morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2018-08-13
From: Monson, ME

To: Monson, ME
Miles today: 3.3

When I came down for breakfast at 7 this morning with all the other hikers staying at Shaw¢s, Poet was making breakfast potatoes on the large griddle in the kitchen. Though it felt to me as though it was 100 degrees in the kitchen, Poet seemed in his element, and he greeted me with a smile and, ¢Good morning Huckleberry.¢ Butterfly and I joined a table with 44 (Steve Crowe) and three other hikers and enjoyed three eggs made to order, bacon, potatoes, and AYCE blueberry pancakes. I could only manage six.After breakfast, we went to Poet¢s Gear Emporium to resupply for the next stretch of the trail. While checking out, we let Poet know that we would like to get a ride back to the AT/RT 15 parking area where we had been picked up yesterday so that we could walk the 3.3 AT miles from there to Lake Hebron. From Lake Hebron, we¢d walk the 1.7 miles back to Monson on Pleasant Street to make it a 5 mile walk in the woods.Around 10, Poet let us know he was about to make a run up to the AT/RT 15 parking lot to drop off several NoBos as well as 44 (who was beginning his SoBo section hike to Caratunk) and that there was room in the car for the two of us. So we grabbed a couple water bottles, and off we went. At the RT 15 parking area, as he said goodbye to the three NoBo through hikers, Poet advised them to take their time and really enjoy the wilderness, for soon their hike would be done. To emphasize his point, he recited a Haiku that he had written in the logbook of the first shelter in the 100 mile wilderness in 2008 when he and his wife Kim through hiked the AT.Drink your deepest now,For the richest stuff settles In the final swig.The weather today was absolutely gorgeous. Sunny and coolish - in comparison to previous days, and the humidity was low. We walked with 44 for a bit but he encouraged us to move ahead as he was heavily burdened and we had nothing on our backs. Laura flew on the trail, and we did the 5 miles in an hour and a half. We went straight to the Monson Store deli and ordered sandwiches, chips and Allagash Saison.After lunch, we walked around Monson a bit, relaxed and napped. I tried to work on the journal but the WiFi connection was not working and/or I kept falling asleep. We went back to the deli for dinner because the two restaurants in town were both closed on Monday. We got our food to go and ate outside behind Shaw¢s with Cold Brew (who rolled into Shaw¢s this afternoon) as well as Nick an Rebecca (who started at Katahdin when we did). It was good getting to know them.Today I am thankful for a walk in the woods, relaxation and the friendship of my wife, Butterfly.
Date: 2018-08-14
From: Monson, ME

To: Bald Mountain Pond Lean-to
Miles today: 14.6

Today was a rainy day, but only in the literal sense. Poet dropped us off at the Lake Hebron parking area at a few minutes before 9. He asked if he could take our picture before we set off, and as he pulled his mobile from his pocket and held it up he said, ¢Hmm, that¢s funny. There¢s a poem a friend sent to me two years ago on my screen. I must have inadvertently hit some buttons on the drive here. I guess I should read it to you.¢  I have grown taller from walking with trees.I have grown smaller from crawling with snails.I have grown lighter from soaring with birds.And along the way I have grown wiserfrom forgetting what I think I knowand listening to teachers from forest and pond.Every now and then when I go back to town,I forget that I need to speak English again.For out in the forest it¢s a trill or a lookand I feel their feelings or dream their dreamswhile everyone knows the yearnings I hold.So I shed my fur and grab a pento tell what it¢s like to rise with the Sun,to swim with a turtle, to touch a deer,to enter their world and see through their eyes.For these are the gifts I come to knowwhen the Sky and the Earth touch my soul.The poem is by Tamarack Song. I took a picture of it with my phone so I could transcribe it here.Today¢s hike was relatively flat, and on parts of it, the trail tread was such that we could reach our full stride and didn¢t have to focus on where we placed every foot step. We are camped near Bald Mountain Pond lean-to with 44, Nola (a flip-flop through hiker from New Orleans) and two brothers from Canada out for a section hike. 44 had saved a perfect tenting spot for our large tent by setting up his one-man tent on it and then moving his tent to a one man spot when we arrived. Thanks so much, 44 - you are an angel! We are camped on the shore of Bald Mountain Pond. I took a swim and cleaned off a few minutes ago and we are tucked in for a good night¢s rest.Tonight I am thankful for poetry, a good day of hiking, for 44¢s kindness and the sound of the loons as we drift to sleep. Total ascent: 1600 ft; descent 1200 ft
Date: 2018-08-15
From: Bald Mountain Pond Lean-to

To: Pleasant Pond Lean-to
Miles today: 13.1

We hit the tail at 8:00 after oatmeal and fruit breakfast. Our first task was to climb up 1600 feet to Moxie Bald Mountain. We passed 44 shortly after leaving camp as he needed to collect and purify water for the day. A few hundred feet below the summit, we caught up to Nola - a flip flopper like ourselves - who pointed out the blueberries all around us, and we ate our full. Yum.The view from Moxie Bald was pretty good though we couldn¢t quite see Katahdin as Poet had said we might be able to do. There were a number of NoBos there, and we had a good chat with them.We stopped for an early lunch at 11:15 at the next lean to. Laura left ahead of me, and I worked on the journal for 25 minutes. When I got up to leave, I forgot my ¢chair¢- the folding foam pads we use to sit on - so I will have to do without for a while.Got going again at 12. Next 3.3 miles - ideal trail conditions and we covered them in an hour as thunder rumbled in the distance. After rock hoping across Baker Stream Which is the outflow from Moxie Pond, we began our ascent of the Pleasant Mountains.  Thunder got nearer as we approached the first summit, but then stopped and it started to rain. It rained just enough to soak us, but not enough to cool things off. The sun returned, and as we hiked to the top of Pleasant Pond Mountain, I looked back and saw a rainbow. We ate some more blueberries on the top, called Laura¢s mom, and began our descent - 1200 feet in 1.5 miles - at a few minutes past 5. The going was excruciatingly slow at first, but picked up once we got off the shoulder. We arrived at Pleasant Pond Lean-to at 6:25 and quickly set up camp and had dinner. Afterward, I went down to Pleasant Pond and went for a swim. It was a beautiful evening with a new moon in the West, the sun shining on big clouds to the south, and lions calling to one another. A perfect day on the trail.I returned to camp just at dusk and we secured our site for the night and got into our tent. We are about 100 yards from the shelter. As Laura crawled in the other side, she said that a guy was approaching our site from the shelter. I wonder if that might be 44?I am extremely thankful for the great blueberries we had today and my swim in Pleasant Pond at sunset. I¢m also grateful for the good views from Moxie Bald and Pleasant Pond Mountain.
Date: 2018-08-16
From: Pleasant Pond Lean-to

To: HarrisonÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs Pierce Pond Camp
Miles today: 9.4

I awoke shortly after six this morning, opened the vestibule on my side of the tent and got water going in our stove for coffee and for our dehydrated ¢Breakfast Scramble¢ from Mountain House. Not exactly the breakfast of champions, but when supplemented with a pop-tart, it¢s a hiker¢s delight.  As we were deflating our air mattresses and packing our stuff up inside the tent, we heard a voice from outside say, ¢Good morning Butterfly and Huckleberry.¢ It was 44, and it had been he who approached our site as we were turning in last night.The three of us hiked the 5.7 miles into Caratunk, passing Lelu and her dog Bruce Willis as she was packing up. We arrived at the Caratunk a little before 11 and headed right for the Caratunk BnB. 44 treated us to an early lunch of delicious pulled pork sandwiches and milkshakes. Great lunch and even better company. Thanks 44. It has been a pleasure spending time with you on the trail again!We resupplied for 2.5 days and headed down to the Kennebec River just in time to get the canoe ferry across the river. (I¢¢ve conveniently skipped over the part about thinking I had lost my wallet at the Caratunk BnB only to find it at the bottom of my pack after frantically searching the reapply room, lunch room, bathroom and everywhere else I had been. Boy did that generate some stress. Sorry to all involved.)Once across the Kennebec river, we leisurely hiked the 3.3 miles along the Pierce Pond Stream to Pierce Pond. We stopped to enjoy the stream and it¢s waterfalls for a good 45 minutes and were pleased to find wintergreen growing on the forest floor.  We are staying tonight at Harrison¢s Pierce Pond Camp in our own little cabin with flush toilet, pillows on the bed and oil lamps for light. What a treat! Tim, the owner of the Camp remarked that hikers are the one group of people who take nothing for granted when we got excited about having a toilet in our cabin.  The Camp is one of only a few surviving traditional Maine sporting camps dating back to the turn of the last century. It¢s a very rustic place with log cabins, a couple bath houses where we took showers, and a large dinning room, game room and kitchen in the main building. Tim, who has owned the place for 30 years told us that Franklin Roosevelt¢s daughter came here for her honeymoon because it¢s remote location made it a good place to hide from the press. Tim let us use his kitchen to cook our dinner and also gave us a bowl of delicious corn chowder that he had made for camp guests that are arriving tomorrow for the weekend. We ate our dinner in the dining room overlooking a waterfall on the stream and hummingbirds eating at the feeders on the porch. Another hiker, Flamingo, arrived as we finished our dinner, and we chatted before heading back to our cabin.Tonight I am thankful for good trail friends, for the beauty of Maine, for Tim¢s kindness and for a cabin in the woods.
Date: 2018-08-17
From: HarrisonÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs Pierce Pond Camp

To: Flagstaff Lake Campsite
Miles today: 15.4

Our day began with breakfast made by Tim at Pierce Pond Camp: two eggs, sausage and 14 patriot pancakes. Tim puts raspberries (red), apple (white) and blueberries (blue) in his pancakes and calls them patriot pancakes. An excellent meal - and he provides a ziplock bag to hikers so we can take the uneaten pancakes with us for lunch (or later). We really enjoyed our stay at Pierce Pond Camp and Tim¢s generous nature.Laura and I left camp around 8:30, and we planned to hike 15.4 miles to a campsite on Flagstaff Lake. We passed Lelu and her dog Bruce Willis as she was finishing packing up at her site on Pierce Pond. We put in 8 miles by noon as the trail condition were good and we were able to move at a good clip.  We stopped for lunch around noon by a road crossing and ate our leftover pancakes. Lelu and Bruce caught up to us during lunch and Lelu tried to talk us into going 3 more miles today to Little Bigelow lean-to. I said we¢d have to play it by ear. As it turns out, the trail conditions were not quite as good this afternoon as this morning, and as 5:30 approached, so did a rainstorm. We stopped and set up camp on a gravel beach at Flagstaff lake as we had planned this morning. As we began cooking dinner, it began to rain. The trees by the shore provided cover at first, but by the time dinner was ready, it was raining hard. We quickly put everything in the tent, got in ourselves and ate in the tent. After dinner, I took my phone off airplane mode and noticed that we have 3 bars of Verizon 4G. I checked the weather and saw that rain was expected for most of the night and into tomorrow morning.(Cell coverage has been limited to a few of the mountain tops for the last two weeks. There was no cell signal in Monson and the internet connection at Shaw¢s was intermittent.)It is now pouring rain and the wind is blowing pretty hard, but our Big Agnes Cooper Spur UL3 stands up well to both. It is the best. We are safe, warm and dry and thankful for that. We are also thankful for cell coverage on this remote gravel beach in Maine.  Goodnight from the AT at Flagstaff Lake.
Date: 2018-08-18
From: Flagstaff Lake Campsite

To: Safford Notch Campground
Miles today: 7.5

It¢s been said that hiking the Appalachian Trail is 90 % mental. The other 10 %?  It¢s all in your head. (Sorry. A feeble attempt at a little humor.)It rained much of the night, but both Butterfly and I slept well. At 6 when I awoke, the rain had stopped and the tent fly had been dried by the wind. Camping on the gravel beach, it turns out, was a really good idea because the gravel is ideal for draining away water. I got out of the tent to take care of business and saw that the gravel was pretty dry as well though everything back in the woods was completely wet from the water dropping from the tree canopy. Shortly after getting back in the tent, however, it began to rain again, so I suggested to a Laura that we sleep in.  There was a lull in the rain around 8. I made coffee and we had a breakfast of oatmeal and berries. The rain returned again and we decided to wait it out. The weather forecast indicated that it would end around 10 or 11, so we agreed to take the morning off, relax in the tent, and try to leave around noon for an 8 mile hike to Safford Notch Campground.We are about to hike up Bigelow Mountain - named after revolutionary war Major Timothy Bigelow who summited it as part of Benedict Arnold¢s failed attack on Quebec in 1775. Bigelow Mountain has several peaks and the AT goes up and down four of them. We¢ve been warned that it¢s a tough hike. The elevation profile looks severe in Awol¢s guide - similar to White Cap and Chairback mountains - going up and down trails like that when they are wet is especially challenging. The going down is even worse than going up.  Safford Notch Campground is in the notch between Little Bigelow (3000 feet) and Big Bigelow (4100 feet). The Awol guide book and Guthook¢s guide app indicate that the hike up to Little Bigelow isn¢t too aggressive (and it wasn¢t) but both show a flat, 1-mile hike across Little Bigelow, but it isn¢t flat at all. It¢s an artifact of the scale and resolution of the guides that they don¢t show the nearly constant up 20 feet, down 15, up 10, down 18, . . . over boulders, rock faces, etc. We did this part of the hike around 3:30 and it took us an hour. Fortunately, the clouds had lifted to about 3500 feet, so we had a nice view of Flagstaff Lake and the beach where we camped las night.The hike down from Little Bigelow to Safford Notch was somewhat treacherous, but really more tedious as we are getting used to dealing with Maine¢s trails. The campground is a couple tenths of a mile off the AT, but very nice. We are set up on a level wooden platform in a forest of northern beech trees. The wind is drying out the forest and there¢s a half moon peaking through the leaves and illuminating our tent.All in all, today was another good day. I am thankful for the down time we had in our tent this morning- time to catch up on the journal and to make some phone calls.  Im also thankful for the Maine Appalachian Trail Club that built the nice tent platform we are on. And I¢m thankful that Butterfly and I are getting our trail legs back.
Date: 2018-08-19
From: Safford Notch Campground

To: Stratton, ME
Miles today: 10.4

This was the he best weather day we¢ve had. The hiking was tough, especially the 4100 feet of downhill, but we were rewarded with incredible views.  We awoke to sunshine and a cool breeze after a good night sleep, and left camp at 8:20. After hiking back on the side trail to the AT, we did the 1900 feet, 2 mile climb up to Avery peak on Mount Bigelow in 2 hours. We stopped there for a snack and to take in the incredible views of Flagstaff Lake and mountains in all directions. One of the couples sharing the views with us gave us Snickers and peanut butter to help power us the rest of our day. Butterfly asked that I say a special thank you for this trail magic.The descent from the Eastern Peak, Avery Peak, was very technical and slow as the trail was a essentially a boulder field. The ascent of the western peak of Mount Avery was straightforward and went quickly, and we had our lunch of tortillas and peanut butter with dehydrated blueberries.  The bulk of the afternoon was spent descending 3000 feet to Maine RT 27. Our joints complained a lot and Butterfly pulled a calf muscle, so we took our time and rested a few times. We met Pappy along the way. At 87, Pappy is attempting to be the eldest through hiker.  We got to RT 27 right around 6, called for a shuttle, and we were checked into our hotel room and showered by 7. We are at the White Wolf Inn in Stratton, and will take a zero to help our knees and feet tomorrow. Maine is tough!I am thankful for the beautiful views we had today, for great weather and for the wonderful dinner we had tonight.
Date: 2018-08-20
From: Stratton

To: Stratton
Miles today: 0.0

Butterfly and I are in the White Wolf Inn and Restaurant in Stratton, Maine.  We are taking a zero today.  We finally have both good cell coverage and the time to update the journal, so I will be doing that off and on today between laundry, eating meals and resupllying.I awoke at 5 and got up to date on world news and then started uploading photos and entries to our trail journal since Stratton has pretty good cell coverage. I was over a week behind because cell coverage in Maine is so bad.Butterfly slept in until 9. We walked down to Flagstaff General Store for breakfast, the to Fotters Market to shop for the next 2 to 3 trail days. Stratton isn¢t the best place to resupply, but we made do. I¢ll be carrying a few more pounds of food than usual.We came back to the hotel and took naps and I got the journal up to date. Butterfly really slept. At about 3, we took our clothes to the laundry and hung out with some very nice NoBo through hikers (Wallaby, Ditch, and a few others whose names I did not get or have forgotten). They¢ve been a tramily (trail family) since pretty much when they started. One of the guys hiked the PCT in 2015 and said he remembers our daughter Kathryn (Pocahontas) and Jillian Webster (Radish head) who also did the PCT that year.  After doing laundry, we headed back to the White Wolf Inn and Restaurant for happy hour. We took a nap between happy hour and dinner at 7:15, and we turned in pretty much right after dinner. Typical town day. We really needed to rest our weary joints.
Date: 2018-08-21
From: Stratton, ME

To: Stealth site at mile 199.5
Miles today: 11.2

After breakfast of half of a leftover Hamburger and fries, bananas and graham crackers, we packed up and went over to the Stratton Motel and Hostel for a shuttle back to the trail. As we approached, I could hear music coming from the front room. Someone was playing Leonard Cohen¢s ¢Hallelujah¢ on the piano. We waited outside for a few minutes under the awning where hikers waited for shuttles until another hike mentioned that I should go in and let Trout know that we were ready for our ride back to the trail. At the point the music had stopped, and when I walked in, Trout was at the piano, so I asked, ¢was that you playing Hallelujah?¢ Trout said, ¢no, but if you¢d like to sing along, I¢ll ask her to play it again¢ while nodding to a young woman washing dishes in the kitchen area. I said sure, and as Trout went over to ask, he offered a cup of coffe. The pianist, whose name I didn¢t get, recruited another hiker with a beautiful voice to sing with me and Butterfly. A great start to our day.  After singing and some conversation, Trout took us back to the trail. We started at about 9 o¢clock with a 3000 foot climb in 5.2 miles up North Crocker MT. Because the slope of the trail was somewhat more moderate than some of our recent climbs, we tackled this ascent easily and in pretty good time -arriving at the summit at 11:45. But then it was down 500 feet and back up again to South Crocker Peak a mile away at stupid grades in excess of 1000 feet/mile.  Slow torture. We had lunch on top of South Crocker - tortilla wraps with avocado, ham and cheese - with a nice view eastward of Sugarloaf Mt.  After lunch, we descended 2.5 miles to the Carrabassett River. The grade of the first 1.5 miles was 980 ft/mile and featured an especially fun 1/5th of a mile where the grade was 1550 ft/mile. There¢s a point to my reporting on all these grades which I will come back to at a latter time. I¢m too tired and beat to get into it tonight.After crossing the Carrabassett River by rock hoping and a well placed 2x12, we literally climbed, hands and feet, up Sugarloaf Mt. It was about 4:30 PM when we started, and I had suggested to Butterfly that we camp by the river and tackle the climb in the AM, but she was feeling good and wanted to get it done today, so up we went. We were much happier going up than down this stretch of trail.As we climbed, clouds covered the sun and cooler temps prevailed. Once on top, we walked on a ridge between Sugarloaf that alternated between trail that was really nice, soft, cushiony pine needles and trail that was bog. We had been told that there were some good stealth sites on the ridge, so we filled all our water containers - 8 liters worth - and carried them to a nice mossy site at mile 199.5, arriving shortly before 7.We are going to try for an early start tomorrow as the forecast calls for rain starting mid morning.Tonight I am thankful for the opportunity to sing Hallelujah, for how well Butterfly did on all the ascents and descents today, for continued amazing views- looking back at the Bigelows and Stratton.