morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-07-09
From: The Infamous Doyle Hotel

To: Peter's Mtn. Shelter
Miles today: 11.3

It was a crazy night. The last thing I remember was that I thought that guy had gotten arrested but the cops had just kicked him out of the Doyle. Ms. M and I woke up around 7:30 because there were no shades and the sun was blasting us thru the window. My head was also blasting so I got up and chugged a bunch of water. We collected our stuff and decided to try and get in on the hiker feed breakfast about a half mile from the hotel. When we got there, there were a lot of people hanging out and eating breakfast. Some of them were talking about a fellow thru hiker that had been killed the night before. It had been the guy the cops had thrown out of the hotel. The same guy that only a few hours earlier had been sitting at my table. The word around camp was that he passed out on the train tracks and got run over, ending his life. This was a lot for everyone to take in, it was all very surreal. We hung out at the park for the rest of the afternoon. They brought in a whole roasted pig and served up a feast. All we did was hang out with our friends all day, hack in a huge circle, and eat too much. Four o'clock came and we decided to take off. We did 11 miles, Mileage and I pulled into the shelter just before the last light disappeared. The shelter is huge and empty. Jerky, Warlock, Mileage and I all tented in the shelter tonight to avoid bugs. This has been a very strange couple of days. Our respect and thoughts go out to the family of the lost hiker.                                             PIKER
Date: 2005-07-11
From: Rausch Gap Shelter

To: 501 Shelter
Miles today: 17.4
Weather: scattered clouds

Today was another long day for us. Headed out of the shelter about 11 o'clock. We read in the log that a day hiker, Mr. Seer ?, had been by & was following our journal. That was cool to here. The day started out on relatively flat terrain with rocks of course. We took a long lunch break after only 4.6 miles. It was very hot today and I felt all of my energy getting used up on the climbs. We were surprised with trail magic twice today. First a gentlemen with apples and granola bars and then right before the shelter we met a very nice couple who was having a picnic. They gave us nestle crunch bars and absolutely delicious homemade ice tea, the best tea that we have had in our lives. Thank you so much!!! It was a great treat to end our day!!! Piker saw a snake eating a salimander today, he scared the snake off & the salimander was left still alive, bloody in the middle of the trail. Sounds like Discovery Channel to me. The 501 Shelter is great. Water from a spigot, a shower & bunk beds. The best past is that we had pizza delivered for dinner. Piker and I split a large 1/2 pepperoni and 1/2 mushroom. It was the best dinner I have had in a while. The pizza, to Piker's surprise, was Jersey style...we loved it!! Sleeping in the shelter tonight. I hope that I sleep okay without the protection of my tent. I already had to switch bunks because of the bugs...YUCK!!! The pizza made every tiring step worth it today.                              Ms. Mileage
Date: 2005-07-12
From: 501 Shelter

To: Eagles Nest Shelter
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: overcast clouds

I guess the 501 shelter isn't as nice as Ms. Mileage would have you believe because about two minutes after she wrote that last entry we got the hell out!! I was getting dive bombed by moths and Mileage was getting probed by daddy long legs. That is one nasty shelter. It was a very hot day and all we did was walk over rocks. I got a little bit ahead of the group and was walking past dried up swamp pond when I saw a huge bear. He took off and went crashing thru the woods. It was very loud and Ms. M heard it from about fifty feet back. Warlock also saw a bear this morning. I thought we were done with bears until Jersey. After the bear sighting I decided to repack my bag and put everything in the big plastic bag I now carry. About five minutes later we got dumped on. The rainstorm was major and we all got soaked. I don't know why I switched my pack when I did but all my stuff stayed dry. Water has been a little hard to find lately. Today we had to take a side trail to a spring but it was dry, so I went down really far into this swamp that had clouds of mosquitos. They ate me alive while I searched for adequate water. I gave up when the blood suckers became too much to handle. We filled up our containers out of a puddle. Really nasty stuff filled with dirt and dead bugs. You have to drink some gross water every now and then out here, you get over it. We are camped tonight, no shelter, and all is well.                                    PIKER
Date: 2005-07-13
From: Eagles Nest Shelter

To: Port Clinton-Ray & Mam's Place
Miles today: 8.6
Weather: few clouds

I think that this section has been placed here to get Virginia survivers to throw in the towel and quit in Pennsylvania. The forest is beautiful here but I don't dare take my eyes off the trail. That would be loco man, but seriously, I am not joking. There are parts of this quest that become a bit tedious, like waking up and having to go to work, the dread. I still would rather face the rocks any day so here we are.      To start things out this morning Ms. Mileage decided to wipe out on a broken foot bridge. She narrowly escaped exposed nails and splinters. Very scary but she was fine so we laughed it off. It was about 90 degrees which is the norm these days, Moose would have melted by now. We trudged on thru the rocks and still managed to bang out 8.6 miles in three and a half hours into port clinton. Mileage and I collapsed under the awning of the fire station. Some cold air was spilling out of the back of their air conditioner and it felt really nice. After that I walked up to the post office and mailed out something to my dad. Same buisness, different town. By this time Jerky and Lock pulled in and we hit the local bar. We had some beers and the biggest burgers yet on the trail. They made Elms burgers in Erwin look like white castle or something. A guy that was sitting at the bar started asking some questions about the trail and told us he once before took in a thru hiker. He was nice and we chatted for a few minutes. We were getting ready to get going on an 800 foot climb out of town when the plan changed. Ray invited us home and told us that offer would come with all the fixins! Here we go again, some totally nice person basically taking us in off the streets, sweet. Now we are all chillin in the lap of luxury, lounging on overstuffed chairs, marinating in icy air conditioning and watching tv on a home theater sytem, biggest tv I have ever seen in a private home. BooHoo, thru hikers have it so hard, I think ill quit tomorrow, ya right. We have made plans to Death March it into Jersey so Warlock can spend at least one night at our house, a couple 20s in a row thru the rocks sounds pretty good sitting in Rays chair right now. I guess if you keep reading you will find out if we survive.Thank you very much to Ray and Mam, you are very generous people and we really appreciate being put up like this.                              PIKER
Date: 2005-07-14
From: Port Clinton-Ray & Mam's Place

To: Allen Town Shelter
Miles today: 22.6

Last night was a really great night with rays family. They fed us, showerd and laundered us. We said thanks and they dropped us off at the trail. It was SQuid, Lock, Mileage, and I. We did our first 16 miles over rocks and did a few thousand foot climbs. It was a long tiring day and we dropped when we got to the final destination. Jerky and I had to risk our lives climbing down a half mile trail to get water at about 9 at night. It was extremely difficult terrain in the dark. I took a nice spill onto my back. We are tired so that is about it for tonight. The death march continues tomorrow. We hear that eagle eye is just ahead of us and we are dying to see him. We also really miss Elf, Dirty, and Walrus. I need their # so we can meet up with them in jersey. If anyone can help us with this info please leave a message in our guest book. The entrys people leave in our guest book are inspiring and really help us plug away at the miles. To all our virtual followers, we apprediate you very much.                                 PIKERps Hello to our friends across the country, especially Messy Baby and Kristen, see you in a few hundred! Brian, Tim and Forest, we will see you in NYC next week. PEACE OUT
Date: 2005-07-15
From: Allen Town Shelter

To: Palmerton Jail
Miles today: 17.7

Things have been pretty crazy on the trail2 lately, as I write this entry I am sitting in jail. It goes to show you never know were you will end up at the end of the day.      We did the first 4 miles today in an hour and came upon a really nice restaurant. Squid, Lock, Mileage and I all got something to eat adn it was wonderfull. I cant say that the rest of the day turned out as well. I took the lead weaving my way thru piles of rocks when my foot got caught and I wrecked really bad. I crashed down a few feet and came down really hard, tangled up in my gear and poles. The blood was definitally flowing. I shook it off and we continued on thru the cursed rocks. We eventually made it to the highway and a nice guy named ron pulled over and picked us up. The joke is that the local hostel is the old county jail, a pretty nice set up. Mother was there and informed us that he has lymes disease. We hung out and talked for a while and discussed tomorrows death march. 19 miles with no water up steep rock cliffs under the baking sun. Another 20 miler tomorrow so I better get some sleep. We will need to be strong and well hydrated to make it thru Dantes Inferno, as this next section is called.                                    PIKER
Date: 2005-07-16
From: Palmerton Jail

To: Gateway Motel
Miles today: 20.0

Dantes Inferno turned out to be no problem for a couple experts like Ms. Mileage and I, even though I snapped my trekking pole in two. I needed to rename this section Dantes Shower because the inferno took the day off. We scaled the cliffs and got to the section were the whole mtn top had been burned away by zink poisoning. The views were amazing and the terain was much easier than expected. The rain really cooled things off so we made pretty good time. Squid and I fixed my badly broken pole by bracing it with two titanium tent stakes and duct tape, worked perfect. The rain did eventually become overwheming and my shoes filled up with water. I think gortex might be bad because it traps all the water in and turnes your feet into prunes. We got to a shelter at about 9 at night and had to decide if we should go on to the road or stay. We went on and night hiked 5 miles down thru more !*#$%ing rocks and more switchbacks and finially got to the road. Warlock had skipped the shelter break so he was waiting for us. He got a hotel room that I forgot to pay him for. Warlock, give me an address so I can send you cash, I totally spaced dude! We all got showers and the comfort of this second rate motel. My parents are meeting us here in the morning with the dog. They parked a car at the gap and are taking our stuff so we can slack the last 16 miles of PA. We are very exited to get out of this state and to take a few days off in Jersy!  GH3 lives on                               PIKER
Date: 2005-07-18
From: PIKERS HOUSE CHESTER NJ

To: PIKERS PLACE
Miles today: 0.0

Another day just chillin out at the house. Squid did some mulching for my parents. I cleaned up a little and Mileage downloaded some pics. We headed into chinatown for a late lunch and to get some interesting resuply. WO HOP is a great place to eat if you like authentic chinese, I highly suggest the roast pork chow fun and crispy orange beef. We also happened to pick up some Squid Jerky packages, we did not taste them yet. The rest of the day will be spent relaxing, tomorrow Micki and Sam will be here so that will be fun. We will continue on to Katahdin here real soon.                                    PIKER
Date: 2005-07-19
From: PIKERS PLACE

To: PIKES PAD
Miles today: 0.0

Today was even lazier then yesterday, Squid and I went to the mall just to do something. We are resting our bodies, ya, thats how I can justify bumming around. A vacation from a 6 month vacation. Micki and Sam arrived early evening carrying cookies, cakes, cheese, wine, beer(long trail) and lots of other goodies. We had a nice dinner and it is great to have these lovely ladies with us. A very small piece of trail got missed when we carried our dog out of the woods the other day so we are going back to clean that one up tomorrow. I left my good buddy Burn a message on trail forums and it turned out pretty funny, check it out. NYC tomorrow night, the fun never ends around her.                              PIKER
Date: 2005-07-20
From: PIKES PAD

To: The Palace of Pike
Miles today: 0.0

This is becoming an extremely long break from the trail. The Vortex has definitaly sucked us in as we will be staying an aditional 3 days. We are planning on going big thru Jersey and New York, 20's every day, or maybe a little less depending on rocks and heat. Today my Dad, Micki, Sam, Mileage, and I went back to hike the 2 mile section we missed carrying casey out of the woods. Squid was dropped off at the parking lot so could start banging out some miles. We backtracked about 2 miles up Minsi Mtn on a jeep road, found the trail right were we left it, and headed down the easy but rocky AT decent back to the car. Yep, we are still BIG TIME purists! Micki, Sam, and my Dad did great, they could probably all thru hike if they wanted. Sam might meet us in VT for a week when we get there. We all ate a lot of rasberries and Micki jumped from rock to rock.       Later on Micki took us out for dinner and drinks at the Long Valley Brew pub, very good dinner and micro-brews. We all had a nice time, personally I feel very spoiled lately, lots of fine dining, not a lot of ramen.   After all that fun Mileage and I took Sam into the city. We went to a great bar in the village, the bartender appreciated stories about our little hike so much that he picked up most of our tab. What a great guy! Its becoming pretty standard issue to roll in in the middle of the night these days, we better get our acts together real soon. Not much chance of that due to the family party schedualed for saturday evening and my parents anniversery dinner at Tuscana friday night. We will attempt to begin depriving ourselves again on Sunday. See you out there hikers, if there are any of you left.                              PIKER
Date: 2005-07-21
From: The Palace of Pike

To: El Casa de Pikey
Miles today: 0.0

Micki is a wonderful woman. We had a great time with her and she took very good care of us with the perfect resupply at the Nature foods store. We won't need food until mid New York. Mostly when I think about this visit from Vermont I will think about what a fun time we all had together. We were so happy to get to spend a little time with Sam too. Today Mileage and I are motivated and posting many new pictures. We are also preping up a bunch of mail drops in hopes of saving a little loot, and getting a little more variety than is offered in most towns. The skin on my feet is pretty damaged from hiking in the rain all last week so the time off is good. Ms. M's knee's are also are lovin the long, leasurly, layover. Try to pronounce that last sentence 3 times fast and you will get dizzy. Big shoutout to all our fellow thu-attempters, friends, and families!                              PIKER
Date: 2005-07-23
From: The Pike Republic

To: PIKERS Chester NJ 
Miles today: 0.0

The whole family came for a visit today and it was great to see everyone. They all came in from Long Island and Queens and brought some really good food. We had Grandpa Rob, Nana, Mommy Rhoda, Uncle Ricki, Aunt Leslie, cousin Jen, Uncle Hank, and Auntie Jill. We were all together to celebrate my dads birthday and my parents anniversery. Nana was walking around with Ms. Mileage's full pack on, that was interesting and funny. The family threw horse shoes and had a few drinks and a lot of fun. Ms. M and I head out tomorrow but are not that exited yet, we have just got to used to home life. I hope I feel differently because I dont want to dread hiking the trail. We will cross the Del Gap Sunday afternoon and try to cruise thru New Jersey. Talk to you soon.                           PIKERPs. Micki, I wanted to talk to you but you hung up to soon.
Date: 2005-07-24
From: PIKERS Chester NJ 

To: Mohican Outdoor center
Miles today: 10.9
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was our first day back on the trail after a week off at Piker's parents home in Jersey. We spent a lot of time with our families, ate a LOT and rested our bodies after hiking 1280 miles. It was a wonderful break and one that I feel I really needed, but the last thing I wanted to do this morning was hit the trail. Only one week off and I had completely grown used to all the creature comforts again. Today was like Springer Mt. all over again. Leaving our dog had me in tears, and saying bye to Mama and Papa Piker was like walking away from Michael and Uncle Lee in Georgia. I had a lot of anxiety ( Piker may ask, "When don't you?") but I knew that if we were together, it would be great. Today began a new hike for us. Our crew is completely dismantled, which is sad and I wish that we were all still rollin to K-Dog together, but we are also really excited to meet some new prople and hike with others we have just hung out witha few times. Today we brought our video camera out to the trail. We realized how special all of our momenta out here really are and wanted to capture it. The taping slow us down a bit but wew were able to get footage of some beautiful spots today. We said our good-byes and headed down the road, crossed the bridge and were in Jersey. Since it was Sunday there was a lot of traffic on the trail. The trail was wide and rocky but the climb was gradual and just great for our first day back out. Before we knew it we had gone 5 miles. It felt good to be back on the trail. We sat down for lunch and had delicios N.Y. bagels thanks to Granpa Rob and Nana!! While we were eating, The N.J. Ridgerunner came by and chatted with us. He told us that there were a lot of thru hikers right ahead of us. This made us happy since we had still not seen a fellow thru hiker today. We finished lunch and headed to Sunfish Pond. What a beautiful spot. The AT skirts around the pond for a way and it was nice except for all the rocks. The trail had changed a lot since PA. Today we went thru some narrow corridors and some wide open ridgelines. The hiking was very enjoyable. There is a section on Sunfish Pond where hikers build cairns, its a cool tradition and as a result an intresting spot. While passing by we met Moonshine who is thru hiking. We talked with him and found out that he is sponsered by Moon Pie which got our wheels turning. We made it tothe Mohican Outdoor Center by 6:15. They let thru hikers camp for free which is wonderful. We found a great site and then Piker made dinner - Hot Digs brought from home. Delicious dinner made me happy! I love the variety of food that we came out with - its very important. Had a quiet night chatting with Moonshine and Snake while sippin on Beam and coke. Our first day back on the trail made us remember how much we really love it out here. My feet are sore, but they are always sore. It is a cool night and I think the nice soft breeze will put me right to sleep. Tomorrow we start our 20 mode.   Lovin the trail   Ms. Mileage
Date: 2005-07-27
From: High Point State Park

To: Pochuck Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 14.1
Weather: clear sky

Right now Mileage and I are in a rather peculiar situation. We are held up under a rotted out 18 wheeler tractor trailer. It may or may not be infested with wasps. I already killed 2 before they got me. The thunder is rolling and we have already successfully avoided the first leg of a major string of thunderstorms scheduled for this evening. It is 5:50 and we are preparing to head out. We were traveling at a nice pace before the storm moved in. We started our day safe and sound because nobody caught us in our stealth camping spot. The 4 of us headed down to the visitor's center and Mileage and I picked up our maildrop. There was too much food so we offered it out to Sal and Moonshine. They took some and we put the rest in the hiker box. It was about 90 degrees as we climbed up and away from the visitor's center. Very steep and rocky terrain. The torture lasted a few miles and we played leap frog with the guys. Eventually things leveled out nicely and the rocks disappeared. We made a left down to the secret shelter and it was wonderful. Jim Murray owns the cabin and it comes equipped with a shower, industrial sink, water pump, fan and electricity. He pulled up in a porsche while we were relaxing there. Very nice guy! He told us to bring out lots of water due to the heat. We thanked him and took off. We held our nice pace for hours until this storm hit. We dread chafing and wet feet, so I was relieved when I saw an old rusted out factory through the woods as the rain started coming down hard. Mileage waited under a tree while I scoped it out. I saw the trailer I am now under and called Mileage over. We crawled under just in time. The rain came down hard. Lots of thunder and lightning. We are dry, happy, and I am journaling. I will finish this later, we are off into the woods.... We are now in Pochuck Shelter. Our tent is set up inside because no one is here. We successfully avoided the rain this time. We got our water from an abandoned house, .5miles before the shelter. Mileage was scared to see if there was a hose outside but I made us check and we prevailed. I wanted to sneak in but thought better and avoided it. Moths are divebombing me now so it is tent time. On to more adventures tomorrow.      PIKER