morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2012-07-22
From: Mt. Height

To: White Birches
Miles today: 8.0
Weather: fog

We both slept quite poorly last night. Steven was worried that an animal would come into our tent - we were above treeline (illegal!) and couldn't hang the food, so we kept it in the tent. Soon after the sun set it got windy. Very windy. Thank goodness Steven suggested that I tighten the fly of the tent. I guess he also couldn't sleep because he was afraid the tent was going to blow off the cliff with us in it. Yikes! Every time the wind blew, the tent moved a lot and that kept me awake. Eventually I had to pee and I hoped it was close to 4:00 AM 'cause I just wasn't sleeping. It was only 1:00. It was probably good to pee because after that I slept better. I had strange dreams about a tree marten being chased by a fox and a wolf. Also, that Chelly Houser died in a car crash because she was angry. Someone had to take over feeding the moose that lived in the meadows. That someone was my dad and he cried because he was stressed out about all the other stuff he had to do. I woke up at 6:04 and tried to wake up Steven, but he wouldn't witch scared me a bit. I figured he was dreaming so I didn't bother him further. The second I unzipped the tent he woke up! I had been making noise so much louder than that. I guess we tune into the things that are important. A zipper opening is a potential danger.We started hiking at 6:50 because I was nervous that we'd get in trouble for where we tented. We hiked down to Carter Notch Hut and it was a pretty steep downhill for a while. Not my favorite. We stopped at the hut to get water and we also looked at some maps. The caretakers offered us eggs and some kind of cake thing with chocolate chips. YAY! Then we hiked up Wildcat Peak A. It was pretty difficult, but I still made it up in 40 minutes. The ridge wasn't bad at all and then we got to peak D. There was a viewing platform for Mt. Washington. TONS of people were up there, so we ate our lunch under it. haha It turns out that the whole group of people had just hiked the 40th 4,000 footer in NH and they were celebrating. I took their photo.Hiking down to Pinkham Notch kicked my butt. My knee popped out about four times. Ouch! We got down and a group of people told us we still had a mile to go and only about 30 minutes until Bruce was going to pick us up. We rushed. Too bad because it was along a river... and believe it or not it was mainly flat and easy-going. We made it with 20 minutes to spare. I doubt it was a mile.We went back to White Birches and took showers, ordered dinner, and are watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.My feet hurt. Tomorrow we hike up Mt. Madison. A tough uphill, it looks like. We'll make it. I know we will. Doesn't mean I'm not nervous, though.
Date: 2012-07-23
From: White Birches

To: Stealth Site, Mt. Madison
Miles today: 7.8

What a day this has been, what a rare mood I'm in, why it's almost like hiking all day. HA. Well, Bruce didn't come to pick us up and bring us to Pinkham Notch until around 9ish.We went to the visitor's center where I purchased rubber pole tips. Unfortunately, I left the superglue at home, (Arrrrgh!) so I couldn't superglue them to the poles AND I can't superglue my shoes. We hiked to the Osgood tentsite which was mostly flat, but there were ups and downs. We filled up our water and hiked onward... up Mt. Madison. Unrelenting up for 2. 5 miles. I hiked for an hour straight and took a 15 break. I met Leprechaun who runs a bar in RI called Doherty's. We hiked up mostly together after that until the treeline where Steven was waiting for me.We made it to the summit in 3 hours. Slow and steady. We then hiked down to Madison Hut which is gorgeous. They didn't have work for stay available so we hiked partway down to the valley way tent site (not sure that is the name) and have set up camp in a stealth site. There is thunder in the distance which makes me nervous. Steven is asleep already ¢ with his glasses on.Sweat drips off my nose and chin on days like today. Hiking is hard! Madison was kinda brutal. Above treeline it was all rocks, but gnarly rocks that were hard to walk on. It kicked my butt. Also, I became reacquainted with my old friend, the black fly. I just picked crusted blood off my neck. Lovely.Oh, we also forgot our cheese and pepperoni in the fridge at White Birches. DOH!Some birds are calling loudly right by the tent. The distant thunder is scary!
Date: 2012-07-24
From: Stealth Site, Mt. Madison

To: Lakes of the Clouds Hut
Miles today: 7.2
Weather: shower rain

OMG!!! The thunderstorms lasted from about 9:00 PM until maybe 2:00 AM. I last checked my watch at 1:35. I finally fell asleep after that - weird dreams about someone framing me for some crime and I had a chip planted in me and it was extracted and it hurt really bad. Anyway, our stealth spot was not the greatest in the world. The rain pooled up under our tent and it was like we were on a waterbed. It was crazy! It reminded me of my friend's parents' waterbed that we used to lay on when I was a kid. Weird that I thought of that. During the storms the tent fly fell out of the set up I had it attached to on my side of the tent. The water was pouring and the wind was blowing, and my stick and rock set up failed. At one point, I just sat with my arm outside of the tent door holding out the tent fly so my stuff wouldn't get soaked. I finally got it set up to stay somehow.We got up around 6:30 and started drying off the tent. Inside and out. Wow. We got back to Madison Hut and hung out there for a while. The weather forecast was not very promising. We decided to head to Mt. Washington knowing that we could turn back if the weather got bad. It was an "in the clouds" day with limited visibility... like 100 to 500 feet depending on the cloud we were in. That may not be an accurate estimate. I knew that we weren't turning back by mile 2.7. We did decide to not summit and that we'd do it tomorrow when the weather gets better. THEN we ran into two NOBOs who had both summited and we both thought we'd be wusses if we didn't. So we did. We made it by 3:15 (maybe earlier), as we reached the summit, it started to rain. HA!We went inside and I had pizza and hot cocoa; Heavyweight (have I mentioned before that we've changed Steven's trail name to Heavyweight?) had nachos with TONS of cheese. We met up with Frogman 1 and he ate with us. He had gotten a little lost on Mt. Adams and thinks he was hiking completely off trail at one point. He said that he did work for stay at Madison Hut. They had him fix an electrical box that a mouse got into and I think that was all he did. After sending a couple of postcards, we quickly checked out the museum and headed out. A man outside told us that the winds were going to pick up to 100 mph and the temps were dropping dramatically by 6 or 7 PM. At that time it was 5 and we had 1.5 miles to go. We made it in less than an hour in the pelting rain and driving wind. It was less than ideal. I'm pretty sure I have a lovely looking windburn. I also was going to take off my coat and instead I snapped the rubberband of my raincoat hood in my eye. It hurt - in fact, my eye feels hot still. Anyway, we made it to Lake of the Clouds Hut. We're doing work for stay, but we don't know what we're doing yet. I think we sleep in the dining room because there are so many of us here tonight - at least 8 thru hikers. Hopefully my sleeping bag will dry out.
Date: 2012-07-25
From: Lakes of the Clouds Hut

To: Stealth Site, Saco River
Miles today: 11.0

Last night for work for stay I did some dishes - the ones used by the crew and hikers. The water got really gross really fast, but they said to keep "washing" anyway. Yuck! The dishes were not up to Betty McKown standards (that is my Grandma) or even mine. They do use the 3 bucket system which I will never forget from working at a boy scout camp.We slept on the floor in the dining room/lounge. The wind turbines were groaning out their horrible call - sounding like the horns used to call up the evil troops in Lord of the Rings. Well, I guess in Return of the King. I slept pretty hard, though. I woke up around 4:00 to pee and tables had been moved to block us in. I never heard them move them! There was a guy already in the kitchen too! At 4:00 AM!Oh, the amazing thing about the turbines is that we could hear them while we were walking to the hut, but couldn't see the hut. I couldn't see it until we were practically on top of it. Very similar was the cog train yesterday. I took a video - we were about 100 ft from the train and we could see it for a moment, but then a cloud came to hide it.We are now at a stealth site next to the Saco River. There is beer chilling in the river, but we won't have any. We hiked 11 miles today - not bad for the Whites, I'd say.It was still cloudy and very windy from Lakes of the Clouds to Mizpah Hut, but after that the sky was blue and the temperature much higher. I hiked in my long johns and rain pants till Mizpah. They both came off at that point. We ate lentil soup for lunch at Mizpah Hut which wasn't bad. I met "The Mules", a couple hiking NOBO. The woman said that there was no easy part of the trail. Every single part is difficult in its own way and that she was slow. I feel the same as she does - slow. Her statements were somewhat comforting in a way. I don't HAVE to be fast and I don't have to think it is easy... and we're almost done with the most physically taxing part of the trail. Woo hoo!The end of the day was the descent to Crawford Notch. Two guys we ran into said it was the craziest uphill and that they had to stow their poles so they could climb with their hands. We weren't looking forward to that - in fact, we were dreading it. "It" never came. Our theories are that the guys: 1.) were messing with us; or2.) went off trail by accident and climbed straight up.My vote is with #2. Anywho, we had heard there was this stealth spot and here we are! We exploded our packs to dry stuff out from the thunderstorm night and the following day of sometimes driving rain. This morning there was a PUDDLE in the bottom of my pack that I had to soak up before putting my sleeping bag in. At least I dried out my sleeping bag and stuff sack at Lakes of the Clouds. That was very good.I think we're mostly dry now. We just hope it doesn't rain tonight. We have opened up the tent doors from the top for more ventilation - we need the fly to air out a bit still. I don't know the plan for tomorrow yet... for now, I will sleep.
Date: 2012-07-26
From: Stealth Spot, Saco River

To: Stealth Site, South Twin Mountain
Miles today: 12.5

Happy birthday, Grandpa! Today you would be 92.We woke up to grayness today. This was after 10 hours of sleep. I guess we were tired! Our first ascent of the day was to the Ethan Pond Shelter. I read some of the register and saw that Starfish and Sherpa were there on the 14th. Ethan Pond is beautiful and serene. Our next five miles was an easy flat to Zealand Falls Hut where we ate lunch - Heavyweight got a bottomless bowl of potato dill soup and I had a bowl of soup and 2 pieces of pizza with pepperoni & onions on a whole wheat crust! The cook there let us do dishes instead of paying for food. There were a lot of dishes. I'm pretty sure I did more dishes there for lunch than I did at Lakes of the Clouds for a night's stay. To keep the tally, we did 8 miles by 12:20. We decided to push for the Galehead Hut which was about 7 more miles. The first uphill from Zealand was tough, but we were moving pretty well until about 4:00. I was very tired and needed to sit. We hadn't even reached Guyot Shelter trail by that time, so after a snack, we kept on. I wasn't too sure we'd make it - I just couldn't move fast enough. I lose my energy and putter out.*   *   *   *   *We didn't make it to Galehead Hut. We didn't even make it to South Twin Mountain. We are at a stealth site somewhere between Guyot Mt. and South Twin. We hiked approximately 12.5 miles today. I'm pooped and have a sore throat. :-(I have found that when I hike certain songs run through my head. Mostly they are church hymns and that song I don't know, but the lyrics are "but chains and whips excite me... come on!" Today I was singing Gilbert & Sullivan. The patter songs are good for keeping a nice hiking pace.I thought of Grandpa a lot today. I dedicate today's hike to him..
Date: 2012-07-27
From: Stealth Spot, South Twin Mountain

To: Liberty Springs Campsite
Miles today: 11.5
Weather: light rain

Well, I woke up with a whopper sore throat and swollen glands. I cried. We both slept poorly as well because of the uneven ground of our stealth site.We hiked to the Galehead Hut where they gave us beef stew and bow tie pasta. It was pretty good! I was reading the register and saw that our friends Jay & Nancy had signed it YESTERDAY!!!!! That was exciting to see and to know that they were there maybe only an hour before we arrived. Crazy!We hiked Garfield Ridge. There were many people at the top and the clouds were clearing a bit. Our first view in days! WOO HOO!Then we hiked up Mt. LaFayette - what a tease!! Since there was so much cloud cover/fog I was totally fooled by multiple false summits. I was happy to reach the top. We met Man Cub and Kit Fox on the way up. They were all smiles and I hope that we are like that the further south we go. We made the decision to skip the Greenleaf Hut and hike Franconia Ridge while there was a view. It was spectacular, but I felt bad about Maili (my friend) not joining us for the hike. She had wanted to hike it and was hoping to come up, but then we realized that she'd drive hours to hike with us for only 1.7 miles. We didn't think that was fair. Oh well. We'll come back again and hike with her when we all have the time.We hiked about 11.5 miles today and I feel wrecked. Probably because I have this sore throat... or just because doing 2 long days in the Whites. I Don't feel so well. Hopefully I will sleep.
Date: 2012-07-28
From: Liberty Springs Campsite

To: Chet's Place
Miles today: 2.6

Today was pretty okay. We only hiked 2.6 miles from the campsite to Franconia Notch. We had to walk along 93 and to some parking lot to get picked up. We are at Chet's Place - awesome guy!We spent the day in town and even watched the Batman movie - The Dark Knight Rises. It was good. The sky opened up just before we got to the movie theater and I was pretty wet. My raincoat doesn't keep me totally dry - where my pack straps rub. WHY?? I guess Betsy (the ranger at Katahdin Streams Campground) was right - all rain gear fails. The very sad - the library closed at 2:00 and doesn't open tomorrow, Sunday. NOOOOO!! I was looking forward to it for so long. It is such a disappointment.
Date: 2012-07-29
From: Chet's Place

To: Chet's Place
Miles today: 0.0

We took a zero day today because I'm not feeling well. We went to breakfast at Mr. W's Pancake House then kicked around town for a bit, but we mostly read all day.Chet let me come inside and meet his cats. I sat on the couch and pet the cat - orange cat... I can't remember his name... maybe Mr. Orange? - for about ten minutes. Maybe more. It was nice. I miss my cats at home, so this purring, dooling fuzzball was a good boost to my cat meter.
Date: 2012-07-30
From: Chet's Place

To: Chet's Place
Miles today: 15.3

Still not feeling the best, but we woke up at 5:30 AM to hike a 16 (which turned out to be a 15.3): the Kinsmans. It was a tough climb - partly because I wasn't sure if I was going to puke or not. I considered turning back multiple times, but we made it!I was feeling pretty ill by the time we got to Lonesome Lake Hut, so I asked if they had any leftover bread. Unfortunately, I had not brought any cash with me. I told the guy as much because I wanted to not come across as a jerk. He gave me a HUGE chunk of really great bread. I ate it slowly throughout the day. I also figured out that eating a Ricola cough drop when I was feeling nauseous helped a lot. We stopped at Kinsman Pond shelter for some lunch. There were two other hikers there. One lady named Dr. S and I can't remember the other guy's name. We were going the opposite direction of both. At the road, we got a hitch on the FIRST car we tried - that felt good. It was a guy and his son who are bear hunters. They were headed to their camp to see how much bear activity was going on so when bear season came around, they would know where to go. I didn't know there were bear hunters. Of course, I didn't know there were moose hunters until I went to Maine. I should have known, though. Hunting is something I don't think about much. The guys drove us within one mile of town and we walked the rest of the way TO THE LIBRARY! YAY!!* * * * * *The library was seriously disappointing. I successfully uploaded 3 pictures in 30 minutes and we had to pay $2.00. SUCK ASS!I got pizza for dinner and Steven ate both of our leftover Chinese. Then I read and chatted with people - all NOBOs. The hike today had almost everything - deciduous, alpine, views above trees (almost), waterfalls, ponds, mud, roots, rocks, wood ladders, wood steps built into rocks, stone steps, clouds, and sun. There were lots of little ups and downs. Yup. A bit of everything. It was a good hike (despite feeling ill for most of it).
Date: 2012-07-31
From: Chet's Place

To: Jeffers Brook Shelter
Miles today: 8.4
Weather: scattered clouds

I am sitting on top of Mt. Moosilauke. Heavyweight is ashamed that we've hiked only 3.8 miles today. It is nearly 2 PM. I'm just glad I made it. The hike up was beautiful, but very wet and had wet wood steps built into the rocks to climb up. I'm so glad we weren't going down that way - NOBOs be warned! This is the LAST mountain in the Whites and our last above treeline for the entire hike. There is an alpine meadow here and we can see Mt. Washington and if you look really hard, the Adirondacks!At the first shelter before the summit, Beaver Brook, we met this guy taking a break, Andersen. We saw him again at the top. We were packing up our stuff after eating lunch and we hiked down with him. He is a really nice guy from Robbinsville (?), NC. Oh, I had a fly hanging out on my arm for about five minutes! It was my fly friend. <3Anyway, we had a pleasant and fun hike down with Andersen. At the base of the mountain was a gorgeous site. A meadow. A MEADOW!!!! We walked through the meadow to the road where we parted ways with Andersen. He drove by us and stopped to give each of us a bottle of (single size) wine. WOO HOO! So, here we sit at Jeffers Brook Shelter with Cody Coyote who has built a rather large fire. He is from Cucumber Gap, TN. I'm not particularly sure why he has built such a large fire because the sun is still up and it isn't particularly cold. He seems like a nice kid, though. The news of today: We are officially DONE WITH THE WHITES! Two big things are off the list: 100 mile wilderness & the Whites. The wine Andersen gave us is a perfect way to celebrate.The trees here seem so tall and looming compared to the Alpine trees of late. It is wonderful.
Date: 2012-08-01
From: Jeffers Brook Shelter

To: Hexacuba Shelter
Miles today: 15.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Long day today! We went to Glencliff to pick up our mail drop and walked right past the post office! About a half mile!! Thankfully we had dropped our bags off at the Hikers Welcome Hostel. There I uploaded my photos YAY! and we watched the 2nd half of Office Space. Such a funny movie.Then we hiked a lot over fairly easy terrain and only saw three other hikers. Then to Mt. Cube which KICKED MY BUTT! Thankfully, we met this guy who grew up in Coventry, RI (that is where my parents live) who gave us water and gummy fruit snacks. Mt. Cube is interesting with lots of neat rock. It looked like marble in some spots and quartz in others. We are now at the Hexacube Shelter and no one else is here. We set up the tent inside the shelter to keep the bugs out. There is certainly enough room for us to do that with lots of leftover space for others.I'm so tired - we hiked 15.7 miles today. We may try a 17 tomorrow, but that might be pushing it. I sweat so much today that I think I have a rash on my butt. :-/ I put A&D ointment on it.Dinner didn't even taste salty and it says it has 64% of our daily salt intake. Crazy! We added garlic salt. <3The Hexa-shelter has a penta-privy. LOL!!
Date: 2012-08-02
From: Hexacuba Shelter

To: Trapper John Shelter
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: scattered clouds

So, I think I figured out that the rash on my butt is from me sweating plus the seam on my shorts. I have been applying A&D at various times of the day. It is quite uncomfortable, but I'm dealing with it.I currently have 2 mosquitoes in my ears. At first they were a minor 6th apart and now they are a Major 6th apart. Annoying!We hiked about 12 miles today, but it was mostly pleasant. We went up Smarts Mtn and had lunch in the firetower. We talked to 3 NOBOs who showed up - Diesel, Open Skies, & an older guy whose name I can't remember. Maybe Sanhigan? Then we met three more of the same demographic - young guy & girl, older gentleman. Anyway, everyone is raving about Hanover. Heavyweight is getting excited too. I guess they give away a lot of free stuff (read: food). YAY!Today we wrote 5 chapters in our new Romance on the AT novel. HAHA! It was pretty fun. We are basing it on Stitch and Booterman because they disliked each other so much. We changed their names, though.We went to the ice cream man's house today, but he wasn't home. BUMMER! We did get water from his hose and we signed his book. I also powered up the last hill by breathing deeply and hard. I never got tired. It was almost like hyperventilating. I made it much more quickly than Heavyweight - that is a first!We ate dinner with Toto and Bucket, and we heard our first owl on the trail! Hoot hoot! We are being swarmed by mosquitoes with mice in the rafters. Ear plugs will be employed this evening. My left pinky toenail FINALLY came off so I don't have 2 nails on one toe anymore. Phew! :-)
Date: 2012-08-03
From: Trapper John Shelter

To: Norwich, VT
Miles today: 18.0

What a day! We reached Hanover in the afternoon - and we rushed the last bit because it appeared that a terrible thunderstorm was coming. We could hear the thunder and the skies were all thunderheads. We reached the Hanover co-op and called the trail angels we had on a list that house hikers for a night. How awesome is that?! The third person we called was a wonderful woman named Lizann. She came and picked us up at the co-op, brought us back to her house, let us shower and put on clean clothes (she had some for us to wear), and then drove us back to the co-op so we could hike the trail that goes through town without our packs. We hiked to the Indian restaurant in town where we ate our dinner (at 9:00 PM!!!) It was very good. We then hiked back to her house, crossing the Connecticut River at the NH/VT border in the process. ANOTHER STATE DOWN! WOO HOO!!! It feels so good to have come so far - almost home. Crossing the CT river was kind of surreal as I live very close to the river in MA. Lizann's dogs are great. One is Mellie and the other is Barkley. Barkley is a bit high strung, but a good dog nonetheless.