Gulf Hagas Brook. I went down to the brook while dinner was rehydrating to get water. I could put my feet in here¢the leeches aren¢t bad here. As I was filtering water, a nobo thru-hiker was there telling us sobos to respect southern Maine. He said if we do a 10 mile day, we should pat ourselves on the back. He said once we pass the White Mountains in New Hampshire, things would get substantially easier. We¢ve been hearing this a lot lately from nobos.Anyway, we are tented next to a trail crew who is working nearby. I hope that means there is some nice trail in the morning. The 2 sobos we stayed with last night are also tenting somewhere nearby. It¢s a pretty crowded place.
Date: 2019-08-08
From: Wilson Valley Lean-To (ME)

To: ME Route 15, Monson, ME/Carrabassett Valley, ME
Miles today: 10.4

I had trouble falling asleep. I thought I probably wouldn¢t sleep but ended up getting several hours of shut eye. It was about midnight when I heard an eerie sound. I then remembered that there were train tracks nearby.At 2:30 I wake up to water splashing on my face. I turn on my headlamp to try to figure out what¢s going on. I can¢t quite figure out why I¢m getting wet, so I turn off the light and try to get back to sleep. I turn over and suddenly my leg is cold and wet. I turn the light back on. There is a creek running through the middle of the tent. I grab Spike and pile my sleeping bag on top of my sleeping pad. I figure I will be awake the rest of the night, but somehow I manage to get back to sleep. I wake up at 5 and need to use the privy. It takes me some time but I eventually I find it. It¢s now light enough to see so I stop by the lean-to. There¢s only one guy in there and we know him! It¢s the same guy we¢ve stayed with every night in the 100MW with the exception of night 2! If we had known, we would have totally woken him up to get space in the shelter and not have a wet tent. I bring a bunch of my stuff to the lean-to and make breakfast. Our 100MW friend wakes up and then I wake up SC to tell her he¢s in the lean-to.It was still raining. Not particularly hard, but everything¢s wet. It makes it so hard to get moving. I told SC¢s parents we would meet them at the road in just over 10 miles at 2pm, so I need to get moving. The 3 of us plan to meet up at the next shelter in 7.4 miles. We do cross the first stream together. It is a ford, but we leave our hiking shoes on because they¢re going to be wet anyway. I am moving, trying to make the deadline. In some sort of miracle, my left knee isn¢t hurting. I run whenever I can, which isn¢t much. There are no named mountains today. There is a second stream that I end up fording. Usually it is a rock hop, but the rocks are slick in the rain, so I just plow through.  There are rock ledges I walk on for quite a ways. They are not too slick and the wind is blowing while the rain has stopped, so I dry out a little. I get to the lean-to and a hiker has this huge fire going despite the rain and wet wood. SC says her parents have just got to Maine, so we have some time. I am completely out of snacks, so we cook one of our dinners for lunch. SC has service so I ask her to ask her parents when they expected to get to the pick up spot. She tells me 4:15. ¢We have plenty of time.¢ But that¢s a little over 2 hours and we have 3 miles to go. If it¢s anything like the rest of the 100MW, it¢s going to take me at least 2 hours to go those 3 miles. And I¢m right. I leave at 2:10 and get to the parking lot about 4:30. Fortunately they haven¢t been waiting too long. I am soaked by the time I get there because even though I was almost completely dry, I get caught in a downpour about 4pm. We pile into their van for the 2 hour drive to Carrabassett, ME.  Even though I¢m wet and miserable, just knowing that we are heading towards a shower and real beds makes it doable.
Date: 2019-08-09
From: ME Route 15, Monson, ME/Carrabassett Valley, ME

To: ME Route 15, Monson, ME/Carrabassett Valley, ME
Miles today: 0.0

Today was recovery from the 100MW. I was kind of disappointed that it took us 8 days to go 100 miles. I had heard the 100MW was ¢easy,¢ but maybe that¢s just in comparison to the rest of Maine. We came from Pennsylvania, where there are a lot of rocks, but not a lot of elevation. I checked my phone stats last night. I think I mentioned it before but I have an app on my phone that counts my steps and tells me how many flights of stairs I¢ve climbed each day. In July, I had a daily average of 77 flights. So far in Maine? 166! No wonder this is so hard. Anyway, today was mostly organizing food. It was also a day to sit and put my feet up. I am so thankful for a day of rest.
Date: 2019-08-11
From: ME Route 15, Monson, ME/Carrabassett Valley, ME

To: Horseshoe Canyon Lean-To (ME)
Miles today: 9.0

I was up early and took a final shower before we leave. While SC¢s Dad takes our trash from the last 3 days to the transfer station, I drop off a resupply package at a hostel nearby. It will take us about a week to get back here. In Monson, we stop by an outfitters where SC gets a pair of her own gaiters. She borrowed mine in the 100MW and is excited to have her own with a tie-dye pattern. We get to the trailhead, take some pictures, and start hiking south just before 11am. We only have 9 miles to the first lean-to. At first we see a bunch of hikers and then there are none. We do ford a river today: the East Branch of the Piscataquis River. Otherwise, it was a fairly unremarkable hike. There is one other person at the lean-to: a nobo section hiker out for the ~35 miles from Caratunk to Monson.
Date: 2019-08-12
From: Horseshoe Canyon Lean-To (ME)

To: Bald Mountain Brook Lean-To (ME)
Miles today: 13.0

I slept well last night. There was the steady noise of the river at the bottom of the hill, but otherwise it was a quiet night. I woke up at my usual 5am, but it was darker than I expected. I went to the privy and while I was there, it started to rain. No wonder it was dark. I decided to go ahead and wake up SC at 6:40. The section hiker had already left. The rain had been brief and light, and I started hiking about 7. SC passed me about 2 miles in. Today we crossed the West Branch of the Piscataquis River. Unlike yesterday¢s uneventful ford of the East Branch, SC and I took different routes. SC went for deep but short. I went for long but shallow. Apparently she chose correctly because she made it across without incident while I slipped on a rock and fell in. (For those of you following along at home, this is fall #8.) I immediately jumped back up. Later, SC remarked on my ¢recovery.¢ I was just thinking, ¢I must keep my sleeping bag dry!¢ I still don¢t know why I let Spike¢s Dad talk me into a 15L drawstring sack rather than a 20L roll top one. Anyway, I left the river significantly wetter than when I went in. Fortunately it was no longer raining and it wasn¢t particularly cold. We had several other water crossings but they did not involve fording and no one fell in. Today¢s hike was mostly flat until we were just a couple of miles from the lean-to. It was there that we climbed up Moxie Bald Mountain. It was back to raining off and on, and we could see a rainbow at the top. It was downhill to the lean-to, and there was room, so SC and I set up inside. However, the sleeping deck for this one is bouncy, which could make for an interesting night.
Date: 2019-08-13
From: Bald Mountain Brook Lean-To (ME)

To: Caratunk, ME
Miles today: 14.7
Weather: overcast clouds

It rained though most of the night, so I was glad we were in the lean-to even though every time someone rolled over, it shook the whole place. I woke up at 4:45, got up at 5:15, woke SC up at 6:40, and started hiking about 7:15. I stopped about 2.5 miles in to get water where a stream met a pond. I was sitting on a dock when a familiar-looking nobo walked by. She kinda looked at me and started to pass, and then she came back and said, ¢Are you Spike¢s Mom?¢ I recognized her from the shelter we stayed at back on Day 7! We caught up a little and then I could hear her talking to SC who had just arrived. It was fun seeing someone from so early in our hike who also recognized us. Today we had to cross Pleasant Pond Mountain on our way to Caratunk, ME. It wasn¢t a particularly difficult climb, but it was one where it wasn¢t clear if you would ever get to the top because every time we went up, we came back down again. Eventually we did get to the top and were treated with some gorgeous views. SC kept stopping to pick blueberries, so I was able to keep up with her. Several people noticed Spike today. I sometimes remembered to tell them that it was his birthday. One guy asked me if he was 1. He¢s actually 23!At the next lean-to, I told SC to go ahead and go into Caratunk, buy me a milkshake (according to the guides, they only had shakes until 4pm and I didn¢t think I could make it by then), and see if there was any room in the hostel. I pushed hard the next 5.7 miles and made it to the hostel about 4:45.  There was a milkshake waiting in the freezer for me. It wasn¢t the most amazing shake I had ever had, but after pushing that hard and long, it hit the spot. Also, when SC had arrived the hostel was full, but they had recently had a cancellation for a room with a double bed.We took it, and then got a ride to a restaurant where we both got burgers. They kept getting our order wrong. First they brought SC a blueberry ale rather than the blueberry soda she had ordered. I drank it to keep it from going to waste. Then I had ordered sweet potato fries with my burger and it came with regular ones instead, so I ended up with both. Even though SC helped with both sets of my fries, we still had regular fries left over at the end. We went back to the hostel and got showers. I noticed when I went to shower that I had a large bruise on my left side. It must have happened when I fell in the river yesterday. Fortunately, it doesn¢t bother me and it¢s in a place where my pack won¢t make it worse. Now we get to sleep in a real bed.
Date: 2019-08-14
From: Caratunk, ME

To: West Carry Pond Lean-To
Miles today: 14.0

I slept in until 5:25! I got up, used the bathroom, and then got back into bed and posted some entries to the blog. Just before 7 we heard breakfast was almost ready, so we headed downstairs for that. There are so many comments on Guthook about the milkshakes here, but breakfast was amazing, particularly the fried potatoes. I didn¢t have the French toast or the blueberry muffins and still came away very satisfied. It probably is because of the ferry schedule which has sobos staying in Caratunk and nobos getting milkshakes and moving on, but more on that in a minute. Next it was time to pack up. We weren¢t in much of a hurry because today we were crossing the Kennebec River which requires a ferry ride. The ferry is a canoe and operates at this time of the year 9am to 2pm.We packed our bags and then checked out of the hostel. They had a scale to weigh your pack. Mine came in at 33.22 pounds with 2 liters of water and a 4 day supply of food. That¢s not terrible. We left the hostel and walked to the ferry. The operator was just getting set up. We were the only ones on the ¢north¢ side of the river, so we got to go first. Spike got to ride on the bow of the boat for a little while. It was a fairly short ride, but I¢m glad to not have to ford this river! The trail today started out following a stream. There were several waterfalls and the trail was rolling. At Pierce Pond, the trail seemed to be on top of a makeshift dam. We stopped at the lean-to there to register and have a snack.After that, the trail used lots of bog boards. They are boards they put through swampy or muddy places to keep your shoes out of the mire and protect the wetlands. They are made out of wood and can be very slick. I was about .2 from the lean-to where we were staying tonight, walking on a bog board when, BAM, I¢m flat on my face. This is fall #9. I¢m not exactly sure what happened, but I somehow got my foot wedged between 2 boards, and it took some time to extricate myself from them. I don¢t know how I came away without an injury.We are staying in the shelter tonight with a couple of guys we met this morning at breakfast. They are also sobos. There are also a couple of nobos here.