View Full Version : Trail Journals, where do they go?
CaptChaos
03-17-2006, 00:19
I was wondering as I was thinking about a trip to the Smokies tonight the following: "What happens to the trail journals that are in the shelters that we fill out from time to time?".
For years I have always added my entries to the journals if I find them in the Shelters. But who stores them and where?
Are they scanned into a computer systems somewhere? Can they be searched?
Just wondering.
John :-?
It varies. Each of the 31 trail maintaining clubs has its own policies.
The one where I volunteer, PATC, maintains an archive at its Vienna VA headquarters. When a register is full, or within a page or two of being full, it is replaced by the maintainer with a new one. He or she then mails the full one to PATC.
These stored journals can be viewed at PATC HQ by anyone who makes arrangements to do so.
I think this scenario is becoming more common up and down the trail, but I'm sure it has not been adopted by all 31 clubs.
Others are done by private people. Some hikers will carry the empty journal with them and place it in a shelter when the new one is full. They will typically put their name and address in the journal so that someone else can mail it to them later. It's a sort of keepsake.
Gray Blazer
03-17-2006, 08:25
Big Bald Shelter Journal is watched over, read and replaced by the Hermit of Bald Mountain, NC, a nice guy that lives right off the trail near there.
max patch
03-17-2006, 11:24
Others are done by private people. Some hikers will carry the empty journal with them and place it in a shelter when the new one is full. They will typically put their name and address in the journal so that someone else can mail it to them later. It's a sort of keepsake.
I have a couple registers from 1991 and 1993 which I placed and then they were returned to me when full.
The 1991 register was signed by Lone Wolf, Wingfoot, and Taro.
The 1993 register was signed by Lone Wolf and Bill O'Brien.
These are legit signatures that I am positive are the people that you think of when you see the names.
There are plenty of other names that look familiar but could be (and probably are) duplicate trail names used by others over the years (wolf, seeker. blister sister, etc etc etc.)
These were left in Georgia; Georgia has since adopted the policy of only having the maintainers leave the registers and returning them to the GATC when filled.