Journal Entries

[out-n-about]

I Recently Joined Trail Journals.i Think I Understand How To Put The Info. In ,but How Do They Know What Trail You Are On Or Doing.in The Starting Location Block Do You Put For Example Say Max Patch-a.t.or What.could Some One Help.:-?

[Jack Tarlin]

It's Pretty Self-Expalnatory.

They Also Use Fewer Capital Letters, Making For Easier Reading!


Actauly, if you go onto the site again, there's a section there that'll tell you how to sign on and post.

[Alligator]

FOR SOME REASON HERE ON WB WHEN YOU POST IN ALL CAPS IT DROPS CAPS FOR THE ALL BUT THE FIRST LETTER OF EACH WORD. THIS SORELY IMPACTED MY DOG, BEAR, AND MOUSE ANECDOTES:mad: .

OK NOT THIS TIME. STILL CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT:datz .

[Clark Fork]

I Recently Joined Trail Journals.i Think I Understand How To Put The Info. In ,but How Do They Know What Trail You Are On Or Doing.in The Starting Location Block Do You Put For Example Say Max Patch-a.t.or What.could Some One Help.

A Big White Sheet of Paper to Draw On<O:p</O:p
"The world looks brand-new," said Hobbes.
"A New Year ... a fresh clean start," said Calvin.
"It's like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on," said Hobbes.
"A day full of possibilities," said Calvin.
"It's a magical world, Hobbes old buddy ... let's go exploring."
--Last words of the CALVIN AND HOBBES comic strip
<O:p</O:p


'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!' -- The Wizard of Oz



I have learned as I went along. Trail Journals is a feature rich program and it takes only a little more than average effort to advantage all that it offers. Here a few things I learned they may be the nudge needed to relate a trail story.


A little pre-organization will pay dividends and allow some efficiencies when setting up a journal and perhaps save precious time better spent organizing a trip and doing other more important tasks. Not only does a Trail Journal author have an opportunity to download photos of their trip, each Trail Journal site can be enhanced by a self portrait photo, equipment and gear photos and the photo posted in the “about” page. Down loading photos is accomplished by locating the photo in a directory using the interactive “Browse” function. For this reason, it is helpful not only to set up a folder for trip reports but another sub folder for photos. Trail Journal authors can accomplish the same thing by keeping photos on a dedicated disk or CD. When asked for a photo, it becomes easy to locate the specific photo. Another helpful planning tool is to decide on a naming convention for photos. One system is to use the specific trip as a prefix, followed by the subject of the photo in abbreviation with the date trailing with year last. A photo then could be named: JMTEVOL.LAKEAM07306. This notation tells me the trip is the JMT and the picture is Evolution Lake in the morning and it was taken July 30 in 2006. This notation allows finding photos by using the search function. I prefer to pre-write my trail journals in a word processor, in my case Microsoft Word. I have my drafts in a separate folder. I then find it easy to just cut and paste my draft into the journal page after I have run the page through a spelling and grammar check. Another advantage of pre-writing a trail journal is it will provide a more permanent record. Consider keeping a 3 ring binder and printing a hard copy of each entry along with the picture. In the fast changing world of cyber-space, Trail Journals is not likely to be around for an extended time. That is just a fact of life of the Internet today. Trail journalists may consider they might be hiking more than fifty years. Preserving those trail memories might not seem important today but there may be a day when those written journals will provide enjoyment for children yet unborn and precious memories for those you leave behind.

When starting a Trail Journal, Journalists enter basic information on the Welcome screen that comes up when you start to log in. Trail Journals are set up with a user ID and password. Prospective Trail Journalists must take the usual precautions when setting up and protecting the password. The first stop after entering personal information is the FAQ items that are accessed by clicking on the Navigation Button “FAQ” on the left side of the main screen. Some of the questions won’t make sense in the beginning but later on when a question arises, here is where to go first. Within the journal entry section, there is a help forum for posting questions. This forum has a search function that leads to posts in the archives. Answers are hit and miss but some have proved helpful In the initial entry screen, there are four sections of information to fill out. The first section is personal information. This information is the usual name, address and phone number, e-mail address and website if any. None of this information is mandatory. Trail Journal readers will notice that some persons post by Trail Name only. The name that is posted under the trail name comes from this page. If Journalists don’t want their name to show, leave it off this page.

The next page is “Trail Information/Journal Options.” Here journalists list their trail name and the year they received their name. If not named, journalists can leave this blank or make some comment about not having one. The next question asks for the trail. A handy drop down box lists all the trails that are posted on Trail Journals. Journalists then enter the year of the hike and the direction, east, west, south or north. The next section asks for a trip summary. Here, again this is something that can be written in advance and pasted into this section. Use the reporter short cut and state “Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.” The trip synopsis will be located on the “About Page.” Few Trail Journalists use this feature. I think it really helps the reader understand the “big picture.” Writing a short synopsis of the trip may even lead to some important self-discovery. Stephen R. Covey, author of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says, “Begin with the end in mind.” With this thought, the synopsis of the planned trip may very well become a “mission statement” that guides and motivates as the events of the planned hike play out. I think this is one of the more useful exercises in setting up the journal.

The next entry calls for entering a signature line. Trail Journal writers can save time with each journal entry if they adopt a regular signature. There are several lines to add a signature. Once created, it will post automatically every time there is a journal entry.Each Trail Journal has 6 “Navigation Links” on the “Trail Information/Journal Options” page Trail Journal authors have an opportunity to have each of these show on the main menu by clicking a “yes” or “no” button. These sections are: “Guest Book, Gear, Photos, Mail Drops, About and Stats” Give some thought to this part as it turns out to be a courtesy issue to the trail journal reader. If the trail journalist doesn't’t intend to post mail drops or list gear, check “no” and it will save the reader from looking to see the gear list or the mail drop list. If not planning to post the gear until later, click “no” for the present and then turn on that page by clicking “yes” later. I will admit I often check gear lists and I remain disappointed if none are listed after clicking on the gear navigation button.Next Trail Journal authors get to note their status. Here, for instance, is where the information listed on the main Trail Journals page such as “Got off Trail” comes from. The complete list of choices is “Active, Pre-hike, Hiking, Got Off Trail, Completed Thru Hike, Inactive and Section Hike.” The starting point is always “Active.” The site offers this explanation: “The status of every new account defaults to Active. Account status is used to help sort trail journals. For example if hiker journalist is hiking it should be set to “Currently Hiking” so the hiker will show up on the main page list of hikers currently hiking. Once you complete a thru-hike you will want to change your journal status to Completed Thru-Hike. If you would like to hide your journal from the journal list page set your account status to inactive.”As a Trail Journal author, you can decide if you want to receive e-mail notification of entries into your Guest Book entries.

Unfortunately there are creeps out there that may write something to cause disappointment or stress. One feature of the Guest Book is that the individual journalist remains in control. Authors may edit or remove anything in the Guest Book. Keep in mind Trail Journalists have an option whether they even want to have a guest book in the first place.There is a “Navigation Tool” for readers to offer a suggestion for a trail journal entry. It is located at the bottom left of each journal entry. This is one of the fun parts of the site as it offers some interaction with readers. Each journalist can decide if they want this feature or not. In the next two sections offer a choice of visit counter and how the journal will look.. This is an ego thing. You can choose not to have a visit counter, a plain one or a fancy one. Following that choice there are five choices for page layout. The site offers lines, no lines, binding and no bindings.

The next major section is “About Hike.” The Trail Journalist must list the start date and finish date if known. On Trail Journals, the start date may be seen in the block under the name and trail name.. It is at this point journalists add the personal information.. Again, this section is often not filled out by those keeping a journal. Accept that readers are curious about those that keep a Trail Journal. Without revealing much, Trails Journalists can offer some basic information. In my case, I tend to follow journals of persons my own age. It is human nature to be modest and there are certainly safety and security issues of revealing your home town when you are away from home but with some discretion readers are interested in a little bit of who you are. This is also the page where you can enter statistics about your trip. There is a section on your gear weight by season and your gear weight at the start and end of your trip. Lastly, a section very seldom used, “Show Me the Money!” Here you can list your expenses broken down into such areas as lodging, meals and gear. Few have the courage to fill this section out.

The last part of this section is “About Trail Name.” Again some pre-preparation is in order. This section can pre-written; cut and pasted onto the appropriate page. Here, Trail Journalists tell the story of how their current trail name came to be. Trail names is one of the great and fascinating peculiarities of hiking today. It is the Trail Journalists chance to be a legend in their own time. There is a separate procedure for entering a personal picture for this page. Again this is a purely optional item.

When finishing entering the information listed above, the final step is to click on ”Welcome” on the main screen within the journal entry page. A checklist is presented. The list reviews the important sections of the trail journal. Each section is listed with a check mark for complete or a flag that calls for further action. The list is as follows: “About Photo, Hiking Direction, Account Status, Direct Link, Signature and start date. A word about two of these items. The site offers the following information on the “About photo.” “The about photo is the photo of yourself that we use to make a thumbnail for your journal. Since we create all thumbnail photos manually it may be a few days before your thumbnail shows up on your journal. Your about photo gets uploaded from a different page then your journal photos. Please try to keep your about photo under 100K and no bigger then 600 X 4” A handy tool for telling friends and relatives about your trail journal is the direct link. The following is added to explain the direct link. “A direct link gives you and your friends direct access to your journal. A direct link may look something like: http://www.trailjournals.com/mytrailname/. Shortly after you request a direct link we will review it and process it, this may take a few days. Once your direct link is approved you can submit your new address to any number of search engines and pass your address out to your friends.”

I recommend thinking of the Trail Journal as “under construction” until you get all the housekeeping items entered. A Trail Journal does not hit the screen until three entries have been posted. It is a good idea to have a few gear entries in at the start. One drawback is there is no way you can tell how what you are doing before posting. Having as few entered will give you a feel for how gear entries are made. Gear entries are easier than they first appear. Gear entries are very straightforward. When setting up gear entries it is well to rely on one rule and that is “photos-first.” Entries will go smoother if you deal with the photos first. They may be added later but it is more efficient to deal with the photo before making the entry.


I am thinking of expanding this piece into an article. I would like to add a section on journal entries and using HTML code.

Regards,

Clark Fork in Western Montana "Where Seldom is Heard a Discouraging Word."