morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2016-08-13
From: Crawford Notch

To: Mount Washington 
Miles today: 12.2
Weather: scattered clouds

At 6288 feet, Mount Washington is the second highest peak on the entire AT. For most AT hikers, the day they summit Mt. Washington will be one of the most grueling days of their entire AT hike. Mt. Washington boasts that it has the worst weather in the world. Once, they recorded winds of 238 miles per hour at the summit. Snow is possible 365 days a year. The terrain is a very steep 12.2 boulder hop to the top. The weather forecast for the day we summited predicted thunderstorms in the late afternoon. I got off to a bad start first thing in the morning, and things went downhill from there. We were stealth camping in the woods. At 4:45 AM, when i had finished taking down my tent and packing my gear, in the pitch darkness, i was unable to find the path that led to the trailhead where I was to have my morning briefing. Fortunately, i located Ron, the strongest hiker in our group, and he knew where the path was. Our hike went well until we were half way up the mountain. Then the weather deteroirated to rain. We then hit a 20 minute storm. The sustained winds were 39 MPH, and the rain was hitting our faces horizontally, and at 39 MPH, the rain really hurt. We ascended the rest of the way in a pea soup fog, but were able to use the stone cairns to make it to the top. To make matters worse, one of our hikers had eaten too much ice cream the night before and had a bad stomach. I know how she felt, because a few days earlier i had eaten two peaches that tasted great, but caused me to very hurriedly use the woods bathroom four times in the morning.This may sound like a very tough day, but compared to other hikers, we got off very easy. My friend (Relic Hunter) says that when be climbed Mt. Washington, he was literally knocked over by 60 MPH winds.
Date: 2016-08-15
From: Mount Washington 

To: Gorham Motor Inn, Gorhsm, NH
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Today I am taking a rest day, hoping my knee will be ok for hiking tomorrow. I was feeling very sorry for myself this morning at the restaurant where we were having breakfast when I spotted a hiking friend who had an even longer face than I did. I asked him how things were going. Not well, he replied. This was his fourth consecutive day off the trail due to having kidney stones removed. Compared to him, I got off easy with a bum knee. Today is August 14. According to my journal, I am already on August 15. I don't know how that happened. I had an interesting story from a few weeks ago. I was hiking when I heard an explosion of sound coming from a cluster of blueberry bushes. I had scared up a female turkey, and she was acting very strangely. She did not fly away.but she was squaking angrily at me. Just as I surmised that she must have a nest nearby, there was a mini explosion of sound as a turkey chick panicked and ran in front of me. At that point, mama turkey went ballistic. She fluffed herself up as big as she could, squaked even louder, and charged me. The whole thing was a diversionary tactic to give her chick time to get away. I had to admire mama turkeys courage, as I am much larger than she is. Mama turkey then pretended she had a broken wing and began sqauaking pitifully and running away from her nest, looking back frequently to make sure I was following her. I repeatedly assured mama turkey that i was not an employee of either the Tyson or Perdue poultry companies, but she did not seem to believe me. After she had lured me a safe distance away from the nest, mama turkeys broken wing miraculously healed and she flew back to her nest.
Date: 2016-08-16
From: Gorham Motor Inn, Gorhsm, NH

To: Gorham, NH
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: overcast clouds

It took me 14 hours to hike 17 miles. This is because the terrain of NH and Maine is incredibly steep and rocky, with a great deal of boulder hopping involved. The ascents and descents often involve a gain or loss of elevation of over a thousand feet in less than a mile. This involves either a hand over hand climbing ascent, or a knee destroying descent. It is said that although NH and Maine are only 20% of the AT, it takes 50% of the total effort spent hiking the AT. Some people hike over 1700 miles and then quit the AT. They quit for two reasons. Some people quit because the terrain is so tough. Other people quit because they feel the terrain is unsafe and needlessly dangerous. I have felt unsafe several times while hiking thru NH and Maine. Anyway, on to the story if my unpleasant surprise. As a special treat, I bought myself a quart of pure mango juice for breakfast. I drank the whole thing all at once. It tasted SO good. So there I was, at the trailhead at 5:00AM, with my headlamp on in the darkness listening to Warren give his daily briefing when I got a sudden, OVERWHELMING urge to use the woods bathroom IMMEDIATELY. As soon as Warren left, I ran into the woods, dug a hole, and got some DESPERATELY needed relief. I repeated the process one more time that morning and made a mental note to never again drink a quart of pure mango juice for breakfast. Maine and NH have two big advantages over the other AT states. The first advantage is that the scenery here is some of the most spectacular of the entire AT. The second advantage is something that the AT guidebooks are too polite and tactful to mention. I, having no tact or class, am going to let you in on a little secret. In most AT states, the soil is so rocky and full of roots that you almost need a stick of dynamite to dig a hole for bathroom needs. This can be a problem if the need is urgent. However, here in NH and Maine, the soil is very peaty, so bathroom needs holes are much easier to dig. Here's one more fun fact before I sign off. The extremely steep descents often involve very smooth,very slippery rocks ( called smooth rocks) that may cause you to slip and fall if you attempt to walk down them. To avoid falling on these slippery smooth rocks, many people often slide down them on their behinds, causing an interesting discoloration of the back of their pants. So if you encounter an AT hiker with a discolored backside of his/her pants, it is probably NOT from drinking too much pure mango juice! I know, I know:TMI.
Date: 2016-08-17
From: Gorham, NH

To: Success Mountain
Miles today: 16.9
Weather: broken clouds

It took me a little over 13 hours to hike 16 miles. I was slack packing with my new friends from Warren Doyles group (other AT hikers call us "Doiles") when we passed a man taking a well deserved rest on a rock. My new friends greeted the man politely as they passed him. I got a very pleasant surprise as I passed him. It was my best friend on the AT, Marmalade. I spent many days and many miles and many stories hiking with Marmalade. When Marmalade reached Harper's Ferry, he made the decision to do a "flip flip" and go to Mt. Katahdin, the northern end of the AT and begin hiking south to avoid the cold weather of the fall. Marmalade had just finished hiking 281 very, very tough miles hiking thru Maine, and had just crossed into NH. Marmalade was not feeling well the day I met him. He had also worn out his hiking boots, and replaced them with a pair of hiking shoes that did not seem to agree with him, as he has a very sore Achilles tendon. Marmalade said that like me, he had thought about quitting the AT. Marmalade is hiking NH and Maine with a full back pack, whereas I am hiking it with only a daypack, so he has had a much tougher time than I have. Best of luck to you, Marmalade as you continue your AT hike.
Date: 2016-08-18
From: Success Mountain

To: Mahoosuc Notch
Miles today: 10.3
Weather: moderate rain

There is a popular slogan that says"No rain, No pain, No Maine." What that means is that a person can't expect to hike all the way from Georgia to Maine without experiencing some pain and some rain. Well, today I crossed into Maine, and to celebrate the occasion, it poured rain all nite long. It took me 11 hours to hike 10.3 miles. The rain turned the AT into a river of running water when the trail went downhill. The AT in southern Maine is very tough in the best of times. The rain made things much worse.It was a very scary day for me. The forest is very wet year round, and as a result there are mushrooms and toad stools of every size and color imaginable. I have two interesting stories. Some people bring their dogs with them on the AT. Today, I saw a man with a basset hound. (bh) A bh has very short legs, so it is impossible for the dog to leap to the top of the many high boulders. The owner solved this problem by attaching a girdle around the dogs midsectuon. At the top of the girdle, in the middle of the dogs back, was a handle like on a suitcase. So whenever the dog reached a rock it couldn't jump to the top of, the dog would give its owner a plainitive look, and the man would grab the handle and hoist the dog to the top of the rock. The other funny story was that I startled a chipmunk on the AT who immediately scooted into a nearby burrow (ie a hole in the ground) Immediately afterwards, it poked its head out of the burrow with a panicked look on its face. This puzzled me, but then I surmised that the burrow did not belong to the chipmunk, and when an animal ducks into another animals burrow, it risks becoming dinner for the animal that owns the burrow. If that was the case, that poor chipmunk was indeed caught between a rock and a hard place.
Date: 2016-08-19
From: Mahoosuc Notch

To: Grafton Notch
Miles today: 10.3

Today was a very, very tough day for me. It took me over13 hours to hike a little over 10 miles. I started by hiking Mahoosuc Notch, a one mile stretch of the AT that the guidebook describes as either the toughest or the most fun mile of the AT.The reason for this is because there is no actual trail through here. It is an area of HUGE boulders, some the size of houses that took us three hours to navigate thru. At times we had to take our packs off and crawl underneath boulders or over the top of boulders. I was the only person in our group who fell going thru this obstacle course. I got a minor scrape on my wrist and I cut up three of my fingertips. The next part of the hike we had to do is called Mahoosuc Arm. It is a very long, very steep climb. Nimblewill Nomad classifies mountain climbs by how many Snickers Bars a person would need to eat in order to have enough energy to climb to the top of a mountain.The steepest climbs of all he awards with a five star Snickers rating. He had awarded Mahoosuc Arm an eight star Snickers rating. I navigated both Mahoosuc Notch and Mahoosuc Arm while being violently sick. I had a terribly upset stomach all day long. It felt like I had eaten a brick. All day long I. felt like I was going to vommit, and I was panting very heavily all day, not as a result of exertion, but because I was ill. At one point, someone gave me some electrolites, and for a while my panting stopped and I felt better, but then the sickness and panting returned. I then had to climb a very tough and scary mountain called Old Speck. It was scary because near the top it got very steep, and there were no ladders, metal bars or wooden blocks to serve as hand or foot holds. I ended my day with a very steep 2500 foot descent. My stomach was so upset that all day long all I had to eat was one flour tortilla. At the end of the day I was utterly spent and exhausted.
Date: 2016-08-20
From: Grafton Notch

To: The Cabin Hiker Hostel
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

I took a badly needed rest day today to recuperate We are spending three nites at a hiker hostel called the Cabin that is run by an elderly couple named Bear and Honey. They are the most gracious and hospitable people imaginable. Most hiker hostels only offer you a place to spend the night. Bear and Honey also provide sumptous breakfasts and dinners. They treat you like a member of the family. For dinner tonite they served steak and lobster, dinner rolls, corn on the cob, salad, and ice cream and brownies for dessert. Beautiful classical music played in the background while we ate dinner,Ah, life is good. As bad as yesterday was for me, it had a silver lining. As I reached the crest of a mountain, I noticed three grouse frolicking on the AT. I spent several minutes watching them and got one picture. Late in the afternoon yesterday, I encountered a group of twelve young people on the AT, each with a brand new back pack, brand new other camping gear, each one marching two steps behind the person in front of them, each one sqeaky clean and smelling of deodorant. They were on day one of six day hike as part of Harvard Universitys freshman orientation program. Yep, they were all clean and fresh and smiling. It will be interesting to see what they look like at the end of day six of their trip.
Date: 2016-08-21
From: The Cabin Hiker Hostel

To: South Arm Eoad, Andover,ME
Miles today: 10.0

We've enjoyed luxury beyond our wildest dreams the last 3 nites, staying at The Cabin Hiker Hostel. No alarm clock at 4:00 AM to hike in the dark by headlamp by 5:00 AM. No siree, Bob. For the last 3 mornings we have had breakfast at 7:00 AM. Breakfast every morning consisted of blueberry pancakes,eggs,sausage, homemade biscuits, home fries ( with onions), and baked beans, I almost cried when it was time to leave The Cabin Hiker Hostel. What luxury! Today I hiked from 8:00 AM to 6:30 PM and hiked 10 miles. Warren almost had a head on collision with a moose, narrowly missing the animal. Moose are not the smartest animals.The forest consists of white birch, quaking aspens, and conifers (evergreens) very beautiful and fragrant.
Date: 2016-08-22
From: South Arm Eoad, Andover,ME

To: Oquossoc ME
Miles today: 13.3
Weather: moderate rain

I hiked 13.2 miles from 8:00 AM to 6:30 PM. Maine is very proud of a local soda beverage called Moxie To me, it tastes a lot like Dr. Pepper.We did a great deal of mountain climbing today . A few weeks ago, my guide book said that the Taj Mahal of privies would be found at the next shelter. My curiosity piqued, I decided to investigate. The privy was HUGE, bigger than the shelter ( sleeping place), and newer than the shelter. A sign on the privy said it was indeed the Taj Mahal. To my astonishment,it was a two seater privy. However, only one of the two toilets was available for use. The other toilet was locked down with a hasp and a padlock.Just in case you didn't get the message, there was a very large sign on the locked toilet seat saying do not use. Now, I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but when I saw the locked padlock on the toilet lid, I was able to figure out that i was not supposed to use that toilet. In the Rangeley, ME privy, there is a privy called Your Move. It is called this because it is also a two seater privy, and between the two toilet seats is a cribbage board. I kid you not. Now, I'm a fairly liberal guy, but even I would have to say that if you find yourself seated on a privy with a friend while playing cribbage, a case could be made for the two of you having been in the woods too long. I would, however, give you high marks for your multitasking abilities.
Date: 2016-08-23
From: Oquossoc ME

To: Route 4, Rangeley, ME
Miles today: 13.1
Weather: clear sky

I was able to hike 13.1 miles in a mere nine and a half hours due to the fact that there were no mountains to climb today.However, the trail had LOTS of rocks and roots on it.The scenery is spectacularly beautiful here in Maine, with many HUGE lakes that for some reason are called ponds.I heard a loon (bird) giving its hauntingly beautiful call on one of the lakes/ponds. Last nite, a storm blew in. It was so windy I had to kneel on my groundcloth and tent to keep them from blowing away while I staked my tent down. My tent is rectangular in shape and I made the mistake of pitching the long side of my tent facing into the wind.The winds were so strong that i feared my tent poles would snap, so in the middle of the nite i got up to repitch my tent with the narrow side facing into the wind.The AT was a river of running water from last nites rain storm when we went hiking the next day.Fortunately, the rain stopped shortly before dawn, so we did not have to hike in the rain the next morning. However, it was VERY windy and cloudy all day long and cool. I was chilly if I did not wear my windbreaker, but I was too warm if I wore it. All day long I kept putting it on and then having to take it off again.
Date: 2016-08-24
From: Route 4, Rangeley, ME

To: Pinkham Notch
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Readers, I want to apologize for not posting for a while. I am in Maine and Verizon does not work very well in Maine.Today was a rest day for four people who haven't missed any hiking days and a make up day for three of us who have missed a day back in New Hampshire.Last nite was so windy that I thought a tree might crash down on my tent during the nite while I slept. (On two occasions in the past, a tree came crashing down close enough to me that I could hear the thunderous roar it made as it came crashing down.) Fortunately, no tree came crashing down on my tent that nite.There were two advantages to that very windy nite. The first advantage was that by morning my sopping wet tent was almost completely dry. The other advantage was that the wind blew away all of the clouds, ushering in a day of perfect visibility for one of the most scenic parts of the entire AT. The visibility was so good that there were NO clouds at all on Mt. Washington, and that almost never happens. My two friends had to climb Mt. Washington that day. Afterwords they told me the winds were so strong that they were almost blown over. My hike began and ended at Pinkham Notch, near Gorham, NH. I hiked 12.5 miles. I began hiking at 5:00 AM, by the light of my headlamp, going uphill next to a beautiful roaring creek. I finished my hike at 4:30 PM. My hike was spectacularly beautiful, but both the ascents and descents ( of about 1500 feet were among the steepest of the entire AT. As I have a fear of heights, the descents were an incredibly intense experience for me. The highlight of the day was being able to photograph a grouse at very close range. Most animals are very skittish around people and immediately flee when a person approaches. The few animals who do not do this will be very tolerant of long term close contact with a person, if you spend the first five minutes of that encounter being very still and quiet. Such was the case with the grouse. It flew into the branches of a nearby evergreen, and its feathers so closely matched the color of the tree bark that even when looking directly at the bird, it was almost invisible. I ate my lunch at Carter Hut, a meal and lodging house run by the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) At the end of the day, I attempted to phone my wife from my cell phone, but I couldn't get thru. Then I noticed a pay phone. I dialed her number and tried to make a collect call. My wife got a request to give her credit card number for a collect call from me in New Hampshire. Since she knew I was already in Maine, she assumed it was a scam and refused the call. We both had a good laugh about it the next time I called my wife.
Date: 2016-08-25
From: Pinkham Notch

To: Barnjam Road
Miles today: 16.6
Weather: clear sky

Today was a long day, over extremely rocky, root filled, extremely rugged terrain, where my average speed was one mile per hour, so it was imperative that I not get lost today, because getting lost today might mean both starting and finishing my hike in darkness. I did indeed get lost briefly, which resulted in me finishing just before dark,which meant both settjng up my tent and cooking, eating, and cleaning up in the dark, which put me in a not very good mood. I hiked 17.6 miles in 15 hours. An odd thing happened today. At aboht five PM, the woods got ABSOLUTELY quiet and still. There was complete silence and stillness.It stayed that way for The next three hours. The forest was completely still and silent. No birds or insects made a sound. There was not even a breeze. The very moist forest was filled with brilliantly colored mushrooms of every color of the rainbow, and lots of beautiful ferns. Many tiny frogs hopped silently on the forest floor. I expected to be filled with a very deep peace. To my surprise, I had a very vague sense of unease. Perhaps my mind, accustomed to at least some sound, found total silence to be unnerving. Perhaps it was my concern about possibly finishing after dark that gave me that vague sense of being ill at ease. We are still ascending and descending several thousand feet a day as we climb and descend mountains. Maine and New Hampshire have both the best scenery and and the most rugged terrain.Maine has several very shallow rivers to be forded. Afterwards, I remove my boots and turn them upside down to pour out river water. I then remove my socks and wring them out, and continue hiking.I have seen very large moose tracks and moose droppings, but so far,no moose. Moose are very mean tempered animals if you get too close to them. I had a terrible back ache when i funished my hike today. It was so bad I could hardly stand fully straight. This was because I packed my two plastic water jugs right next to my back. When I placed my rain coat next to my back, my back problems were over, although it took three days for my back to stop hurting.
Date: 2016-08-25
From: Pinkham Notch

To: Barnjam Road
Miles today: 16.6
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was a long day, over extremely rocky, root filled, extremely rugged terrain, where my average speed was one mile per hour, so it was imperative that I not get lost today, because getting lost today might mean both starting and finishing my hike in darkness. I did indeed get lost briefly, which resulted in me finishing just before dark,which meant both settjng up my tent and cooking, eating, and cleaning up in the dark, which put me in a not very good mood. I hiked 17.6 miles in 15 hours. An odd thing happened today. At aboht five PM, the woods got ABSOLUTELY quiet and still. There was complete silence and stillness.It stayed that way for The next three hours. The forest was completely still and silent. No birds or insects made a sound. There was not even a breeze. The very moist forest was filled with brilliantly colored mushrooms of every color of the rainbow, and lots of beautiful ferns. Many tiny frogs hopped silently on the forest floor. I expected to be filled with a very deep peace. To my surprise, I had a very vague sense of unease. Perhaps my mind, accustomed to at least some sound, found total silence to be unnerving. Perhaps it was my concern about possibly finishing after dark that gave me that vague sense of being ill at ease. We are still ascending and descending several thousand feet a day as we climb and descend mountains. Maine and New Hampshire have both the best scenery and and the most rugged terrain.Maine has several very shallow rivers to be forded. Afterwards, I remove my boots and turn them upside down to pour out river water. I then remove my socks and wring them out, and continue hiking.I have seen very large moose tracks and moose droppings, but so far,no moose. Moose are very mean tempered animals if you get too close to them. I had a terrible back ache when i funished my hike today. It was so bad I could hardly stand fully straight. This was because I packed my two plastic water jugs right next to my back. When I placed my rain coat next to my back, my back problems were over, although it took three days for my back to stop hurting.