morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2017-06-16
From: Old Stone House Road / The Pipers

To: Cove Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 15.8
Weather: light rain

Happy Bloomsday! In honor of the day, I hiked a bit to the start of Telemachus.I'm  exhausted. My bag was heavy with goodies from the Pipers and I made the rookie mistake of fully loading up on water and there were both steep climbs and stupid endless expanses of rocks. Finally I get the thing about Rocksylvania. The rocks aren't consistent or pervasive. And there's different kinds.I passed a shelter earlier and met Landlady (named for a character from Kung Fu Hustle). There were tons of kids there - some kind of outdoor ed program for kids from troubled families. They offered me a s'more, and suddenly I had a ring of kids around me:"How do you charge your phone?""What are the ski poles for?""What if you see berries and you don't know what they are?"The last question was funny, because that just happened. I saw blackberry-looking things falling from trees and showed a photo to Mrs Piper to find out if they were edible. They're mulberries! So you know what I immediately picked the next day...The guide book had the first "very rocky" warning for the stretch today. And for the first hour of it, I was like, okay, this isn't so bad. During the second hour, it became "wait a minute..." And by the third hour: SCREW THIS! TAKE DYNAMITE TO THE WHOLE MOUNTAIN! It was just a field of pain as far as I could see.The problem is that there's nowhere big enough to put down your whole foot flat. So you're constantly wobbling on your heels or the balls of your feet or getting stabbed in the softest parts of your instep. Seriously!My feet seem okay though....I soaked them in a piped spring for 15 min.So I was miserable by the time I reached the shelter...when who should I see sitting there, but Red!What are the chances I'd run into someone from last year?! I was so delighted to see a familiar face.When he saw me, he said, "Happy Bloomsday!"
Date: 2017-06-17
From: Cove Mountain Shelter

To: Peters Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 15.0
Weather: light rain

Thoughts On Mulberries:They have less flavor / more grit than blackberriesThey have a mild flavor, like plumsIt's impossible to get them off the tree without the teeny stem. It's impossible to get the teeny stem off without the berry exploding.It's fine to eat the teeny stems.They stain on contact.What are the rest of the lyrics to the song with the monkey and the weasel?!?!* * *I'm tenting in a meadow full of lightning bugs. I'm here with Al from White Horse, the Yukon. He's carrying two beautiful Irish pipes, several kinds of tobacco, and a water bladder of Laphroig 10 year old cask strength Scotch ("It tastes like the sea - the peat, the smoke, like a beach fire," noted Al.) Clearly, his presence classes up the place, wherever he goes.We sat on the rocks, watched the lightning bugs, and talked. An unexpected, lovely end to a long day. I walked through Duncannon, where they were having a little AT festival. I ate scrapple and pancakes at a diner, but couldn't finish them. Hiker hunger hadn't kicked in yet. Neither has frankenlegs, although I think they're close - I feel stiffness. I spent 15 minutes lying on a rock photographing a turtle, who seemed to be gazing off into the abyss. Things I Have in Common with Majestic Turtle:-we both like a pretty view-we both have a fondness for green-we both carry everything on our backs
Date: 2017-06-18
From: Peters Mountain Shelter

To: Rausch Gap shelter
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: scattered clouds

I'm writing this by the side of an amazing fire Nightcrawler made. We all dried clothes at this shelter with a sweet water source with a metal trough / basin that sounds like a Zen water fountain.Today...what a day. First time caught in the rain, but on the way down, there were two families who converged at the road crossing to do the most epic trail magic! There was a woman grilling hot dogs with one hand and holding a TARDIS umbrella in the other. There was fruit and candy and Dunkin donuts and coffee....we all gathered under the awnings and talked and ate (in the photo, you'll see Al behind me, smoking his cigar and being dapper)The families were so lovely to talk to. Thank you!!!It was a long day with a long climb, so the trail magic really helped. At the end of those miles, I was going through the entire Weird Al Yankovic catalog in my head, just to distract myself.Stuff I noted during the day:- startled a wild turkey mama and baby- noticed how, with the insane humidity, it was just like hiking in a sauna- "what's on your arm?" someone at Trail Magic asked me. And I realized there's so much crap on my arms (mosquito bites, random bug bites, sunburn, bruises, scratches) that I had no idea which he was asking about- I ate it on the rocks today. The cuts look like paper cuts....but from rocksNew hikers I met: Fake News & Landlady, NightcrawlerMy favorite night so far, gathered around the fire, sharing Al's bounty, talking. I was too tired coming in to set up the tent, so it was my first night in a shelter this trip!
Date: 2017-06-19
From: Rausch Gap shelter

To: William Penn Shelter
Miles today: 13.4
Weather: overcast clouds

morning:A raccoon got into Fake News' and Priestess' food bag last night. It wasn't hung high enough - as opposed to mine and Nightcrawler's, which were hung up ridiculously high."You should have hung it with ours," I told Fake News."Now I have a Carole King song stuck in my head," he replied."Which one?"(singing) "And it's too late baby, now it's too late..."* * * * *7:35 pmSitting by the fire, enjoying being *dry*. Today got rough. It had been so damn humid and sticky. . . and then when I finally got to the top of the mountain / ridge, it got so darn windy. I could hear the trees shaking around me and started to think about them possibly falling down. It was super rocky (big surprise) and it started raining, and I lost track of the blazes, which can easily happen on rocky sections. I knew I'd gone off trail, so I turned my phone off airplane mode to check my position on Guthook (app for the Appalachian Trail).And as soon as I turned the phone on, it blew up with tornado warnings. "Take shelter immediately," it said. Um, I'm on the top of a ridge line, two miles from the nearest shelter?And then the lightning began. So between the tornado warnings and the lightning and me being on a ridge, I was freaked. So I did what I always do when stuck on a ridge in a storm: run. I was running over wet rocks. I didn't even know if tornadoes touched down in mountains, but I wasn't going to wait to find out. I ran so fast I caught up to Al and Nightcrawler, just as they were reaching the shelter. Al was continuing on to the infamous 501 shelter where you can get pizza delivered. But Nightcrawler and I stayed, started a fire to dry out our shoes, entertained ourselves with MREs we found in the shelter (they taste a bit like apple pie crust???). I started a batch of Jello (in honor of Atlas, who taught me to make trail Jello last year - by "refrigerating" it in a stream!).Later we were joined by Sweetheart from Germany, Monkey Man, and Primo, who brought a guitar wrapped in trash bags to protect it from the rain.Primo is currently playing the guitar - it looks like he's snake-charming the fire with it. He's playing a Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) song and singing. It's beautiful.I'm developing a cough. I'm worried I'm getting sick. I've never been sick on trail before....being in the wet clothes for so long can't be good. Guess it's me and the guys in the shelter tonight.Words of advice from Primo: "Never trust anyone in full camo."
Date: 2017-06-20
From: William Penn Shelter

To: 501 Shelter / Breathe Easy's "Mennonite Church"
Miles today: 4.1
Weather: broken clouds

I'm sitting on a swing - a massive, 30-foot high swing on this crazy property I don't even know how to describe. Now I'm moving to a manmade swimming hole that's fed by a spring. There are adorable little stripey frogs with green mouths that keep jumping into the water as I walk by. I'm now standing in a little outlet that leads to a waterfall - a very unusual way to get my daily 15 min foot soak!I got here kind of by accident. Handy at Boiling Springs had mentioned it, and something about it being wrong in the AT Guide, but I didn't catch what was wrong. It was listed in the guide as a Mennonite church that takes in hikers from the 501 Shelter road crossing. It's not. It's a guy, Breathe Easy, who actually lives 9 miles further up the trail (where he leaves trail magic every day!) and takes in hikers in his home, sort of like a hostel, and offers rides to Mennonite church services.But because it was wrong in the book, he offered to get me anyway when I called.I'm due to hit a town, Port Clinton, in two days. But then yesterday happened, my hiking clothes were soaked, and I spent the night in a shelter full of mouse poop (with fresh mouse poop by our heads in the morning), where a cockroach crawled out from under my camp shoes...and with a cold coming on....I decided it would be good to get inside and clean up and dry out a bit, even if it meant taking a nero.Once we arrived, Breathe Easy made me a raspberry kefir milkshake and a wrap...showed me his garden and some of his projects. Later he taught me how to make zucchini bread! (the Mennonites in this area are known for having tons of zucchini....if you leave your car unlocked at a church service, the back seat is likely to be full of zucchini when you return!)
Date: 2017-06-21
From: 501 Shelter / Breathe Easy's "Mennonite Church"

To: Eagle's Nest Shelter
Miles today: 15.4
Weather: scattered clouds

5:05 pmI am so utterly delighted. I got to the shelter early, after a day with a full breakfast and trail magic for lunch, and when I scouted out a place near the shelter to tent, I found this super-secret picnic table tenting spot! Tenting areas never have their own picnic tables! And I got here early enough to enjoy it. And the tree coverage is a little thin, so there's sunshine! I hung my sleeping bag up to air it out a bit. 8:15 pmI may have just spent an ungodly amount of time starting my first fire of the trip, with wet wood. Really wet wood. As in just-rained-a-few-hours-ago wood. It took forever. I am proud of myself. The best part is when the wind picks up and stokes the embers and turns them into flames. It's doing the work for me! Red called the fire "hiker TV."There's one kind of new branch on the ground, still green when you break it in half, that smells like birch beer. Must be birch! The weird thing is that it really burns...better than a lot of the other stuff that's more obviously dead. Maybe because it's not as water-logged?Mmmm... birch smoke...
Date: 2017-06-22
From: Eagle's Nest Shelter

To: Port Clinton / Nero / Zero
Miles today: 9.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Coming down the steep decline into Port Clinton, the first thing I noticed were lovely old Reading Blue Mountain and Northern trains. The trail actually dumps you right onto the railroad tracks, and there's a moment where you're not sure - they don't actually expect you to go over all these tracks without a proper crossing, do they? Yep!In town, I ran into Primo. "How did you leave that message for Night Crawler?!" he asked. (I had stopped at Breathe Easy's behind them, and Breathe Easy dropped my note off at his trail magic spot, which was 9 miles ahead!)I hit the Peanut Shop in town, getting far too many gummy strawberries, and then met a long-time friend. She came bounding up, gleefully trying on my pack. I don't think I've ever seen my pack on anyone else before. Ha! She rocked it! Then we headed off for food and revelry. So happy to catch up. Friends from the real world meeting me on trail (Tanya! Gish!) are rare and so appreciated.Found another tick. And Frankenlegs are slowly emerging.
Date: 2017-06-23
From: Port Clinton / Nero / Zero

To: Zero Day 
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Food! Stories! Visiting! Singing Happy Birthday to my dad on speaker phone!What a great way to spend a zero! Added bonus: I missed Tropical Storm Cindy. I found out online that the day I had the tornado warning, a tornado did in fact touch down on the south side of Blue Mountain. So having endured that storm, I'm grateful to have missed this one.I'm both eager to return to trail and nervous about the climb ahead...I haven't mentioned it yet, but the last few days, my pack has been coming apart. The pack itself, the cloth body, came off the metal frame. I jerryrigged it with line to get out of the woods, then fixed it when I got off. My friend hand-sewed the arms of it onto the frame for me, reinforcing them. So now when I see the green thread there, I'll think of her.She also gave me a set of Lymeez - neon green leg sleeves treated with Permethrin to repel ticks. They look utterly ridiculous, as if I'm preparing to go to a rave, but if they work, I don't care what they look like. I'm so grossed out by the fact that I find a tick every time I shower.And if I do happen to find a black light and a disco on the trail, well, I'm ready.
Date: 2017-06-24
From: Port Clinton / Nero / Zero

To: Eckville Shelter
Miles today: 14.8
Weather: light rain

Another unexpectedly delightful turn of events! I got to the Eckville shelter relatively early, but it was already full. There was overflow tenting across the road . . . but I don't camp next to roads for safety reasons. What to do? I sat at the picnic table, trying to decide. I picked a bowl of blackberries. And then other hikers arrived! Everyone was so friendly and interesting.Rock Eye: who got his name from a climbing accident just before he started the trail. A rock hit him in the *eye*! He showed me the tiny black stitches in his eye. I didn't know you could stitch eyes! He's also a dive instructor with one neat octopus sleeve tattoo. (He's a SOBO and has been keeping a tick tally: 38 so far. Shudder)Two Times: Earned his name from hiking the approach trail in Georgia twice! (because he got dropped off at the wrong spot)I had such a great time talking with another group which had two more divers. In the Venn diagram of hikers, who knew there'd be such overlap with divers? Is it because both groups love watching nature while being in full contact with it?
Date: 2017-06-25
From: Eckville Shelter

To: Bake Oven Knob shelter
Miles today: 17.4
Weather: scattered clouds

11:05 am - I am having a rough morning. I just have no energy. . . I don't know why. It's not particularly hot, and although there have been climbs I've had worse this trip. I do hate the rocks and that may be a chunk of it. It's exhausting, you're constantly watching the ground, and I've done both the ankle-giving-out-and-rolling maneuver as well as the sharp-rock-to-the-tender-side-of-your-foot move. That last one hurts a LOT. Having left so close to others going the same direction, we keep leapfrogging each other and that makes me feel more pressure to push on. But I decided to stop and rest, see if I can catch a second wind.Some part of me is all paranoid about Lyme disease, since I'm fatigued (but who wouldn't be?) and felt a little nauseous at bedtime last night. But it's probably because I took a nero and zero, am carrying too much food, and still adjusting to the workload.I must be kind to myself. In a few days, PA will be over!* * * * *5:25 pmPA is trying to kill me. This is a terrible day to do a 17 miler. . .Not just the rocks and lack of water sources but the exposed rock bouldering that is Knife Edge. I should have enjoyed the view, but I just wanted to get it OVER with because the height and me teetering on the edges of rocks with my overweighted bag was making me nauseous. I made it off and as soon as I could find a spot to pull over, I collapsed onto the ground and dumped everything in my food bag to get to a cup of applesauce at the bottom, which I drank down.I'm fairly certain I'm sitting on or near poison ivy. Come on, Pennsylvania. Bake Oven Knob shelter is still 2.6 ahead, #?#?!!!.* * * * *8:50 pmPretty much within minutes of the last entry, I totally ate it on the rocks. I was actually past the worst of Knife Edge, just coming down a relatively normal rock section. But I was really tired . . . and I slipped down and forward somehow, sending the pack up and over, and then I knew I was going down. I landed hard on my knees and left hand (just as the last rock wounds to my hand were healing!) "[Insert expletives of your choice]," I was yelling as I got up to make sure I was okay. Despite how hard I fell, there was little blood. I think I managed to scrape off every layer of skin but the last one. My knees didn't hurt as much as *looking* at them did, so I decided not to look, and somehow continued, through more freaking rocks, to get to the shelter.Red was here when I arrived, which was nice. He filled me in on trail news - the couple with the huskies got off. The caretaker at Eckville gave away hikers' tents, they got them back.I Neospoirined the knees, put on gauze, and pulled the Lymeez up over my knees to hold the gauze in place. I have them elevated now (as much as I can, they're resting on my pack). My low back also hurts, not sure how I did that.
Date: 2017-06-26
From: Bake Oven Knob shelter

To: Palmerton / Sunny Rest Resort
Miles today: 7.3
Weather: scattered clouds

And here is the story of how I ended up at a nudist colony....The hikers were all talking about the steep climb ahead and most were staying over in town to rest up. Between my knees last night and my increasing symptoms (mild nausea, lack of appetite, lower abdominal pain / cramping, trekkers trots), I decided it was a good idea for me to stop in town too. The guidebook only listed two places to stay - a B&B 6 miles away and a nudist colony a couple miles outside town. I wasn't in any shape to walk that far off trail and needed transportation. I joined forces with Noon (hiking to raise funds for Christians in Syria), who had left a message with the B&B to see if he could get a pickup. I was going to go with him if the B&B called back. They didn't. So instead I called the nudist resort to get a room and ride and arranged for Noon to get a lift into town (which we later discovered had a bunkhouse behind a restaurant)."You know this is a nudist resort?" the shuttle driver tactfully asked as we drove out there. As we neared Sunny Rest (in the Poconos!), I realized how nice it was, and started wondering how much I could really do in terms of "when in Rome." (turns out, this was actually going to be my second "clothing optional" experience on the trail, but the first I actually knew about going into the situation. . .)The grounds were actually clothing optional. Only the pools and spa had to be nude.And I definitely wanted the pools and spa. Once we got inside the resort, the first thing I saw was a naked man riding a 4-wheeler. Must. Not. Laugh! But why on earth would you want to ride a 4-wheeler in the buff?I got the key to my delightful little cabin, dropped off my pack, showered, and began screwing up the courage to hit the pool. I was almost as embarrassed by the scars and bug bites and bruises and hair as I was to actually be seen naked.I chastely wore a towel up to the very edge. The water felt amazing. To swim after all of that hiking was a dream...Next up: the spa. And in order to get to it, I had to walk through the night club.Which is called Flashers.You can't make this stuff up.* * * * *I swam, I soaked, did laundry, watched Groundhog Day on my phone. I tried eating some dinner, worked on sipping water, did a lot of Google searches. Did I have Lyme? Giardia? I consulted with my brother the doc, who said dehydration and heat exhaustion were more likely the culprits.So it's off to bed for me, to see if I can rally in the morning.
Date: 2017-06-27
From: Superfund Trailhead

To: Leroy Smith shelter
Miles today: 15.6
Weather: broken clouds

Holy cow, what a difference!I cannot get over what a change there was between yesterday and today! It's like I'm a whole different person. I'm not sure if it's recovering from the dehydration or the cooler weather or my hiking legs finally kicking in, but WOW. I not only had no trouble doing the crazy rock scramble out of Lehigh Gap, I actually enjoyed it! It was challenging and satisfying. And then there was a lovely open view, rockless walk.I got to walk with Sunshine (travelling with Dreamliner) for a bit, until she needed to go slower, and then I met Sparks and hiked with him for a spell, until he needed to rest (shin splints). I felt GREAT! I was spontaneously singing on the trail, which I haven't done in a while.Three songs in rotation:"Centerfold" by J Geils Band (it was playing at breakfast this morning before I left Sunny Rest, pretty much guaranteeing that it would be stuck in my head all day)"Baby I'm Yours" "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2I just felt so GOOD. . . striding confidently over those rocks like they were nothing. The same rocks that slowed me down and hobbled me yesterday morning. It's crazy, the difference. My brother was right, I was suffering from dehydration. I sipped water last night, slept, had more water this morning, felt good enough to eat at breakfast (half of eggs Benedict -still couldn't finish the plate, no hiker hunger yet). And I was so lucky with the weather. It was almost cool, no bugs. I had sunblock on, sunglasses, clean clothes. . . I was prepared. I didn't even stop to rest my feet all day at all. None of the symptoms from the day before were there anymore!Yesterday I couldn't get up the flights of stairs to the laundry without resting, today I was a MACHINE!A reminder that a little self care can go a long way out here. All I needed was to cool off, rest, and drink water. I think I figured out what went wrong. The water source had been dry and I was conserving water. The hike was more than I expected and I had had no idea Knife Edge was going to be so vigorous or exposed. And then of course I fell. When I got to Bake Oven I was already weak and the water was low / hard to get, so I took the minimum amount and decided to skip cooking dinner and breakfast to save water, eating snacks instead. Which is fine, but I didn't drink the equal amount of water I would have consumed had I had a normal meal.The weird thing is, I didn't feel thirsty. But I surely was.So, good to know to keep on top of water and not so much with skipping cooked meals!I had my full Mountain House tonight, no problem. I went and chatted with Sparks, who showed me his hammock setup, then chatted with Red and all the others at the shelter. I threw my food hang and got it right the first time.It actually feels chilly tonight. . . may actually sleep with the sleeping bag zipped tonight! Have heard there are porcupines at this shelter. I asked Little Engine to call me if she sees them.