morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2018-05-22
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Tues Day 99 5/22 RainOut by 5. Turtle is with us. He adds to the discussion. It is much easier to hike as ur talking. The miles roll by as u socialize. It starts to rain immediately. It rains all day. It is a cold rain. We take a break at a shelter to eat lunch out of the rain. We don't see any views or really anything all day. It's just a 20 mile walk in the cold rain on painful rocks. When we arrive there is another couple taking a break at the shelter. Ibex immediately gets in her sleeping bag because she's frozen. Everyone is soaked. When u wear rain gear u either get wet w sweat or rain. The rain gear is to keep ur body heat from washing away from the constant rain washing over u. 7 other hikers come and go. One couple ends up staying at the shelter. Everyone just wants to eat, dry out some, and sleep. Nothing really drys out in the constant rain, and high humidity.
Date: 2018-05-23
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Wed Day 100 5/23 Palmerton - Constant Sharp Rocks.We r up at 4 getting ready. The woman of the couple doesn't even try to sleep as we pack. She's checking her phone. It is actually better. That way we can be noiser but quicker. After 3 hours the sun comes out. Ibex and I are going into Palmerton to resupply. Turtle is going to hike to a sunny open spot and spread his stuff out to dry and take a nap.Ibex has no experience hitch hikeing. It takes 20 mintues to catch a ride. The good news is that he takes us all the way into Palmerton off the highway right to the grocery store. The people in the store are wonderfully nice. I go across the street to the Dunkin Donuts and get two egg sandwiches. While were sitting in front of this grocery store a fella pulls up and parks right in front of us. We strike up a conversation. He offered to give us a ride back to the trail. He says he has to shop first. We tell him we'll be sitting right here in front of his truck. He's a wonderful fella and he drops this right back to the trail. Total time off trail 1 hour 45 minutes. Well after Palmerton the rocks get really serious. It's a very difficult hand-over-hand climb out of Palmerton and the rocks are just out right sharp and ugly. It's sharp ugly rocks, it turns out, from here all the way to High Point New Jersey. On the way we come across pile of black snakes. Turns out it's two snakes both of them about 7 feet long. One actually breaks out and does a little 10 foot cruise around the other one and then comes back. It was a nice diversion. When we finally get to the shelter our feet are about chopped up. Moon, Traveler and Candyman are taking a break. They're discussing hiking into Wind Gap to spend the night in a hotel. Everybody is run over. Honey actually comes in after us. Her comment is "I thought I like hiking. I don't think I'll ever do it again. This is about the most difficult stretch I've ever done" Ultra woman stops in and offers a battery charge for anybody's phone. She's taking a couple zeroe days. She's only got a mile to go and would be happy to share the extra juice in her anchor. Everyone leaves. Turtle comes in and I start to tell him about the snakes. He has a totally different experience of a snake. He came up on a rattlesnake in the trail. It was coiled and rattling. He wasn't focused and suddenly there he was. He said he just jumped sideways clear off the trail into whatever there was. They say you should look before you leap but sometimes you just don't have time to look. He sent us quite the photo of a rattlesnake ready to strike. Rattlesnakes don't give up the trail, they own the trail. You either respect them or pay the price. There's been numerous reports of rattlesnakes from other hikers. The turtle spends the night but we don't c him in the morning.
Date: 2018-05-24
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Thurs Day 101 5/24 sore tired feetOur feet were so sore that we r only going to hike 13 miles today. It was more of the same, rough sharp rocks. We got into the shelter fairly early. I decided to start using my tent. I wanted to get a better night's sleep. The shelters r now cluttered with day hikers, section hikers, and new flip-floppers. At 3 in the afternoon the shelter was empty. So we ate and just had a slow afternoon. There was a spicket coming off of a private retreat so getting water was pretty easy. I set up my tent for the first time. As it turned out as the evening wore on a lot more people came into the shelter. I went to sleep around hiker midnight, 7 pm my time. I was aware of more people coming in, setting up tents and lots of talk down there at the shelter. I would have gotten much less sleep. I am over staying in shelters. I just became noise sensitive. Or maybe I'm just getting so tired I desperately need all my sleep. It was a very nice to sleep all night, perfect for sleeping. I didn't even put my rain fly on.
Date: 2018-05-25
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

Fri 102 5/25 NJ We woke up seven and a half miles from the Delaware Water Gap. I'm pretty excited to be getting this close to New Jersey. The Village Farmer is what appears to be the closest you can get to a grocery store or food store in the town of Delaware Water Gap, opens at 8 a.m. We leave at 5:30. We're going to get there by 8 a.m. when they open. All goes well and we descend into the town of Delaware Water Gap. It's very nice attractive town with lots of old architecture. We get to the Village Farmer 10 after 8. The line is out the door. Turns out there's a total of 17 through hikers that decided to have breakfast at 8 a.m. to start their day. There's also some locals who come early as well,so it's like a through hiker party. Everybody is ordering lots of food. When ended up being there almost an hour, cuz we were last to order almost. That was okay cuz we were then going around to the Outfitters around the corner that opened up at 9. We got to the Outfitters at 9:30 and they literally had just opened up a half an hour late so we didn't miss anything. We then hiked across the Delaware River on Route 80. It's quite a big bridge. It's exciting to be hiking into New Jersey after all this time. There is a little more bounce in my step. It's a very busy parking area on the Jersey side. It feels good to start getting up the trail. There seems to be lots of scout groups, small groups, and groups of all kinds hiking the Appalachian Trail today at the Delaware Water Gap. We finally break away from that crowd and start to gain some distance and altitude. The sharp rocks continue. We take a break along Sunfish pond. We see 15/20 snakes sunning in a pile on the rocks by Sunfish pond. A woman is going swimming at that very rock. She comments that they r friendly snakes. She always swims here. That is her rock. More power to her. I'm not swimming w the snakes. We climbed up and walked along a beautiful ridgeline. After almost no views at all in PA, the constant view points on this exposed ridge line were spactular. I had heard people down south say NJ was their 2nd favorite state. Now I see why. It was also the very first section of the trail completed from Bear Mt., NY to Delaware Water Gap, NJ in1923. That was 10 yrs before the trail was completed. It lifted my spirits to see such beauty again. This is why I am hiking. The rocks were still sharp but this is very nice. I am very happy to be in NJ. We are getting water towards the end of the day. We meet Moose who started 4/1/18. He averages 27 miles a day. Moose took 1 zero day. His comment "my feet have been meat tenderized, just pulverized. It is tough to just keep hiking" We hike for about 30 minutes w him. When we come to a fire tower that Ibex wants to climb he continues. I just lay on tbe ground and talk to Sugarfoot who is camping there. Sugarfoot says the sharp rocks die away after High Point NJ. I am tuckered out. No firetower climbs for me.
Date: 2018-05-28
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Mon day 105 5/28 creameryCamps near the Pochuck shelter last nt. On the trail by 5 am. There r lots of opportunities to get water throughout the day so we were carrying no water at all. This area has a lot of big rocks that are part of the trail. So throughout the day there are times when we are not able to use are trekking poles at all but rather hand over hand climbing and scrambling up and down over rocks. There are times when you put your trekking poles up above you on the rocks and climb up after them. When we made our original plan for the week we were going to Wawayanda shelter at Miles 1361.9. It would have been a 17 Mile day. Because we added mileage yesterday we had a new goal of camping at at Cascade Brook Mile1369 which had water as well. As we Heights throughout the day sometimes Crossing into New Jersey we decided we push further another 3 miles or 4 to go to the creamery it was up near Greenwood Lake. We figured we could buy dinner have some ice cream and that would be great. The creamery ended up being 24 MI so instead of a 17 we did a 24. When we arrive we were surprised to see the line out the door. This Creamery was connected to two families that have owned the farms and he's out in this Valley since before the Revolution. It was a beautiful view site they built this Creamery at looking out over the Valley. They only served ice cream so we got a quart of ice cream and a large milkshake. Ibex tranq the milkshake. We split the quart of ice cream. So really we only had ice cream for dinner . That might be every teenagers fantasy but it's not a complete dinner for a through hiker. We were tired by now and hoped to find a stealth camping spot soon on the trail. We weren't quite out of earshot of the road although It had quieted down quite a bit. We came across an ideal spot and set up r camp. Ibex set up her hammock. I set up my tent. After I had my tent up, I realized I had set it up under of Widowmaker. Even though I was tired not wanting to be foolish, I pulled up my steaks and move my tent to another location. As usual we washed our feet in alcohol and crashed out as soon as we could. We're both running pretty tired. we carved out an easier day tomorrow to meet up with Curtis. We're only 12 miles away and we should be able to put that away rather handily.
Date: 2018-06-01
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Fri Day 110 6/1 zero I slept all the way to 6:30 a.m. went down for breakfast and a nice woman working at the restaurant ask me did I want a hot meal. For $6 I get an egg breakfast. So I described to the woman how I cook eggs at home. To my delight she brought me 8 eggs covered w swiss cheese and spinach. I had already eaten three yogurts, a heavily cream cheese bagel, two glasses of orange juice and some orange slices. Took me quite a while to finish my 8 eggs. I went back to the room and slept for an hour and a half. I awoke to a knock on the door. It was Good Push. They had decided to zero but the hotel was sold out. Of course the three of them could crash in my room. So now we have five in one room when Ibex gets back late tonight from NYC sharing the hotel room. They are planning to do a 30 or 40 tomorrow. I told them I was happy to them. Ibex and I will just be doing our 18 to 22. Somehow we always end up crossing paths with the same crowd. I worked bringing my blog up to date for 6 hours. Ate dinner overlooking the Hudson river.
Date: 2018-06-02
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Sat Day 111 6/2 Everyone got up without a wake up call. I got up around 4:15. Slowly everybody else did as well. 5 people in one room everyone preparing almost in slience. The taxi didn't answer. We ended up waiting 30 minutes for an uber. We fit 5 people with packs in a Toyota Corolla. Back at the Appalachian Diner we all had a big feed before heading out. The other 3 all hiked w 2 lieters of water, more than 4 lbs of water. I carry no water. The guide indicate plenty of water sources today. We cross paths with Furnace and Griz flip floppers. We've seen them a couple times now. Everything is going well until I catch my foot on a 3ft long root across the trail. It's connected at both ends so it's like a tripwire. It causes me to stop dead in my tracks and really wrenches my knee. By the time we got to steren Fahnestock Lake I had to just stop and sit down. My knee was absolutely screaming at me. Of course it was my right knee the one that gave me the most problems before. Everything was going pretty well. My feet were healing from both rocks and infection, my teeth weren't bothering me anymore, and my knees were fine. We end up hiking 18 miles and stealth camping just before the rph shelter at a beautiful spot, which was our goal for the day. The crows make such a racket for about an hour. It is amazing. We are camped very close to the trail. Only two people go by for the rest of the day. Hopefully my leg will be better in the morning.
Date: 2018-06-03
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Sun 112 6/3 slow going when I got upI wasn't sure if I would be able to hike it all. my knee was definitely talkin to me. We start out slowly and just let me work my knee into action. Sometimes the only solution to physical problems is he the rest or hiking slowly. We opted for the latter and just kept us slightly slower pace for tickly on the downhill. As the day wore on the uphills were fine. I just had to take baby steps on the downhills. There was plenty of water and we drank when we needed to. I had mail dropped a Box to the Dutchess Moter Lodge in Wingdale, NY. We hiked 18 mile in 11 hours instead of 9. We got to our exit road around 4. Unfortunely we hitch a ride to Pawling, the wrong town. We then buy train tickets to a train, that doesn't come. We call a taxi, but tell them wrong station. We seemed to be a bit overwhelmed. Then the Pawling taxi pulls up to where we r sitting in the sun cuz we were cold. The nice lady drives us to the motel. They are available to drive us back to the trail at 5 am in the morning. We check in, and get my mail drop. The clerk says food is 800 feet down the road. So in spite of total ineptitude on our part I am eating pizza and ice cream by 7 pm. Ibex eats across the street at a barbecue place.
Date: 2018-06-04
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Mon 113 6/4 1 yr laterToday is the 1 year anniversary of Mary's death. She is often on my mind. I wake up to driving rain. At this point I am actually scared of hiking w wet feet causing a reoccurence of my infected feet. I still have one open sore that is painful to walk on. I decide to take an unplanned zero. My knee hurts. I won't know how bad till I walk on it. I don't get up till 7. I go down to the deli to get a couple egg sandwhichs. It doesn't rain all day. I work on getting my blog up to date which i do. Then it stops uploadi g on trail journals. I have been way behind because it has been physically very tough hiking. Most day i am just beat physically. Mentally i am not much better. If i wasn't interacting w other thru hikers this could be to much. I am now 300 miles from NH. That has been my goal to reach before Alaska. Luke is picking me up 6/25 wherever i am. I had fantasies of finishing altogether but they vanished when my knee went the first time. It is not when i finish rather that i finish.
Date: 2018-06-05
From: 9

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Tues. Day 114 6/5 straight downhillOkay we were ready to go at 5 and had eggs sandwiches at Ben's Deli. Called for the taxi who said he'd be there in 20 minutes. He really meant an hour and 20 minutes. We hiked 22 miles. We entered into Connecticut for the first time. There was some extreme downhill. I thought Dragons Tooth up to now has been the most technical downhill hiking. Connecticut introduced us to some very serious downhill hiking. It seemed like straight down over the edge downhill hiking. After we finished that which took a long time cuz we really crawled slowly down that Mt. We ended up walking along a river which was probably on an old topath for barges and just sailed along for about 4 miles. With the trails like that, you can't predict how we're going to do today or how many miles we're going to do. Now we just set out with a generalized goal and stealth Camp someplace. Our goal was to get to this identify Campground that had a pavilion. It also had a well with a water pump w good water. When we got there there were three section hikers, a couple and a woman. After we set up Joe Cool and Ginger came in. The section hikers were already in their tents cuz it was probably eight. That's late for people on the trail. Joe Cool was his usual loud self. He actually said that he learned from me and they're not doing more than 20 miles a day. No more dirty thirtys. Joe Cool actually said he was taking a page out of my book and just trying to protect his knees and ankles by keeping his mileage under 20 a day. It was cool to see him. He was off trail icing for 5 days near the Delaware Water Gap. He'll go back and make up that mileage. So it was a nice cool night and I had a great night sleep. I slept snug like a bug in a rug.
Date: 2018-06-06
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Wed Day 115 6/6 OwlUp and out at 5. Joe Cool and Ginger hadn't even stirred yet or anybody else. We tackled a steady uphill right off the bat. We saw a beautiful sunrise which I got a picture of through the trees. I was feeling not so spunky. That's another way of saying I was dragging. So we stopped for water and lunch around 11. Our food bags were starting to get lighter. I don't want to carry more than 2 days worth of food. It's just way too heavy. So we searched around in our guide book. There was the town of Falls Village up ahead. Being as tired as we felt we decided to enjoy lunch in town. There wasn't much open being it was Wednesday. We did find a little breakfast/lunch place near the high school. We just decided to enjoy lunch and not worry about how many miles we're going to get done today. So we took a 2-hour lunch. The food was off the hook. We ate quite a bit. We met Fainting Goat. She got her name by fainting on the PCT Pacific Crest Trail. She's finishing her Triple Crown. She started the AT, April 9th. She has an 8 pound base weight pack. She hikes 30 to 35 miles a day. These endurance athletes, they don't have any kind of particular bodies other than being average to slender. She was very pleasant though. I got her picture as well. On the way back to the trail there was Squeeze again walking by. She's so pleasant every time I see her. As we hiked out of town we hiked along the Hositonic River again. We came to a section with a wonderful waterfall, very picturesque. After we pass through some fields we heard an owl in the woods. I practiced my echo hooting with the owl. After about six Echo Hoots, we finally saw the Owl as it took flight and flew away from us. He probably didn't want to be hanging around with any owl that sounded like me. It was quite a sight to see an owl with their big wings flying off a tree. We have found some water and decided to stealth camp. This was not a developed camp that anybody else had camped at. We just found a level place for my tent and two trees for Ibex's hammock. Joe Cool and Ginger passed by as we were setting up camp. Always good to see a friend on the trail. It was another cool night and I slept well.
Date: 2018-06-08
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Fri 117 6/8We were very tired and decided we would sleep in and leave around 7:30. We are hiking to resupply. We were going to resupply in Great Barrington. So Great Barrington, Mass is seven and a half miles away. It wasa gentle smooth trail to hike. We actually arrive in under 4 hours at 10 after 11. We were standing in the road trying to figure out which way town was when we saw Squeeze waving and yelling to us. We went over and she introduced us to Joe, the free shuttle driver, in this wonderful town. Joe took us to town, waited for us to resupply, and drove us back to the trailhead in a total of 50 minutes. It doesn't get better than that. I don't know whether anybody can go into town and resupply faster then 50 minutes. In Palmerton, it was an hour and 45 minutes to hitch-hike In and Out and resupply. I thought that was very fast. We took a break and ate a huge lunch in the shade of a big Maple Tree near the trailhead. As we ate, Moon appeared walking through somebody's backyard. We called him over. He was trying to connect to Uber to get a ride to town. He had just hiked 17 miles in five and a half hours. Soon enough Princess, Luke, Johnnie Walker, Honey, Traveler and Candyman were sitting under the tree. We passed along the information about Joe, the free shuttle driver. Moon told the story of going to New York for 3 Days to see a Mets game and enjoy the city. Much to his surprise, when he's walking in Manhattan, Squeeze is calling out his name and is dressed in a very fine black dress going out to dinner with her boyfriend. 7 million people in NYC and Moon bumps into Squeeze. It's a small AT community and they're all over watching out for each other. We hiked on, first the trails was very nice. Then the trail gets increasingly Rough Rocky Roots, Reminiscent of Pennsylvania. Four or five hours of Rough Rocky Root hiking and my feet are getting super sensitive again. We come up on this beautiful 6 tenths of a mile wonderful ridgewalk overlooking the best Massachusetts has to offer. It can really take your breath away when you're hiking and constantly seeing a wonderful expanse of scenery. But the rough Rocky roots were taking a toll on our legs and our feet. We were trying to hike to water in a stealth spot in the distance. At one point we thought it was three more miles to go looking at our guide book and I only had 2 miles left in my legs. I said we may have to Camp without water and hike to water in the morning cuz my legs don't have 3 miles left. We check Guthooks on our phone and found out we were reading our paper guide wrong. It really was 2 miles to water. So we made it to water.and We tried to find a stealth spot by The Ledges. We found something that would pass as adequate. It wasn't level ground and it was very buggy. But that's thru-hiking. It's not always a soft bed that you end up being in at the end of the day. We set up camp and went to sleep almost immediately.