morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2008-06-29
From: Monson Zero Day

To: Stratton, ME
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

We have still had rain every day but two since the 13th. Last night we stayed between Avery's Peak and the North Peak of Bigelow Mountain, highest part of Maine I believe. Everyone else decided to push 3 miles to the next shelter but we were too tired (and the 3 miles the next day took us over two hours!!!). We had to set up our non-free standing tent on a wooden tent platform and it barely stood up. We had 30-40+ MPH wind gusts all night and bursts of rain. The next morning, June 29..Silver Potato's birthday (39), we left Avery Memorial Camsite and crossed the North Peak of Bigelow mountain and were abouve the clouds. All the high peaks were peaking through and it was beautiful but in Maine fashion it was not soon before it was pouring on us. We hiked down the mountain 8 miles to Highway 27 where Joe & Pat picked us up and we went into Stratton for the night. We have done over 187 miles now and have started breaking in just fine. The rain has been a HUGE trial as well as the jack ass mosquitoes and mud bogs. After this I feel we can do anything.
Date: 2008-07-08
From: Stratton, ME

To: nh
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

We have made it through ME! It was very rugged and beautiful. ME was 281.5 miles & we hit the NH border on July 6 with the only casulties being two snapped hiking poles and one pair of boots. We are in Gorham, NH this morning and will enter the massive White Nountains today for a 8-9 day section after which the mountians will calm down a bit and we shoud be able to put in some bigger days w/o much trouble. We look forward to town days but when we get there we can not wait to get back on the trail. As soon as we find a computer that is not ancient we will upload photos.
Date: 2008-07-10
From: Lake of the Clouds Hut

To: work for stay
Miles today: 0.0

Work for stay in the AMC huts is a thru-hiker tradition. The huts generally allow 2 - 4 thru-hikers to stay in the hut, for free, in exchange for doing some work in the huts(wash dishes, clean the stove, etc). This would generally annoy me--- I've already hiked for about 10 hours of the day, so I don't find extra work appealing. But this is different.We got to Lake of the Clouds late- almost dark. They already had two thru-hikers, but accepted us on the contingence that we would work in the morning. We had a blast! The croo was really cool, and we ate left-over dinner while talking with them. We then were allowed to set up our sleeping bags on the dining tables, when the paying guests were headed to bed. Sleeping on the tables, while the wind howled outside, was definitely a unique experience. So was waking up, to 40 degrees, and having the paying guests already up, wondering what the people sleeping on the tables was all about.\I enjoyed laying there like a vagrant, and then getting up to stay out of the way. Franklin and I had to watch them all eat, then get assigned the tasks of sweeping up the bunk house and dining area. Hardly any of the paying guests even acknowledged our presence. Hilarious! We swept, and watched them all don their gear like they were headed up Everest. We then got to eat leftover breakfast. I'm glad we did it.
Date: 2008-07-16
From: Beaver Brook Shealter

To: Glencliff, NH
Miles today: 0.0

Well we have made it through the Whites! Almost 400 miles : ) Our ascent on Mt. Madison was wonderful....40-67mph winds and 4000 ft elevation gain in 3 miles....awesome. Mt Washington (over 6000ft!) was beautiful. We did a work for stay at Lake of the Clouds hut & crossed the rest of the Presidentials the next day. There are a ton of pictures but we can not upload them now (we are at a hostel in Glencliff with limited internet). Mt. Moosilauke was beautiful, the Franconia Ridge was unbelieveable, & the company has been tons of fun. Colleen (now Cracker) has not broken any more ploes but Franklin (Silver Potato) has lost too much weight and is having problems keeping up (and even going for that matter). We will be in Hanover this weekend and will have Dartmouth computers so hopefully we can upload the hundreds of pics we have takin'.
Date: 2008-07-20
From: Glencliff, NH

To: Dartmouth
Miles today: 0.0

We are in Hanover, NH taking a "zero" today. Rain has been pouring down all day and our over night stay turned into a day off (zero) today. We had coffee at the Cowboy Coffee Cafe, ate all you can eat Indian food at Jewel of India, got Cracker a 3rd pair of boots (yes it has been that rough...Silver Potato's feet are about to bust out of his boots too). We are going to check out some beer soon and will head back to the Sunset Motor Inn. When we came to town yesterday there was a street fair and we went to the Brick & Brew for our free slice of pizza (free to thru-hikers) & a few beers. We will head back out on the trail tomorrow and will cross over into Vermont with-in half a mile....yippie! We are at the Dartmouth library uploading a few more pics and the power has gone out because of the storms (glad we took a zero!!). We hope everyone is well and will send a NH/VT state-line picture tomorrow (if we have coverage which we have not over the last week). Over 440+ miles under the belt!!
Date: 2008-07-21
From: Dartmouth

To: Salisbury, CT
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Wow! NH went by fast and now we are in CT with almost 700 miles under our belt! Hanover (NH) was great, we took a zero there and had fun hanging out with Duckie & Jukebox. Then we headed into Vermont where we had a beautiful few days then record rainfall so we hung out at the Inn at Long Trail for another zero before leaving out for the trail again. So far we hit ME & VT during "record rainfall"....yippie! Vermont turned into a long dark muddy tunnel then we crssed into MA. The trail in MA was very nice, but I guess we brought the mosquitos from ME with us...
Date: 2008-08-29
From: Salisbury, CT

To: The Doyle! Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Well it has been some time since our last entry in Salisbury, CT. We are currently at the famous Doyle Hotel in Duncannon, PA staying two nights and waiting out the rain that finally arrived (it has been dry as a bone and all the springs and most of the streams are dry). After CT we entered NY for some rocky PUDS (pointless ups & downs) stayed at Anton's on the Lake two nights, fitting a "slack pack" in, and entered NJ along the NY border where we dipped back into Unionville, NY briefly to pick up Silver Potato's new boots. The mayor had picked up his boots (the post office closes early on sat.) so we went to his house where we were asked to stay the night. We had heard since ME that the mayor takes in hikers and is a must do stop on the AT. The mayor's "secret service", Butch, drove us to Culver's Gap the next day and we did another slack pack. We had two nights of good food and good company at the mayor's. After leaving NY/NJ we entered the most boreing & excruciating section of the AT...PA...YUCK! PA is flat and full of rocks...millions of rocks! We hiked into Wind Gap, PA where a little kid shot at us with his finger while his grandpaw said he wished he had a shotgun! (was it Silver Potato's kilt???). Very unfriendly town! Then we hiked into the biggest redneck campground we have ever seen...Blue Rocks Campground....ughhhh! Next was Port Clinton, PA where we had a good lunch at the Port Clinton Hotel which was not hiker friendly but we had good company talking to a long distance runner. A nut job from the hotel said he got his "stand down" orders from Iraq and was going to hike with us to GA! He had a tarp, bag of t-shirts, and a tent bag with who knows what? Cracker put the hammer down on the 1000 ft climb out of the gap and we never saw him again... as well as water. We went almost 20 miles with dried up springs and other water sources before we came to a parking lot where a PA official gave us water. It is dry as a bone in PA! We loaded up on water at the next running spring and camped at Hertlein Campsite where a bear clawed one of our food bags out of the tree it was hanging in. We hiked to a general store listed in our AT guide to find out it did not exist so we hitched to Lickdale, PA to resupply and we stayed at a KOA campground by I-81 and heard tractor trailors all night. It was not as bad as it seemed because we got to walk down a dark road 1.5 miles to the Coyotes Den bar for beers and burgers. George, the local "fire police" took us back to the trail the next morning and we hiked a few days to Duncannon where we are now. We are at the Doyle which has been here since the 1800's and probably has not been updated since then...good food and cheap beer though! We past the 1000 mile mark and have only about 40 miles before we are at the half way! GA here we come!
Date: 2008-08-30
From: The Doyle! Duncannon, PA

To: Virginia
Miles today: 0.0

We forgot to mention ealier that we went through MA. We finished lovely, boring, PA, and sped through MD. Actually the section from Boiling Springs through Pine Grove Furnace State Park was very nice in PA & Maryland had fascinating Civil War history as well as monuments such as the George Washington monument. Silver Potato did his half gallon challenge at Pine Grove with a half gallon of banana split provided by "Skip", a local with a TN Vols hat! We took a day off in Harper's Ferry, as a tropical storm blew through. Harper's Ferry has been the favorite town we have been through so far and is packed with history and charm. We are definately going to come back and explore it in more detail. The ATC headquarters are located there as well and we got our pictures taken and documented that we were the 20th & 21st southbounders to come through (started in Maine as 74 & 75). We reluctantly left Harpers Ferry Sept 7th and stopped at the Blackburn Trail Center where the caretakers were from TN! We had a great stay and stopped in the Bears Den Hostel where we are briefly before we head on to the Shenandoahs. It is so nice to be in VA and be back in the south! TN is a little over 500 miles away then it will be a quick 400+ to Springer!
Date: 2008-09-26
From: Virginia

To: Hungarian's Crib
Miles today: 0.0

Wow! Over 1400 miles under the belt! We are currently reunited with Somethin Else, Hungarian, Skeeter, Spoonful, Clemson, & Sweet Tea at Hungarian's parents house in Daleville, VA. We had a blast in Shenandoah National Park with the exception of Cracker getting a horrible stomach bug which forced us to take two zeros in Skyland Resort. We enjoyed the apple butter festival at Skyland though and took two slow days after which allowed our buddy Somethin Else to catch up (we had not seen him since Hanover, MA!). We all hiked together through SNP and eventually reunited with Hungarian who we had not seen since Manchester Center, VT! We finally met Sweet Tea & Clemson in SNP & reunited with Skeeter & Spoonfull who we had not seen since Monson, ME! We hiked most of the 100 mile wilderness with Skeeter & Spoonful (who also started June 13th with us) & they were the first sobos we met. We had a great dinner prepared by the Hungarian last night and are sitting around planning the last 716 miles of our trip. Virginia has been beautiful! Maybe our favorite state. We also stayed in Montebello at the Dutch Haus where we met some fun ladies from Maryland on a ladies hiking weekend. Lois & Earl took great care of us at the Dutch Haus...excellent place & probably the best breakfast on the trail yet! Waynesboro showed excellent hiker support...we were greeted at the trailhead by a trail angel who drove us to the outfitter & dropped us off at a Mexican restaurant. Everyone who passed us offered rides and support and Silver Potato bought a Irish penny whistle to drive everyone crazy with. We found two huntin' dogs in Petite Gap where I called the owner and they followed us 15 miles to the Cornelious Shelter where I called again and was accused of dog stealin'....WHAT A JACKASS! Other than that Virginia rocks and is excellent but TN, NC, & GA are close and we camn not wait. Jim & Amylynn will be jioning us Oct 8 for a week and we can not wait. This trip has been a blast. Sorry about all the ramblin but I'm typing as I think and have 7 sobos waiting for this computer so ciao for now! Pics posted later hopefully...
Date: 2008-09-27
From: Hungarian's Crib

To: Hot Springs
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Just a quick note that we are still alive and in Hot Springs,NC as of October 27th. We will be in the Smokies in a couple of days then the Nantahalas then GA! It has been very cold lately at night and snow flurries are expected tonight. We will post pics when we can.
Date: 2008-11-06
From: Wesser (NOC)

To: Springer
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Only 134.9 miles to go : ( We are excited to finish but sad at the same time. We will climb Springer Saturday, Nov 15th and pass our last white blaze on our 2008 SOBO thru-hike. We zeroed at the NOC to kill some time and have to only average 13.5 miles per day for the rest of the trip to make the 15th. It has been a trip of a lifetime and we have met many wonderful people. We will miss Shepherd, Somethin Else, GT, Carat, Hungarian, Spoonful, Skeeter, Sweet Tea, Clemson, Duckie, Moose, Sunday, Shelter Monkey, Snake Whiperer, & the other SOBO's we briefly encountered as well as the few NOBO's we got to know and the many people along the way who gave us help & encouragement. It has been an excellent adventure that has inspired more adventures to come. Thanks to all who supported us. Next entry will be after we are done and hopefully we can get many more pictures posted and data to help other future SOBO's.
Date: 2008-11-19
From: Home

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

We finished our hike Saturday Nov. 15th at about 1:45pm on top of Springer in the sleet and freezing rain driven by a cold wind. It was a blast! The night before 3 nobo's, Jukebox, Chef, & Mouth, provided the best trail magic we encountered the whole 5 months & 2 days! We can not thank them enough! Paella and old vines Granacha (as well as some delicious brews). It was a great evening. Thanks One Flop for leaving the Cokes at Unicoi Gap. Nobo's rule. And sobo's too...we will miss everyone. As soon as we get our resumes fine tuned and get some job leads (we are freaking out) we will post more pictures and provide data such as tent vs shelter, zeros, etc. It was a great trip. Time to get back in the real world unfortunately. We will post again soon.
Date: 2008-12-03
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

The Blackberry decided to go south on us (it went south with us but now has decided to go further...to Blackberry heaven). The pins, or a pin, on the device broke so it will not link to a desktop or recharge. As soon as FedEx shows up with the replacement I'll try and post some facts from our trip. Our journal is on the phone and luckily I was able to back it up one last time but did not get it to sync so I have to wait to restore the info to the new device...keep your fingers crossed. I'll try and post more pics too as there are many to add.
Date: 2007-10-01
To: nowhere
Miles today: 0.0

Well I'm up here in Fairbanks as the season is definitely changing toward winter. A brisk air is blowing the autumn leaves around and the temperatues in mid-week are barely supposed to get above freezing. Time to start dreaming again of being on the trail.I'm addicted to thru-hiking having done the Appalachain Trail the first time in 2004, the Pacific Crest Trail in 2005 and the Contential Divide Trail in 2006.I love hiking. I love the weather, the scenery, the hiking, the people you meet on the trail and off the trail. The whole adventure of it all. Life back here at work seems rather dull and boring in comparison. Sure there are days that are damp and dreary, but they are overwhelmed by the number of uplifting days. I like having a new experience ready to happen around each corner, instead of the usually routine hours of the normal working life.Now if I can only figure out some way to make a living while hiking.
Date: 2007-10-02
To: out there
Miles today: 0.0

I'm planning on rehiking all of the trails I have already done in the U.S. as well as attempting the still incomplete New Zealand trail. I've been spending most of my time trying to get information on the Te Araroa (www.teararoa.org.nz). I've gotten a topo map CD of the north and south islands downloaded to my GPS and a couple of friends (Pepper and Trauma) who hiked the south island are sending up some information.My rough hikings plans for the next 18-19 months go something like this:Appalachian Trail northbound -- Feb. 12 through mid-JuneContental Divide Trail southbound -- late June through early NovemberThanksgiving break with family and friends in MinnesotaNew Zealand (Te Araroa) -- early Dec. through MarchPacific Crest Trail --- March through whenever I finishI'm real excited to get out and experience the AT again, see how the experience is different than the first time I did it four years ago. Then I started out at 293 pounds and hiked 4-7 miles a day for awhile. Now I'm starting much earlier - hope the weather isn't too bad -- but am in better hiking shape (or i guess we will see about that, I have to guard again slothfulness over the winter!)
Date: 2007-10-03
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Ahh and this third entry I think should get my journal on the board. Not sure if I had should add some prep entries to get my CDT 2008 and New Zealand 2008 journals started, too. I'll probably wait a bit for that.Tomorrow I'm going off with my bff Jillian to run some sled dogs. There's no snow yet so we will be running them in front of a four-wheeler. She has a blog at www.wannabemusher.blogspot.com.It looks like I should have a decent amount of old friends hiking small and large sections of "The Quadre" (Discos name for my four-trail, 18-month hike). Recess and Nightowl and Jay and Jolie and Desperado and maybe Kitchen Sink I should see on the AT.Recess is planning on hiking the CDT and New Zealand with me, and I've recently heard that Hugemungous might be interested in the CDT next year to. It will be fun to see old hiking friends and I certainly look forward to meeting many new friends.And Congrats to Easy and Lizard who recently finished their 2007 PCT hike.I want to be less wordy and more thoughtful in my journal entries this year instead of lengthy recaps of everything that went on throughout the day, but we shall see what happens.
Date: 2007-10-04
To: Work
Miles today: 0.0

So I added a few mushing photos. They were taken before we had any snow. We've gotten some flurries since then, but it will likely still be awhile before we can get out in a sled. My friend Jillian is a musher and I'm helping her out some. It's fun and it gives me something more interesting to do than sit around the house watching TV and thinking about hiking.
Date: 2007-10-11
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

I had wolf watching duty this weekend.Some mushing friends of mine were out of town over the weekend. They have a fenced in yard, but last week the wolves had paid a visit to their yard. They had walked along the fence and one sat on a small mound and was starting in at the dogs when the owners came out and scared them off.My friends had already made arrangements for somebody to feed and water their 27 dogs, but with the wolves attacking overnight decided they would feel reassured if somebody was there overnight and they asked me.They live about a half hour out of town. It was kind of nice to mix up the routine a bit and stay in a new place, but it was hard to rest too much when every time I heard one of the dogs make the slightest bark or howl I was instantly alert listening. The wolves didn't vist. If they had I would've turned on the yard light and chased them off. If they had tried to attack I did have access to a rifle.In the paper today (www.newsminer.com) we have a story about a year 30 years ago when wolves killed 165 dogs one winter when their normal food - Moose - was in low numbers. This year the moose numbers are strong and they think this one small band of young wolves that found out dog makes an easy meal.I've been reading journals of people that started the AT in Feb. the last few years and talked to my friend Dude who went southbound in 2004-05 finishing in March. I'm prepared for cold weather, snow and icy rain (I'm brining yak traks and my 0-degree synthetic bag for the start). But I still hope to start out doing reasonable long mile days and not getting delayed by weather. We'll see how it goes, I've hiked enough to know that whatever plans I make before getting on the trail will go out the window as soon as I start hiking, but I still love to plan.Only two months until I start!!!!
Date: 2007-10-19
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

SO we have been having our first major cold spell of the season in Fairbanks. It was 35 below today and could get to 40 below or colder tomorrow.My car no longer works so I've been walking everywhere. I just dress in layers and actually have been plenty warm walking from place to place. But I've also been wearing my thick, warm ski mask which I think has scared a few people.I decided I probably won't wear the ski mask when I'm hitchiking. Doubt I'd get picked up unless I was carrying bud light. Or if I was hitching with a beautiful woman like Recess. That would be an interesting test to see if people avoided us because of the ski mask or picked us up because of Recess. They would probably pull over right in front of Recess and yell out to her to hop in the car that they'd save her. Of course that might happen even if I'm not wearing the ski mask.We also only have about 3 1/2 hours of daylight as the sun with rise just above the Alaska range to our south. But the days will begin getting longer soon.
Date: 2008-01-10
To: Money in the bank
Miles today: 0.0

Well I've done it. I reached my savings goal for hiking the Quadre.I will have about $2,500 for each trail (AT, CDT, NZ and PCT), $2,000 for travel (most of it the for the flight to New Zealand), and $2,000 for other stuff (a month off in Minnesota, etc.). So basically I will be on a budget of about $500 per month while hiking. I spent a lot more than that on my previous thru-hikes, but I think I can stick to that budget if that is all I allow myself each month. We'll see. If I run out of money I guess I'll just have to get a job again.Now that it is January the hike seems to be coming up quick. I got rid of my car and am getting rid of most of my stuff so that I can get on the plane with two checked bags and a carry-on (I might have to mail 2 or 3 boxes of stuff to my parents).I got my health insurance for the next year (cost about $500 for 365 days and I basically pay for anything that would cost less than $5,000, but anything above that insurance covers, up to $2 million. Broken bone, I'm paying for. Cancer, insurance gets).