morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2008-07-09
From: Pleasant Pond leanto

To: Caratunk, ME
Miles today: 5.7

Pleasant Pond leanto to Caratunk ME5.7 milesThis morning was a muggy start but a mainly quick day on relatively easy trail. It had many boggy spots, one of which I took a sit down fall. No damage, just a muddy butt and hands. The last mile or so we could hear traffic on the highway ahead, but it seemed to take a long time to reach it. When we did we headed into the small town of Caratunk on the promise of a cheeseburger and icecream as our guidebook said. Unfortunately after arriving there we were advised that the restaurant had closed down several years ago! Disappointed, we called the local outfitter, now a couple of miles in the opposite direction, hoping for a ride to their campground but were advised they couldn't come pick is up for 4 hours! Undaunted, we set out to walk it instead of waiting, but a little while down the road a nice couple stopped us to chat about our hike and agreed to drive is to Northern Outdoors. We checked into a tent cabin: wooden platform, canvas tent, and a lightbulb. Home for the night. We ate a great lunch, took a shower and a short nap while a thunderstorm passed over and now we're doing laundry and thinking about food again.
Date: 2008-07-10
From: Caratunk, ME

To: Caratunk, ME
Miles today: 0.0

Caratunk, MEZero day at Northern Outdoors resort. We both had some gear repairs that needed attending to and rain late afternoon prevented us getting them completed. My inflatable sleeping mattress has developed a 4 hour leak: I can fully inflate it but four hours later I'm flat on the ground or whatever rock or root happens to be under me. This morning I fully inflated it and wet it down expecting to find a small puncture somewhere and was shocked to discover an entire line of small bubbles escaping along the bottom 4 inches or so of the mattress. It appears that an internal baffle has come loose and weakened or delaminated the end of all the welds from the inside. There were far too many places to patch so we attempted a temporary repair with silicone to see if it will at least slow the leaking air down until I can get a replacement sent in to meet me at our next town stop early next week.We're almost done with repairs and repacking and another load of laundry and planning to head out tomorrow to cross the Kennebec river on the morning ferry schedule. The Kennebec is a dam controlled flow, and rises unpredictably and rapidly, so the official AT route across is via a row boat ferry.
Date: 2008-07-11
From: Caratunk, ME

To: West Carry Pond leanto
Miles today: 14.0

Caratunk ME to West Carry Pond leanto14 milesThe day started out well enough with a nice big breakfast at Northern Outdoors. We enjoyed our stay there but were rather dismayed at the neighbors we had for the second night, who pulled up right at dusk and proceeded to kick down and push over at least three trees to break up for firewood. Because their wood was green it took gasoline or some other accelerant to get the fire going, it flared about five feet high then died almost immediately to nothing, prompting them to head back out in the dark for more wood! We started out the day with our official ferry ride across the Kennebec river. The Kennebec is the largest unbridged river on the trail and the ferry provides safe crossing for all hikers on contract to the ATC. Ferryman Dave (Hillbilly) got us quickly and dryly across the river and on our way. The first several miles of trail are not exactly as flat as advertised, but they are very scenic, running along the Pierce Pond Stream with many waterfalls and swimming holes along the way. Pierce Pond leanto is also very scenic, with a great location on the lake. Unfortunately for us the sky had clouded up and a brisk breeze was blowing. This would have been a great early stop on a hot day. This is where our day turned longer than expected, because our intended stopping point for the night was not not suitable for camping. We decided to hike another couple of miles but that spot didn't work out either. We had had nice smooth trail for much of the afternoon so we gambled on good trail to get us the final miles into the leanto. Of course, that gamble never paid off: the remaining trail was rocky, rooty, boggy and buggy as anything we have seen so far!
Date: 2008-07-12
From: West Carry Pond leanto

To: Little Bigelow leanto
Miles today: 7.3

West Carry Pond to Little Bigelow leanto7.3 milesA cold night last night, and our first overnight animal disturbances. We got a late start since we were already a few miles ahead for the day due to our longer day yesterday. We have 8 mile days planned for today and the next couple of days and today's hike is the easiest of the three so we took it nice and easy. The milestone of the day was crossing Long Falls Dam Road, where "2000" is painted on the yellow line in the middle of the road. For Northbounders this is their 2000 mile mark, for us it means we only have 2000 miles left to hike! We celebrated by stopping on the shore of Flagstaff Lake for an afternoon swim and wash up. From there it was a fairly easy but uphill hike into this leanto for the night.
Date: 2008-07-13
From: Little Bigelow leanto

To: Horn Pond Leantos
Miles today: 10.2

Little Bigelow leanto to Horns Pond leantos10.2 milesToday we crossed our first 4000 + foot mountains in the Bigelows range and nearly got blown away. We woke this morning to breezy conditions and by the time we began our ascent of Avery peak it was starting to rain and the wind was very blustery. By the time we reached the summit the top was totally enveloped in cloud and the wind was gusting across strong enough to knock me off my feet. I crawled my way across when I couldn't stand or walk. Needless to say we didn't get any summit pictures. It was becoming too dangerous to stay on the summit, so we headed for the campsite at Avery Col. After erecting the tarp though we realized how the weather was still deteriorating and it could be dangerous to attempt to camp there, so we packed up again and pushed on three more miles to the next shelter. Its still only three sides, but somewhat more substantial than the tent.
Date: 2008-07-14
From: Horn Pond Leantos

To: Stratton Motel, Stratton, ME
Miles today: 5.1
Weather: overcast clouds

Last night's storm was wet and windy, but no lightning or anything. It was still raining this morning when we woke and nothing had dried from yesterday. It was hard to get motivated to hike, and I actually went back into my sleeping bag for a while after breakfast. Eventually I managed to muster up the energy to put my wet hiking gear back on and get packed up. Five miles aof mainly steep downhill hiking, with a few uphill stretches for good measure, got us to the road, and the owner of the Stratton Motel was turning around right at the intersection there to pick up some other hikers that had called for a ride. She had room for us too, so we all piled in and were quickly in town.We are hoping to just stay one night, lonmg enopugh to dry out, do laundry, get cleaned up and fed, and resupplied with food for the next couple of days and head out in the morning. That will be a first for us, becasue we have always managed to find an excuse to stay an extra day when we have hit civilization. We'll see!
Date: 2008-07-15
From: Stratton Motel, Stratton, ME

To: Stratton Motel
Miles today: 0.0

Stratton MotelAnother zero day. This time it is my hiking partner Brian's turn to call a no hiking day as he is not feeling good. Of course, because we are not hiking the weather is gorgeous! We did chores, post office, etc. And ate lots of food.
Date: 2008-07-16
From: Stratton Motel

To: Crocker Cirque campsite
Miles today: 7.3
Weather: few clouds

Stratton, ME to Crocker Cirque Campsite7.3 milesWe got a fairly late start out of town on another gorgeous day. Unfortunately gorgeous equals hot when the trail ascends a couple of thousand feet in only a few miles. It made for a long afternoon with lots of breaks.   At the top of North Crocker mtn the sky mercifully clouded over for a while, by the time we had dropped into the saddle between the north and south peaks the sun wa back out, but some of the day's heat had already dissipated.The descent to the campsite was extremely steep including passing over a rock slide, but we made it into camp without too many injuries.
Date: 2008-07-17
From: Crocker Cirque campsite

To: Caribou Valley Rd
Miles today: 1.0
Weather: broken clouds

Crocker Cirque campsite to Caribou Valley RD1 mileOne month on the trail!We haven't got as far as we thought we would in the first month, but we expect the mileage will come easier once we get out of New England (eventually!)We certainly didn't do much to cover miles today. After a thunderstorm in the night we got up to wet tarps and tents, but sunshine this morning. After less than a mile it was obvious that Brian was still not well enough to hike. He was breathless and nauseous even hiking downhill, and the next uphill is very steep and takes us up to Sugarloaf mountain. Instead we decided to hike out on the last road, albeit dirt, that we will see for a while. So we are back at the Stratton Motel for a couple of days to see if some medication will help out. My knees sure don't mind the rest anyway.
Date: 2008-07-18
To: Stratton, ME
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Another zero day at the Stratton Motel. Brian is still not well enough to hike, but it seems that it is a good day to be off trail anyway. There are some storms moving through the area south of us and being up on the mountains in storms is not my favorite thing to do. We were rather glad that we are not further ahead, as scheduled, whe we heard that a severe weather system moved through Gorham this afternoon and knocked down buildings, trees and powerlines.Spent most of the day napping and reading, which was nice, but I'm yearning to be out hiking.
Date: 2008-07-19
From: Stratton, ME

To: Stratton, ME
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Another zero at the Stratton motel. We're still waiting on Brian recovering enough to feel like hiking. Our agreement wa actually for me to hike out alone this morning even if Brian wasn't up to it, but I had a pretty rough night myself with stomach issues, and was a little concerned that if his probelems are viral I may also be coming down with the same problem, so I decided to wait out another day. As it happened, I actually got a few things done today. There was a hiker leaving the trail that had requested a shuttle to the nearest reasonable size town with transportation options. It turned out to be Waterville, about 70 miles away and on I95 between Augusta and Bangor. I went along for the ride and got dropped at the interstate exit where there were drugstores, a grocery, and even a hairdresser! Finally, after a month of asking in small towns for someone who cuts hair I was able to get my hair cut back to some reasonably facimile of short and controllable. I'm sure the mosquitoes will have w much easier time getting into my scalp for a good bite now!By the end of the day I'm still feeling a bit gassy, but I stocked up on anti has and anti nausea medication while I was in town, so hopefully we can get out of here tomorrow. I wanna go hiking.
Date: 2008-07-20
From: Stratton, ME

To: Perham Stream
Miles today: 8.5

Caribou Valley Road to Perham Stream8.5 miles Once again we left Stratton. Sue from the Stratton motel dropped us back where The trail crossed the road and we headed a mile or so steeply up Sugarloaf mountain. The trail at the top of the mountain was very overgrown and quite hard to determine exactly where the trail went at times, but for the most part it wa just a case of just diving through whichever bushes seemed least likely to send us plummeting off the side of the mountain into the ravine. Late afternoon it started to rain right as we reached Spaulding mountain leanto. We took refuge for a while and were tempted to stay, but it was still quite early to stop and we had hoped to make it to Perham stream tonight. Fortunately the rain stopped, and another hiker at the shelter advised us that the next couple of miles of trail was actually quite smooth and would allow a good pace up to the Lone Mountain peak, where the steep downhill would begin again. We decided to make a run for it and hope we could find somewhere to camp near the stream. We got lucky, we found a suitable camp spot close to where the trail crosses the creek. We had just got the tarp and tent set up when the rain started again. Now the rain is coming down steadily, creating that perfect pitter patter sound to fall asleep to. Overall it was a good day and its great to be out hiking again.
Date: 2008-07-21
From: Perham Stream

To: Poplar Ridge leanto
Miles today: 4.7

Perham Stream to Poplar Ridge leanto4.7 milesThe rain continued for hours last night. It woke me around 2am when it got very heavy for a while. I did a quick check for drips and floods and found none so went back to sleep.The next thing I was aware of was Brian poking me through the tent door. It was 5:30 and he had been awoken by a breaking stick. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the stick breaker, a moose calf, carefully picking its way around the lines for the tarp. He was less than a hiking pole length away and didn't seem bothered by our presence at all. Next he saw momma moose who was on the far side of my tent only a couple of feet from my head. That's when he decided to quietly wake me. Both of us reached slowly for our cameras, but that's when the calf decided he'd had enough of the new grey lumpy things in the woods, and took off after momma, who also spooked a little and the two went running off together. I didn't actually get to see them until they cleared the back of my tent, but I'm glad Brian woke me for it. The remainder of the day didn't go as well. I'm still not feeling great, but don't have the same symptoms Brian had last week, so not sure exactly what is wrong. I do know I'm lethargic. The first part of our hike today was dowhill and along a very pretty brook. It was swollen witht last nights heavy rain and some of the falls and sluices were quite impressive. After fording Orbeton stream the trail headed up Poplar Ridge. This was listed as 2.2 miles, but it seemed way longer. By the time we stopped for lunch it was already after 1pm, it was hot and sunny, but the clouds all around us were dark grey and ominous looking. We had not even reached the summit of the ridge and our intended destination for the day was 7 miles away over 3 peaks, 2 of which were above the treeline. Given the look of the weather it was quit obvious that we were very likely to get stuck up a storm up high if we continued. At the very least, even if we didn't get caught in a storm, we would be very pushed to get over the mountains before dark. We reassessed the maps and decided to just walk on to the next leanto and call an early stop.It was a good decision. The storm started around 4pm, but by then we were safely set up in the Poplar Ridge leanto. It will make for a long day tomorrow to get us over the mountains and into town, but its worth it to be out of the storm.
Date: 2008-07-22
From: Poplar Ridge leanto

To: Maine Rt 4 - Rangeley
Miles today: 10.7

Losing most of my breakfast on a day of three 4000+ foot peaks was probably not the best way to start the day, but I did it anyway! I'm not sure what is wrong, but I may have caught whatever made Brian sick last week, or its possible I have some water borne parasite or infection of some kind. Actually, once we got started hiking it didn't feel too bad. I was hungry regularly all day and we stopped frequently for snacks. By noon we were up above the treeline. We were up in the clouds, but the cloudcover was variable and as we hiked on up over the Horn and Saddleback peaks we had good intermittent views down into the valleys below is and the mountains all around us. It was beautiful, but a little cool up there. As we descended the sun came out more steadily. The trail today was very wet, mostly the trail was more like a stream, the bogs were deep and very muddy, and the steep rocks very slick. We made it though. By 6pm we were at the road into town. A very nice family who had been out walking on the AT to Piazza Rock offered us a ride into town, and we checked into the first motel we saw. We're hoping we can get our chores (laundry and shopping) done early and get back on the trail with only one night in town.
Date: 2008-07-23
From: Maine Rt 4 - Rangeley

To: Little Swift River Pond campsite
Miles today: 4.8
Weather: overcast clouds

Maine 4 (Rangeley) to Little Swift River Pond campsite4.8 milesIt stormed hard and poured rain last night, but from a cozy motel room, who cares? This morning its a grey breezy day here in Rangeley.A first this morning - nothing ached when I woke up! I didn't even have to hobble to the bathroom. The weather forecast for the next week is more of the same pattern: 60% chance of afternoon showers. I would take that with a grain of slat except that it has actually rained every afternoon for the past week or so. Its getting rather frustrating, not to mention very stinky, getting wet every day and it being too damp to dry things out overnight. The only time that anything is getting dry is on the occasional hot sunny afternoon, when everything also gets sweaty, salty and stinky! We decided to try some slackpacking to get is through the next several days. If we can coordinate it we can get some chores done here in town this morning and hike out later with only a day's supplies. The plan is to get picked up at Maine 17 tomorrow and spend a couple of nights at a hostel and a couple of short days dayhiking. That will set is up for our final 4 days in Maine and into New Hampshire. It sure would be nice to get clear of Maine. Not that it isn't beautiful (when the weather is cooperating), nor that we really expect NH to be any different, but it just seems like Maine is taking forever. I'd have to look it up, but I believe Maine may be the second longest state on the AT, after Virginia.We left town a little after 4pm having done laundry and resupplied at the grocery store. We had decided to try to hitch back to the trailhead for 30 minutes and if we couldn't get one we would call a local hostel for a bed for the night. Lucky for us, two nice ladies from New Hampshire here on vacation picked us up within 5 minutes.So we started hiking at 4:40 in a light drizzly rain (so much for the clean dry clothes!) on a trail that was more mid than trail. Our feet stayed clean and dry for about 3 minutes. Dodging the worst and deepest of the mud and bogs slowed is down somewhat, but we made it to camp just before 7om and got set up quickly. Brian's tarp works really great on nights like tonight. As soon as the tarp is up and staked out we have a nice rain free space to unpack and set up camp beneath it.
Date: 2008-07-24
From: Little Swift River Pond campsite

To: Maine 17
Miles today: 8.3

Little Swift River Pond campsite to Maine 178.3 milesLast night's rain was torrential, and it continued pretty much all day. The trail was basically a series of 12 to 18 inch deep mid bogs strung together by rocky or muddy waterfalls. I had arranged for us to be picked up at Maine highway 17 at 3pm and we struggled to cover the 8.8 miles in five and a half hours. Along the way I took a nasty sideways dive off a slick bog bridge into deep mud, banging my left thigh and knee on the way down just for good measure. I ended up left side down in the mud, just managing to keep my head clear of the mud. We arrived at the road at ten minutes to three in another torrential downpour. We could not have been any wetter. Right at the road the wind was also howling through the trees, and a fairly large tree fell into the trail about 12 feet in front of me. If we had not paused for a moment to look at a sign on the trail it would have come right down on top of me. The eerie thing about it was that it didn't make a sound. We walked Dow to the road to see if our ride was there yet, and not seeing a car had started back up the trail to take refuge from the wind when he pulled up. It was such a relief to be out of the rain and in the warm and now steamy car. Now we're at the Pine Ellis lodge. We're bunking in the trailer out back. It's very basic, no electric or anything, and has a couple of roof leaks, but it has dry beds, and we can use the services of the house like laundry and showers. It was only yesterday that we were clean and dry, but it seems like longer.
Date: 2008-07-25
From: Pine Ellis Lodge

To: Pine Ellis Lodge
Miles today: 0.0

Zero day at Pine EllisWe didn't get a chance to do laundry yesterday, and the thought of getting up early, putting on stinky wet clothes, and tackling the flood waters of Bemis stream was just not very appealing. So we took another day off. And what a gorgeous day it was: blue skies, puffy white clouds and warm. That seems to be a trend for whenever we're not hiking. I tracked back for the last month or so and figured out that for the entire hike so far there have been only three days that we have hiked that it hasn't rained! However, in the vein of 'be careful what you wish for', it was very warm this afternoon. The mountains are as brutal in the heat as in the pouring rain, though maybe not as dangerous. I guess cool clear days are just too much to hope for at this time of year. We got quite a bit done today, obviously the most important being laundry and drying out all of our sodden gear, which was basically everything. We made a trip to Walmart, but they didn't have most of what we were looking for, and spent the afternoon cleaning and repairing gear. Tomorrow we will slackpack with only lunch and raingear from Rt 17 for about 14 miles with help from the folks at Pine Ellis.
Date: 2008-07-26
From: Pine Ellis Lodge

To: South Arm Road
Miles today: 13.3

Maine 17 to South Arm Road13.3 milesAn early start on a chilly but clear morning. Now that the weather is clear we had an awesome view down onto Lake Mooselookmeguntic (I don't think I'll ever be able to pronouce that, and my spell checker certainly doesn't know what to make of it!) which was hidden by fog and rain when we were picked up here a couple of days ago. Within a mile of the start we had to ford the even chillier Bemis stream. It was cool and fast flowing, but had receded down to about knee deep, so wasn't too bad a crossing. After that it was up, up, up,   pretty much all day until the last couple of miles. We crossed five peaks of Bemis mountain, skirted around Elephant mountain and finally summitted Old Blue mountain. Most of the peaks were treed, but there were some great views over and through the treetops. After Old Blue it was steep downhill for the remainder of the hike.We had underestimated how long today's hike would take and had to hurry the last dowhill stretch. It was quite scary in places, it was so steep. It was very easy to get out of control and have to struggle to slow or stop the rapid descent. About a mile from the end was a view down to the road about 800 feet below. It was pretty, but just made me panic a little more, as I was already going to be an hour late for the shuttle pickup, and seeing how far and steep the remainder of the trail was just made me realize I was probably going to be even later.Now we're home for the night, fed and showered. It just started to rain. Up till now we have been bragging about how this was the 4th rain free hiking day we have had so far. At least we're inside!