morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2018-05-16
From: 501 Shelter

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

We left our car at the Port Clinton railroad yard. Matt and I got transport from Pastor Jason from there back to the 501 shelter. This was a Section that I'd missed back in 2016. It was slated to rain all day and it did not disappoint. It rained all day, hard. Matt and I didn't stop and sit down once all day. We just keep moving in order to stay warm. We'd brought sandwiches with us from Panera bread and they were ideal for lunch. Everything was so wet we even had to stand up on the side of the trail and eat. At first we tried to keep at least our feet dry by walking the edges of the trail. Eventually we gave up and ended up walking down the middle of the trail in ankle deep water most of the day. Matthew had a fantastic attitude and kept pushing me to get our mileage in. We arrived at the shelter before 5 pm. Matt arrived first at the shelter and set up the tent. The shelter was FULL. When I arrived we got everything organized in the tent, had an MRI of spaghetti and meatballs for supper with hot chocolate. Everything we'd been wearing was soaked but contents of our packs were dry so we changed into dry clothes. We did our bear hang, got our water from the river for tomorrow, and turned in early. BTW, my SPOT will not work at this location. Too much tree cover.
Date: 2018-05-17
From: Eagles Nest Shelter

To: Port Clinton, PA
Miles today: 9.3
Weather: light rain

Matt and I stayed in bed until 8 AM because we were both so exhausted from Day 1. It finally quit raining by 8 AM, so we rose, packed up all our stuff and hit the trail by 9:30 am. We only had 9.3 miles to go to Port Clinton but between the shelter and Port Clinton we had the downhill into Port Clinton which was extremely steep. It is listed as the #27 hardest section on the AT. Everything went off without a hitch and we got into Port Clinton by 2:30 pm. The downhill lived up to its reputation as brutal. John the Mechanical Man had no power at his hostel (which is where we'd planned to spend the night) so we checked back into the Microtel in Hamburg, PA, did all our wet laundry, and dried out all our gear. Dinner was pizza from Pizza Hut. We are meeting a lot of through hikers. I have yet to meet anybody who is a flip-flop oh wait Sally is a flip-flop. So far the through hikers we have met are Taz, Choo-Choo, Sauron or Saragon, Zoom, and Dine-and-Dash.The missed 2016 Section is now complete and we will be moving to just north of Lehigh Gap tomorrow. From there, our 2018 Section will be a contiguous Section all NoBo.
Date: 2018-05-18
From: Little Gap Road (just north of Leigh Gap)

To: PA 33, Wind Gap, PA
Miles today: 15.4
Weather: broken clouds

Today was awesome! We left the Microtel at 8:00 am and drove up to Lehigh Gap. Matt was excited about the challenge of climbing Lehigh Gap. Me? Not so much.... I'd done that climb in 2016! So I dropped Matt there at the Lehigh Trailhead at 9:00 and headed up to Little Gap Road. Matt was now 4.7 miles south of me and we both started hiking north from two different spots. I headed out at 9:30 am from Little Gap Road after staging our van there. I only saw one other hiker all day. Leigh is a massive mountain and Matt had a blast climbing it. He caught up with me around 2 pm and we hiked into Wind Gap together where John the Mechanical Man picked us up, drove us to our van, and took us to his house/hostel. We setup in his garage, showered, regrouped, ate dinner and passed out!Stupid Spot won¢t transmit tonight. Hope it works better if I need rescuing. In total Matt did 20.2 miles and I did 15.4 miles today of VERY soggy trail. There was no rain today but it will be 100% rain all day tomorrow. ?
Date: 2018-05-19
From: PA 33, Wind Gap, PA

To: Delaware Water Gap
Miles today: 15.5
Weather: light rain

This morning we arrived at Wind Gap to stage our van. It is 45 degrees and pouring!!! It is now time to hike 15.4 miles and we don¢t want to get out of the nice warm van! I am dressed in full rain gear, both tops and bottoms. Matt has not come equipped with rain pants so he is wearing his rain coat and Under Armor leggings with shorts. I have advised him that today is a good day for hypothermia. He MUST keep moving until we get to Delaware Water Gap. So if we get separated he needs to get to John the Mechanical Man's vehicle right away and warm up. He didn't fully comprehend the gravity of what I was explaining but he did take note.Pennsylvania IS DONE! 15.4 miles in 45 degree pouring rain greatly increases ones chances of hypothermia so we dressed really warm and kept moving with minimal breaks. Really should have brought our gloves. There was a large boulder field at one point to negotiate. Once again we saw very few people on the trail (go figure). There was massive tree damage the closer we got to Delaware Water Gap from Tuesday¢s storm and tornadoes. Huge century old trees just blown over on the trail. Once again we walked in ankle deep water. There is a lot of flooding, creeks turned into rivers and ponds over flowing their dams. At one point we walked down a service road where multiple places had lakes in the road. The down into Delaware Water Gap was hard and much of today reminded me of hiking in southern Virginia and Dragon Tooth area. The AT never disappoints in its challenges!Late afternoon it was apparent that I wasn't going to make it to Delaware Water Gap in time to meet John the Mechanical Man and Matt was getting cold waiting for me to keep up. So I sent him on ahead to meet John at the appropriate time at Deer Head Inn. Matt was shivering as he climbed into John's warm vehicle and thankful to get into somewhere warm and dry. But he still had all his wet clothes on. John drove Matt back to Wind Gap to pick up our van. It was at this point that Matt realized he was getting hypodermic, stripped all his clothes off right there in the parking lot and put all dry clothes on. He then drove back to Delaware Water Gap, picked me up at the Deer Head Inn and we headed to our hotel. We had reservations at the Pocono Inn. When we arrived it was clear they'd LOST our reservations and scrambled to get us a room. They were completely renovating the hotel and not all rooms were guest ready. We showered and headed out to a laundromat to wash and dry all our clothes. We secured dinner at Wendy's and Matt taught me how to play King's Corner while we waited on the dryers. A quick stop to Walmart and we headed back to the hotel. There we repacked our gear for a 6 day out hike and hit the rack.
Date: 2018-05-20
From: Delaware Water Gap

To: Campsite 1307
Miles today: 13.5

Just an incredible day of hiking! We got a very late start leaving the Pocono Inn heading out around 11:30. We left the van staged at the Pocono Inn. It rained in the morning so we slept in and then packed our full packs in preparation for a 6 day stretch without my van as support (ie all of New Jersey). Today was 80 degrees, humid, and sunny. What a switch from yesterday. The first excitement was leaving the state of Pennsylvania behind! Then we walked past the Kittatinny Visitor Center and into the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We made our way up the trail to Sunfish Pond. The AT around the pond was flooded making it extremely difficult and slow to negotiate passage. We got in 14 miles with spectacular views, loads of day hikers (because it¢s Sunday and we were in Worthington State Forest right!), lots of new through hikers. We made it to our campsite just before dark seeing the sunset from a fire tower.  I didn¢t go up, Matt did! A side note, Matt had popped into the Mohican Outdoor Center to purchase a few goodies and soda for us. He's so fast I didn't even miss him! LOL But he'd set his wallet down to sign the Trail Journal there and forgot to pick it up. The amazing staff there retrieved his wallet and stowed it safely in their cash register when we called to inquire. We will stop in to pick it up after we return to our van at Pocono Inn.
Date: 2018-05-21
From: Campsite 1307

To: Campsite 1320
Miles today: 13.4
Weather: mist

Who setup this itinerary anyway! Today, Matthew and I were physically unable to hike Plan A (18 miles to Gren Anderson Shelter), Plan B (was an impossible replacement of 15 miles to Branchville, NJ and a hotel), both were too far over some really HARD terrain, so Plan C became we dropped the tent on a ridge line alongside the trail after 13.4 miles (THE ONLY PLACE WE COULD FIND TO SETUP A TENT ANYWHERE). We were both simply exhausted still being fresh on the trail. In retrospect we should have stopped after 11 miles at the Brink Shelter. With no water source we took quick water inventory and decided for a cold dinner. No coffee, no hot chocolate, no random water guzzling! ? We have less than a liter here tonight between us! The hike was very tough and rocky! It sure hadn't looked this hard on the elevation maps. At least the weather was a perfect 75 with sun and light breeze. Today I came too close to a rattlesnake and Matt found a cool frog. I discovered the rattlesnake up on Rattlesnake Mountain after climbing hand over hand up a ridge and jumping up on a huge exposed rock outcropping. I heard the rattler but couldn't see him and froze. After surveying for him, I saw him slithering away to my left. Matt was behind me some distance so I took the opportunity to "follow" the snake for some 20 minutes at a distance. It seemed to calm my deep fear to know he really wasn't THAT scary. I moved on after he disappeared in the brush. Other than that, today was just a lot of hard walking and dreaming about ice cream.
Date: 2018-05-22
From: Campsite 1320

To: Culver's Gap
Miles today: 1.5

Waking at 6:30 am on a gorgeous ridge to a sliver of brilliant red sunrise was amazing. Lazily I reach for my iPhone in a crowed 2-man tent to check the weather. Three different hikers passed by on the trail stopping to gaze at the sunrise. Much to my dismay there was a HUGE green and yellow bubble of rain on radar coming up our ridge. It was going to start raining and raining within minutes. Looking at Matt I noticed his eyes were open and then he rolled over to go back to sleep. I informed him of the approaching day long rain and asked if he wanted to get to town or spend our Nero Day (a day of low mileage) with no water in the tent? Within seconds we were both throwing things out of the tent, dressing, rolling sleeping bags, dropping bear hangs, taking down the tent, finding rain gear and stuffing everything into two backpacks. Didn¢t matter whose stuff went into whose pack! 1/2 through this drill it started to sprinkle. Yes some 4 letter words were used but packed and moving in 20 minutes was impressive! We easily made town in full rain and made our way to the local fishing store for something to drink. A new hiking plan that didn't include a tent and full gear was forming. Why couldn't Matt drop me off at the trail-head each morning, drive the van to the other end of our daily Section and he start walking backwards. Once I reached the van I could drive back and pick him up at the first trail-head. Hmmmm..... THAT MIGHT WORK!!! A quick phone call to our transporter garnished some incredible luck! He wasn't supposed to pick us up until May 25th at Arden Valley Road, but he was already just minutes from our location (he could have been ANYWHERE in the entire state of New Jersey!) picking up a different hiker and taking her to our exact desired destination, Delaware Water Gap!!!! Unbelievable. We were deposited at our van at Pocono Inn by 9:30 am!!! Just Wowser!!! We drove 1/2 way up the state and got a hotel just off the trail to use as our new home base. On our way, we swung by the Mohican Outdoor Center to retrieve Matt's wallet. It rained all day!!! It was good to be inside! We napped, organized gear, ate ice cream, did laundry, answered work related e-mail and planned tomorrow. We snagged dinner at Paesano Pizzeria. A Nero was clearly good for our mental game!!! Our new plan was re-motivating! We¢ve done 83.7 miles so far and are planning to do 18 miles tomorrow slack packing.
Date: 2018-05-23
From: Culver's Gap

To: Greenville Road
Miles today: 17.3
Weather: overcast clouds

It rained hard overnight leaving the morning cool and heavy with fog. The day ended up in the mid-70s and sunny! Perfect hiking weather! We left the motel at 7:30 am.  I dropped Matt at the north end of our hike on Greenville Road and he hiked south. Then I drove to the south end of our hike or Culver's Gap, parked at the trail-head parking area, and started hiking north. My first 9 miles were easier than Matt¢s first 9 miles and we met roughly 1/2 way at Mashipacong Shelter for lunch. Lots to see today from the fire tower to Sunrise Mountain Pavilion to the wooden tower and Veteran Memorial Obelisk in the High Point State Park. But the biggest surprise was when I was 1.3 miles from meeting Matt at the van at the northern end of the park. I was still hiking and Matt had retrieved the van and was waiting for me at Greenville Road. A BEAR!!! A BIG MALE BEAR!!! He must have heard me coming because I was playing Simon and Garfield as loud as I could and was rocking to it! He was about 30 yards to my left and was clearly moving away while keeping an eye on me. I carefully continued passed him and on down the trail while keeping an eye on HIM! Once passed each other we both moved on quickly!!! I texted Matt in great excitement. Alarmed, he grabbed his bear spray, jumped out of the van and came running up the trail to my rescue! ¢¤  ¢¤  ¢¤   You'll find a screen capture of our text message conversation in the photos. It is quite hilarious!!! Dave notes it a good thing the bear didn¢t like Simon and Garfunkel! ?Matt came armed with chocolate shakes! Yum! We picked up dinner again at Paesano's and headed back to the hotel. We reviewed the game plan for tomorrow and both agreed that the method of dropping one of us off and staging the van each day so the other could walk to it was a GREAT plan. We hope to be able to use this technique for the remainder of this Section Hike.
Date: 2018-05-24
From: Greenville Road

To: Vernon, NJ
Miles today: 17.6
Weather: overcast clouds

Day 9 - North End of High Point State Park to Vernon, NJ - 17.6 miles. Temps pushed to almost 80 degrees with brilliant sunshine. It was a gorgeous day to hike. Matt dropped me off at the south end or Greenville Road and I hiked NoBo. He started in Vernon (still in New Jersey) and hiked SoBo after parking at the Vernon parking area. I hiked for a few miles with a hiker named Now until I could no longer keep up with his thru-hike stamina. I can feel that I¢m getting my trail legs now and was able to maintain a good overall average speed. A doe and fawn tried to cross the road during a brief road walking section. They darted back into the woods. After returning back into the woods myself, Now re-appeared behind me. He¢d stopped in town for resupply so I¢d passed him. Again after a few miles he vanished. At the Wallkill Reserve I found a turtle in the trail. The Reserve also had some beautiful white swans. I met Matt at the Pochuck Mtn Shelter for lunch. We were making good time. From that shelter the next 4.2 miles took their toll on my feet with rocks, boulders, and climbs. I was getting worn down by the mileage, terrain and heat. As I arrived at the Hwy 517 road crossing 6 squad cars came screaming up with sirens on and parked at the trailhead along with an ambulance. Did I look THAT tired? It is a very busy Hwy and the trail head is basically just space on the side of the road so all this was stopping alot of rush hour traffic that was in a hurry to get home! The next 1.5 miles was all boardwalk over swamp and as I headed NoBo across the Hwy the EMTs and a deputy started following me with a gurney and oxygen bottle. Wow I must look pretty bad! ? Turns out a young man at the far end of the boardwalk was having an asthma attack. ¢6¢ squad cars? Really? I dragged myself the last 2 miles to the van, went and got Matt. We picked up dinner on the way to the motel. I spent several hours sorting out work related issues and then planned the next days hike before passing out. It is clear that the NJ terrain is tough and 17+ miles is probably too much for us. We¢ll need to try for smaller mileage.
Date: 2018-05-25
From: Vernon, NJ

To: Brady Road
Miles today: 6.9
Weather: broken clouds

Day 10 - Vernon, NJ to Brady Rd. - 6.9 miles. So because we were exhausted from the past few days, because there was a hard climb in this section (Stairway to Heaven), because it was going to be 90 degrees today, and because we had to move our home base to a new location, we opted for low miles instead of no miles. It was s good plan. First, we spent several hours clearing out of our motel room and loading everything back into the van. Then, I hiked NoBo up the 900¢ Stairway to Heaven climb while Matt hiked SoBo and did the 900¢ in downhill fashion. There were tons of day hikers on the hard part and absolutely no one but Matt and I on the rest of this section. There weren¢t many interesting aspects other than rocks, repeated ups and downs, and mosquitoes/ Gnats to pester you outside the tough climb. Yes it got hot! Wow it got hot! After our climb we drove an hour north into New York along the Hudson River and setup our new base camp at a religious retreat called Stony Point Center in Montgomery, NY. This retreat has a meal service so we elected to have dinner in the community dinning hall followed by a nice car ride north and south, up and down the Hudson River exploring. The Bear Mountain Bridge was impressive and of course we just had to drive over it!
Date: 2018-05-26
From: Brady Road

To: West Mombasa Road
Miles today: 15.2
Weather: overcast clouds

Day 11 - Brady Rd to West Mombasa Rd. - 15.2 miles. Clear day in upper 80¢s. Again Matt going SoBo and Mia going NoBo. NEW JERSEY IS DONE!!! It is clear that New York will not be a cake walk. Rocks! Big rocks! Huge rocks! After climbing to the highest point in New York I went to cross a stream. There were two older fellas looking at their maps on the far side. They couldn¢t hear me because the stream was so loud. I slipped off a rock and sploosh into the water my foot went and my scream caught their attention. Turns out it was Cave Man and Buck Horn. They were in their late 60¢s and doing the whole trail as a Flip-Flop (ie Start in West Virginia, go to Maine, flip-flop back to West Virginia, and walk to Georgia). So they hadn¢t been on the trail long but Cave Man was quite the athlete. He gave me an awesome lesson in just how to use hiking boots on BIG rocks! Unbelievable what dry hiking boots can do on dry rocks! I was pretty proud of some of the billy goat moves I could do! Later I was to be very thankful that Cave Man had showed me just how to negotiate all these huge rocks with grace and speed. Today was our first ¢ladder climb¢. That¢s rebar steps up rock face. Whoa! I saw another rattler. This one scared me as it shot across the tail rattling as it went and I screamed. Found a turtle in of all places the NY high point. There are a million squirrels that jump and run around as you pass. In all it was a tough day of climbing over rocks. I go slow, sit down and butt slide when it gets scary, and sometimes need a few minutes to get up courage but 10 hours later I got¢er done! Matt did it in 9 hours! Show off!
Date: 2018-05-27
From: West Mombasa Road

To: Arden Valley Road
Miles today: 5.3
Weather: overcast clouds

Day 12 - West Mombasha Rd to Arden Valley Rd - 5.3 miles. Woke to cold rain, again! I had two notes in my book from my itinerary research. We¢d have to do ¢The Devil¢s Ladder¢ and ¢The Agony Grind¢ all which MUST have huge rocks which where now wet. So we waited for the clouds to part and tackled it before the sky released more rain. It took FOUR HOURS to do 5.3 miles!!! Wow! Serious rock climbing. Good thing for Cave Man¢s rock lesson yesterday!
Date: 2018-05-28
From: Arden Valley Road

To: Bear Mountain - Perkins Memorial Tower
Miles today: 16.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Day 13 - Arden Valley Rd to Bear Mountain TowerDay 14 - US 9 & NY 403 Intersection to Bear Mountain Tower25.3 miles for 2 day total. See Day 14 Journal Entry.Mileage was complicated for these two days. Both days were clear and no rain but the 2nd day was in the low 90¢s. Hot! The first day, Mia hiked NoBo and Matt SoBo. It was supposed to be a 16.7 mile day. Matt started at the tower and completed his 16.7 miles w/o issue but later learned he¢d taken the wrong route by the tower. Mia was only able to complete 14.3 miles due to the large # of rock scrambles and tough ups and downs at the end of the day. She did 14.3 miles, ending at Seven Lakes Dr just short of the actual tower. Matt picked her up there as the day was running late. So mileage was amiss at the tower on both our parts. We both completed successfully the Lemon Squeezer and crossing the Palisades Parkway crossing (a very unsafe road crossing).The 2nd day, we staged our van at the lower Bear Mountain parking lot and we had transport take us both to the northern end of our section. Our transporter was a nice young man from Stony Point Retreat. We hiked together SoBo so we could enjoy together the spectacular Bear Mountain Bridge Crossing, the Bear Mountain Zoo (the trail goes right through this zoo), and the Bear Moutain Lodge. That done, we hiked up to the Bear Mountain Tower and enjoyed the view together. The trail to the top is beautifully constructed stairs and gravel footpath. Still it was an arduously climb in the heat. Matt and I then parted ways each fixing the missed miles from yesterday thus each completing a two day total of 25.3 trail miles. Matt hiked backed to our van at the Bear Mountain Lodge and then again picked up Mia at the Seven Lakes Dr. / AT crossing.Once again we returned to the Stony Point Retreat for the night. This was to be our last night at the Retreat and we had to move to a different building so the Retreat could accommodate a new group that arrived that day. We really enjoyed the Retreat, they did an amazing job catering to our hiker needs.
Date: 2018-05-30
From: US9 & NY403

To: Clarence Fahnestock SP, Dennytown Rd.
Miles today: 8.7
Weather: moderate rain

Day 15 - US 9 & NY 403 Intersection to Dennytown Rd (Clarence Fahnestock SP) - 8.7 miles.We woke to our final morning at Stony Point Center where we¢d been staying for the past 5 nights. It had been our home base and it had been a good fit. This was a religious based retreat which had 3 dorm like buildings and a central community building which had food service. There were lots of gardens, plenty of parking, and religious groups there for various retreat type events. In the dorm we had a private room with shared bathrooms. With WiFi and laundry service available in each building it was hiker paradise. We packed up and headed north to today¢s hike. Matt bought me lunch at the deli at the US9 & NY403 Deli and sent me NoBo. Then he drove to Dennytown Rd, staged the van and hiked SoBo. It was basically an uneventful day of just getting the miles in. We met for lunch mid descent/climb. After parting ways an interesting Flip-Flopper hiker from Virginia came up behind me and pretty much hung around in my way for the next few miles. He wanted to hike fast but would get too hot and stop mid-trail and I¢d have to stop and wait or go around him in which case he¢d pass me a few minutes later. I slowed my pace and he moved on. I never saw him again over my remaining hiking days. You see strange things out here. Toward the end of the day¢s hike, a fellow who I¢d met day one of hiking back in Port Clinton came up fast behind me. Now I¢d been able to skip a four day section I¢d done in 2016 to get this far north and this meant he¢d made up all that time and was now passing me. Wow these thru/hikers were fast! After completing my hike, I drove to the deli and picked up Matt. We drove north to Fishkill, NY and checked into a hotel, our next home base for the next two days.