morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-09-17
To: Shakedown
Miles today: 0.0

Ok, some things went well, other things went ... well... not so well. I hiked 60 miles of Shenandoah from Swift Run Gap to Chester Gap and the weather, although somewhat warm and humid was beautiful. I saw three bears, each on different days, and on the third day out I saw a bobcat! no kidding. It was the first time in my thirty years of hiking that I had ever seen a bobcat and I took it as an omen. I've seen a lot of cool stuff, but the bobcat sighting really tops the list.I got a shuttle down to Swift Run from Mike Evans, proprietor of the Terrapin Station hostel in Chester Gap (Front Royal.) Although it was closed for the season, Mike opened the hostel for me the night before, so we could get an early start (0500) the next morning.Food: I made the mistake of putting cookies and cashews in the same bags. The cashews soaked up the oil from the cookies (soft chocolate chip) so the cookies disintegrated and the cashews tasted like mush. Yuck. I've come to the conclusion that its just plain difficult to consume enough calories on the trail, so take what works, and don't try and get fancy with the packaging.Ultralight Gear Pros: The alcohol stove from AntiGravityGear was awesome! It worked very well. The Granite Gear Nimbus Ozone Pack was everything I expected in a light weight pack and more. Possibly the most comfortable pack I've ever carried. The 30° Wicked Fast sleeping bag from Sierra Designs was light, but warm for the weather.Ultralight Gear Cons: The 9 oz. sleeping pad (Insul Mat) was inadequate. To heck with light weight when it comes to sleeping pads. Other: Decided to add a water bladder in lieu of a gatorade bottle. Treking poles slowed me down in the tall grass, but made the climbs easier. So I told myself that I would wait until I completed this hike before I comitted to the AT in 2006. Well, maybe I should be committed... did I say that right? Oh yeah. Got a trail name. As I met "Mechanical Man" on a morning trail I was carrying a long twig to knock down the spider webs. He asked if I was conducting the cacophony, and I sort of liked the connotation. So "Conductor" it is.
Date: 2005-09-19
To: Equipment
Miles today: 0.0

I think I'm getting comfortable with the equipment list. I've constructed a spreadsheet and weighed each and every piece of equipment in my pack then sorted it all by hundredths of a pound... ok so I'm anal. Fact is, the tent is the heaviest item at 3.5 lbs. What to do???But I've found a bivy that just might be more efficient than a tarp tent. I've looked at the hammocks, I've looked at the tarps and I've looked at every tent on the market, but I'm leaning toward a bivy. Actually, I'm looking for a tent that you can set up in a shelter or lean-to with minimal space claim. I hear the mosquitoes in MA can be, uh, abundant.A couple journals I have read refer to the mosquitoes being so bad that they set up their tents inside the shelters just to ward off the bugs. Seems like a viable idea to me.
Date: 2005-10-13
To: October -- The leaves are changing
Miles today: 0.0

It¢s in between time. The leaves are starting to turn, and my job is keeping me so busy that I hardly have time to think about hiking or even camping for that matter. I kind of like being busy. It takes the edge off of waiting. I've read several of the 2006 Prep journals and I think almost everyone feels the burden of anticipation. Maybe it¢s because we're all about to embark on this great adventure, possibly the greatest adventure of our lives. Well, I dunno... I've had lots of great adventures, but this is certainly going to be one for the hardcopy. My job will soon be taking me on a road trip from here to Portland Oregon and back in a Semi Tractor Trailer rig. Since I normally sit at a computer workstation, this is sort of going to be yet another adventure. Life's full of adventures, ya just gotta look for them. Next month, when the weather sets in I plan on doing some local camping and just testing out some of my winter gear. I'll see if that 30° bag really works and hopefully get some good rain on the tent. Once I get back off the road trip I'll turn back full force to physical training. I think that's probably the hardest part because the only real physical training for hiking, by my reckoning, is hiking up big hills. We don't have those in Michigan, so it looks like hours of work on the stepper. eek! But it's either do it or pay for it on the trail for a month. I like to pay for things up front.
Date: 2005-11-22
To: It's gonna be a Long Winter
Miles today: 0.0

It¢s late November and the holidays are upon us. As usual, I'm wondering where the year went, wondering how I'm going to come up with meaningful gifts for my girls, wondering how bad my cabin fever will get this year. We (me and the mouse in my pocket) are entering into a critical phase of the preparations. The equipment is pretty much a juggling game depending on my mood, its all here except for a couple of pieces that may arrive in a month or so ;-) The mail drops and food aren't much to write about. They're gonna change after the hike begins any way, so it¢s just a time filler. However, lately I've been giving a lot of thought to another kind of preparation.An organizational chart shuffle at work just negated my "leave of absence." I'll have to quit my job. Now, I suppose that with a lot of folks that would mean putting off the hike until the job climate blew in more favorable winds. Not for me, I haven't reached Katahdin yet . This brings me to the point, which is mental preparedness.There's a lot of suggestion among those thru hikers that give back to the trail by offering advice that the mental preparation may often take a back seat among aspiring thru hikers. That having the right attitude, a sense of humor, a will to succeed and an inner purpose don¢t always add up to a full measure. Not a day goes by that I don't think of the "Leap of Faith" that lies before me. I would be a fool to say that it's easy to think about leaving my comfortable cubicle. However, the fact is that I'm not really enjoying the work anymore. The cross country experiment was an interesting and challenging diversion, but it was short lived. Today I found myself staring out of my cubicle at the bare trees and wondering... just how bad will the cabin fever get this year; knowing that just about the time the leaves start showing again it will be time to go.And suddenly the AT slaps you in the face with a wakeup call not soon to be forgotten. On the first cold wet rainy overcast lonely day, one must ask self...did I prepare for this?
Date: 2005-11-28
To: A Noisy Night in the Sub-urban Woods
Miles today: 0.0

So I got the new bivy tent all seam sealed and watched as the snow piled up over Thanksgiving weekend. Then the good ole Michigan weather takes a turn and there it was Sunday night with rain in the forecast. Good chance that it will be the last rain we see before March, since snow is the norm from now til then.I set it up in the back yard, yup the back yard. I had to be at work in the morning, so it was backyard or nothing. So at 10 PM I kiss the wife good night. She feels my forehead, certain that I'm not myself. I take my flashlight and my alarm clock and crawl in for the night. Feeling a little silly, but knowing at least I can test it out before I hit the trail. Then... feeling really silly as I attempt to climb in for the first time. It took a few minutes but I eventually found myself secure in my sleeping bag inside the tiny Lightsabre bivy. That's when the trouble started.Now, I live in a quiet cul-de-sac neighborhood. Not many cars pass by at night, but for some reason I noticed an abundance of traffic during the night. The trains that pass about half a mile away started coming before I got to sleep and I think they must pass by hourly. Of course one can hear the whistles for miles, so it seemed -- although I'm sure it wasn't so -- that as soon as one whistle became distant enough to fade out completely another would come along. Now, for some reason, every dog in the neighborhood seemed to have a need to bark and every siren in town seemed to wail across the distance. At times it seemed a conspiracy was in the works and they all just went on together.So I drag myself in to work this morning with barely a night's rest, but it wasn't for the rain or the close quarters. My co-worker and I have a laugh about it over a cup of coffeeDoug: Jeeze Jim you look like hammered $#!+Me: "yeah but I didn't get wet"
Date: 2005-12-11
To: Gear, Food and Excercise
Miles today: 0.0

So these winter days are filled with anticipation for spring. Moved my excercise program indoors because my primary long walking area has turned into a snowmobile highway. Maybe the snow will melt by March, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. So its stair climbs with my old pack filled with textbooks to 40 lb. One set of 10 climbs and I'm ready for the treadmill. But its helping, I'm about ready to boost my daily sets. Its tought to find hills to climb around here, so the hall stairway will just have to do.I find that I'm constantly scrutinizing my gear. There it sits in the corner of my study in what seems like living piles that move on their own. I'm still swaping things in and out, and I'm sure I will be forever, even on the trail. That's where it all comes out in the wash. Until then, its pulling from memory what went wrong on past hikes. I've gotten wet before (long ago ;-)) don't like that much. I've had bad food . . . really bad food. I've forgotten some really bad stuff to forget (TP?), but then that's backpacking.Now, I'm a freeze dried kind of guy. I take week long hikes and pack the expensive little pouches and have things like Stroganoff and Lasagne for dinner. But that's only viable for week long trips. Its really not practical for six months of hiking. First of all they cost about ± $5.00 a package. So I've decided on using a very limited mail drop schema and getting most of my supplies in the towns. Both the Grateful Greenpeace Guy GA-ME95 and T-Tex GA-ME05 suggested that this was a better method because it allows flexibility, while maildrops tend to force you to resupply at fixed intervals. I've got it down to certain items that will provide maximum caloric density and its all pretty much the stuff you can find in small stores. Show me a full blown grocery and I'll have a pretty wide selection. So I ask myself as I look over this bag of Lipton Alfredo . . . hmmm1 1/2 cup water1/8 cup milk1 Tbl butter8 minutes simmerOK, wonder if I can do this stuff with one ounce of alcohol, no milk, no butter. I decided to dump the contents into 2 cups of water and soak it to soften the noodles. I soaked the mixture for ten minutes then its out in the cold I go (back porch.) I get out the pot and stove and light it up. Boil up the mixture stirring all the while. Hey, ya know, it worked. It wasn't half bad and it cooked up before the ounce of alcohol burned away. I COULD DO THIS ;-) !!!
Date: 2005-12-19
To: The Reality of Dreams
Miles today: 0.0

A Merry Christmas to everyone. The year is winding down and soon enough we will be in the 2006 domain. For many of us this is a milestone, the year we reach out for that dream and wake up to a reality even more vivid. In my mind I tend to envision the nice flat trails through canopied Hoh rain forest with birds abundant and wildlife at every turn. Then I wake up (laughing) and remember 4000 ft of vertical switchbacks out of Grand Lake in the Olympic NP, or the 500 ft near vertical short switchback decent of Grand Pass. I think to myself, the AT has all of that and more, and I want to experience it, but I¢m not really looking forward to summiting Katahdin, because that will signal the end of this adventure, and who at this point wants it to end? It¢s only the beginning.As my 100 day countdown approaches I reflect on the past year of preparations. In all, discovering TrailJournals could easily be the best single revelation of the entire planning stage. I owe a debt of gratitude to !Leif and !Zipdrive for their continued support of an excellent trip planning and journaling site. I¢m also indebted to the journalists who faithfully record their journey in a manner that inspires people like me. But then also a big thanks to the ¢Class of 06¢ who share the latest gear tends and preparation tips, we are already becoming an extended family, and I hope we have a record year of finishers. These next few months will be passed scouring the journals, my goal is to read every 05 completed hike journal and many of the ¢got off the trail¢ journals. There is wisdom to be gleaned from people who for one reason or another didn¢t walk the entire trail even though their original plan was to do so. This is what I consider mental preparation, and it seems to be a resonating theme among the successful through hikers I¢ve communicated with. T-REX said it in a way I easily understood. ¢Just get it in your mind that you¢re going to finish. Consider it the only option.¢ Jay recently added ¢hiking the entire trail is 95% attitude.¢ This thought occurs to me daily, and I try to envision those days when I¢m hot and drenched and the mosquitoes are driving me nuts. Of course there are many such scenarios that, somehow, the dreams just don¢t reveal. But just as there will be difficult days that I miss my family really, really badly there will also be those days of 55° hiking along the ridge tops with clean air and nary a man made sound. I¢m really looking forward to the hike, but I don¢t want to wake up from the dream.
Date: 2005-12-29
To: Putting on the Food Bag
Miles today: 0.0

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I had the week off, so I spent it -- what else -- preparing for the AT (Huge Grin.) Entered my mail drops and did some food calculations and made a home made stuff sack. I'll use it as my food bag, since I designed it just for that. I followed directions on Thru-Hiker.com for a basic stuff sack, but I made it a little bigger and put a special reinforced handle on it for hanging food. It came out pretty good, seeing as how Beth gave me a 30 minute crash course on her sewing machine and turned me loose.I made it out of SilNylon and its 12 inches in diameter and 18 inches deep. Well, I know that's more than I'll ever need, but shoot, it only weighs 1.4 ounces. And it hangs by the reinforced strap so it¢s not dangling by the draw cord. It was kind of fun having something to do that worked towards the hike. Then I got to reading an article about nutrition on the trail and that lead me down a long and winding road of finding a balance between what I can expect to find in re-supply locations and what I really need to be eating on the trail. I usually go with 4000 calories per day as a rough guide. By the time I was done plugging things into my diet program I realized that it¢s just plain hard to get it right on the money. I bump the spread up to 15% Protein 50% Carbs and 35% Fat, but it¢s just darn hard to find the right allotment of food that carry the fat and protein balance. Qty Measure Weight (oz) Item Cals4 Ounces 6 Cheerios 6601.5 Cups 4 Milk, Powdered 2186 Pieces 2 Oreo Cookies 1964 Bars 6 Fig Bars 3182 Ounces 2 Corn Chips 3103 Ounces 4 Gold Fish 5672 Ounces 2 M&Ms 2842 Ounces 2 Peanuts 3244 Tablespoons 3 Peanut Butter 25820 Pieces 2 Ritz Crackers 2831 Package(s) 5 Lipton Noodles 480(edited 2005/12/31) Change is inevitable ;-)So there is a typical day of pretty generic stuff that you can find at almost any small grocery store. It adds up to 4108 calories, but who's a fuss budget.Using my old DOS based diet program that I've had for about 12 years I finally arrived at a balance.I dunno. I'm always trying to balance things. Out on the trail it may come to a different story entirely, but at least I'll have a basis for choosing foods. Of all the stuff I didn't expect to find so nutritious was the breakfast cereal and powdered milk. That was something I didn't expect to need so much, but in the end it added the right kinds of complex carbs with some good non-fat protein food (powdered milk) yuk. But hey, it¢s what a body needs.
Date: 2006-01-15
To: More Shakedown, more training... less time
Miles today: 0.0

This past week has seen a lot of ramping up in anticipation for starting my hike. During my outing last week I found a perfect saddle in the trail that rises about 100 feet on each side. I've spent an hour each day with a 32 lb pack hiking out to the saddle and then doing 10 repititions back and fourth so I'm gaining both up and down hill excercise. It takes about 20 minutes to get there so the whole trip last about an hour and a half. Gyms just aren't my style, but this is. Since it's on my way home from work, it's convienient too. Friday was just about as good as it gets. . . an ice cold rain with a nice chilling breeze and temps hovering around 35°F. Something one might expect during the first several weeks of the hike. I used the opportunity to get some time trying out the Marmot® rain gear.The Marmot Precip pants were very comfortable even when I was superheated from my workout. Shoot I could hike in these, but I probably won't. The Precip jacket worked well too. Breatheable yes, but it's asking too much for any raingear to breathe away the vapors of heavy excertion. Some of the gents my age may remember the old yellow raincoats we wore to school. Those heavy yellow raincoats didn't breath at all and we often got wet from the mild excertion of walking to school. Well, compared to a yellow raincoat, the Precip jacket breathes wonderfully. Still, I had to open the arm vents.So Friday evening, after an excellent workout in the rain, I decided it would be a great night to really test the comfort range of my Sierra Designs Wicked Light® sleeping bag. The temp got down to a perfect 30° which matches the bag's rating. I slept in must my hiking shorts and a t-shirt. Now, this bag is . . .different [Ms. Gump.] See it doesn't have any down on the bottom, only silk. This combination maximizes the loft and saves on weight (the bag weighs 18 oz.), but at the 30°±5° zone ya don't want to roll over too much. Kinda like walking down the hall way in one of those hospital gowns, ya know. Froze ma tush off. Needless to say, this has now become my summer bag. At least I had the presence of mind to test the claim before getting out there, even if it was in the back yard. The closed foam Thermarest® Ridge-Rest Deluxe was still too thin for my comfort level. So Saturday night it's once again back to the yard with my winter bag and my nice comfortable 1.5 inch thermarest pad. Slept like a baby in gear that's over 12 years old, imagine that. My winter pack will be a bit heavier, but I'll sleep better. Works for me.With two months left before I start the trail I have finally field tested every piece of gear that I will be carying. That's a relief with som many concerns left to address it'll be nice to have some time away from the gear shuffle.
Date: 2006-01-25
To: 50 Days
Miles today: 0.0

Flexibility stands as one of the many resounding themes in the completed trail journals I¢ve read. Accompanying that is the revelation that it¢s not about the destination, it¢s about the journey. I spend my free time reading these journals with two primary objectives. Can¢t help it¢¦ I¢m goal oriented. The first objective seeks to pick out ideas for re-supply and other practical aspects of the journey. The second finds me looking for the beauty of the trail itself. Not merely the macroscopic views, but the intangible perceptions of each individual; the essence that creeps into your soul and binds you to this place so close to the Earth. Walking in a foggy forest stimulates a variety of emotions. Some people can¢t enjoy it, yet I find it thrilling. Mike Evans, the proprietor of Terrapin Station hostel, offered me sage advice as a thru hiker of both AT and PCT. The simple advice, received during my Shenandoah shakedown, changed the way I saw this hike unfolding forever.My original plan consisted of having my wife shipping freeze dried dinners to several waypoints with a supplement of grocery store re-supply. I¢ve always found efficiency in Freeze Dried since all you need to do is get a cup and a half to boiling and pour it in. But Mike made a clear point that picking up all those mail drops will show a person down tremendously, particularly when your town visit lands on a weekend. Plus, mailing food adds a great deal of cost to the hike, not to mention the work involved by my wife. I decided that was too much to ask of the most wonderful person in my life. Beth has made this adventure happen for me a full nine years earlier than my original plan of doing it at age 60. So my plan has evolved and maximum flexibility wins out. Limited mail drops for bounce box and town based re-supply.Now, this hike represents a very personal experience shared by many others. Each individual must decide on their own equipment, re-supply method and perspective on what is beautiful about the trail. Hike your own hike stands out as the primary rule of etiquette. Let others make their own decisions, which does not preclude offering advice when requested. It¢s all about respect for other people and, receiving an equal measure in return.I¢m keeping this journal primarily as a source of sharing my adventure with family and friends. A secondary, but no less important cause is to give a tiny bit back to the trail by sharing my adventure with future classes of AT Hikers. If I can somehow convey the shear joy of seeing even a bog with its fascinating flora and fauna as beautiful then I¢ll have achieved a goal of this journal.I would like to express a heartfelt thanks to the people who have signed my guest book. It really means a lot; more than I thought it would to be honest. With 50 days remaining before I stand on Springer and face north deep in thought, the butterflies are already forming. I¢ve had this feeling before. And it always ended up being exciting.
Date: 2006-01-31
To: Resources
Miles today: 0.0

Ever wondered what's so special about the fabric in that new piece of gear you've been researching? Well, being an engineer I'm naturally curious about these fancy names. Take Capilene for instance, its really just Patagonia¢s trademark name for a polyester blend that has a few tweaks. As luck would have it, I stumbled on this web page that does nothing but explain the science behind the fabrics. Kind of cool. Fabric GlossaryThen I¢m thinking food. Now, I don¢t subscribe to everything this site suggests, but I do find it a good reference. Fact is I wince every time I look at the ¢hiker Calorie usage chart.¢ Food Calories per OunceThis site has tons of great info. I¢ve even gotten into making some of my own gear. But this particular article is worth sharing, so I¢ll start here and interested readers can browse the site from there. I¢m big on nutrition, so I really like this article. Pack Light Eat RightI know, I know ¢¦ I¢ve got too much time on my hands. But I just couldn¢t resist. If all else fails and your at your wits end waiting for the big day to arrive, you might try this link just to lighten things up a bit. You¢ll need sound for the Hamster Dance