morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2016-07-29
To: Palmerton, PA
Miles today: 7.9
Weather: light rain

Today was another day from hell, rain and boulder hopping. Nimble will Nomad says,"The successful hikers are the ones who find goodness and joy even in the difficult times, who see beyond the misery to the beauty of nature and the comforts of trail society."However, I saw some very cool wildlife today, which cheered me up considerably. Early in the day, I heard a rustling in the underbrush close to where I was hiking. This happens to me all the time, and I seldom try to spot the fleeing animal, because usually it is a chipmunk or squirrel. There was a hiker right behind me and he told me I must have nerves of steel. Why do you say that, I asked. He told me the animal scurrying away from me had been a three foot long timber rattlesnake. That set me to thinking. I wondered how many other times a scurrying animal in the underbrush had been Ralph the rattler, or Colin thecopperhead. Next I saw two young fawns that still had white spots on their fur. Rain also brings out frogs, toads, and newts. The frogs and roads are perfectly camoflaged, but they hop away when I walk past. If they had remained motionless, I would never have seen them. There is a tiny fluorescent newt that plays dead when you pad it. I think that in its best kind of is as perfectly camoflaged as it's cousin's the frogs and toads
Date: 2016-07-30
From: Palmerton, PA

To: Smith Gap Road12.1
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

The end of yesterday's post should have read "I think that in its (the newts) mind it (the newt) is as perfectly camoflaged as its cousins, the frogs and toads." In an earlier post, I said that my sister Anne and get partner Debra have been sending me money, and I use this money to splurge and occasionally pamper myself. The rocks of N. Pennsylvania are some of the toughest hiking of the entire AT, so i decided to treat myself to a two nite stay at Berts Steakhouse, the hiker hostel in Palmerton.Berts Steakhouse offers a t-bone steak. I couldn't resist one of those steaks my first nite there. Well, I have a guilty secret. I was there for two days. For those readers who would accuse me of having another t-bone steak my second day as well, I have two words for you people:"oink oink." The second nites steak tasted even better than the first nite. I also splurged by slackpacking (ie) carrying only my lunch and water. This is expensive as you have to pay someone to drop your gear off at your destination. I hiked backwards from Smith Gap Rd. back to Palmerton..The neat thing was that myself and a hiking buddy and I had just finished our days hike and we were trying to hitchhike back to Palmerton, as a very black sky began to rain. Just as the rain began, we got picked up by a young couple. The young lady of the couple asked us if we would like a banana muffin. We gratefully accepted her offer. When the muffin was half eaten, she casually asked us if we were allergic to marijuana. No we said. Why do you ask that question. Because your muffin is laced with pot she replied. Then she chuckled and said she was just kidding. As Dr. Sheldon Cooper in the tv sitcom Big Bang Theory would say, Bazinga. MY hiking buddy and I exited our benefactors car, into an absolute downpour rain, and went into Betts Steakhouse and I had a hot fudge sundae. I can't tell you how comforting it is to be eating a hot fudge sundae while it is pouring rain outside, and you are nice and dry, having escaped the deluge by literally seconds. While I felt very sorry for my brothers and sisters who were out in the storm, I was very happy to NOT be a part of that soggy fraternity.
Date: 2016-07-31
From: Smith Gap Road12.1

To: Stealth camp, mile 1283.2
Miles today: 13.8
Weather: clear sky

Last nite, i had just turned in for the nite when the rain began. It is very comforting to be completely dry inside a tent, while the rain comes down in buckets. I also like the sound that rain makes as it hits the walls of my tent. What I do NOT like is packing up a completely soaked tent the next morning. Even though I put the wet tent inside a plastic garbage bag, somehow the wetness seeps through to other things inside my pack. I guess the tent figures if it is cold and wet and miserable, it will try to make other things inside my pack share in its misery. Sometimes it rains for several consecutive days. I want to put on dry clothes at the end of the day. To do this I put on the same set of soggy clothes I wore the day before, so that my dry clothes stay dry. I have to tell you. If I were to make a list of my favorite things, putting on a wet, cold, soggy pair of underwear on first thing in the morning would NOT be on that list
Date: 2016-08-02
From: Church of the mountain histel, Delaware Water Gap

To: Mohican Outdoor Center
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: overcast clouds

An astrophycist once famously noted that not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we are ABLE to imagine. I am starting to think that the same is true of AT hikers. Some of the twenty something hikers only hike at night, and sleep during the day. Last nite one hiker left the hiker hostel at 10:30PM to begin hiking, and announced that he planned to hike for 12 hours. I am a 63 year old man. When i was in my 20's, I was always polite to people of that ancient age, but I regarded them as being so different from me that they (the old folks) were practically from a different planet. I imagine that this is how the young people of the AT view me.They are always polite, but the conversations they have with me are different than the conversations they have among themselves. Last nite at the hiker hostel, many young people plus myself were sitting on the couches in the common room. I was on my cell phone, posting entries to this blog, so i became invisible to the young people and they began to chat among themselves. One young man said he had been tripping (taking drugs) for three of the last five days, and he figured that maybe he ought to stop for a while. Another guy said a dose of acid (LSD)costs $10.I piped up and said that I have always been amazed that young people have the stamina to hike all nite long. I asked him how they (young people) do this. He said that it is easy if you take a hit (dose) of acid (LSD). I thought he was joking so i said no, I'm being seroius. He replied so am i. He then said that he had hiked all but 20 of the 230 miles of the AT that is in Pennsylvania at nite. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. The rocks of N Pennsylvania were so treacherous that i was barely able to navigate them in broad daylight, and I was talking to a guy who had done it at nite, while high on LSD. He said he drops a hit, puts on his ear buds, listens to ambient music, and gets into a different state of mind and just does it. As the saying goes, kids, do not try this trick at home, and I am not going to take the advice of this guy. I am just about the slowest hiker on the AT. Many of the hikers hike thru very rugged terrain at speeds I am unable to do even on a sidewalk. I have always wondered how they avoided getting a sprained ankle, because very few of them wear hiking boots. It is whispered that some hikers take amphetamines (speed) to give them more energy. If that is the case, they must be burning out and having to quit the hike either for a few days or weeks or permanently to give their exhausted bodies a chance to heal. At the end of today's hike, I will have hiked 1300 miles
Date: 2016-08-03
From: Mohican Outdoor Center

To: Brink Shelter
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

The rocks of N Pennsylvania are legendary for their toughness. It was said that once a person got a few miles into New Jersey, the rocks ended and New Jersey was an easy state for hiking. This turned out to be untrue. The rocks of New Jersey(NJ) have been only marginally less rugged than the rocks of N Pennsylvania, and the bottoms of my feet and my ankles have taken a beating from walking on over 100 miles of rocks. New York, New Hampshire, and parts of Maine are also very rocky. I remember being warned by another hiker that the northern half of the AT is much tougher than the southern half. I have begun to meet hikers who started at the northern end of the AT (Katadhin) who are hiking south. I am envious of them for having finished the tough and rocky part of the AT. NJ is also very hot with limited water. I crossed into NJ by way of a bridge over the Delaware River. I was on a sidewalk with only a concrete barrier separating me from the 18 wheeler trucks that rumbled past me on interstate 80,shaking the bridge as they went by. It was not exactly a pristine wilderness experience, but the bridge was only a half a mile long, and then it was back to the peacefulness of the woods.
Date: 2016-08-04
From: Brink Shelter

To: Rutherford Shelter
Miles today: 15.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was a brutally hot day, again over rocks which made for slow hiking. I did not reach camp until 7:30PM, hot and exhausted. What saved the day for me was animal sightings.I passed a large pond where I spotted two bullfrogs. Most frogs are skittish and will hop away at the first sight of a person. These bull frogs were HUGE It would have taken both of my hands together just to hold one of them. I am guessing they weighed btween one and two pounds per frog. They made no attempt to get away from me and I got good pictures. Later on, I was sitting on a log, eating a snack, when a friend named Prav walked past. Due to being off the AT for a week due to my nieces wedding, I thought Prav was far ahead of me. I expresed my surprise at meeting her, and she said she left the trail for a week to do a bicycling event I have always wanted to do called RAGBRAI, which is a bike ride across Iowa. Thousands of people do this ride, and it is a week long party. Prav continued hiking as i finished my snack. About a half hour later, I was hiking along, daydreaming when I walked past a HUGE timber rattlesnake that was well camoflaged close to the AT. Both of us warned each other. My warning was an involuntary yelp. The snake shook its rattles at the end of its tail at me. Both the snake and myself got out of each others way in a big hurry. A few minutes later, I came across Prav, who had stopped to eat her lunch. She was only 15 minutes ahead of me. Before i could say anything, Prav asked me if I had seen the copperhead, (A copperhead is a different kind of poisonous snake. It is dangerous because it doesn't have rattles on its tail to warn people to stay away.) I thought Prav had made a mistake and I told her the snake she saw was a rattler. No she said. The snake I(Prav) saw was a copperhead. That is the funny thing about wildlife. Animals sometimes do not stay in the same place for very much time.Prav saw a copperhead. I came by fifteen minutes later and saw a rattler. I guess it was shift change time in the woods. The third animal I saw, late in the evening was a buck deer, with a full set of antlers. He was not afraid of me, and just looked at me as I walked past him.
Date: 2016-08-05
From: Rutherford Shelter

To: Unionville, NY
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: broken clouds

Cold weather comes early in New Hampshire and Maine. For this reason some hikers do what is known as a flip flop. This means they take a shuttle to jump ahead to these states and hike them while the weather is still decent, and then continue to hike south until they reach the point where they caught the shuttle. The White Mountains of New Hampshire and Maine are by FAR the toughest part of the AT.Some hikers, who by that time have hiked nearly 2000 miles find this part of the hike so tough that they quit at this point. For this reason, i am going to do something called slackpacking from the White Mountains all the way to the end of the AT hike at Katadhin Mountain in Maine. This slackpacking option is organized by a man named Warren Doyle, who is famous for slackpacking the AT 18 times. Slackpacking means you hike carrying only a day pack containing your lunch and some water. A car carries your other gear to your campsite at the end of the day. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the group that governs the AT, says a person can slackpack some or all of the AT and still get a certificate for hiking the entire AT. Yesterday I had to hike 12 miles by 3:00PM in order to catch my shuttle to the American Youth Hostel in New York City (enroute to further travel to New Hampshire. (When I made the decision to hike twelve miles and then catch a three PM shuttle, it was based on the erroneous information that NJ was free of rocks and an easy state to hike in. I began hiking today at seven AM, and did not even stop for lunch because the rocks were slowing my progress. Half way thru the days hike, just as i began to think I was going to miss my shuttle, I got a big and lucky break. The rocks stopped, and I was able to v hike much faster. I reached my pickup point at two thirty in the afternoon. It was a very stressful day, but thankfully the day had a happy ending
Date: 2016-08-06
From: Unionville, NY

To: Glencliff MY (by train and bus)
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Yesterday afternoon, I used the washing machines at the American Youth Hostel in New York City to wash my disgustingly filthy hiking clothes. When I put my clothes into the washing machine, the washer was completely empty. Of that i am ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN. I then left the laundry room to take a DESPERATELY needed shower. After my shower, when I removed my clothes from the washer (to put them into the dryer,) I discovered a frilly pair of black lacy panties among my clothes. I have two theories on how those panties got into my laundry. 1 1) Either New Yorkers are a VERY different breed, or 2) some AT hiker has repaid me for the numerous practical jokes I have played on other hikers. Yeah, readers, I know what you're REALLY thinking. You want to know if I kept those panties. My answer is no, absolutely NOT. I'll be damned if I'm going to carry any extra weight with me in my backpack. (Its a damn shame, because those panties fit me perfectly.) Now if someone will be kind enough to leave me a bra,my happiness will be complete.
Date: 2016-08-08
From: Glencliff N H

To: Kinsman Notch
Miles today: 9.3

The White Mountains of New Hampshire are the most difficult part of the AT. The ascents and descents are incredibly steep and filled with huge boulders and tree roots that a person must carefully navigate. On the most difficult parts of the White Mountains a person hikes at a speed of one half mile per hour. The White Mountains (WM) are so difficult that some hikers, who have hiked close to 1800miles at that point quit the hike. A friend of mine said"If you make it all the way to the WM, pat yourself on the back, lace up your boots, and prepare yourself for the toughest hiking of the entire AT." The highlight of the hike today was an ascent of Mt. Moosilaukent, at 4802 feet. That involved a very steep ascent, followed by an equally steep descent of 3800 feet.. The weather was perfect, with not a cloud in the sky. The views from on top of the mountain were superb, but it was very windy and chilly on the mountain top.
Date: 2016-08-09
From: Kinsman Notch

To: Franconia Notch
Miles today: 16.3

Today was a VERY tough day. Last night the 15 of us were stealth camping at a trailhead when we were paid a viit by the Lincoln police dept. who told us we were illegally camped. By moving out tents just a few hundred feet, we became legal. We had to get up at three AM the next morning to begin our hike, so taking down our tents at eight PM, and setting them up again was disheartening. We had a 16.3 mile hike, and we began hiking at four thirty AM by the light of our headlamps. Today's highlight was a grueling ascent of South Kinsman MT, a 2000 foot climb, followed immediately by a very steep descent of 2000 feet. Again today the weather was perfect and the views spectacular. I had an unfortunate incident at the end of my hike today. I was walking down what I thought was US 3, to get back to the trail head where the today's hike ended. Unfortunately, I was walking along Interstate 93. A NH State trooper stopped me. He first frisked me for weapons, then called in a checkup on me based on my drivers license. He then very politely told me to get in the back of the car, and he gave me a ride to the trailhead. You should have seen the look on Warren Doyle's face when I pulled up in the back of a state police vehicle. It was my first and hopefully last ride in the back of a police car.
Date: 2016-08-10
From: Franconia Notch

To: Kinsman Notch
Miles today: 16.3
Weather: scattered clouds

At 430AM Warren Doyle gathered all of the hikers for the daily briefing. Suddenly, without warning, Warrens shorts fell to his ankles. (I am not making this up.) Warren chided us (the hikers), because none of us used that opportunity to make a pun. Rising to the occasion (pun intended) I quipped that perhaps Warren was trying to show us that he is a real man. Warren seemed unimpressed by my response, but it was the best I could do on such short notice ( pun intended.) We began hiking at 5:00 AM. I finished hiking at 6:00 PM, and I was one of the first finishers. The last group finished at 2:00 AM the next morning. The next morning eight of the fourteen people who signed up to do this eight day trip dropped out. Weather wise, it was a very pleasant day. The daily schedule reminds me of my army boot camp days.My alarm clock goes off between three and four AM. I take down my wet tent, quickly gulp down a breakfast of a few granola or cliff bars, and begin hiking by the light of my headlamp by five AM. This happens because we literally need every moment of daylight to hike because the terrain involvesjungle ing and descending between three and five thousand feet of VERY steep terrain over a so called hiking trail that is nothing more than a tangled jumble of boulders that we slowly, carefully boulder hop across.
Date: 2016-08-11
From: Kinsman Notch

To: Galehead Hut
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: mist

For the last two days, we have had perfect weather, with excellent visibility. Today, we hiked over Franconia Ridge, above tree line, with some of the most scenic views in all of New England. Unfortunately, we had pea soup fog all day long, and we missed those beautiful views. Above tree line, the terrain is like being on the surface of the moon, and the only way you know you are still on the trail is because every so often, the trail maintenance people have stacked rocks on top of each other to form a rock tower (this is known as a cairn ).In the pea soup fog, it sometimes was hard to spot the next cairn. I was happy to descend to below the tree line, and better visibility, but when I got there, another unpleasant surprise awaited me.There is a desent of several hundred feet called " The Abyss." All descents in New Hampshire are incredibly steep, so for a descent to be called The Abyss, it was steep beyond belief. When I first saw it, I thought it would be impossible to safely descend. To sweeten the treat, there is a stream of water running through the Abyss descent. I decided to crab walk, using both my hands and feet on the ground. This gave me a very low center of gravity. The rocks of the Abyss were so tightly jammed together that there were no loose rocks. With my body only inches above the rocks, if I fell, I would fall only a few inches.The irony was that by crab walking down The Abyss, I was able to turn a dangerous descent into one of the places where I have felt the safest on the New Hampshire AT. To give you an idea of how steep the terrain here is, I climbed 1200 feet in eight tenths of a mile.(and there is no actual trail in New Hampshire. You simply boulder hop over a jumble of boulders. There is an organization called The Appilachian Mountain Club (AMC). They operate a series of buildings in the White Mountains called huts. For the princely fee of $125 a nite, you can sleep in a bunk in a room with 14 other people and get a delicious dinner and breakfast. These huts are high in the mountains. There are no roads leading to them. All supplies (food etc.) must be carried up steep mountain trails. One of the cooks at the hut said that on his last twice a week trip, he hauled over 100 pounds of food in his backpack.The people who work in these huts are called "The Kroo." They are often Ivy League college students. When they serve food to guests, they dress in costumes, sing songs, and do funny skits. Each hut has a powerful telescope. We were lucky because there was a guest astronomer at the hut and we got to see a few planets and the moon through the telescope, plus he gave an interesting talk.
Date: 2016-08-12
From: Galehead Hut

To: Crawford Notch
Miles today: 14.7
Weather: clear sky

Today was a day from heaven. Usually, my alarm goes off between three and four AM. Today, at Galehead Hut, I was awakened at six thirty AM by a Kroo member playing live music on her fiddle. Usually, I hurriedly gobble down only a few cliff or granola bars for breakfast. Today I leisurely dined on oatmeal, bacon and eggs for breakfast. Usually I start hiking at five AM by the light of my headlamp. Today I began hiking at eight AM, in broad daylight. This happened on a day when I had 14.7 miles to walk. In spite of this I finished at six PM. How is this possible, you ask? Well, I got a gift today. I hiked over seven miles of the easiest terrain in New Hampshire. There was an actual path that was fairly level and rock free (I still ascended/ descended a few thousand feet today, because the other seven miles were horrible.) I got another gift today. For months I have heard but not seen a bird called the grouse. Today I rounded a bend and there were three of them, taking a dust bath. They were not at all upset by my being close to them, and I got some pictures of them. Today, we met a woman who had just finished climbing the last four thousand foot peak in New Hampshire that she had not yet climbed. There are 48 such peaks in NH. People who live in Colorado summit 14000 foot mountains. They might think that climbing a four thousand foot mountain is easy. It is not. Considering the steepness of N H peaks, and considering that there is no trail or foot path to the top, just a pile of boulders that you boulder hop across, these are some very tough mountains. It would be interesting to hear the perspective of someone who has climbed both 14000 foot mountains in Colorado and 4000 foot mountains in New England. We congratulated the woman for her accomplishment. She said her next goal is to climb every 4000 foot mountain in New England, which will give her a total of 46 mountains.