morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2007-07-29
From: VT 103

To: Willie's Sisters House
Miles today: 0.0

(Willie)It wasn¢t our longest stretch between zero days, but it feels like we sure did earn a day off. After 344 miles we decided that the best way to relax was to go to the Great Escape with my sister and her family. Maybe walking around an amusement park isn¢t the best way to relax, but lounging around in the Splash Water Kingdom for most of the afternoon felt really nice.For dinner we had a little pizza party that my entire immediate family was able to come to plus my aunt and uncle from North Carolina. Everyone from out of town ended up being in the area for one reason or another so we naturally had to have a get together. It was a little hectic, which you would expect with six kids under the age of six running around, but I¢m really glade things worked out and we were able to see everyone. Now we just have to find some time to get all of our chores done.
Date: 2007-07-30
From: Willie's Sisters House

To: Clarendon Shelter
Miles today: 1.0
Weather: clear sky

(Erin) We woke up again in Will¢s sisters¢ place and still had a lot to do before leaving to hit the trail again. Will had stayed up late last night doing journals and I still had mine to do this morning. So I quickly finished up with the journals before Will¢s brother-in-law came back with bagels for breakfast. We packed up the tent and our packs before Will¢s mom came to drive us back to Vermont to do food shopping and to hit the outfitter before dropping us off on the side of the road. After all of the running around we had to do we were sitting in the parking lot by 3:00 with only 1 mile to hike today. Will had gotten stressed out trying to come up with a schedule so I made the schedule and so that we didn¢t stress out even more I planned our shortest day ever¢¦.with 1 miles to go to the shelter. At the shelter that night we met a few people that were north bounders (NOBO) and a couple that was going south bound (SOBO) and even a guy that was hiking the long trail. The AT and the Long trail merge at the Massachusetts/ Vermont state line and then just before the AT runs into New Hampshire the Long Trail keeps going north into Canada. There were all kinds of people going in all different kinds of directions. We had hoped for an early night and get to bed before 9:00 but we stayed up chatting with the SOBO couple ¢Alpine¢ and ¢Princess Brat¢. They actually work at the outfitter in Neels Gap in Georgia. So they had met a few NOBO¢s before they headed up to Maine to start their hike. We stayed up sharing stories and talking about the trail till after 10:00 before calling it a night.
Date: 2007-07-31
From: Clarendon Shelter

To: Gifford Woods State Park, VT
Miles today: 19.6

(Willie)I don¢t really think that Erin and I have really grasped on to the north bound (NOBOs) mind set just yet. Even with almost 20 miles planed for today we were still the last NOBOs to leave the shelter. Heck everyone else had cleared out before we were even out of our tent this morning. All that was left was us and a bunch of SOBOs. Oh well, I guess we¢ll just have to socialize with people who we¢ll probably never see again, like Alpine and Princess Brat.When we finally got on the trail at 8:30 (which isn¢t really that late if you ask me) we had to head straight up Beacon Hill that had an aviation beacon on top of the hill. It wasn¢t that bad of a climb, but going up 400¢ in the first half a mile is never an easy way to start the day. From there it was a pretty easy stroll to the Governor Clement Shelter were we stopped in for a quick snack. Along the way we even passed the Upper Cold River Road, which means that we officially have less then 500 miles to go!We spent the rest of the morning tackling Killington Mountain. I don¢t know how many times I¢ve been skiing at Killington, but I do know that it¢s a heck of a lot easier to get to the top when you have a lift pass and a chairlift. I guess this time around I¢ll settle for a 4.5 mile climb instead of a 10 minute lift ride. It wasn¢t that steep, but it was enough to get the legs burning and to get our stomachs ready for lunch.The afternoon wasn¢t that eventful except for one of the most amusing falls of the trip. While we were going around Pico Mountain Erin was nice enough to point out another advantage of wearing sandals when she got her shoe lace caught on a branch laying on the trail. It was pretty funny to watch as her right foot kept taking step after step while her left foot was still stuck to the branch. Finally after the third or fourth failed step she hit the ground, and I have the pictures to prove it. For those of you who are keeping track at home, Erin is now leading in the falls race 7-2.Life Lesson: Be ready for your legs to revolt when you try to do a 20 mile day the day after taking practically two days off.
Date: 2007-08-01
From: Gifford Woods State Park, VT

To: Wintturi Shelter
Miles today: 16.7

(Willie)Seeing that we only had 17ish miles to do today and how we didn¢t get to bed until about 11:30 last night we decided to sleep in a little and to take our time getting ready this morning. We had to leave eventually because we wanted to get a mile down the trail to try to pick up breakfast at the Mountain Meadows Lodge. Unfortunately, no one had stayed at the lodge last night so the cook didn¢t come in this morning to make breakfast. Oh well, I guess that Pop-tarts and Kissables will have to do once again. Even though we didn¢t eat there the owners were nice enough to come and let us use their computers, which we spent far too long doing. We didn¢t end up leaving the lodge until about 10:30, and we still had 16 miles to go.I guess our relaxed start wouldn¢t have been that bad if the trail the rest of the day was going to be nice and easy. We figured out quickly that that wasn¢t going to be the case as we staggered straight up Quimby Mountain. To make matters even worse it was clear that we were the first ones down this stretch of trail in a while as we plowed through spider web after spider web that were stretched across the trail to try to slow us down. For some reason, Erin suggested that this would be a perfect time for me to go first. With in a minute or two I was covered head to toe in the sticky webs! Let¢s see, steep climb with spider webs, could it get worse? Sure it could, why don¢t we add swarming gnats and mosquitoes? This was the first time since PA that I had to hike with my hat and bandana on to keep the bugs off my face and out of my ears. The rest of the day continued on in a similar fashion with one steep climb and descent after another. None of them were that big, but in all I think we made about five 500¢ climbs after lunch to get to the Wintturi Shelter. But hey, at least we were packed in the woods and didn¢t get any good views! I guess today wasn¢t the best of days to take a relaxing morning. The foothills can be just as tough on you as the mountains.Life Lesson: Don¢t walk with your mouth open when you¢re the one lucky enough to be clearing the trail of spider webs in the morning.
Date: 2007-08-03
From: West Hartford, VT

To: Etna-Hanover Center Rd, NH
Miles today: 15.7

(Willie)Wow, a freshly mowed flat back yard really makes for a comfortable sleeping surface. I think we both slept like a log last night. But the breakfast burritos at the country store were calling our name so we had to get up sooner or later. Man, were those burritos good, and filling enough to get up the 1100¢ climb out of town. Despite the over grown trail and the elevation gain we were able to make pretty good time in the morning. Before we knew it we had covered the 7.5 miles to Norwich, VT and we were walking on pavement again. And boy did we have a lot of pavement to walk on. From where we came out of Elm Street, we had about 3 long hot miles of road walking under the scorching sun. I guess 3 miles doesn¢t really sound like that much, but a lot went on in those 3 miles. Before we got to down town Norwich we had passed by two sets to trail magic. First was a cooler out side of The Brain¢s house (a thru hiker that already finished this year) where we picked up some cookies and shortly after that we came across a girl named Mae who had sodas and pie. I guess Elm Street isn¢t full of nightmares after all. From Norwich we made our grand entrance into New Hampshire by crossing the Connecticut River into Hanover, NH. Boy, did we feel out of place there as we walked down Main Street through shopping central with all of the clean people running around us trying to get stuff done. I hope we didn¢t get too much dirt or funk on their nice white outfits. But hey, they do have a Food Coop with ice cream, chips, and fruit, everything you need for a nice hikers lunch. After Hanover we only had 5 more miles, which thankfully went by pretty fast despite the 1000¢ climb that seems to follow just about every town on the trail. When we got to the Etna-Hanover Center Rd we hitched a ride to the country store and called up the Tiggers Tree House Hostel where we planed on staying the night. Karen came to the store to pick us up and bring us to the hostel. We even got a ride back to the same Food Coop where we had lunch a couple hours earlier to resupply for the next 6 days. To think, it only took 15 minutes to drive what it took us 3 hours to walk. At least we didn¢t have to walk those 3 hours with 6 days of food in our packs.Life Lesson: The air conditioned produce isle in the grocery store is a great place to be on a hot and humid day.
Date: 2007-08-04
From: Etna-Hanover Center Rd, NH

To: Firewarden's Cabin
Miles today: 17.5
Weather: few clouds

(Erin) What a day! Sometimes I don¢t even remember where we start in the morning by the time we get to camp at night. Today we got up and packed up our stuff and left the hostel by 8:10am. We asked if Karen could take us to an ATM so we could get some cash for the White Mountains with all of their fee campsites and huts. We were hiking by 9:00am, later then we expected and so we hoped that we could still make it to our planned shelter for the night. The first few miles were not too bad and not too hard. Then we had our first climb up South Moose Mt. at 2290¢ and then North Moose Mt. at 2300¢. All of the climbs started at 900¢ and so it was a pretty steep climb to the top. We had lunch at Trapper John Shelter and then still had 6 miles to get to the shelter for the night. Then the hardest climb of the day up Smarts Mt. at 3240¢. Man was that a killer with full packs of food and water. (6 days of food and full water since there was no water at the top). It was the first climb that we started to get some really nice views of all of the huge mountains around us. The climb was hard and steep with rock slabs and long steep rock steps. Really gives your calves a huge work out. We made it to the top just after sunset but we still ran up the fire tower to look at the view from the tippy top. We could still see the orange and red glow of the sun still setting in the distance, very pretty. It was also very windy up in the fire tower so we didn¢t stay long. At the shelter/cabin we were the only ones there. So of course we set up the tent in the cabin and started dinner and stretching. The wind howled outside the fully enclosed cabin but we stayed very warm in our tent inside. What a day!White Mountains here we come¢¦p.s. Oh yea today marks 4 months on the trail and 2 years 2 months of dating for Will and I¢¦only about one more month till we are done!
Date: 2007-08-05
From: Firewarden's Cabin

To: Stream past NH 25C
Miles today: 15.2

(Erin) We woke up around 7:00 and started getting ready. It was chilly being up at 3240¢ so we kept our rain coats on as wind breakers for the first 4 miles down the mountain. Today was going to be a fun filled day of climbing without many water sources. We hiked down from Smarts Mt. to a brook where we filtered water and then kept hiking another mile or so where we stopped at another brook (the water looked blackish red) where we had lunch. Then it was time to climb Mt. Cube and passed the Hexacuba Shelter. Not as hard of a climb as Smart but still challenging. We had more rock slabs and rock hops and even some exposed areas where we had more amazing views of the area around us. Its much more worth the climb when you know there is going to be an amazing view at the top. After reaching the top of course we had to start hiking back down, which is where we passed a few SOBO¢s on their way up. It¢s interesting how we have never met these people before and will never see them again but we still have some kind of bond with them. We stop and update them on reliable water sources and what the next climb is like. The only difference is that we are almost done with our thru-hike and they have almost just begun. We kept hiking and came to the next shelter where again there was no one there. We seem to be in a gap between hikers and all alone. We stopped to use the privy and then even though it was tempting to stay there for the night we kept hiking to the next road where we had planned on camping next to a stream.    We made it to the road by 6:00 and found a group of Outward Bound boys that had taken most of the camping by the stream. We did find a spot for our tent and then went out by the road to cook dinner and stretch before going to bed.Tomorrow we start the crazy hard White Mountains with Mtn. Moosilauke first, oh boy!
Date: 2007-08-06
From: Stream past NH 25C

To: Glencliff, NH
Miles today: 4.8

(Willie)We got up bright and early this morning excited and ready to tackle Moosilauke Mountain, the psychological entrance into the White Mountains. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for us. Things started off a bit on the cool side with overcast skies, perfect for climbing a tough mountain. In the next hour things got progressively worse and by 8:30 it was pouring rain and we were once again listening to rumbles in the sky. Maybe this wouldn¢t be the best day to climb up above tree line for the first time of the trip.By 11:00 we were more then soaked to the bone and far colder then we would like to be so we decided that we had had enough. Luckily after about 5 miles we got to NH 25 and the Hikers Welcome Hostel was only a wet half a mile walk down the road in Glencliff. We were surprised to see that the place was packed when we got there. What was even better was that we got there just as two people were leaving to go to a hotel so we were able to get some bunks. So instead of hiking in the rain we spent the day watching movies, after long hot showers of course.Life Lesson: You can plan until you¢re blue in the face and you think that you have the perfect plan, but Mother Nature always has the last say and you have to be willing to listen to her.
Date: 2007-08-07
From: Glencliff, NH

To: Kinsman Notch
Miles today: 9.5
Weather: light rain

(Erin) We woke up in the hostel around 7:00 got packed and started hiking by 9:00ish. We only had 9.5 miles to do today so we weren¢t in much of a hurry. The hike up Moosilauke wasn¢t too bad. Lots and lots of rock steps made it very time consuming but not too difficult. We reached the top by 11:00 and sat up on the summit for over two hours. We talked to a lot of day hikers that had the normal 20 questions when they find out that we are thru-hiking. By the end of the conversation we only hope that they give us food¢¦no such luck on the first two groups we talked to. Then a group from Camp Moosilauke reached the summit. One of the counselors (from Australia) came over to talk to us and ask us questions. He was really nice and first told us that if they had any left over sandwiches that we could have some. SCORE!! Our time paid off, we got some turkey sandwiches on the summit of Moosilauke. We did enjoy talking to the Aussie but soon we had to finally start hiking again. We started down the mountain around 2:00pm. On the way down there was a cascading waterfall that followed us on our left the whole way. At some points the water running down the rocks was almost on the trail and I¢m guessing sometimes it covers the trail when the water gets really high. It was a challenging hike down with wooden steps that were being held onto the rocks by rebar that was sticking out of the rock.(see pictures to see what I mean). Sometimes there were ropes to help where the wooden steps had broken off. It was a long, slow process to get down but once in a while we could step out from the trail and see the amazing water falls cascading next to us. When we reached the bottom we looked for a place to put up the tent but then decided to ask some day hikers if they would drive us into town to a motel for the night. We knew that it was supposed to start raining tonight around 3am and not stop till mid afternoon and we didn¢t feel like getting wet again. At the motel we met up with some other hikers ¢Monkey and Coco¢ and ¢Blue Yonder and Day break¢. We got dinner at a deli across the street and then stayed up too late watching t.v. waiting for the rain to start
Date: 2007-08-09
From: Kinsman Pond Shelter

To: Garfield Ridge Campsite
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: overcast clouds

(Erin) Today we woke up not wanting to get out of our sleeping bags. It was very chilly and windy up on the mountain, but we had to get an early start if we wanted to get over Franconia Ridgeline to the Garfield Ridge Campsite. We packed up the tent and started our way down the steep decent to Lonesome Lake Hut. This is the first hut in the Whites so I was excited to see what it looked like and to see what kind of left over desserts and breakfast they would have. The 1.9 miles took a while but we made it to the hut in time to have some brownies and lemonade. We went out by the pond and could see the Franconia Ridge, where we were going to be in a few hours. The weather had become much better and we were excited to have such a great day to go over the ridge. We walked down the trail and crossed over some brooks and then walked down a bike path before starting the hike up out of Franconia Notch. I was prepared for a crazy climb but it wasn¢t too bad. It was long and it was hard but I seem to be much better at the up hills than the down hills. So to make up time I tried to haul butt up to the campsite just before the top. We did the 2.5 miles in just over an hour so we took a break by the spring before climbing Little Haystack Mt. at 4760¢. We had a great view of the Kinsman Mountains that we had done the night before in the dark and we could see Moosilauke in the distance. What an amazing view. Then we kept going above the tree line to Mt. Lincoln 5089¢ where we had lunch and then over to Mt. Lafayette at 5249¢. More amazing views all the way around. We could see Lonesome Pond Hut below us and Mt. Washington in the distance the other way. We could see all of the mountains that we were going to climb and the ones that we had already climbed. It was a beautiful place to be with views more amazing than the pictures or words could describe. We walked along the ridge until we got to the North Peak of Lafayette at 5080¢ and then started the hike down the ridge back into the trees to Mt. Garfield.   We made it to the top of Garfield with another breath taking view of the ridge we had been on all day long. They looked so far away but actually were only 4 miles away. Then we did the .4 miles straight down to the campsite that we were staying at for the night. It is so nice to be at the campsite with day light to spare to cook and get ready for bed. It was a great day in the Whites, and I guess it ended up being worth it to push it the night before.tomorrow we have a long day so that we can meet Will's parents at Crawford Notch
Date: 2007-08-10
From: Garfield Ridge Campsite

To: Crawford Notch
Miles today: 17.4
Weather: broken clouds

(Willie)Ok, yesterday we did 15 miles and got done around 7:00 and today we had 17.4 miles to do by 7:00 so I guess it would¢ve been a good idea to get up a bit earlier. Well, when my alarm went off at 4:30 and it was still pitch black outside, I knew there was no way in heck that I was going to get Erin up before the sun. We went back to sleep for another 45 minutes or so and started hiking at 6:30 for the second day in a row. I guess we¢d have to find another way to make up time.The day started off with a steep wet climb then drop the rest of the way down the Garfield Ridge before heading over to the Galehead Hut. Before we even got there we knew our odds of getting leftover food were slim to none since 6 thru hikers that we knew had stayed there last night but we went in anyhow. Sure enough, there wasn¢t a single scrap left, but the indoor bathrooms still came in handy. From there we had a stiff 1100¢ climb in .8 miles to the top of South Twin Mountain, which was finally enough to warm us up and get us out of our jackets for good. At the top we were treated to more breath taking views of both the Franconia Ridge that we went over yesterday and of the Presidentials that are yet to come. After South Twin Mountain we had a few more 4000 footers to get up and over (Guyot, Zealand) on our way to the Zealand Falls Hut where we stopped in for lunch at about 2:00. I guess that the thru hikers ahead of us were still kind of full from the food they had at Galehead, because there were still leftover desserts from last nights dinner at Zealand. I was more than happy to part with my dollar for all the desserts I could eat, in addition to my normal lunch. Erin wasn¢t as tempted by the dessert table, but she could'nt resist the potato dill soup that the hut crew had made. We left the hut just before 3:00 with about 7.7 miles to go. At our current pace we were looking at being about an hour late to meet my parents at Crawford Notch, but luckily we finally found out how to make up for sleeping in this morning. The majority of the next 7.7 miles were along an old river bed, which made for some of the flattest and easiest trail in the Whites. Our pace quickly went from a little under 1.5 miles an hour to just about 3 miles an hour in a hurry. We met my parents on the trail about a half mile from the parking lot on schedule to get there on right on time. After the last couple of days our feet will no doubt enjoy a day off tomorrow.