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mpholcomb
04-01-2004, 09:20
I see lots of people using trail journals. Do you log them while hiking at towns? Or, do you wait until you return from the trip?

celt
04-01-2004, 09:40
A minority will wait until after a hike. For my AT section hikes and my Long Trail hikes I posted afterwards because they were reletivley short hikes. The journal feature of TJs wasn't developed until just after my 1999 thru hike so I spent the nine months after finishing transcribing that journal (what a chore).

These days most journalist who are dedicated to daily postings of their hikes will either mail their hand written journals to a transcriber who does the typing and posting or some hikers will use a portable email device like pocket mail to store journal entries and email their entries to the transcriber who cuts and pastes the entries to TJs.

Others, who do periodic updates instead of daily entries, use internet services along the trail to make entries.

www.trailjournals.com/celt

hungryhowie
04-01-2004, 10:24
A neat little device that many journalists use is Pocketmail. It's a small organizer-like device that can send e-mail through a phoneline (you'll need to sign up for their e-mail service, but it's not very expensive). It takes time to send the messages, so you need to be considerate of other hikers who might need to use a public phone. If you're in a hotel, though, no problem. This way, you can type your entries out on the trail, and e-mail them to your transcriber who can then just cut and paste them online for you. The device is about $99 (sevice is ~ $15/month extra) and it weighs about 8oz with 2 AA Lithiums (one set will probably last you the entire trail).

Pocketmail also makes a device that will attach to a palm or similar device to turn them into a pocketmail, if that's more to your liking.

-Howie

tlbj6142
04-01-2004, 10:31
Another idea is to create your own Yahoo! Group (its free), make everyone who joins the group a reader-only (or if you want to a handle QA from the trail give them posting abilities). Use your pocketmail device to send messages to the group. Yahoo! archives the lists and provides some basic searching capibilities.

You can always cut-n-paste the yahoo group stuff into Trail Journals after you return home.

Jaybird
04-01-2004, 11:01
I see lots of people using trail journals. Do you log them while hiking at towns? Or, do you wait until you return from the trip?


since i'm a section-hiker...i wait til i return home...to upload my trailjournal(& photos)....
(i use water-proof paper tablet & "space" pen!)

i see loads of hikers that are now using the PocketMail device....but, that is the very reason i get out there & "walk in the woods"...to get away from the techno-world i live in every day!

most hiker folks post on www.trailjournals.com (http://www.trailjournals.com)


good luck with your hike! :D

mpholcomb
04-01-2004, 11:06
most hiker folks post on www.trailjournals.com (http://www.trailjournals.com/)

Cool. I am making my own portal for trail journals, only b/c I like having my own site, and functionality. More freedom. I may end up just posting my journals in 3 large chunks tho (@ major breaks). Maybe someone at home can post our mileage progress and pictures, but I will do the journals myself.