morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2012-07-03
From: Duncannon, PA

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

7/3Today was my niece's birthday; she turned 6yo. In the morning, the kids and I walked to the park so the other adults could work on getting ready for the party. We played frisbee, played on the playground, and climbed trees. Can I be a kid again? Pretty please, with a cherry on top? After lunch my parents showed up. Later that afternoon was the party at the park. It featured a great game of kickball, and AMAZING looking Angry Bird cupcakes. The adults had just as much fun as the kids. That evening we watched the town fireworks show. That night we opened presents. My 10yo nephew got her her very own set of Legos, princess themed. This seemed to be her favorite as she spontaneously ran over to him, threw her arms around him, saying that he was the best brother ever and that she loved him very much. It was very sweet and heartwarming. Again the adults stayed up super late, playing Rook this time, using some weird rules I had never heard of.
Date: 2012-07-04
From: Duncannon, PA

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

7/4My SIL's sister and her daughter left that morning; their brother leaving the previous night. Today was a clean up day and not much happened. My father and I did teach my nephew the family card game called Cribbage. That night we drove to another town for another fireworks show.
Date: 2012-07-07
From: Duncannon, PA

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

7/7The only event for today was a family shopping outing. I needed a few items from the outfitter, namely permethrin and mosquito coils to manage the bugs. The ticks are supposed to get thick in NY and it's nice to sleep in a shelter and not have mosquitos feasting all night long. The permethrin was applied that night, as well as packing up all my stuff and getting ready to hit the trail the next day. Never could find the coils.
Date: 2012-07-08
From: Duncannon, PA

To: Spring just S of PA 325
Miles today: 18.6

7/8My parents drove me back to Duncannon in the morning. The night before I started getting antsy to be back in the woods. I was overwhelmed by people and activity and chaos and needed to be back in the woods. I wonder how chronic this side effect of thru-hiking will be?It wasn't a hot day, but it was still very humid making it very uncomfortable hiking. The hiking was still boring. At the first shelter where I had second breakfast, there was a cat who lived there. I pet the cat some and fed it, but he didn't want to walk to ME with me. Go figure. I took an afternoon nap at the next shelter. Too many late nights with family. Along the way I ran into Bandana, Nooga (as in Chatanooga), Bright Flower, Amber Alert and Keystone. I hadn't seen Keystone since GA, when he was hiking with Big Man. Amber Alert seemed to be disoriented as she needed me to point her to the trail when it was very easy to find.We all stopped at a campsite near a spring. The mosquitos were thick and starving. Everyone was getting everyone else's blood on their hands from constantly killing them. It was awful. Amber Alert rolled in last, looking fatigued. She somehow managed to leave a town with no food, even though the trail went right through the middle of town. She was asking for handouts. This girl is a train wreck. (I later found out that she had went in on a hotel room with some other hikers and exhibited some sort of bizarre naked behavior. Maybe all of her money is going to drugs?)
Date: 2012-07-09
From: Spring just S of PA 325

To: William Penn Shelter
Miles today: 25.0
Weather: overcast clouds

7/9I woke up with a slightly sore throat. Uh oh. My niece had a cold while I was there; my brother had a double ear infection; and my dad had nausea. Whose sickness did I get?Anyways, it was only a sore throat at his point so I hiked on. The trail today crossed three ridges, but thankfully they were not too tall. The last ridge took the trail straight and mostly flat well into NJ and was called Blue Mountain. I was still along way from NJ though. By the time I got to the base of Blue Mountain, the cold had me exhausted and sleepy and I couldn't get up the hill. There were no campsites either unless I turned around and went back, but that was unacceptable. I broke down, had some dinner on the side of the steep slope and made some coffee. The caffeine did the trick. Crossing under I-81, there was a pile of soda cans and that caffeine got me even further. Luckily this part of the ridge was relatively rock free and I flew the five or so miles to the shelter once I got on top. The sun had just set when I got there, and I was a little dismayed to find that a group of twenty was already there. Luckily I was able to find a tent spot down near the spring. Keystone was there too but no one else from the previous night made it this far.
Date: 2012-07-10
From: William Penn Shelter

To: Black Sawarta Spring
Miles today: 14.7

7/10The mosquitos were so thick that all night I could here the ambient drone of their wing beats. I woke up feeling the cold in full swing. It was a long day.The first part wasn't so bad. I did come across some smoke coming from the side of the mountain. I climbed down to found about a 10' radius of scorched dirt, still smoldering. It wasn't a place somebody would have built a fire, but maybe a cigarette butt? I leaned against a smaller tree and it fell right over as the roots were burnt. I tried to stir everything, like you do with hot coals, but that exposed more smoldering dirt to the air and increased the smoke output. I was concerned but didn't have a phone to call anyone about it.The first major road had a town a couple miles down the mountain. I wanted to go into that town, rather than my original plan of Port Clinton in order to get some cold medicine so that the coughing wouldn't keep me up at night. Alas, yet another failed hitch. A German, named Slowfoot, came by saying that he hitched into town from the previous road with no problem. After 45min, I was too exhausted to keep standing in the sun, and walked 0.1mi to the next shelter and took a nap. The shelter was on somebody's property, was fully enclosed with bunks and a huge skylight. There was also a solar shower, and an option to call for delivery pizza but I just slept. Had I been thinking straight, I would have gone to the house to call someone about the potential fire threat.After the shelter, the trail was just stupid, wandering all over the flat straight ridge. At one point it went straight down the fall line to an overgrown view, and then had the nerve to make a 180* turn straight back up the fall line. Stupid PUDs. I eventually stumbled to the next road and tried to hitch again, but that was hopeless. The road was too busy and fast moving. By then it was getting late so I stumbled to the next spring and threw my tent up. The spring was 0.3mi down a hill. The book said it was on the west side of the trail but thankfully a sign pointed east. That could have been bad. Even with the sign, the spring was hard to find as the trail was overgrown and the blue blazes were very dark and weather worn.
Date: 2012-07-11
From: Black Sawarta Spring

To: Port Clinton, PA; PA 61
Miles today: 13.8
Weather: broken clouds

7/11Woke up still feeling yucky. I made breakfast then debated whether to go back down the mountain for more water. I decided against it as I had 1L and there were three more springs between here and town. Unfortunately, all three were either dry or stagnant pools that hadn't moved in two weeks. Gross. With each spring I was getting closer and closer to dehydration as it was another hot and humid day. All of this on top of rocky terrain, overgrown trail with briars, the cold, and eyeball kamikaze gnats. To top it all off, the descent into town was a straight drop of loose dirt and scree, so there was a lot of slipping and falling on the bum.I made it to the Port Clinton Hotel for a late lunch, practically beggin for water. With the cold, I knew I needed a night in a motel to get some real rest. So I walked another mile along a busy highway to the town of Hamburg, which had many restaurants, a WalMart, a nicer motel, and a Cabela's outfitter. I resupplied and got my cold medicine at the WalMart then went to get a motel room. Just as I was about to swipe my card for a $76 room, in walk Bandana and Nooga! I quickly jumped at the opportunity to split a room with them, volunteering to take the sofa bed. $35 is much more like it! We went to dinner at Five Guys, went back to WalMart so they could resupply, then back to the motel to do laundry. After that, bed time.
Date: 2012-07-13
From: Eckville Shelter; Hawk Mtn Rd

To: Blue Mountain B&B; PA 309
Miles today: 11.5

7/13The hike today was uninteresting, beyond the fact of more rocks. The dilemma was where to camp that night. The shelter 17.4mi away had no water. Camping near water meant going either 13 or 24 miles and the second wasn't going to happen with this sore throat. I hiked today without the pant legs on to see if my rash would go away, which it did. I got to this B&B and restaurant for lunch and ate with Bad Penny, Pain, and Spring (a female German). The food was excellent and the campsite was only 2 miles away, so I hung around a long time working on my journal. Then it started to drizzle and some locals said that we were expecting a lot of rain that evening. The owner told me I sould just go set up my tent out in the back and call it a day. I took him up on the offer and am glad I did. Eventually, Slowfoot, Nooga, and Bandana showed up with Kleenex, and Tarzan and Jane. Tarzan and Jane are a couple and Tarzan is a Norwegian Johansen just like my mom's parents! That was a fun connection. We all ate an amazing dinner together and camped out back.
Date: 2012-07-14
From: Blue Mountain B&B; PA 309

To: Palmerton, PA; PA 873
Miles today: 12.7

7/14The five of us, Slowfoot, Nooga, Bandana, Kleenex, and I all hiked together. The rockiness was a little bit better today. At one point, Bandana was hiking point, and I was following close behind him. A copperhead was sunbathing in the middle of the trail, near a fork in the trail. Bandana was looking up to make sure he took the right fork and stepped over the snake. The snake woke up to a person directly above him, freaked out, and came at me pissed off. He was hissing with his head up and slithering aggressively in wide tight 'S'es. It all happened all of a sudden, and I freaked out and did some sort of goofy avoidance dance trying to get out of his way. The others behind me had a good laugh.Anyways, we got to the road and Kleenex was getting off trail for the night to stay in a house. The four of us stuck are thumbs out and within 5 min a car stops. Out get a bunch of day hikers that we passed as they were going SOBO. They were getting dropped off at their cars and the hiker driving gave us a ride into town. In town, we had to stop at the police station to register in order to stay at the hostel. The hostel was just the basement on the town hall, that used to be the town jail. It was a nice hostel as they had wifi. After a shower and laundry, we went out to eat, and had a very mediocre dinner.Did you remember the name and date I told you to? At the hostel was Dingo! We arrived in Duncannon the same day, and I got off trail for 7 days. This gave him a seven day head start, and it only took seven days for me to catch him. Normally, it takes 30+min to catch a hiker with a 5min head start. For me to see him again so soon is just mind blowing. When I made the connection in my head as to his speed, he said that it should be pretty clear to everyone that he is the least motivated hiker ever.
Date: 2012-07-15
From: Palmerton, PA; PA 873

To: Leroy A. Smith Shelter
Miles today: 16.1
Weather: overcast clouds

7/15We all got up and went to have breakfast at the same place we had dinner. Breakfast must be their specialty as it was much better than dinner. Afterwards, the owner offered us all a ride back up to the trail! The climb out of Palmerton was insane. Palmerton used to contain a zinc smelter, but the pollution from that killed everything off of the adjacent mountain that we were about to climb. The EPA shut the plant down in 1980. Nooga has already section hiked the entire AT and is now thru-hiking. When he came through here in 1998, the mountain still looked like a post-apocalyptic scene, just bare denuded rock and the occasional old, whithered, grayed tree trunk. Now there was thick shrubs starting to grow back, and plenty of ticks. At the base of the mountain, we had to brush our boots to try and prevent any invasive plant species from growing on the mountain.After that, it was a steep 1000' climb, including some short cliff climbs. You practically looked straight down to see the road and river below. It was kind of scary. The heat and humidity didn't help either. Once we got on top, we spent most of the time on a grassy access road. At the end, someone had left a lot of water trail magic for us and we were very grateful due to all of these dry springs. The rest of the day was spent hiking on flat ground, littered with these awful stabby rocks that were impossible to avoid. The sole on my boots was wearing thin and looking rough from all of these rocks and it just became painful and tiring. The section from that road to the shelter was the absolute worst part of Rocksylvania. Anyways, around lunch time a big storm blew through and we got the pleasure of hiking in the rain on the stabby rocks. Then at the shelter, there was a trail leading straight down the mountain. Along the trail were three springs. Of course, only the spring at the bottom of the mountain was running. After the long climb down and back up, I made it back to the shelter just in time before it really started to downpour. It was a hard tiring day. Thankfully the throat was feeling much better. I also tried wearing my pant legs again after another laundering in Palmerton, but the rash still came back but not nearly as bad. So it had to be something with the pants but why only on that spot?
Date: 2012-07-16
From: Leroy A. Smith Shelter

To: Delaware Water Gap; PA 611
Miles today: 20.2
Weather: scattered clouds

7/16It was an easy 20, no gaps to go climb out of, and almost perfectly flat. The trail was still very rocky, but not so stabby as the previous day. On the descent into town, I saw out of the corner of my eye some Dr. Pepper cans hiding behind a log. Soda trail magic! We were all looking forward to New Jersey as several previous thru-hikers and a thru-hiker a week ahead of us told us that as soon as you cross the border, the rocks all disappear.The presbyterian church in town runs a hostel out of their basement, and only suggest a $3 donation! It was a great place to stay. I had dinner at the pizzeria with Slowfoot, Bad Penny and Jiffy Pop who had rolled into the Leroy Shelter late the previous night. Bandana and Nooga got a motel room and zeroed the next day to recover from the rocks.The hostel had an old school Nintendo Gameboy with one of my favorite games from my childhood. I tried playing it, finding it a much much easier game than I remember, that is until my thumbs cramped up from being entirely too long for that gray brick. There was a section hiker there, Guitar Man, who comes out to the trail more to do magic than to hike. He offered to give us a ride in the morning to the next town over that has a walmart since DWG didn't have a grocery store.
Date: 2012-07-17
From: Delaware Water Gap; PA 611

To: Camp Rd; Mohican Outdoor Center
Miles today: 10.5
Weather: overcast clouds

7/17Today was going to be a brutally hot day. So the plan was to hang out in town all day, and leave late afternoon once the heat starts to break. I ate breakfast at the diner with Nooga, Bandana, and Jiffy Pop. Guitar Man gave Bad Penny and myself a ride to the laundromat and to WalMart for resupply. I ate some delicious food at a bakery and used the wifi a good deal, including ordering myself some new boots, to be picked up in CT. I took a second shower just for the sheer joy of hot water. I didn't leave the hostel until 5pm; a little late for a ten mile hike, but night hiking doesn't scare me. I did bump into Keystone, Strawberry Moonshine, and Pep Talk on my way out of town. The trail out of town uses the I-80 bridge to cross the Delaware River into New Jersey (7 states left!). That bridge shook a considerable amount every time an 18-wheeler drove by.As I was heading up the mountain I passed a day hiker who previously thru-hiked, Still Steve. He gave me some gorp, beef jerky, and best of all an orange! However, I was more than a little peeved with the trail. It was supposed to immediately become very unrocky, but it was just as bad as the worst parts of PA. It was killer on the feet. I got to see another bear; NJ is supposed to have lots of them. I passed my first glacial pond on the trail; Sunfish Pond. It is home to only two species of fish, one of which is a Pumpkin Seed Sunfish. That just sounds tasty. Due to the heat, I made the mistake of hiking in shorts, and found three ticks on me, two of them attached. The crazy part is that I saw 4 deer today. In the entire PA stretch, I only ever saw 3 deer total.
Date: 2012-07-18
From: Camp Rd; Mohican Outdoor Center

To: Gren Anderson Shelter
Miles today: 20.9
Weather: clear sky

7/18Today was another scorcher. On top of that, I was extra sleepy due to a late night and early morning. On top of that, the trail was stupidly rocky all day. And by stupid, I mean that they intentionally avoided the nice grassy paths and went for all the rocks. You can see exactly what I mean on Slowfoot's blog. At the bottom are two pictures, one of the AT, and one of another trail. They parallel each other a good ways. http://rausundweg.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/gewitter/#more-1624Anyways, I was dog slow today. Near a road, somebody had put in a hand pump well for hikers. It was a much needed water break for Bad Penny and I. After that 7 mile stretch, the next seven were equally slow, but that is because the afternoon isolated thunderstorms blew in. They were pretty bad, and made all these stupid rocks very slick. I finally got to the shelter and ran in there for cover. It was a very old shelter and there were mosquitoes everywhere. I wanted to be done for the day, but it was so awful that I only hung around long enough to eat a late lunch, and then went back out into the rain. It was a fast 4 miles to Branchville, NJ with a restaurant right on the trail. I had a lot of soda and some perogies. I saw on the TV that the storms had already knocked out power to 10,000 people in NJ. When I went to leave the restaurant I started to walk the road. As it turns out, the state of NJ puts white reflectors on their telephone poles that look a lot like the signature white blaze. It took me about a quarter mile to figure that out. Anyways, back to the trail, up a mountain, and back down to the shelter with Slowfoot, Kleenex, Bad Penny, Tarzan and Jane, and Tarzan's mom (a fellow Johansen Norwegian!)
Date: 2012-07-19
From: Gren Anderson Shelter

To: Unionville, NY
Miles today: 20.1

Finally some beautiful weather. It was overcast and breezy most of the day. With the nicer temps, I was able to fly over all these stupid rocks. At a road crossing, Miss Janet was there doing trail magic. Miss Janet is a true trail angel who lives in Erwin, TN and helps hikers out wherever she can. Most who go through that town meet her and benefit in some way. I didn't but was very glad to finally meet her. She had cold sodas, fresh pancakes, and box after box of hiker food that people could resupply from for free. She is awesome!My boots are really starting to show their age. While with Miss Janet, the shoelace on one boot fell apart. I had to make a new one from my bear bag rope. The lining inside is starting to deteriorate. After leaving her van, I could feel some serious chafing on my feet and had to apply duct tape liberally to the inside of the shoe.All the hikers stopped at High Point State Park for lunch, where the park office gave each of us thru-hikers a free soda! Double trail magic! Slowfoot, Bad Penny and many others were there. Kleenex had already stopped and headed out by the time I got there.Leaving the state park, the trail comes down off the mountains, and goes across a bunch of hills, staying below 1000' for a good ways. This is where the rocks finally ended in NJ. Why can no one tell the truth about the terrain ahead? Kleenex got off trail to spend time with her sister, so it was just the two Germans and I. We rolled into town and ate dinner at a pizzeria. There was a funny moment when the they read on the menu that one of the types of pizzas was "German Pizza." They looked at each other with eyebrows raised as neither German had ever heard of a German style pizza.After dinner, the tavern in town graiciously let us tent in their back yard. As a bonus, they had WiFi too!As a side note, the trail remains in NJ for awhile longer, but follows the NY-NJ line, hence staying in a NY town but not yet being in NY.
Date: 2012-07-20
From: Unionville, NY

To: Vernon, NJ
Miles today: 10.8

We woke up to a solid steady rain, and the weather indicated this would keep up all day. Unionville was a terrible place to zero as the only hiker services there were restaurants. No laundry, no showers, no dry place to stay. We quick dragged all of our stuff under the porch and packed up. Leaving our stuff there, we walked to the general store where they had a deli and had some amazing breakfast sandwiches and soda and juice. I had heard that only NY has real bagels and such. I think that's probably accurate as I had never had bagels like that. Eventually, we got ourselves back to the tavern, grabbed our stuff and walked out of town. We picked up Jiffy Pop right when we got back to the trail. There was a giant rectangular plot that looked like some kind of pond/swamp animal preserve. The trail decided to go 3/4 of the way around the rectangle, rather than the much easier 1/4 of the way around. The trail stayed relatively flat, visiting some bike paths, and going over a swamp on the mile long boardwalk. It was a neat change of trail, but there was no tree cover to keep the rain off.The plan was to make it a short day and get to the hostel in the next town to dry off and wash up. As we were crossing the cow pasture adjacent to the road going into town, a couple driving by saw us, turned around to pick us up and drive us back to town! After cleaning up at the church hostel, we explored town eating lunch at burger king and then again at Dunkin Donuts. Neither the coffee nor the donuts are very good. How can northerners love the stuff so much? At least they got bagels down right. Pizza was for dinner, and then we all stayed up late sharing stories. There was one hiker who told us his horror story of how snobby and condescending people in Kent, CT were to hikers. It was so bad for him that he left an "upper decker" in the toilet at the laundromat in town.