morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2006-07-22
From: Campsite

To: Doyle Hotel
Miles today: 8.9

We had a mail drop to pick up in town today by noon, so we had to hustle the last miles into town. I'm not sure that words can convey the morning, but I'll try. It started out fine, but a little buggy. We put some deet on, and it wasn't too bad. Then it started to rain. It rained for probably an hour and a half. The rain wasn't too bad, it just made us really wet and slightly chilled; however, it got all in our boots and made giant puddles out of the them. I was still in pretty good spirits however, as it's sometimes fun to hike in the rain and we were going to be in town soon. Then, the rain stopped. This is when the mosquitos came out. We were pretty much out of deet at this point, and it didn't seem to help too much anyway. The mosquitos just came at us. They attack en masse. They dive bombed us and landed and bit and many, many more of their bretheren did so at the exact same time. All this happened right about the time we were picking our way through a narrow corridor of poison ivy plants going down a steep, rocky downhill.I thought I was going to go insane.I truly thought I was going to lose it.Somehow I didn't though, and we made it to town. At this point, I determined I wanted nothing to do with the outdoors for awhile.Got to the post office and got our mail drop. Then I waited for my friend from New Hampshire to come pick me up (he was down in the area for a wedding). He, two of his friends and I went to Hershey, PA, where we played mini golf, hit some golf balls at the golf driving range and did go-karts. They dropped me off later that night and I went to bed.
Date: 2006-07-23
From: Doyle Hotel

To: Doyle Hotel
Miles today: 0.0

I couldn't handle the bugs today. I just couldn't do it. I broke down last night, and for the first time the whole trip I actually felt like I wanted to go home. I was just homesick, especially after seeing friends from home, and the bugs from yesterday just did me in. Therefore, Mt. Dew agreed to zero with me. Spent the day updating my journal, shopping, eating and relaxing with friends. All in all a very enjoyable day.
Date: 2006-07-24
From: Doyle Hotel

To: Doyle Hotel
Miles today: 0.0

Um.....so I'm very concerned about making it to Katahdin without needing to flip-flop. That being said, Mt. Dew and I took another zero today. He woke up feeling awful, and the lure of town just sucked us in again. Planning a big mile day for tomorrow, we'll see how that pans out. I'm also very excited to finally be caught up with my online trail journal. Now I just have to maintain it instead of trying to keep up. =)
Date: 2006-07-25
From: Doyle Hotel

To: Peters Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 11.4
Weather: light rain

Went to breakfast at Goodie's again. I love french toast and chocolate milk! So good! When we finally started walking out of town, there was an ice cream stand that opened in ten minutes, so of course we couldn't pass it up. We decided to stop and wait, and I got a large s'mores sundae. We played cards while we ate, then took off.Crossing the Juniata and then Susquehanna Rivers was a little interesting. The Susquehanna was a REALLY long bridge that was very hot at noon in the full sun. Hiked up to the ridgeline, then had lunch at Clarks Ferry Shelter. There, I had another run-in with some scary spiders. I had to go use the privy, so I went up to it, I opened the door, and I peered around inside for spiders like I always do. Didn't really see any, but the privy smelled SO BAD that I decided I probably would rather go in the woods. As I was making that decision, a spider the size of a half-dollar scooted inside. Then, I noticed that there were four others on the wall of the same size. I quickly shut the door and vowed that I would not use a privy again. I haven't since (and I'm typing this on August 3rd).After the fun run-in with the spiders, Mt. Dew and I hiked on. We stopped on an over-the-road footbridge to have a snack, then got to the shelter before 7pm! Yay! That's our goal, to start getting into shelters earlier. At this particular shelter, the water source is down 270+ rock steps. We both made the trip using gallon jugs provided by the local trail club, so when we were finished with our own water needs, we left about 2 1/2 gallons for other hikers, so some of them wouldn't have to hike down.We had an absolutely terrific rainstorm come through just as we were about to go out to the tent to go to sleep. We sat in the shelter for about two hours watching it roll through, 'til finally we thought it was safe to make the journey to the tent. We could've just slept in the shelter, but the bugs can be so horrendous!
Date: 2006-07-26
From: Peters Mountain Shelter

To: Rausch Gap Shelter
Miles today: 17.5
Weather: haze

Got an 8:30 start today, which was decent, but not fabulous. The ten twas very wet, but I took out my pack towel and tried to dry it a little. About lunchtime, Mt. Dew and I stopped on an "emergency road" to eat. We cooked some ramen and were sitting there enjoying it, when all of a sudden a logging truck pulls up to the road and wants to get by. We definitely had our stuff spread ALL OVER the road. We quickly scrambled to pick it all up. A little later a second truck came by, and a few minutes after that a third. So much for an "emergency road."We climbed up "Stony Mtn," and boy was it stony. Crazy rocks! There was a nice ridgeline after it though, so it made up for it. A few miles before the end of the day, we came to the Yellow Spring Village site. This is up on the ridgeline and it used to be an old village. It's just ruins now, but it had a campsite and a hiker register mailbox that was pretty funny.The last 4.6 miles of the day we completed at a 3mph pace. We never go that fast, especially at the end of the day, so we were really psyched about that! The shelter was nice, but as always (because of the bugs), we're tenting!
Date: 2006-07-29
From: 501 Shelter

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

Had an interesting day today, including a section where we got very confused. It doesn't happen often on the AT that you simply cannot figure out where the trail goes, but it happened today. We got to this split of three different dirt roads, and we couldn't figure out where to go. We literally spent about half an hour walking around and consulting the map. Finally, Mt. Dew backtracked, and discovered that just behind us the trail had taken a 90 degree right turn and we had marched right on past it. Oh well, live and learn. At least we weren't the only ones that did it. We turned two others groups of people around while we took a break. Nice shelter tonight, but a bit off the trail. Looking forward to going into Port Clinton tomorrow!
Date: 2006-07-30
From: Eagles Nest Shelter

To: Port Clinton Pavillion
Miles today: 8.6
Weather: broken clouds

Not to bad of a day, although we got a late start 'cause we didn't have that many miles. The descent into Port Clinton was a little tricky, not what I'd like to do when it was raining out. We enjoyed going to Cabela's in the evening and walking around. A HUGE outdoor store, yet we could barely find what we needed for gear resupply. What a shame. Oh well, at least their food was good.
Date: 2006-07-31
From: Port Clinton Pavillion

To: Campsite
Miles today: 12.5
Weather: scattered clouds

What a hot day! Hiked some of the day with Buddy and Chief. We really enjoy hiking near them. They definitely go closer to our pace then most other thru's and they're very friendly! Cooked a hot lunch at a shelter around 2pm. What a mistake! It was way to hot for cooked food. Wanted to stay there, but pushed on anyways. Went and saw the Pinnacle, which I was kinda cranky about. We basically went five trail miles our of our way just to go see this rock view. Yeah it was nice, but I didn't really feel the need to do that in Pennsylvania. We camped just short of our goal for today (which was Eckville), but I LOVED our campsite! We set up right next to a cliff, and the wind just went straight through our campsite. It turned a really hot night in a night that was comfortable to go to sleep in. Tomorrow is Mt. Dew's birthday!
Date: 2006-08-01
From: Campsite

To: Motor Inn in Reading, PA
Miles today: 13.5

Happy Birthday Mt. Dew! Of course we celebrated his birthday by waking up early (which as you all know is his favorite thing to do....). We had to meet his parents at the road, and we didn't want to be late. We got hiking, met his parents, took a solar shower at Eckville (so nice!) then went out to breakfast back in Port Clinton. While eating there, we met up with John Peterson, one of my favorite thru-hikers! He needed a ride to resupply and get back to the trail, so we obliged him. Then, Mt. Dew and I started our slackpack at 1pm in the middle of the heat wave. Honestly, it was over 100 degrees when we started. We hiked fast for an hour, then stopped to cool down. When we stopped, we actually got hotter because the surrounding air was above our body temperature. It was awful!Met two southbounders today, The General and Sauce Dog. They are at the very front of the pack. Obviously, they were much faster hikers then we were. When we were almost to the road, Mt. Dew got stung by two yellow jackets. What a sucky birthday present! He took several benadryl to make sure he didn't have a reaction, and as a result he practically slept through his birthday dinner at Red Lobster. In bed early!
Date: 2006-08-02
From: Motor Inn in Reading, PA

To: Ashfield Rd. Campsite
Miles today: 8.3

Well, Mt. Dew's parents dropped us back off at the trailhead, then walked about a mile with us. Of course they managed to find the one mile in the entire state of Pennsylvania that had very few rocks. They turned back as soon as we got to the rocks. Mt. Dew and I kept going, and made it to Bake Oven Knob for a late lunch/snack. While we were sitting there, we noticed another hiker's backpack had been there for an awfully long time. Almost an later Spock came back and said that the water was VERY far away. We were glad we didn't need it. Going over Bake Oven Knob in the heat wave with so many rocks was almost more then I could take. Because of my low spirits and the awful heat, we stopped short of our destination and camped next to Ashfield Rd. Even when we stopped, it was really hard to cool down, especially in our single wall tent!
Date: 2006-08-03
From: Ashfield Rd. Campsite

To: Palmerton Hostel
Miles today: 5.3

Had a very enjoyable hike on the way into Palmerton this morning. Decent temperatures and not to many rocks made this a wonderful contrast to the last few days. I guess not all of Pennsylvania is rotten, just most of it. We thoroughly enjoyed the town of Palmerton, the people and businesses were all so nice! We got to stay in the basement of the town building for free, where they also provided us with free showers and goodie bags (full of toiletries and other useful items). We got a free book at the library with internet access, a free apple at the local grocery store, free food at the local church fair and super cheap pizzas from a local pizza joint. All in all, great people! We stayed the night with several people, including Timber and Greenacres.
Date: 2006-08-04
From: Palmerton Hostel

To: Leroy A. Smith Shelter
Miles today: 15.8
Weather: broken clouds

Got up early and got a ride out of town at 6:45am. We wanted to leave earlier, but that's when the ride was offered. It was still early enough that climbing up out of Leihigh Gap was still cool. It was actually a pretty fun hike - people had been saying how awful it was for weeks - but we actually enjoyed it! I also REALLY enjoyed the flat walk up top afterwards. Had a couple instances of wonderful trail magic water today, it definitely came in handy! Lunch was a really funny affair. We stopped to have lunch, then invited Timber and Greenacres to join us. Soon, along came a southbounder who had no food left, so we promptly sat him down and fed him. Shortly thereafter, Crescent City showed up and she sat down to eat too. We just kept attracting people. It was fun!Saw a rattlesnake this afternoon! Mt. Dew came really close to it before he saw it. It was huge, and it definitely didn't want to go far off the trail.We arrived at the shelter around 4pm, and I was really psyched about our miles for the day. It was nice to get 'em done. Later in the evening, Ben Here showed up. We hadn't seen him since Trail Days, so it was nice to catch up with him!
Date: 2006-08-05
From: Leroy A. Smith Shelter

To: Kirkridge Shelter
Miles today: 13.8
Weather: clear sky

Not quite as many miles today, but we left the trail for several hours at Wind Gap, so I feel it's okay. Wind Gap had too many restaurant selections to pass up, so Mt. Dew, Ben Here and I ditched our packs and went into town. We had lunch at McDonald's, then bought a snack at Dunkin' Donuts and had dessert at Wendy's. I really could barely walk when we got back to the trail. Uneventful hike to the shelter, which we arrived at just before dark. It was nice to have other people we know there, and we are really looking forward to Delaware Water Gap where there is a hostel and river tubing!
Date: 2006-08-06
From: Kirkridge Shelter

To: Delaware Water Gap Hostel
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

We meant to get up early to meet Buddy and Chief in town for breakfast, but Mt. Dew and I had some issues to resolve this morning, so we stayed in camp until much later then expected. Finally broke camp mid-morning, and hiked down to Delaware Water Gap with Ben Here. It's so nice to know that we're basically done with Pennsylvania!The hostel was really nice, and soon after we got there we went river tubing with Timber and Polar Bear. It was a little longer and more strenuous (we actually had to paddle) then I would've liked, but I managed. We had a nice hodge-podge dinner and I listed to the brass quintet concert on the lawn of the church. It was so nice to hear music again!
Date: 2006-08-07
From: Delaware Water Gap Church Hostel

To: Mohican Outdoor Center
Miles today: 10.5
Weather: broken clouds

We were supposed to leave town today right after I picked up my maildrop. Oops. That definitely didn't happen. First we got a shuttle into Stroutsburg to get some stuff at the Outfitters. Then we putzed around all morning repacking and trying to weed stuff out of our packs that we didn't need. Finally, we took off around 2pm or so.Mt. Dew and I hiked by ourselves for awhile (I really like New Jersey so far), and Ben Here caught up to us about halfway to our destination. We passed a glacial lake called "Sunfish Pond" which was pretty cool. My favorite thing about it was that it had a sign that read "No camping, No picnicing." No picnicing? What is that all about? Does that mean I can sit there but not eat? Can I have something to drink? I thought that sign was absurd. What's more absurd is that the fine was up to $250.00. That's $250 for sitting around a lake eating? New Jersey's a little weird.Anyways, got to Mohican Outdoor Center around 8pm. Went to our free campsite and tried to set up. The mosquitos drove us insane. Literally. We ate candy bars in the tent for dinner because we couldn't deal with the mosquitos. It's amazing how little things the size of my pinky nail can be so infuriating and obnoxious. Bloodsucking Parasites....
Date: 2006-08-08
From: Mohican Outdoor Center

To: Brink Rd. Shelter
Miles today: 14.3
Weather: scattered clouds

Mosquitos weren't too bad when we got up this morning, so I was really thankful for that. The mosquitos are one of the things that really get to me out here. I've already invested in 100% Deet. At first I was paranoid about using it, but no more. It works.Today was definitely a wildlife day. The ridgeline walking across New Jersey was really nice, and the wildlife came out for a show. We saw our second rattlesnake of the trip - which I almost walked right by without noticing. It just slithered off the trail, it didn't even rattle at us. A little ways after that we saw three raccoons running across the trail, and when Mt. Dew looked the way that they had come, he saw a bear. I didn't get to see it, but it's the second bear that he's seen.Finally got to the shelter for the evening and guess what...there were insane amounts of mosquitos. Almost every single person made mention of them in the register. Polar Bear even went so far as to leave some remnants of his mosquito coils in the register bag because he felt so bad for anyone who had to stay there. We made work of those, as well as some of Ben Here's, and the bugs were tolerable as long as we were surrounded by the coils. Got to bed early, as we're doing a big day tomorrow.
Date: 2006-08-09
From: Brink Rd. Shelter

To: High Point Shelter
Miles today: 19.6
Weather: clear sky

Officially my second biggest day ever today! I was really excited about that. I got up at 5:15am, along with Mt. Dew and Ben Here. We were on the trail by 6:26am, which is the earliest I've ever gotten on. Hiked for awhile, and when I caught up Mt. Dew, he had cornered a porcupine up a tree. It was really cute, and we watched it for awhile, then took off to get tasty food and drink at Joe to Go in the gap we were coming up to. Met up with Danger Dave and Freebird at the shelter, then kept going past two more shelters.We finally made it to High Point State Park, and at this point Mt. Dew was really exhausted. We wanted to go to the lake, which had a concession stand. I looked at my book to see where it was, and my book said to go .9 right from the visitor's center. We did this, which was completely downhill, only to discover that the lake was really back up at the top of the hill, where we'd had to go left, then right .9. At this point Mt. Dew was so run down that he couldn't make it back up the hill. He sat down to hitchhike, while I went towards the top to go get food and water for him. He got a ride about two minutes later from a very nice guy named Phil Feniman. He gave us a ride to the top and also a diet pepsi each, which was most appreciated.Later on that evening, when Mt. Dew was feeling better, we went on a night hike on the AT with a ranger led group. We went to a viewing platform, where we watched the Sturgeon moon rise. It was pretty cool. We then night hiked the last mile to the shelter.
Date: 2006-08-10
From: High Point Shelter

To: Unionville Park
Miles today: 7.1

Well, I think that Mt. Dew had heat exhaustion yesterday because he was still feeling the effects of it today. We got a slow start, after Mt. Dew had ramen for breakfast (yuck), then took it easy all the way to the "secret shelter." We took showers there, then headed into Unionville. A blue slurpee, the post office, then several hours of food and music later at Sara's Soda Shop, we were all feeling good again. Resuplyed and relaxed for the evening.
Date: 2006-08-11
From: Unionville Park

To: Vernon Church Hostel
Miles today: 11.8

Good day today, although slow going. It was so nice to get laundry done, and I'm going to take a shower as soon as I get off the computer. Nothing special overall today, but there was a really cool one mile stretch of boardwalk. The trail went through a marsh several times, and for one of those times, the trail club had constructed a full boardwalk. You could even bring a wheelchair on it for part of it. The hostel we're staying at is amazing, and Mt. Dew cooked some awesome spaghetti for dinner. Looking forward to leaving New Jersey tomorrow, although it's been my favorite state on the AT so far. New York, here we come!
Date: 2006-08-26
From: My House

To: Eliza Brook Shelter
Miles today: 7.5
Weather: broken clouds

I slept at my house at last night. Boy was that nice!! Mt. Dew and I had a really nice breakfast with my family - my mom made waffles. Yum Yum. We got to the trailhead about 1:30pm, and I was really excited because I remembered the privy from an earlier hiking trip with my dad. =) It's the little things that keep you going. Met Hawkeye at the trailhead and began climbing up. There was some really nice trail magic, but we didn't take any since we'd just come from my house.The climb up, then down, then up, then down, etc. seemed to take FOREVER! It was really rocky, rooty, brambly, muddy and in general pretty sucky trail. Also compounding the problem were the signs that were posted. My book said we'd be hiking 7.5 miles for the day. When we got to the first sign at the road, it said it was 6.7 miles to the shelter. "Okay, good" we said to ourselves, we like their mileage better. At a point where we thought we only had about one hour to go, we came across a sign saying that we still had 4.3 miles left. Very disheartening and we thought we'd gone much further. When we swore we'd be there any minute or die, we saw a sign that said we still had 1.0 miles. ARRRRR! But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that it said we had 7.0 miles back to the road, making it 8 miles total for the day. Finally, after one of the longest miles in the history of the trail (and losing the trail a couple of times due to bad blazes) we found the shelter. At that point, the sign said we had 7.5 miles back to the road. AAARRRRRR!!! That was the day in a nutshell. Little did I know that the next day would be worse.Today, we met two southbounders and one flip-flopper while hiking. Shelter was very full, and a lot of the tentsites were taken too. Luckily we found one, cooked, ate and fell into our beds.
Date: 2006-08-27
From: Eliza Brook Shelter

To: Eliza Brook Shelter
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was a really sucky day. Perhaps one of the worst I've had on the trail. It started out not too bad, but cold and wet. Mt. Dew and I tried to get up at 6am, but we ended up falling back asleep and we woke up about 8:30 again. We were out by 10am, and the trail was cold, wet, windy and miserable. It got windier, rainier and colder the higher we climbed. Because we decided to do our flip-flop so suddenly, Mt. Dew hadn't had a chance to get his real raingear back yet. He currently had only a 98cent Waltmart plastic bag poncho. It was doing about nothing to do keep him dry and warm in the wind and rain.I have hiked down Kinsmans Mountain before, so I knew the terrain was really hard. The further up we went, the colder both of us became. Finally, Mt. Dew said he had had enough. Neither one of us wanted to keep going, get hypothermia, die, and become of those groups that they say "If they'd only turned back..." So we turned back. We had been hiking for about two hours and we were more than halfway up the mountain, but we didn't know how close we were to the top, and we just couldn't risk going on. It was one of the hardest decisions I had to help make on the trail.The two hours back to the shelter was awful. At least it got a little warmer as we got back down below the worst of the wind. When we got back to the shelter, we immediately took off all our wet stuff and crawled into our heavenly sleeping bags, where we proceeded to stay all day. Eventually a couple of hikers came in, and one of them told us that it was in the low-40's. Obviously it was colder up top, so Mt. Dew and I knew we had made the right decision. We only hoped that come tomorrow, we wouldn't find out that we were only a little ways from the top.Had a nice evening with two other hikers in the shelter. One of them in particular - The Chocolate Bandito. =)