morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2014-07-20
From: Catamount Motel, Bennington

To: Story Spring Shelter
Miles today: 19.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Despite the forecast for sunny weather for the next several days, we woke up at the Catamount Motel to a light rain. I chalk it up to Dick and his sons bringing a bit of their English weather over to the States with them. For breakfast, we walked to Sonny's Blue Benn, an old fashion diner shaped like a train car. Dick, John, and Tom, who had never seen juke boxes before, kept the music going throughout breakfast using the one at our booth. They played "Here Comes the Sun" to encourage an improvement in the weather, "Blueberry Hill" in honor of the blueberry pancakes we ate for breakfast, and "Good Vibrations" to celebrate the overall good feeling we had this morning.When we returned to the Catamount, we piled into Alan's Sienna for a ride back to the trail. I have to say, Alan, Annie, and Joe felt like old friends by the time we left the motel. Thanks, you three, for your hospitality.By the time we hit the trail the rain had stopped and the sun was starting to peek through, and for the third straight day we had outstanding weather: sunny and cool with a light breeze. The mud that had dominated the trail further south was almost nonexistent today. A highlight of the day was climbing the lookout tower on top of Glastenbury Mountain, from which you could see all the way back to Mt Greylock and north to some bigger peaks ahead on the trail, including Stratton Mountain, where we'll be meeting my brother, Andy, at noon tomorrow.In order to set ourselves up for tomorrow's rendezvous, we covered 19 miles today. I wasn't surprised Dick was able to do this on his first day out, as he runs marathons and fell races regularly in England. But I was impressed with how strong John and Tom hiked. Tom, 15 years old, is a competitive cyclist in his bicycling crazed country, and his fitness gained on the bike clearly carried over. But even John, who doesn't train regularly, had no problem with today's hike.We're staying at the Story Spring Shelter tonight, along with a half-dozen NOBOs and two SOBOs. Space Blanket, whom I last saw in New York, when he had to get off the trail for two days with an infected toe, is here along with Gargoyle, whom I've been leapfrogging for the last week or so.
Date: 2014-07-21
From: Story Spring Shelter

To: Spruce Peak the Party
Miles today: 18.3
Weather: overcast clouds

I was woken up in the middle of the night last night by a very distinctive sound that I'd never heard before but recognized immediately: a mouse chewing through a garbage bag to get at Dick's food stash that was hanging from a post inside the shelter. I shone my head lamp on the food bag and didn't see anything, but when I heard the noise again I nudged Dick awake to let him handle the situation. For the next half-hour or so, Dick shone his head lamp periodically at the food bag to keep the mouse at bay, at which point he gave up and went back to sleep. In the morning Dick surveyed the damage: two partially chewed bread rolls and a pile of bread crumbs on the shelter floor.Two days ago in Bennington, I made tentative plans with my brother, Andy, to meet on the summit of Stratton Mountain today at noon. Then I lost cell service and wasn't able to confirm our plans or check his status in driving from Denver. I didn't get a signal again until we we part way up Stratton this morning, at which point two texts came in from Andy. The first said he'd arrived at Stratton and the second said he be at the summit at 8:00. I immediately has visions of us having to spend the entire day on the summit waiting for my brother, until I realized he sent the messages yesterday, and he'd be waiting for us on the summit rather than the other way around. And sure enough, when we reached the top, there was Andy in his white lacrosse shirt from the tournament he played in last weekend in Denver.The trail was much less rugged after the summit, as there were many fewer rocks and roots, and there were long smooth, flat stretches where it was possible to really open up your stride. The highlight of the afternoon was swimming in Stratton Pond, which helped to wash off a day and a half's worth of grime. Three days in the case of Andy.We're staying tonight at the Spruce Peak Shelter, which has the capacity for 14 hikers. Both Space Blanket and Gargoyle, who were with us at the shelter last night, are with us again tonight.Dick and his sons, John and Tom, now officially have trail names: Speedy, Slug, and Mountain Biker, respectively. Now we have to find a trail name for Andy.
Date: 2014-07-23
From: Peru Peak Shelter

To: Minerva Hinchey Shelter
Miles today: 19.6
Weather: broken clouds

Andy's knee felt better when he woke up, but despite taking some ibuprofen in the morning, it started to become painful again a few miles down the trail. The map showed a road crossing seven miles into the day's hike, so Andy decided to get off the trail rather than risk injury. Just before the road, we crossed a river with several outstanding swimming holes, so Andy and I took a quick dip to clean off.When we arrived at the road, a sheriff's car was just pulling into the parking lot, so Andy walked over and struck up a conversation with the sheriff. The next thing I knew, Andy walked back to us with his thumb up, as the sheriff had agreed to drive my brother to the bus stop in town, from which he planned to get a ride back to Boston. Once again, the saying proved accurate: "The Trail Provides." After Andy left us, it was down to just me and Slug, whose name is completely inappropriate, as he is anything but slug-like on the trail. He took off at a blistering pace, and it was all this thru-hiker, his fourth month on the trail, could do to keep up with Slug, his fourth day on the trail. Near the top I came within a whisker of asking him to slow down. Slug has come a long way in ten years, when I coached a scrawny 10-year-old on our AA Little League team.Just before the final climb up Bear Mountain, Slug and I saw a full-size porcupine by the side of the road. It was a good thing Slug set such a fast pace this afternoon, because we started to hear thunder in the distance and arrived at the shelter not long before a powerful storm blew through. By that point we were cooking dinner in safety and comfort, enjoying the fireworks outside.Later in the evening, I got a text from Speedy indicating Mountain Biker has achilles tendinitis, so they'll return to Boston tomorrow. Thus, it looks like Slug and I will hike together for the next three days until Tor drives up on Saturday with Speedy and Mountain Biker to meet us.
Date: 2014-07-24
From: Minerva Hinchey Shelter

To: Former Tucker Johnson Shelter site
Miles today: 21.1
Weather: light rain

Happy Birthday, Margaret!With Andy, AKA Wounded Knee, joining me the last three days, all three of my siblings, Tom, Andy, and Margaret, have now taken part in this adventure. I feel blessed with the support I've received from my family. I sense my parents thought it was a wacky idea at first, but they've been following along and showing great interest in my progress toward Maine. My son, Anders, spent a week with me in the Shenandoah, during which he got a crash course on the AT, both the good and the bad. And my wife, Tor, has given me incredible support, doing everything at home so I can be away for five months. For that I'll be forever grateful. I'm excited she's coming up to Vermont this weekend for another visit. I can't wait to see her.What a fantastic day John, AKA Slug, and I had on the trail today. When we started this morning, there were six possible destination shelters ranging from 3.7 to 21.1 miles away. In the end, we went for the last one, giving Slug his first 20-mile day. What made it more impressive is we hiked up and over Killington Peak, easily the toughest terrain so far in Vermont and the first time I'd been over 4000 feet since Central Virginia. With four side trips, including a detour around a bridge that was destroyed by Hurricane Irene several years ago, our total distance for the day was closer to 25 miles. What we didn't know until 7:30 this evening was the shelter we're tenting at tonight burned down last year. Slug and I are well suited as hiking partners. Our natural pace is almost identical, we're both a bit on the quiet side, and we seem to share an appreciation for the beauty of the trail. And today there was a lot of it. Although the AT doesn't go directly over Killington Peak, there's a near-vertical, 0.2-mile side trail that takes you to its rocky, 4200-foot summit. The view from there is spectacular, with four states visible on a clear day like today. By walking another 0.1 mile, we reached the gondola station, where several down-hill bikers were unloading their mountain bikes in preparation for cruising down one of the ski trails. There's also a restaurant, where we had a cold soda, perhaps the most craved "food" of the thru-hiker.We passed the 500-mile-to-Katahdin sign this afternoon. Or rather we would have were it not for the Hurricane Irene detour. Space Blanket, who we saw at Qu's restaurant for breakfast and on the summit of Killington late in the afternoon, ignored the detour and passed the sign at the base of the climb up Killington. He subsequently got reprimanded by the supervisor at work site where the bridge is being replaced. Late in the day we passed Maine Junction, where the AT turns right toward the New Hampshire border and the Long Trail continues north on its way to Canada.Tomorrow's shelter options are more limited: 9 or 19 miles; I suspect Slug will choose the latter.
Date: 2014-07-25
From: Former Tucker Johnson Shelter site

To: The Outlook
Miles today: 16.3
Weather: broken clouds

Slug and I were the only ones to camp at the site of the former Tucker Johnson Shelter last night. Since we planned for an easier day today, we slept in and didn't get on our way until almost 8:00. A few miles down the trail we passed close to the town of Killington and came to the Mountain Meadows Lodge overlooking Kent Pond, a truly spectacular setting. Had we arrived a day later, when the entire lodge is being rented out for a weekend wedding, we would have been turned away. But good fortune was with us, and for $9 each Slug and I ate at their AYCE breakfast buffet. Despite this being our second breakfast of the morning, there's no doubt they didn't make any money on us.When we were leaving, I joked to a couple of thru-hikers playing frisbee on the lawn that they weren't supposed to be having fun and should get back on the trail. Turns out they were SOBOs, and one of them, Moonshine, said we absolutely must stay at the Lookout tonight. She went on to explain that it's a private cabin on top of a mountain with a 360-degree view from the lookout on its roof. I consulted my map and determined it would fit our plans nicely for being picked up by Tor tomorrow in the early afternoon. Then, after hearing about the origin of her trail name, I gave her some of my own advice, insisting she get out of the Smokies in Gatlinburg to sample the legal moonshine in Tennessee. Back in April I was the beneficiary of Yellow Beard, who passed around a bottle he brought with him to one of the shelters in the Smokies. It's been great passing through the SOBO bubble the last few weeks, not only because you get to meet some awesome people, but also because you can trade intelligence on the highlights ahead on the trail.I've been seeing a signature in the shelter logs for several weeks consisting of a picture of what I thought was a tick, a plus sign, and a picture of a stick figure. I guess I'm a little slow, because I never did realize it belonged to Spider-Man, though Slug figured it out in microseconds. Today we met Spider-Man for the first time. He's a NOBO from South Carolina who has lost 20 pounds so far and doesn't look like he can afford to lose another ounce. Which is probably why his food bag is the size of most hikers' backpacks. He's staying with us at the Outlook tonight along with three SOBOs and a father, Tex, with two of his kids, Bug and Big Red, from Nashua, NH.I'm listening to mice running around above me in the ceiling of the Lookout. Fortunately, my food bag is hanging right next to Spider-Man's, so surely they'll be full long before they get done with his.
Date: 2014-07-29
From: Moose Mountain Shelter

To: Hexacuba Shelter
Miles today: 17.7
Weather: broken clouds

It's hard to believe it's July. Despite being at only 2000 feet, last night was one of the coldest since the Smokies. I had to put on my fleece hat, wool socks, and long pants half way through the night to stay warm. When I woke up, the sun was poking through, a welcome sight after two days of rain. As it turned out, the weather today was near perfect: sunny, breezy, and cool.Given the foul-up with my new shoes in Hanover, I'm now shooting to pick them up in Lincoln on Friday, which means going up and over Mt Moosilauke on Thursday, which means, starting this morning, I had two days to get to its base with a number of significant climbs along the way. Today we went over Holts Ledge and Smarts Mountain. The former offered views to the southeast of Mt Cardigan and Mt Sunapee, while the latter, from its fire tower, gave me my first view of the White Mountains to the northeast, including Mt Moosilauke and the Franconia Ridge. The Presidential Range was hidden in a bank of clouds.The highlight of the day was meeting the legendary trail angel, Bill the Ice Cream Man. He lives yards from the trail, and a sign directs hikers to his house, where he gives out free ice cream and sells cans of coke for 50 cents. Bill wasn't there when Space Blanket and I arrived, but instructions on his door indicated we should help ourselves to the ice cream in the freezer on his back porch. While we were waiting for our socks and shoes to dry, Bill returned from an errand, so we got a chance to talk to him for a while. Turns out he lived in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA for 50 years, before moving full time to his summer home in Lyme Center, NH. He clearly loves meeting thru-hikers and providing them with trail magic, which includes having them tent in his yard or sleep inside on his porch in bad weather.After Bill's, I expended considerable effort avoiding the mud and water on the trail to keep my shoes dry, all of which was wasted on the way down Smarts Mountain when a boardwalk literally sunk into a muddy pond as I walked across it. Much of the hiking today was Vermont-like due to the previous two days of rain.I'm staying at the Hexacuba Shelter, a hexagon-shaped structure on the side of Mt Cube. Space Blanket and Hemlock are here along with another NOBO, Wild Bill, a SOBO, Lone Ranger, and three section hikers.
Date: 2014-07-30
From: Hexacuba Shelter

To: Beaver Brook Shelter
Miles today: 22.4
Weather: clear sky

The plan for the day was to do a rather short 15-miler to the base of Mt Moosilauke so we'd be able to tackle the long ascent with fresh legs in the morning. Today's first climb took us over Mt Cube, which had long stretches of exposed granite slabs, similar to the ridge we climbed yesterday to get to the summit of Smarts Mountain. I had a signal on top and had stopped to post yesterday's journal entry when Space Blanket passed me.My next stop was in the woods a few hours later to eat an early lunch. I sat down beside a tree and promptly got stung by a yellow jacket. Turned out I'd parked my butt about a foot from their nest in the ground. I ate in a hurry, as I was under siege by mosquitos. Between the bee sting, the bugs, the mud, and my general tiredness, I wasn't in the best of moods. I was also getting impatient with the long approach march from Hanover at the New Hampshire border to the Whites; this was my third day in the state and I still hadn't climbed a 4000 footer.Shortly after lunch I crossed a gravel forest road and watched an animal I didn't recognize disappear into the woods. My intuition told me it was a bobcat.With few stops, I was making good time, and it appeared I'd be at the Jeffers Brook Shelter by 3:00. That's when I started thinking about an alternate plan for the day given the prediction of thunderstorms for tomorrow. There's a hostel along NH route 25 not far from the AT, and I decided if they had food to stoke my engine, I would try to summit Moosilauke today and stay at the Beaver Brook Shelter just beyond its summit. From one of the many AT books I'd read before starting my hike, I'd learned that general tiredness, what I'd been feeling since leaving Hanover, can be attributed to a calorie deficit. I suspected that was what wrong with me.I left the Hiker Hostel feeling energized, in part due to the challenge of making the climb over Moosilauke before dark, but also helped along by the two microwaved frozen pizzas, two sodas, four pop tarts, and the ice cream sandwich I'd inhaled at the hostel. I tried to focus on the eight miles left to the shelter and ignore the fact that there was 4000 feet of vertical to go along with it. Immediately after leaving the road and entering the woods there was a knee-deep river to ford, which seemed to invigorate me further.My calorie-deficit theory seemed to be correct, as I felt strong on the steep climb up to the summit. It was around 6:00 when I broke above the tree line, and the low sun gave the grass an orange hue. In front of me was the Franconia Ridge, and beyond it the Presidentials, unobscured by clouds today. As I was taking the last few steps towards the summit, a thought crossed my mind. "I've walked home, all the way from Georgia to the mountains I grew up with, my beloved White Mountains!" At that moment I felt complete joy, even more than I'd experienced in reaching the AT's half-way mark. Shortly thereafter I had the comforting thought that for the next 100 miles I'd be in familiar territory, walking on trails I'd been on before, many dozens of times.
Date: 2014-08-02
From: Garfield Ridge Shelter

To: Ethan Pond Shelter
Miles today: 14.5

People started stirring before 5:00 am at the shelter this morning. With wet weather predicted for the afternoon, everyone wanted to get an early start. One SOBO had a package to pick up in Lincoln before the post office closed at noon, so he was the first one to hit the trail at around 5:30, needing to cover the 10 rugged miles I hiked yesterday in six hours. I left shortly after ABear, Pockets, and Wild Bill at 6:15.The trail north of the shelter drops nearly vertically for a quarter of a mile and has water was streaming down it, so it took full concentration and plenty of tree hugging to make it down safely. I'm convinced the Garfield Ridge is the most rugged section of the AT in New Hampshire, so it was no surprise that it took nearly two hours to cover the 2.6 miles to Galehead Hut. I arrived just after ABear and Pockets, who'd arranged a work-for-second-breakfast deal with the hut master. I asked her if she would cut me in with my thru-hiking friends, and she readily agreed. So as the guests, who had just been served breakfast, were packing up to leave, the three of us swept the entire hut so we could eat their leftovers.After a near vertical one-mike climb up South Twin, we sat on its summit admiring the view of the Franconia Ridge to the west, which we climbed yesterday, and the Presidential Range to the east, which we'll climb tomorrow. Just before reaching the Zealand Falls Hut, ABear, Pockets, and I went for a dip in the river that flows by the hut. Once in the hut, an AMC volunteer asked if I was a thru-hiker and offered me the leftover peas from last night's dinner. I've long since learned never to turn down free food, so the three of us plus Tye Dye, a 20-something thru-hiker from North Carolina who's hiked on and off with ABear and Pockets for several weeks, devoured a large serving dish of cold peas.In contrast to the Garfield Ridge, the terrain between the Zealand Falls Hut and Ethan Pond Shelter, where we're staying tonight, may be the easiest five miles on the AT in New Hampshire. The caretaker, Dread Pirate Dillon, who sports foot-long dreadlocks, explained to us with great enthusiasm the process for turning the privy poop into compost. ABear and I went for a swim in Ethan Pond, and later a crowd gathered there to watch the sun set over the ridge on the far side of the pond.
Date: 2014-08-07
From: Newton, MA via Pinkham Notch

To: Newton, MA via Pinkham Notch
Miles today: 0.0

It feels risky being home for a week, as it seems like it would be easy to get sucked in by the amenities of civilization, such as a real bed, running water, toilets, and Starbucks coffee, and never make it back out onto the trail. And it's going to be especially hard leaving my family again after having been home for seven days. Fortunately, my friend, Jeff, will be escorting me to Pinkham and hiking with me for a week or so to help ease me back into trail life. Another friend, Jim, will hike with us the first day over the Wildcat Ridge, so I have plenty to be excited about. Since there are just 319.4 miles left to go to Katahdin, I'm expecting to take just over three weeks for the final push and be done in early September.People have asked me whether I'll be changed by my AT thru-hike, and if so, how. The answer to the first question is yes. I'll clearly have a few more scars on my body, but I expect the changes to my outlook will be more significant. I can't put a price on the positive effect the many people I've met along the way has had on me: the angels handing out trail magic, the camaraderie among the hikers at the shelters each night, and the friendships I've developed with others I've hiked with along the way.I feel a bit like I've been in a trance this week, like there's a mismatch between the speed at which my mind is moving and everything going on around me. Yesterday on the highway on my way to REI, I watched in awe as a driver switched lanes twice in succession to pass a single car in the fast lane. Why are people in such a hurry? It seems that traveling four months at three miles-per-hour has slowed down my own world, and when I do eventually get off the trail it will be like jumping onto a moving train.I've continued to follow the journal of AZ, who's now well into Maine. He consistently did 20-mile days all the way from Central Virginia, where we parted ways at the James River when Tor and Helen came down for a visit, through Vermont. I've noticed that once he hit the Whites in New Hampshire, his daily mileage dropped to around 15 and has held steady through Southern Maine. I expect a similar pattern for my own hike. Many people have said Southern Maine is as difficult as New Hampshire, so I'll have to rely on my patience, some of which I've developed on this trip, to help see me through to the end.