morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-06-11
From: Salisbury, CT MP 1485

To: zero day Salisbury
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: haze

My Mom and Dad met me at 9AM in Salisbury and we spent a great day together, even driving one hour north to West Lebanon NY to see my older brother Joel drag racing his station wagon.Back on the trail Sunday morning at 10 AM, with a better smelling pack - what was that ring we left in the hotel bathtub anyway, Dad? Couldn't be from washing my pack?
Date: 2005-06-18
From: zero day Salisbury

To: Dalton, Mass MP 1554
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

I've reached Rob's House in Dalton, a nice place where I spent three days in '03. I've met some new hikers here: Bob, Buzz, and Seneca. Two days ago I saw Eric from Montreal, whom I haven't seen since central Pennsylvania. I saw Shorts AND his parents here in town... they had driven up to visit him. I tell ya, leave it to Shorts to make a difficult time of things! He's had sickness and equipment failures left and right. He's still about 2 days behind me, so I should see him again soon. The day after my parents came to Salisbury, CT to visit, I had a solid day of heavy rain, followed by a battalion of mosquitos. The trail left the high ridgeline and went into a low area with marshland. Suddenly there were a hundred mosquitos on each arm, and they were landing by the DOZEN on the back of my legs. I ran the remaining three miles to a gravel surfaced parking lot along the road, swatted whatever skeeters had followed me to my rest stop, and sat there debating wether to go home, get bug spray, net-clothing, etc.... but then remmebered that like any adventure in life you have to take the good days with the bad. The bugs might pursuade SOME people to go home, but they don't last forever. It's finally starting to rain with some regularity during the weeks recently, which is nice because the water sources will be fresh and flowing steadily. Three days ago, before I came here to Dalton, I spent the night at the last shelter just outside of town. It was foggy and raining all day and never got over 55 degrees. KNOWING that I was going to build a fire that night, no matter what, I kept my eye out for peeling Birch trees along the trail all day.   When I reached my destination that evening in the pouring rain, i had a pack full of Birch bark, which burns hot and easily even when wet. I succeeded in a roaring fire, scarecrow style. Adios for now.
Date: 2005-07-04
From: Rutland, VT MP 1686

To: Hanover, NH MP 1732
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

State #12, Vermont, is done!! New Hampshire and Maine are the last two. As Shorts left the Long Trail Inn (Rutland, VT) the other day, I said I'd be right behind him. I lied. Shorts left shortly after breakfast on friday morning... I stood outside in the 90 degree heat and choking humidity and decided "Nah. If Vermont wants to have its little heatwave, that's fine. I didn't walk from Georgia to die of heat exhaustion in some freak weather in Vermont" Later that night, heavy thunderstorms. Saturday (July 2) brought temps in the 60s with dry air.... perfect visibility and comfortable outdoor weather!!! I met a girl thru hiker named "Wing-it", and after a 23 mile day, we went to investigate the elusive red barn Hostel on Rt.12. He was still there, and still taking on hikers. He wanted his name removed from the hiker guidebook, making his hostel a "word-of-mouth" facility, which is nice. Dan Quinn (The steeplejack) looked great and so did the scenery. I'll post a picture! Wing-it and I spent the night in his barn. The place brought back a lot of memories. I hiked out early that morning and haven't seen her since. Catch up! I'm currently at Dave and Sue Pyke's house in Hanover, NH. It's so nice that they'd take me in! They were very hospitable in '03 as well. My pack and hammock are currently wallowing in a broth of detergent in a trash can out back. After 3600 miles of hiking, things can get a little dirty.I came out of the woods today (Hanover involves a lot of roadwalking) and right into the town parade. A TIP: July 4th is NOT a good day to go into town from the trail. None of the stores are open and there are hundreds of people about, dressed in bewildering red, white, and blue outfits. It was quite a shock. I need to resupply, so I'll probably spend most of tomorrow in town when the stores are open. In about a week I'll be in the stunning beauty of The White Mountains of NH.
Date: 2005-07-15
From: Gorham, NH MP 1880

To: Gorham, NH MP 1890
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Absolutely spectacular. The famed White Mountains of New Hampshire were beyond words. FIVE days of 70 degree weather, a gentle breeze, dry air, unhindered visibility, and a few puffy white clouds. That RARELY happens in the Whites. It has easily been the pinnacle of my hike so far. I scaled Mt. Washington (6,250 feet) which is 2000 vertical feet above treeline. on July 13th and it was absolute joy! Atop the mountain is a visitor center and weather station, with a snack bar. I was accompanied by Jive, Metric, Shorts, Sweet Cheeks, and Four Cheese at the time. Look out your window right now. You see... the backyard? a hill? your shed? the neighbors? Imagine looking out the window and all you see is a big blue sky and the TOPS of puffy white clouds, and the weather BELOW you! It truely was a city in the clouds like in Star Wars. For three days, it was hard to tell where heaven stopped and the earth began. Photos will be posted soon, I promise. I got them developed yesterday here in Gorham, but my time is severely limited on this computer. The photos are marvelous. My old buddy Paladin contracted Lymes Disease somehow, and has slowed down. I may catch him soon. Please pray for his healing. I'll probably add to this entry at a later time. i have so many stories to tell. I have less than 300 miles to go, I think. (I didn't bring my guidebook to the library). Tomorrow, I'll be in Maine, tackling the spectacular Bigelow, Saddleback, Baldpate, and Old Speck Mtns. Mahoosuc Notch is soon too! Do a photo search for pics of the Notch. Bye
Date: 2005-07-23
From: Gorham, NH MP 1890

To: Stratton, ME MP 1985
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

We're coming up on the 2000 mile marker! With only 187 miles to go, we've reached a point where we can actually see Mt. Katahdin soaring on the horizon. It's neat being ontop of a treeless mountain and seeing the "Big K" coming up in the distance, and turning 180 degrees to see Mt. Washington where I was a few weeks ago. I'm currently in a small logging/snowmobiling town of Stratton, ME, which is essentially one street with some stores and a restaraunt, and a hostel. By the way, a "hostel" is a hiker-friendly place that has basic accomodations and offers shuttles to various places for less than $30, generally. Many have good reputations and are much talked-about on the trail. Appalachian Maine is a neat place. It's commonly referred to as the "North Woods", a place where I-95 trickles down to a dirt road and Moose are as common as squirrels. All you have to do is walk into the woods and you're seriously in the middle of nowhere. It's also deserving the nickname "land of a thousand lakes", where a crystal clear, spring-fed lake bursting with trout is over every hill and around every bend. At about noon the other day, I showed up at Swift Pond Campsite and found a canoe and paddles and had a nice looooong canoe trip on a pond. I also picked up fishing tackle in Andover, ME and have been pretty sucessful in catching my daily protien. My next check-in will be in Monson, ME, with 110 miles to go. The trip is winding down and I've had the time of my life, but all things on this earth come to an end. I hope you've enjoyed the stories, photos, and updates so far. I've only told a small fraction of the events that've occured. If every story was on this website, I'll have nothing to talk about! And you KNOW how much I like to jazz my stories! We're coming down the home stretch. Stay tuned!
Date: 2005-07-29
From: Stratton, ME MP 1985

To: Monson, ME MP 2056
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

Hellllooooooo everyone. I strolled into the little logging town of Monson, ME today. All that stands before me and the end of the trail is the "hundred mile wilderness" and the 15 miles between Abol Bridge and Katahdin. I've heard from the southbounders that there's a shelter somewhere in the wilderness with a 4-piece fly rod, a box of flies, plates, silverware, and cooking oil. If it's still all there when I arrive, I'll probably take a day off, maybe two if the fishing's good. With 115 miles to go, there are two "schools" of hikers out here. Most people are having fun but are ready to go home. (They miss thier friends and beds and clean clothes and refrigerators, etc). I can understand. It takes a lot of mental discipline to put on the same nasty clothes, smelly shoes, and mildewy pack every day and walk over mountains in the blistering heat. It also takes mental discipline to realize how much fun this is....and by fun I'm talking about the freedom, the outdoors, the clean air, water, and sunshine, and the lack of deadlines and schedules. I'll take my grand old time through the north woods of Maine because I know from experience that after a week of being home, I'll wish I hadn't walked so fast. Some hikers I met early on (E!, Mississippi Alan, Robin, and others) are already done. They know what I'm talking about! 2005 has been a grand year to thru-hike. I can almost remember all the bad weather days; there have been so few! The New England states had enormous rains this spring. Down south, it was cool and dry. Now it's the opposite. The south is getting pounded with rain while it's been clear and hot for weeks in the north! What a blessing! Tonight, I'll be staying at Shaw's Boarding House in Monson. It's a famous place for hikers and snowmobilers alike, and even had a National Geographic write-up a few years back. Approximate finish date is August 7. For all you "arm chair" hikers reading this.... Paladin, Senor Nobs, Darcy Seneca and "I can" are probably done the trail by now. (This information is estimated by what i've read in the shelter registers.) Shorts, Metric, Jive, Team Pod, and Team Vanity either left this morning or yesterday from Monson and will be ahead of me. Even though Shorts and I have been together on-and-off, I won't be finishing with him. Oh well. That's about all I can think of for now. There's a little more than a week to go! How exciting! Keep me in your prayers! As for how to get HOME from the north woods of Maine....well....that's another adventure all its own. My next entry will be titled "SUCCESS!!!", unless I break my back or die this week. Rock and roll!!!!!!!!!
Date: 2004-11-25
To: Thanksgiving
Miles today: 0.0

9:20pm                                                                                        11.25.04        The day of giving thanks -- and this year, more than others past, I am truly aware of and awakened to the plethora of blessings before me. The support and love, from family, friends, and strangers, in all the changes in my life over the past year. So many changes, both internal and external, domestic and global, in such a short span of time. So many new friendships formed and old friendships restored and strengthened. So many lessons learned, about myself and my capabilities. So much beauty witnessed firsthand. So many joys and laughs. Not to dismiss the sorrows and anguish and tears, but today, today I am simply grateful, for the people who fill my life w/ these joys, and love, and for the beauty and grace to be found in the simplest of things. You need only to view it from the proper perspective. To paraphrase the sagacious scholar, Mr. Tolkien -- ¢Not all tears are shed in sadness.¢ To beauty and truth. To life. I salute you.
Date: 2004-11-30
To: random musings
Miles today: 0.0

6:55pm11.30.04Seated in my rapidly-becoming-habitual perch in the local library, the perfect locale for my existential angst-ridden musings to spew forth. Surrounded by kids working (or pretending to work) on their homework. There¢s a lot more gossiping and pop-culture absorption than algebraic formula computation going on, though. Brings back a flood of memories, of those high school days. Not all of them heinous or misery-filled, but I¢m not exactly devastated that I won¢t be repeating the experience either. Just exactly how atypical high school was for me, though, is obvious. I was such a studious little nerd. Still am, I suppose. Don¢t have the moniker ¢Scholar¢ for nothin¢. Ah, those early months at Swarthmore, those interminable hours spent daily pouring over Organic Chemistry texts. The figurative sweat and blood invested into each and every page of each and every paper I wrote. Hmm. If high school was ¢atypical¢, college was definitely abby-normal from the average, party-filled undergrad experience. Yet, for all the hours and days I poured into my studies, I wouldn¢t trade it away. Swat helped me find myself, or at least, to begin to define who I am, gave me that first, tantalizing taste of independence. Just enough to get me addicted for life.Today, the eve of December, felt like winter was trying to wedge its foot in the door. A crisp, bitter morning. The trees, naked for the season, standing stalwart against a frigid wind. No scent of autumn, of falling leaves, on the air. Just a nose-numbing cold. But, aspirations of snow-lined streets must be put on hold -- the skies are weeping wet, fat raindrops right now.7:25pmI just wandered, seemingly aimlessly, through the library stacks. Pulled Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon, off the shelf. Don¢t really know why, what prompted my selection of that book. I don¢t really believe in horoscopes; I believe that people can find relevance in anything, if they truly want to. Well lately, the daily horoscope courtesy of yahoo.com has seemed to imply I should ¢seize my dreams and screw the consequences!¢ At least, that¢s what I¢ve derived from them, in my AT-obsessed daze. And then, on page 1 of Blue Highways, I¢m confronted w/ this advice: ¢¢¦quit trying to get out of the way of life. Chuck routine. Live the real jeopardy of circumstance.¢ It¢s strange, that for me, someone who¢s always wanted (needed) to have a plan, follow a script through the theatre of life, it¢s strangely anomalous that the happiest days of my life were the unscripted ones, when I allowed circumstance, not foresight and planning, to guide my feet. It seems so out of character for me, and yet I never felt more myself. A puzzling contradiction? Perhaps. But maybe, in order to find out who you are, you need to break out of the mold built around you, get swept along by the current of life¢s stream. ¢A man who couldn¢t make things go right could at least go.¢
Date: 2004-12-10
To: what lies ahead?
Miles today: 0.0

8:55pm                                                                                        12.10.04        Talked w/ Z tonight. I think she needed to vent a bit about her job. She sounded somewhat lost, as if she knows where she wants to be, in the future, but she¢s not certain of the best path to get her there. Not that I can be much help in that department -- the future for me exists as this black hole, an unknown (and unsolvable) equation, not really existing beyond the next week except as some theoretical reality. She asked me point blank about the AT. I was able to answer slightly more directly than I did Jen. But when I told her that, whenever I do return, I¢ll be headed back to Georgia, I could tell in her voice she didn¢t comprehend why, the rationale, the reasoning, the need to begin at the beginning. Maybe I¢m just crazy, maybe all thru-hikers are crazy, maybe it takes a degree of insanity to do something (or even want to do something) like that. Sort of like climbing Everest. Not that I¢m equating the two. The folks who risk life and limb (and sacrifice how many brain cells from apoxia) to stand on the summit of Everest are seriously insane, a league of their own, some neurological wiring gone bad. Long-distance hikers aren¢t quite that bad¢¦at least, not all of us. I can¢t really explain verbally the drive, the urge, the desire that swells w/in me every time I think about the trail. I didn¢t feel this way last winter. I felt a lot more nervousness and insecurity. But now, trail-hardened pro that I am, I know what¢s ahead. And I yearn for it. I feel like my life is getting bogged down in material stuff and details. I long for the simplicity the trail affords. The quietude and reflection and insight and beauty and people and¢¦everything. This wave just swells up inside of me. And one day, it will overwhelm my self-constructed barriers of hesitancy, and on that day, I¢ll be packing my pack and goin¢ back to Georgia.
Date: 2004-12-12
To: doubts
Miles today: 0.0

1pm                                                                                        12.12.04        After a lot of soul-searching and pointed questions and digging into the darks wells of repressed thoughts in my brain, I believe that I¢ve isolated that true reason of my hesitancy toward taking that last plunge of commitment to the trail. Of course, there are all those other lines of reasoning I¢ve mentioned previously, but they¢re all secondary. No, ultimately it¢s fear, plain and simple. Fear that the same thing will happen, that I¢ll get mired in a mental fog, that I¢ll lose my perspective. And fear that I won¢t have another chance. Maybe it¢s irrational, but I was unbelievably fortunate to have had the opportunity to do what I did last spring. And, for whatever reason, I feel like I¢ve only got one more shot at it. That if I make another attempt at a thru-hike and don¢t finish, then I never will. And I¢m afraid that I¢m trying to rush it, that it¢s too soon, that if I put a little more distance temporally b/t me and the trail, the desire will only grow stronger. But the thing is, every fiber of my being is already crying out, every nerve-ending already firing, drawing connections b/t every mundane object around me and the AT. After the game Friday night, Kevin mentioned Damascus (MD, not VA), and my mind immediately conjured up vivid memories of Trail Days, the parade, the plethora of water balloons. So, as I was standing, bundled up in coat and scarf, in a parking lot at 1am, a reddish glow to the starless, overcast night sky from the city lights, I was mentally back in southern Virginia, under a sunny, cloudless blue sky, surrounded by my hiking family, getting pelted w/ water balloons. You know, as much as I just spelled out my fear of having only one more chance of an AT hike, I suspect that long-distance hiking will never be purged from my blood. It¢s an infection, and one I have no intention of seeking a cure for.        Immersed once again in the world of John Muir. He frequently laments his own ignorance of the natural world, and yet describes it so eloquently. To have that ability, that agility w/ words speaks of an even deeper understanding. He derives pleasure and sees beauty in the smallest of things, the simply, and yet inexplicably complex, dance of flight of the grasshopper is devoted several pages of description. He personifies nature.        ¢What can poor mortals say about clouds? While a description of their huges glowing domes and ridges, shadowy gulfs and canons, and feather-edged ravines is being tried, they vanish, leaving no visible ruins. Nevertheless, these fleeting sky mountains are as substantial and significant as the more lasting upheavals of granite beneath them. Both alike are built up and die, and in God¢s calendar difference of duration is nothing.¢        ¢When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe¢¦Nature as a poet¢¦¢
Date: 2004-12-13
To: decisions made
Miles today: 0.0

10pm12.13.2004 Today was the first ¢wintry¢ day of the season. No snowfall on the horizon (although I did hear a meteorological prognostication of such for this morning), but winter is in the air. A frigid wind, attacking the leafless trees w/ a vengeance. A few stars visibly scattered amidst the wispy shrouds of clouds. Trusty Cassiopeia, one of the scant constellations identifiable by me, winking in the sky. A sudden streak of light flashed linearly across my vision but, unlike the fields of New Mexico, I can¢t definitively say ¢shooting star¢, b/c I¢ve seen enough supersonic fighter jets during daylight hours around here. Who can say what goes on at night¢¦ Once again, I¢m attempting to get my journal typed up, recording these entries in a computerized format to preserve them against time. Reading over the words I wrote, the emotions coursing through me, the confusion and frustration I felt as I sought employment and adjustment to the world away from the trail; reliving all that again through my own words, it makes me want to embrace the trail all the more, it washed away my doubts and uncertainties by the swelling tide of anticipation rising in me. Life, me, everything was so clear and obvious on that wooded pathway, I saw everything w/ a clarity I¢d never experienced before, and since leaving the trail, it¢s as if what I see has been obfuscated by an ever-growing mist. But now, the mist has dissipated, has been swept away by the winds of decision. I¢m gonna go back to the Appalachian Trail. I don¢t know the logistics yet. I don¢t know about money. I don¢t know about preparation. I don¢t know how I¢ll tell my boss. I don¢t know about any of that. But I do know that I¢m going back to the place that afforded me the greatest sense of peace, and belongingness, and understanding that I¢ve ever experienced. And, in making this declaration, if only to myself, in the confines of this journal, it¢s as if a crushing, bruising weight that¢s been firmly entrenched on my shoulders and preying on my mind has just been hoisted away, and my soul has been buoyed up. My heart pulses and skips in an erratic drumbeat, my stomach performs acrobatic feats, a grin suffuses my face. And my mind? The great debate my mind has been engaged in for half a year is now at an end. I¢ve finally decided that the time is now. There are just so many unanswered questions, so much more I have to learn and uncover, about myself, so much of the world and nature that I have to experience firsthand, so much growth and discovery, both internal and external, to explore, so many inspiring people to meet. So many moments of joy, and excitement, and frustration, and elation, and pain, and awe, and reflection, and sorrow, and satisfaction, and trepidation, and wonderment. So many sights, and smells, and tactile sensations. So many adventures ahead. What a journey it will be.