morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2018-06-10
To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Went shopping for our trail food today. We prefer to package up our food and send it to various P.O.s or Hostels along the way, rather than take "potluck" in the towns we pass through. We find we can balance our diet better that way and usually keep the amount of weight and space the food takes to a minimum. We will collect boxes from the Post Office on Monday and begin to fill them with food and other "stuff" over the next month.We've been communicating with friends that we will connect with as we hike the northeast. We met one couple as we hiked through Virginia 3 years ago. They were thru-hiking the AT as we were hiking our 500-mile section. We hiked with them for about a week and had a great time. They own a place in Maine and invited us to stay with them when we hiked through their area...that will be this year!!Also connected with a couple we met through our work in Chevron. Sherrie worked for Chevron for a while but later quit and moved to Virginia when her husband got a job with the Library of Congress. They met us and went to lunch when we hiked the AT through Virginia 3 years ago. Now they are retired in Cape Cod and have invited us to visit. So our plan is to see them at the end of our hike, before we head home.
Date: 2018-06-28
To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Today we got all of our backpacking gear down from the attic and started going through it to make sure we have everything. We keep lots of stuff for camping, short distance backpacking, long distance backpacking etc., so it's not a trivial process to sort out everything we will need for the AT. But being overly organized, we have a list for everything, so started to go through our "AT Gear List".To add to the chaos, we will be headed out on a week camping trip with friends in 2 weeks, so we are trying to set aside the gear for that too. It's a very different kind of camping with a 10-man tent, zero gravity chairs, queen-size air mattress etc....definitely prep for a "Tale" of two camping styles.Both ET and I are creating a to-do list of what needs to get done before we head out on a 6 week trip. Both lists started out with only a couple of dozen items but seem to grow each day as we think of things, even though we are trying to complete things as fast as possible.Only 30 days before we hit the trail!!
Date: 2018-07-01
To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

We visited ET's 89 year old mother to deliver her birthday present this weekend. She lives in Carmel, CA so took advantage of our time there to hike 5 miles around Pt. Lobos State Park. The trail is either rocky, rooty or gravely. It climbs up and down along the coastline. Great test for my new knee, my knee brace on my other knee and my cardio. Everything worked well...we averaged 2.5 mph.Next we head to our second home, up on Lake Tahoe, for the 4th of July week. That should give us some time to hike at elevation and build up the red blood cells!!We have made a first pass through all our gear and have made a trip to REI to fill in some gaps. Still have purchases of items from some other stores before we have everything but we are getting things organized
Date: 2018-07-04
To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Happy Fourth of July!! We are spending it at our house at Lake Tahoe...only about the 4th time we have done that in the 15+ years we have owned it. We brought some projects for our AT hike up with us, plus the to-do list for this house, mowing the lawns, raking pine needles, trimming bushes etc. Will have my oldest son check on the place a couple of times while we are hiking the AT. Just one of the many things we have to arrange for being away 6 weeks.Spider is the planner for all our hikes and he is pretty "anal" about it!! He has read many of the 2017 TrailJournals of those who hiked the area we will be hiking this year. From those journals, AWOLs book and the Thru-Hikers Companion he has planned our hike, noting particularly difficult sections, good hostels to stay at etc. He continues to tweak the hike, but realizes the trail, weather and our bodies will be final determiner of our hike. One recent tweak was to plan a slackpack of Mt. Moosilauke...southbound, based on recommendations of many who did it, or wished they had.One of the projects we brought to Tahoe was reinforcing our hiking pants. From reading the journals, many had issues with wearing out their pants from sliding up and down on the many rocks that needed to be negotiated...The butt and crotch areas were particularly vulnerable. So Spider is using fabric glue to put patches of canvas on the butt of our hiking pants and on the knees. We don't know if it will work or not, but thought it might be worth a try. Also since Spiders "new" knee is painful to kneel on, he is adding some padding under his knee patches to make it more comfortable climbing on his hands and knees.3 of our 5 food boxes are packed, we will finish the last 2 when we get back home. Wrapping up the last few loose ends about someone watching our house and picking up our mail.We are 3 weeks away before we crawl on a plane to Boston...Getting excited!!
Date: 2018-07-11
To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

We are getting down to the wire with our preparation. Unfortunately daily life is continuing to pull us away from our preparation for the AT.  We both have to-do lists that range from 40-50 items. A lot of things to do when you plan to leave for 6 weeks!!Attached is a photo of ET wearing her ¢augmented¢ hiking pants. We have put a layer of canvas on the seat and knees of our hiking pants in anticipation of doing a lot of climbing on hands and knees and sliding down on our butts in the Whites¢¦and in Southern Maine. We wonder if these pants will be a best practice on the AT...or a folly¢¦only time will tell.We just spent a week at our house near Lake Tahoe. The plan was to acclimate to the 6000+ foot elevation and do some hiking. Unfortunately, we spent most of you time doing things around our house getting it ready to be abandoned for 2 months and preparing things for our AT hike. So we got acclimatized but not much exercise (unless raking pine needles counts!!)Spider spent a lot of time reviewing our hiking itinerary and ultimately made several changes that changed how much food we would carry each week and, in some cases, where the food resupply box would be sent. It¢s important because the first resupply box goes out this week!! Spider completely packed his pack today (water, food etc.) and it weighed 38 lbs. A little more than previous years because of more cold weather clothing. He will be working over the next couple of weeks to try to get it down closer to 30lbs.We have been watching the weather on Mt Washington with about a month to go before we get there. Looks like it will be a crap shoot¢¦some days are magnificent and some are unhikable!!
Date: 2018-07-15
To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

We have a busy week next week so we are trying to finish up most of the detailed preparation for our AT hike this weekend. Spider finished all the documentation and reduced it on the copier to minimize the weight. We then finished packing all our resupply boxes and sent out the first box...makes our hike seem more "real"! We have been going through all our gear to make sure it has survived it's storage for the last year, in usable shape. Our picture of today is our tent set up to ensure all parts were there and no surprise holes that might let the rain in...because we certainly expect rain!! We are watching the long-range forecast and it predicts we will arrive in Hanover, NH on a day of thunderstorms...which will turn to a day of showers by our third day on the trail. Oh Well...Welcome to summer in the Northeast!
Date: 2018-07-24
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

4 more days and we will be hiking the AT. We just got home from a week in the mountains above San Diego. ET has an annual get-together with friends that she rode horses with when she was a young girl. Every year they have a reunion and those who still have horses, bring them. It is a week of socializing, eating and horseback riding in the Cuyamaca Mountains. However, since we don't have horses, we hiked. The elevation was similar to where we will be hiking in New Hampshire, 4-6000 feet so we decided to take advantage of it. We hiked all 6 days we were there and hiked about 50 miles, up every mountain around. The attached picture is from the top of the tallest mountain, Mt. Cuyamaca at 6512 feet. The temperatures were in the mid-80's so once again similar to what we are seeing in New Hampshire...the difference was we only carried daypacks and the humidity was only 30-40 percent. However, our bodies stood up to the onslaught of day after day hiking and Spider had a good test of his new knee.After getting home yesterday, we have been racing around completing all the tasks we waited until the last minute to tackle like paying bills ahead through August, haircuts, last minute clothes washing etc. We each have about a dozen tasks still to do, but by tomorrow afternoon, if they aren't done, they won't get done!!We are getting excited about finally getting back to the AT!!
Date: 2018-07-25
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

We finished all of our to-dos today and actually had some time to relax. Our neighbor Carl volunteered to take us down to the BART station, eliminating the need to call a taxi or schlep our backpacks on the local bus...Thanks Carl!We arrived at the airport about 2.5 hours before our red-eye was scheduled to depart. However when we tried to check in our bags/packs, we found our flight had been CANCELLED within the last hour. After spending 45 minutes with a United ticket agent it became obvious that we were not getting to Boston tomorrow morning as planned...which means we would also miss our connecting flight to Lebanon/Hanover, NH. Hmmm..we know we have to be flexible on our itinerary on the trail due to weather and terrain challenges, but didn't expect to have the need for flexibility to start at the airport!We are scheduled now to fly out tomorrow morning and now have a reservation on a bus to get us to Hanover (we arrive too late to reschedule our connecting flight). If all goes as planned we will arrive in Hanover about 14 hours later than originally planned. Which means we may need to modify our hiking plan..that is yet to be determined.So where I expected to have a picture of ET lounging in the airport waiting for our plane to take off..instead we have ET lounging in the hotel room we were comped by United. Hopefully things will work out better tomorrow!
Date: 2018-07-26
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Last night we ate dinner in the hotel's dining room..mostly on United's dime... and got to bed at 10pm. During this time, Spider was busily canceling our connecting flight from Boston to Lebanon/Hanover. The Cape Air lines flight was something we had been looking forward to... unfortunately they had no flights scheduled we could connect with on our altered itinerary... Darn! Based on his earlier research he knew of a bus line that ran from Boston to Hanover... and the ran into the night. So he made a reservation for this evening. Lastly, Spider called the motel in Hanover to let them know we were changing from an early arrival to a late arrival!Up at 6am to catch the 6:30am shuttle. To the airport by 7am for our 9:30 flight... wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to deal with any "surprises" that might come up... of course there were none! Sooo, we had plenty of time for breakfast at the airport.Uneventful flight and landed in Boston a little early... in the rain... Uh oh! Got to the bus stop at the terminal and caught our Dartmouth Coach bus. Arrived in Hanover at 10:15. Pulled up the Uber app and... nothing... Uh oh! Walked to the nearby Hanover Inn and asked for taxi recommendations... got 3. After several no answers finally got the Big Yellow Taxi to pick us up. Arrived at our motel at 11pm. Arriving this late means all the town "stuff" we planned on doing today by arriving early, will have to be done tomorrow morning...stuff like buying fuel for our stove. This means a later start on the trail than planned, so it is yet to be determined if we will make the miles we planned for Day 1.Time for bed!
Date: 2018-07-28
From: Moose Mountain Shelter

To: Stealth camp near Grant Brook
Miles today: 8.5

We had a little excitement during the night. At about 3:30am we were awaked by a clap of thunder. As we lay there, a parade of lightning and thunder continued. Soon it began to rain..very hard at times. Kind of hard to sleep when you feel like you are inside a drum! The storm lasted about 2 hours. After that we fell back to sleep until about 7:30am.The sun was shining with a few clouds when we crawled out of the tent. We decide to have breakfast in camp rather than on the trail like we usually prefer. We finally hit the trail at 9:40am..much later than usual for us.The first thing we did was crawl up North Moose Mountain (still haven't seen a moose.) Then we had a long run down the north side of North Moose Mountain. Along the way we took a break at a rare viewpoint, which is today's picture. In the distance is Smarts Mountain, a mountain we will climb tomorrow. We continued down about 1300 ft only to climb back 1000 feet to Holt's Ledges. These ledges are a Peregrine Falcon nesting area and we could hear them screeching as we looked at the vista.Next was a steep descent to a road, then the last several miles were a series of small ups and downs. At one place, after crossing a small creek, we had to climb an 8 ft vertical rock wall. This is where we had to let the treking poles dangle from there straps and use our fingers and toes to grip the rocks and roots and climb the wall. We understand we will have many more opportunities to do this, for a further distance, in the upcoming days...Oh Boy!We made it to the area we were going to stealth camp by 6:40pm. We found a big, soft, leaf-covered area where someone else had obviously camped. It was nice to be able to set up our tent and eat dinner before it got dark. We are now positioned to tackle the tough climb up Smarts Mountain tomorrow.Animal sights: 2 deer with big white tails..White Tailed Deer?
Date: 2018-07-29
From: Stealth camp near Grant Brook

To: Hexacuba Shelter
Miles today: 9.2
Weather: few clouds

No rain last night so a full 24 hours with no rain,. Wahoo! We knew we had a long day with a big climb, so we set the alarm for 6am. We hit the trail at 7:10am. Within 0.1 miles we began our climb of Smarts Mountain. Its advertised as the first test of climbing that will be repeated multiple times in the White Mountain Range. It started with a steep 1200 ft climb to Lambert's Ledges. These were solid slabs of granite with some distant view. We sat on one of these slabs and had our breakfast. Next the trail undulated for a mile as it worked its way on a side ridge of Smarts Mountain. Then we started a climb almost straight up over granite for a 900 ft ascent. Todays picture is what some of the trail was like, all in one - log steps, stone steps, rebar steps, stone steps again, and mixed rock and roots. We finally reached the top after 5 hrs of climbing...to go 3.8 miles. It was a long climb and half the day long.At the top of Smarts Mountain was a fire tower. Like so many we have seen on our AT hikes, this one was abandoned since fire detection is now done by satellite. The good thing was we were able to get cell signal from the tower so sent off yesterday's journal. After a quick break, we headed down the backside of Smarts Mountain. Unlike the frontside this was a reasonably gentle descent of 3.9 miles. We expected to make good speed on this descent. What we didn't count on was the MUD! Every 20 yards was a 10 ft stretch of black, gooey mud anywhere from 4 inches deep to a foot deep. We slowed to skirt these muddy areas, which slowed our overall speed..Oh Well!We crossed a brook a the end of our descent then started our second climb of the day to Eastman Ledges, a 450ft climb but pretty steep. Another descent followed to another brook...and finally a 200ft climb to our shelter at 6:15pm. Over 11 hrs of hiking. Whew!This shelter is fairly unique in that it is hexagonal. It also only has 2 tentsites so wondered if we would have a spot. BUT when we arrived only 3 hikers were there, all using the shelter. So we had our choice and picked the higher, more private one and then colled iles of leaves to cover the rooty surface. We set up our tent, then went to the shelter to eat dinner. While there a southbound hiker came in and set up in the other tentsite. She had a very unique setup. It was a hammock that looked like a tent with poles and a rainfly. She said that when there were no trees, she could set on the ground like a tent. Multipurpose! We went to bed at 8:15pm.
Date: 2018-07-30
From: Hexacuba Shelter

To: Ore Hill Campsite
Miles today: 7.1

Today is our 3rd day without rain. It's been great. Still humid at the lower elevations, but nicely cooler higher up.Once again we set the alarm for 6am. We hit the trail at 7:15am. The first order of business was to climb 900 ft of the sourh peak of Mt. Cube. When is a cube rocky? When it's a mountain in New Hampshire... and boy was this mountain rocky. We started our climb by working our way up a rockfall with most rocks the size of an easy chair. Then we transitioned to going up granite slabs, like the one shown in today's picture. After reaching the summit we had a long descent of 3.3 miles to highway NH 25A. During our descent we met several people who were doing a day-hike to Mt. Cube's summit. All the young folks just said "Hi" and kept hiking. But all the old folks had to stop and ask Spider about the brace he wears on his left knee. Then the conversation quickly turns to knee replacements when they learn that Spider's right knee had been replaced. Guess there are a lot of people out there our age who are considering knee replacements.After crossing the highway, we started our climb to Ore Hill. The climb was moderately steep, but no rockfalls or granite slabs. However there were plenty of mud patches to skirt that slowed us down. One section was an endless string of big stepping stones alternating with split logs and boards which we sailed across. We made it to our campsite by 4pm. It was a large tent camping area with a great spring with clear, cold water and a very clean privy. Not surprising since the shelter burned down 8 years ago. Few hikers carry a tent. They stay in the shelters, so bypassed this site. We finally arrived at camp early enough to leisurely set up our tent and have time to relax before dinner. We tented by the trail to the spring, thus meeting the 3 people around for the night. We were to bed by 8pm.
Date: 2018-07-31
From: Ore Hill Campsite

To: Kinsman Notch/ Hikers Welcome Hostel
Miles today: 7.5
Weather: moderate rain

No rain again, but the hikers are talking about rain tomorrow. That's the day we had planned to hike the first mountain in the White Mountains range. HmmmWe set the alarm for 6am. Hopefully we will soon be on East Coast time and won't need an alarm. We hit the trail at 7:20am. We're getting slower, not faster in breaking camp. We'll have to work on that.The first part of the day was several ups and downs to the top Ore Mountain. Fortunately we were able to get cell service there and could send off yesterday's journal. Cell reception is getting pretty sketchy.After that we descended to NH 25A. Then our big climb of the day, 650 ft to the top of Mt. Mist. We both felt much stronger today. Some of that is due to a slightly easier trail; some of it is 4 days on the trail to rid ourselves of the city "softness" and some of it is the lighter packs (we've eaten most of our food). Or maybe its because we knew there was a hostel to stay in at the end of the day that has a bed and SHOWERS (just the way horses speed up when you point them back to the barn!). Whatever the reason, we moved faster today. Once at the top of Mt Mist we had a descent to NH 25. We passed 8 south-bound hikers today. We have been seeing south-bounders ever since we started hiking, but today was the most. Most of them started in Maine in May or June.We made it to highway NH 25 at 1:40pm. Wahoo!! We hiked the quarter mile to the Hikers Welcome Hostel and checked in. They had our resupply box that we had mailed from home. Next we took showers in an outside shower. It was plenty warm enough. I can't describe how good a shower feels after hiking for 5 days. Today's picture is of ET in front of our hostel, all cleaned up!After showers, was laundry, so now we look and smell reasonably clean. Given our presentable appearance, we were allowed on the shuttle to town for food. It's nice not to worry about what we eat. After sub sandwiches, potato salad and potato chips, with a bottle of wine, we topped it off with Ben & Jerry's ice cream.Tomorrow, we enter the White Mountains by hiking over Mt. Moosiauke. It is over 4800 ft. and part of it is above treeline. (Treelinee is around 4000 ft here in contrast to the Sierras, at about 10,000 ft.) Thunder showers are forecast for the next 2 days, then 2 days of rain, so we're carefully weighing our options regarding hiking and taking planned zero days (days where we hike zero miles of the AT). To bed by 9pm. Milestone: We passed the mile marker indicating that we have only 400 miles remaining to the northen end of the AT
Date: 2018-08-03
From: Kinsman Notch/ Hikers Welcome Hostel

To: Eliza Brook Shelter
Miles today: 7.5
Weather: light rain

We woke at 6am and went downstairs for breakfast. Then back upstairs to pack up. We paid our bill then caught the 7:30am shuttle Kinsman Notch to continue our hike northHit the trail at 8:10 with an immediate climb of 800ft in 0.7 miles. After that it was a series of ups and downs but ever increasing in elevation. The character of the trail has changed - many more rocks and roots. Where the trail finally flattens out, it forms bogs of deep mud that need to be negotiated. Even when the profile shows the terrain as flat, there are 8-10 ft walls of granite to climb or slide down...thus our mph continues to drop.We finally made it to our high-point of the day, Wolf Mountain and headed down toward our destination shelter. The skies had been overcast all day, but the predicted rain held off until 3pm. It started off as light rain but steadily increased in intensity. The picture of the day is ET relaxing at our last break, totaly soaked, in the rain next to her covered pack.We finally arrived at the shelter at 4:45pm. With heavy rains predicted we opted to stay in the shelter. There were eventually 5 of us sheltering overnight. As expected. The rains intensified to a heavy downpour. We were glad to be inside and dry!Milestone: We passed the 1800 mile mark on the AT today.