morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2006-07-31
From: Harriman State Park

To: Graymoor Friary
Miles today: 17.6

"Well, I run right down 'n' bought a ticketTo this Bear Mountain Picnic.But little did I realizeI was in for a picnic surprise.Had nothin' to do with mountains.I didn't even come close to a bear."Temperatures have achieved oppressive heights. It is in the high 90's, and only going to get hotter for the next few days. I have this urge to go to the movies, or the library - but there's no respite out here.We tried to have a Bear Mountain Picnic despite the heat and the exhausting climb, but I'm afraid it wasn't much fun. The pavilion is "closed for renovations" (which I actually doubt, as it shows no signs of even being noticed in the past few years) and the water fountain locked inside. Cruel. We settled for ice-cold (but expensive) sports drinks from the vending machine. Then we experienced the famous Bear Mountain Zoo. It's a little sad to see those animals, many of them old and sick to begin with, in cages nowhere near approximating their natural habitat, just baking in this hot NY sun. But the ecological displays were informative (even if they were 30 years old) for the little city kids that seem to frequent this sad little state park. More informative than their parents, anyway - we saw a little girl point to this statue of Walt Whitman and ask who he was. Her mother replied, "Oh, he's the guy that invented this park." If Whitman had "invented" Bear Mountain State Park, he'd be doing backflips in his grave over its current condition. There's a nice new carousel building, but it's negated by the old Bear Mountain Inn across the lawn: nothing now but a dark, hulking reminder of better times. The duck pond is full of trash, the facilities are decrepit, much of the ground is dusty and bare. The public pool was full of kids, though, having a fabulous time. We were happy to cross that big, famous Bear Mountain Bridge and get out of there.Joy of joys, there happens to be a cold shower at Greymoor Friary! This place is nice, with a pavilion and a soccer field to camp in, and the aforementioned shower with a gravel floor that massages your feet. We chose not to have our meal catered by a local restaurant, though it seems to be an option. Some days, I'm really just grateful to stop. "Now, I don't care just what you do,If you wanta have a picnic, that's up t' you.But don't tell me about it, I don't wanta hear it,'Cause, see, I just lost all m' picnic spirit.Stay in m' kitchen, have m' own picnic. . .In the bathroom."
Date: 2006-08-01
From: Graymoor Friary

To: Shenandoah Campsite
Miles today: 17.6
Weather: few clouds

Barely made it here (did I mention it's hot lately? I hate to beat a dead horse, but...) This is a nice, open campsite with a great view of the cosmos bright with stars. If we could stand to be outside with all the mosquitoes, we could look at it.The only thing that kept us alive today, I'm convinced, was a little swim in Canopus Lake. A mile off the trail, but sometimes you really just have no choice. Actually, the lake itself was so warm as to not provide much relief -- it was the cold shower at the state park that I was most grateful for.
Date: 2006-08-02
From: Shenandoah Campsite

To: Nuclear Lake
Miles today: 14.8

Okay, even though I've been known to occasionally suggest there are too many people on this trail, I have to admit they're good for one thing. Other hikers force you to be happy, or to at least fake not being miserable. Where is everyone? In town, probably. I'd be in town, too, if there were any towns around. It's 101 degrees today.A trail-maintainer told us today that we could swim in and camp at Nuclear Lake, no problem. (It does have some connection to a nuclear testing site, but has been declared clean and totally innocent). We arrived to find a stagnant pool covered in algae and thriving marsh vegetation, with one area along the banks that may possibly have been a campsite 10 years ago. Sigh. It was getting dark though, so we found a place to plunk down the tent, albeit in an apparent mosquito nesting site. Thank god for mesh and nylon.I saw a very beautiful birch tree at twilight yesterday, two massive glowing trunks in the dark of the forest. Funny, I don't remember much else. We're in New York. It's hot. I'll admit I'm just waiting for things to improve, as I'm sure they will.
Date: 2006-08-03
From: Nuclear Lake

To: Wiley Webatuck Shelter
Miles today: 12.1

"Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"Right now I'm sitting in the Pawling Tavern, watching "Days of our Lives" and not wanting at all to go hiking. The heat wave is breaking -- today is only 95 or so, but it feels like a relief after yesterday. I miss home. Or I would miss home, if I had a home. I miss comfort. And cooking, cleaning, reading in an armchair. And I miss having a purpose other than Katahdin. It's starting to feel uncomfortable just having one single goal for such a long time. I even miss working. We'll have to see if I snap out of this melancholy or not. Our next zero is at Upper Goose Pond, six days from now -- I will give this trail another chance, at least until then.***Tonight we experienced an amazing thunderstorm, a few miles from the shelter. The rain came down in torrents, and the thunder and lightning nearly simultaneous. Booming thunder was all around us, and directly overhead. I don't know that I've ever been so close to a storm that I couldn't pinpoint the direction of its center. It was frightening, and exciting.
Date: 2006-08-04
From: Wiley Webatuck Shelter

To: Mt. Algo Shelter
Miles today: 12.4
Weather: light rain

Mt. Algo Shelter, a.k.a. the cheapest motel in Kent, CT (known for being a bit on the pricey side of trail towns). We're only .8 miles from town, so we'll hike in tomorrow for a resupply. We finally had a beautiful day, in the 80's, with a cool breeze. Out here, my mood is apparently completely determined by the weather, because I'm feeling much better. Still tired of hiking, but we took a short day, a long lunch at Indian Rocks, and it feels great to be finished one more state!I'm noticing things less, things like birdsong, trees, views, and squirrels. After all, we've been out here four and a half months now. If I'm taking the stately hemlocks and babbling brooks for granted, just think of how you take it for granted at home that your water comes pre-treated out of a faucet. It's quite something how fast the human mind adapts to new circumstances.
Date: 2006-08-05
From: Mt. Algo Shelter

To: Caesar Brook Campsite
Miles today: 13.9
Weather: clear sky

This morning I made the mistake of reading the paper over fabulous blueberry pancakes at Carlee's in Kent. There are things going on out there, I learned. The world hasn't actually stopped just because I happen to have gotten off. In fact, today's news makes me feel rather terrible for having been so selfish and free all summer, for burying my head in the woods like this. As a result, this morning I felt very eager to get back to the world and do something, somewhere, that involves more than putting one foot in front of the other, and affects someone other than myself.That said, we had an inordinate amount of fun this afternoon, being free and swimming in the Housatonic (a famously polluted river, but oh well). The current is strong, so all we could do to approximate swimming was to hold on to a rock on the bottom and let the running river pull our bodies downstream.There are frogs everywhere here, as well as snakes, chipmunks, and ridgerunners. Regarding the last, they are very strict in CT and insist that you use shelters or official campsites. As the crowds have thinned out by now, it's not much of an inconvenience. In fact, the trail is quite lovely here, unmarred by random clearings and fire-rings all over the place. The brooks are fantastic (Hitch Brook is the prettiest piece of running water I've seen in a while), running clear through ferns and hemlocks, cascading over mossy rocks.So today was a good day, but I'm still wondering: what is it that is keeping me out here after all these months?
Date: 2006-08-06
From: Caesar Brook Campsite

To: Limestone Springs Lean-to
Miles today: 15.7

We found this giant rattlesnake curled up right next to the trail today. He rattled at us as Marc foolishly tried to take pictures. All partipants (Jambalaya, Pepperoni, Snake) survived the ordeal, though.This is a crappy shelter spot - full of mosquitoes (we are wearing DEET for the first time since NJ), half a mile off the trail (straight down a cliff), and the smell of the privy is not at all well-contained. I don't recommend it.We just had dinner and I'm still hungry. Today all my snacks were gone before lunch. Wish I had a pizza. Marc makes fun of me for eating too much, which I don't think is very nice. He's practically two-dimensional. CT walking is full of cool, shady hemlock groves and stands of white pine with soft needles underfoot. A nice change from the tropical death-march we suffered in NY.The Housatonic looks really foul and dirty coming over the falls at the Great Falls Hydroelectric Plant (and I was swimming in it yesterday). At least I managed to grab a shower there. Actually, it's a shower head on the outside of a brick building that faces the plant -- so we got as clean as possible without breaking any indecency laws. The shower happened to face a popular fishing hole, where people were polite enough to pretend not to notice. However, people in cars on the road 10 feet away tended to stare and shout. I think I saw one car go by twice. I've never felt so homeless.I may have said earlier that towns were part of the "AT experience", but I feel compelled to add at this point that it's difficult to stay excited about hiking when it feels like you're never OUT of town.
Date: 2006-08-07
From: Limestone Springs Lean-to

To: The Hemlocks Shelter
Miles today: 17.5
Weather: broken clouds

Just the feel of the late summer forest lately has been enough to make me want to leave the trail. Leaves, fruit, everything is beyond ripe, turning yellow, brown, sun-burned, bug-eaten. The growing part of the season is over, and what's not growing is rotting. Branches and pine-cones seem to be giving up and falling from the trees in droves. Streams are dry, springs are little hopeless drips, dust swirls up from the trail with every step. Sometimes I wish fall would come on already and put this overgrown spring out of its misery.One more state down -- welcome to Massachusetts. Mt. Race and Mt. Everett were hard climbs on everyone today, and my knees are aching from the steep descents. At least they were interesting mountaintops, with scrub oak, pitch pine, laurels, birches, and red maples all low to the ground, molded by the racing wind. Nice views all day long. I also have a theory to advance regarding what's keeping me going: it's the thought that it would be incredibly lame to quit now, having come this far. Maybe "finishing" is more important to me than I originally thought. I was always saying, "As soon as I'm not having fun, that's it, I'm going home." But I don't think I've been having a lot of fun lately, though there have been good times. Fun is what kept me going up until about July; now it's fun combined with a sense of... responsibility.
Date: 2006-08-08
From: The Hemlocks Shelter

To: East Mountain Retreat Center
Miles today: 16.4

Today was an amazing day, nature-wise. In our first eight miles, we traversed rocky pitch-pine/scrub oak forests; clover-filled meadows with lacy flowers, bee-balm, goldenrod, and coneflower; bogs full of huge-leaved rain-forest plants, frogs, and mosses; moist in-between areas matted with nettles and jewelweed; farm fields full of cows; a birch forest; pine plantations with soft needle-cushions for our feet; and wonderful clutches of huge hemlocks, too big to hug. Oh, finally, a town (Great Barrington) for eating and shopping.The second eight miles was nice, too, and we arrived at the hostel in plenty of time to wash our clothes and have dinner. We were the only guests, so it was like having our own private hotel suite. The hostel is really a "Retreat Center," designed for seekers who desire a silent retreat, and I could have stayed for days just hanging around the library. Probably would have, if I were hiking alone.
Date: 2006-08-09
From: East Mountain Retreat Center

To: Upper Goose Pond Cabin
Miles today: 19.1
Weather: clear sky

You might think that having a zero-day close at hand would ease the pain of hiking 19 miles. Today, I think it made it worse. The loveliness of the forest, definitely comparable to yesterday, was lost on me and provided little more than a backdrop to my restless boredom. I could not have been more anxious to get to the cabin, when we came upon an anonymous cooler full of treats at Tyringham Road. This improved my mood, and we had a happy, sociable lunch on soft pine needles in the shade with Lefty and Monologue. I think the color and texture of fallen pine needles is therapeutic. I'd call it a rusty amber, glowing like a cloudless sunset. When we got to the cabin we saw Lothar, who we met in Erwin and hadn't seen since! It was a great surprise, and we had a good time catching up and playing UNO on the porch. Lothar's silly and unedited sense of humor makes it difficult to sustain grumpiness.
Date: 2006-08-10
From: Upper Goose Pond Cabin

To: Upper Goose Pond Cabin
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

The Goose Pond caretaker offered us coffee and pancakes this morning. I couldn't have been more grateful (REAL coffee, and we weren't even in town!) Watch yourself with the Log Cabin, though -- Wayne is kind of a syrup nazi. Whatever you do, don't take more than you can mop up with those pancakes!Right now Marc is paddling me around the "pond", which is New England-speak for "actually, a pretty good-sized lake". I guess it's the same sensibility that has them referring to their huge mansions as "weekend cottages". This particular glacial lake was once entirely owned by one family, the Stillwells. They gave some of it to the USFS, who gave it to the Appalachian Mountain Club, who lets us use it. I hope it will be protected forever from development -- as it stands, there are only a few cabins on it, though it's connected to the more developed and larger Lower Goose Pond. It's a little restful paradise, and a popular place to rest for a day. The only intrusions here are noise from the turnpike, planes, and the occasional hum of the Stillwell's motorboat (yes, they still vacation here).
Date: 2006-08-11
From: Upper Goose Pond Cabin

To: Dalton, MA
Miles today: 20.6
Weather: scattered clouds

Today's 20 miles have been the easiest so far. On the strength of a zero-day and this morning's blueberry pancakes, we arrived in Dalton still feeling pretty energetic. The walking was flat, and the forest was beautiful. We're truly in birch country now -- mostly birch and pine forests up here. We met the "cookie lady", who runs a U-pick blueberry farm and provides hikers with three cookies apiece, as well as the blueberries for their pancakes at Upper Goose Pond (it's the job of the southbounders to make sure the blueberries make it the 10 miles from the cookie lady to the caretaker at the cabin). There was a vacationing family there picking fruit, and the three small children asked some very astute questions: "How many miles are you walking? How do you carry that?" ("2,174" and "on our backs" we said.) One of the girls decided that what we were doing was "SCARY!" I guess it was, at first. And in a thunderstorm, it still is. As Thoreau pointed out once, nature has its limits for man. But as long as we keep those limits in mind, we'll be alright.Tonight we're tenting in Tom Levardi's backyard. He's just a guy who lives in Dalton, and may be the nicest person I've met this whole trip. He let us shower and offered us dinner all because, he says, "If I were doing the trail, I'd want someone to do the same for me."
Date: 2006-08-12
From: Dalton, MA

To: Mark Noepal Shelter
Miles today: 13.7
Weather: clear sky

This morning we met a man who hiked the AT in the 1960's. Back then, he said, the trail involved a lot more road-walking. A thru-hiker was apparently such a "novelty" back then that he didn't have to worry about where he would stay. People in the towns he passed would more often than not just take him into their homes, let him do laundry, and help him resupply. We were spoiled with breakfast at a diner in Dalton and now are having lunch at an ice-cream shop in Cheshire, just 9.5 miles down the trail. We're sitting here with Baloo, Old Reb, and Hollywood, contemplating whether or not we want to pay $25 for the privilege of sleeping in a bunk atop Mt. Greylock. ***Nope, we stopped early, three miles short, at this shelter. It's pretty crowded here with SOBOs and weekenders. We had been looking forward to sleeping on top of open Mount Greylock, enjoying the stars at night, but it seems the powers that be have done away with the $10 thru-hiker bunks. And we're just too cheap to pay the going-rate for the regular ones.
Date: 2006-08-13
From: Mark Noepal Shelter

To:  Powerlines in VT 
Miles today: 18.6

Sometimes it does pay to take a chance and hike an extra couple of miles into the unknown. Today it paid off in the currency of a sunset: radiating reds, oranges, pinks, purples and blues over the peaks of southwestern Vermont. If it weren't for the powerlines, we'd never have a view like this, and if it weren't for the crowded shelters, we wouldn't have kept going to find a private place to camp. It was really gratifying to emerge from a rapidly darkening forest to the sight of a sun half-set, just beginning to spew colors into the clouds.The wind is heavy and whips our tentfly around while we eat ham sandwiches (procured in Adams, MA) in the tent to escape the chill. It's not as cold as last night (we learned it went down to 30 degrees on Mt. Greylock and 40 degrees in Adams -- we were somewhere in between), but we're pretty exposed on this hillside. The hike up Greylock is fun, and at the top they have coffee. Can't beat that. We talked to weekenders, hung around the lodge, and generally wasted time. Old Reb pumped himself full of Advil and advised all the young folk to "keep your parts as long as you can." I promised to try, although what we're doing to our knees and feet right now is probably not exactly healthy.I am stunned by the incredible cuteness of the fat little birds around here. Mount Greylock is covered with spruce-fir, unlike other mountaintops we've seen lately -- a sign we're really out of the mid-atlantic and into the north!High on coffee, I flew down that mountain to our resupply in Adams, where we had a grocery-store lunch complete with donuts and bananas. We all (including Baloo and Old Reb) got stomachaches from hell when we tried to hike out -- like little kids on Christmas morning, we've lost our capacity for restraint.Almost immediately after entering Vermont, we were hopping pits of thick, black mud. It's going to be a muddy season for hiking, I suspect.
Date: 2006-08-14
From:  Powerlines in VT 

To: Glastenbury Mountain
Miles today: 19.8

Ugh, what a headache. Haven't had many since I've been on the trail -- maybe it's all the fresh air? Just one of the mental ills this AT seems adept at curing. But I have one now. Most of the beech trees around here are misshapen and look like they're riddled with bullet holes, and I'm wondering if this is the result of beech-bark disease. They give the forest a twisty, grotesque appearance, and I'm glad I'm not night-hiking because they remind me of that frightening scene in "Snow White." The shelter up here was beyond full, as were all the campsites, so we had to venture on and ended up in a weird, creepy spot near the fire-tower that appears to be the intersection of a few logging roads. At least it's private.
Date: 2006-08-15
From: Glastenbury Mountain

To: Stratton Pond Shelter
Miles today: 19.1
Weather: scattered clouds

Stratton Mountain, VT is beautiful, breezy, and cool, covered in thick moss, indian pipe, ferns, spruces, firs, and birches swaying crazily in the wind. The evergreens smell amazing up here.Sometimes I think there's something a little odd or misguided about the way we've come out here to get back to the wilderness. Though there is some instinct in us that insists this forest is where we belong (at least part of the time), are we too far gone into the world of pavement and machines to live out here in a natural way? We crowd this trail for companionship, fill up these shelters for something resembling a roof over our heads, make tracks for the snackbars and towns. We couldn't just experience nature -- we had to turn it into something with a finish line, an "accomplishment", in order to convince ourselves it wasn't a waste of time. Are we loving our woods, or hiding behind our nylon tents and titanium trekking poles? It sometimes feels like the best we've done, after five months and 1600 miles, is to skim the Cliffnotes of that wilderness spirit embodied by John Muir and demonstrated by his minimalist luggage: a blanket and a sack of bread.   I'm so exhausted right now I'll admit I'm pretty content to lie on this plywood bunk, but I still look forward to town (Manchester Center) tomorrow.
Date: 2006-08-16
From: Stratton Pond Shelter

To: Manchester Center, VT
Miles today: 10.6
Weather: broken clouds

Going on about two weeks straight of perfect weather. Two weeks of sun-dappled forests, blue sky through the branches, bright red and blue berries, indian pipe, and asters. And me? All I could do this morning was think about the fantasy fulfillment I might achieve at the Manchester Center -- outlet town and proud home of the Carriage House Hotel, Friendly's, and Ben & Jerry's. Just get me out of these woods and into a booth with some cheese fries and a banana split -- that was my frame of mind. Someone mentioned in the last register that he'd seen his first pitcher plant, and I never noticed it. Many NOBOs at this stage are willing to admit to their restlessness -- but we are so close, how could we quit now? There's some pressure to move a little faster, to keep a good pace. Though none of us are in any danger of missing the Oct. 15 Baxter State Park deadline, many want to be done by the end of September, before temperatures start to drop. Myself, I would just like to stop hurrying and worrying.Last night a some weekenders were out cooking pasta with pesto and REAL vegetables, which they shared with us. They were the epitome of the wholesome, outdoorsy family, and were really appreciating the three days they had to spend in the woods. I was the epitome of the tired, grumpy thru-hiker who'd been in the woods five months. The sinking sun cast a dark golden glow on Stratton Pond, and it was beautiful. And there I was: "Oh HELL no, I am NOT walking a mile to camp off the trail, and I don't want to pay $5 to stay at the shelter, and I walked 19 freakin' miles today! Waaahhh!" (As if any of this were anybody's fault but mine.) This family continued to be sweet and generous and politely inquisitive until I finally relented, allowing myself to sit down, be pleasant, and think, "I am an idiot". We ended up staying at the shelter and not even having to pay (the caretaker was on vacation).