Article: Keeping a journal during your Appalachian Trail hike
You can view the page at http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/cont...ian-Trail-hike
Great Article, I plan to bring my Droid and use the blogger app to record my journal and then post when i can use the wifi in towns. I am also bring a small solar charger to deal with the battery issue.
Thanks again
This was one of the best posts I've come across on WB. Thanks!
Nice article! One suggestion for those who prefer pen and paper: look into waterproof paper and waterproof pens. Rite in the Rain sells both. The Space Pens work too as do pencils.
Just remember to read the TOSS agreement if you choose to post your journal on a web-blog site or a forum. WHY? There are people who glean stories or journal entrees and post them to their own website. If you do not care if your journal becomes part of someone else's money making scheme, disregard my comments. However, if you do not want someone to have the right to use your creativity in thier personal projects, make sure you do not give them your stories and life lessons for free.
I absolutely agree with this. Keeping a journal was easy and became a nighttime ritual as I was letting my body cool down from the activity of the day. Years later, my mind remembers the general feeling of the hike and certain days and events, but the journal has details I couldn't possibly keep in my active memory. When I reread it, though, they come rushing back and more often than not the way I felt when I was hiking becomes that much more tangible. It's all about the details!Originally Posted by Badspeller
This is a great article, Rick, and very helpful. I have two friends thru hiking the AT that I will share this with.
If you use an electronic or online journal exclusively, remember to print or otherwise backup/save it. All it takes is a minor glitch and your notes are gone forever.
chris
I'm keeping a physical journal for writing about the journey and people and places I meet along the way. A physical journal doesn't require batteries and is easy for someone else to use to enter their names and contact info if desired. Those write in the rain books do work very well and will make it through the trip. Two weeks to go...
I carry a paper journal now. I cannot tell you how much I regret not keeping it on every hike. I forget everything!
I plan on writing mine in a waterproof paper journal first then rewrite a more polished version to Postholer via my Droid Incredible. I'll also use the Droid as my camera. I'll keep it in airplane mode while hiking and will be bringing an Anker ext battery/charger wgixh will charge the phone 4-6 times.
I was going to use a smartphone or Droid or some other form of technology, but now I think I may just use pen(cil) and paper--no batteries, liteweight, and easy. I wonder how easy or difficult or time consuming it is, though, to then type them out when in town. What are your experiences with this?
I have use pnpen before. I am now looking at using a digital voice recorder. Capture it all: sounds, people, events, talks(interviews), comments, etc. I am planning on using Dragon Naturally Speaking sftwre to transcribe. Memory capacities and batt life make these a very good choice now days. I use a Sony ICDUX523 recorder.
This has many good suggestions. I'm in the process of my thru-hike and am off trail for a couple months for weddings and such. I'm at the halfway marker heading SOBO and will be heading back out in mid march and look forward to seeing any 2013 NOBO's along the rest of my journey.
Journaling is something that just depends on the person and you really need to look at your own personality to decide if or how you will want to journal. I agree with most here that journaling is something few will regret having later on. For some people however at the end of the day they just want to eat and sleep, or don't want to fuss with managing head lamp batteries or device batteries. I set out to write in a paper journal and tear out sheets to send home for my dad to log on the computer. I quickly found this wouldn't work for me and I didn't have the drive to write a journal every day while I was hiking. I was too busy enjoying the beauty of the trail and the experience to take the time to write out a whole journal entry.
If this describes you, or just as a tip for anyone, I found a happy compromise to accomplish "Journaling" without much effort on the trail. I just jotted down notes on my iPhone of the core details of an event or series of events. I find most journals that focus on being a daily log become rather boring to read even as the author. Don't limit yourself in terms of days. Most people will find that their brain does a decent job of cataloging events that had an impact on them. It's just hard to pull that information back six months later. This is why the notes are important to kick your brain and rattle the memories loose.
If you hike with someone for a few days and enjoyed it write about your experiences with that hiker rather than a daily account of everything. Doing this you will likely have something to write about everyday, and usually will result in an interwoven string of stories that overlap one another. I find journals like these to be much more entertaining and engaging. The one thing I found I didn't do enough of was jot down other hikers names (especially NOBO's) that I would only see once. So if you are like me and find your journaling starting to become cumbersome; scale it back to taking notes and when you get home have the fortitude to immediately start writing.
It's a great time reliving your journey as you can relax and add the colorful details and descriptions of the events. I would also recommend doing this for anyone who does manage to keep a "daily log" journal. Go back and re-write them around the events and experiences that may span several days and overlap rather than leave them all jumbled up in daily snapshots.
Anyone interested in taking a look at my work in progress its at www.patrickwittman.com and feel free to sign the guest book and leave me feedback. I love hearing critics and differing points of view to help myself be a better story teller.
Happy Hiking!
-The General
Sony Recorder Qeustion
What do you do when your memory on the recorder is full?
My video recorder take an SD card. You can buy them with enough gigs to hold hrs of video or carry several cards with you. I think it's a great idea. Not sure that its something that I would carry / use on the trail, but I'm definitely not going to rule it out. For now I carry a "Survival" Rite in the Rain notebook and two fisher space pens. Once I forgot to use the fisher space pen and used a gel pen instead, at that time I was writing in a JOurnals Unlimited Hiker Journal. Well, it rained and rained and rained during one of our trips and I lost about four months of trail data! lesson learned
I'm planning on using trailjournals.com during my thru-hike this upcoming year, what do you do when you don't have wifi (i plan on using my cellphone as my journal entry method)? Does it just save as a draft and you post the entries when you go into town?
Great article and good advice.
I've always kept a travel journal on any of my trips (hiking or otherwise) and they are some of my most cherished possessions. Nothing can replace those memories, and it's incredible how much you forget over time if you don't write it down.
For those who use paper journals on the trail, how do you keep your journal dry?? I'm considering a 8.5x11 notepad journal in a ziplock freezer bag. What do you think?
I hiked from GA-MA in 2010, the summer before going to grad school. I know that in only a few years the use of blogging/online chronicling has likely increased, but I have a lot of sentimental attachment to the physical journal I kept and used nearly every night to capture all the tiny moments on the trail - people I met, food I ate, plants, views, shelters, etc.
I used a smaller journal, more like 2.5"x4", in a small ziplock, and never had any issues.
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