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View Full Version : Journals - More total rookie questions



monkeymuscles
09-29-2004, 08:21
Sorry about some what hi-jacking the thread but I have always been curious what happens to the journals that you sign in the shelters? Are they mainly there for good reading or does it actually get put some where that people can read each year or what not? Thanks, Chris

SGT Rock
09-29-2004, 08:30
Split the thread and gave you a new one.

They serve a lot of purposes. Lets you leave messages for others you may know, sort of like leaving a message on a bulletin board.

Tell people after you things about the shelter.

Record what you are thinking.

Some have a "Theme" like songs that go through your head, food, definitions, etc. Kind of like a thread on WhiteBlaze.

Usually the journals are put there by the shelter maintainer, but sometimes they are put there by a hiker. Find a shelter without one and put one in for yourself with you address in the front and ask to have it sent to you when full. If you get to a shelter and the journal is full, carry it out after replacing it and mail it to the address in the front. Whomever gets the journal can basically do whatever they want with it.

MOWGLI
09-29-2004, 08:50
Sorry about some what hi-jacking the thread but I have always been curious what happens to the journals that you sign in the shelters? Are they mainly there for good reading or does it actually get put some where that people can read each year or what not? Thanks, Chris

Many of the trail maintaining clubs view the shelter registers as their property - regardless of who put the notebook in the shelter. They take the registers when they are full, and replace the book with a new one. This allows the clubs to maintain a record of the trail as an archive. Some hikers take exception to this policy.

The bottom line is, we could not hike the trail without the dedicated work from the volunteers who work with the 30-someodd trail clubs along the AT. The least we can do is allow them to have the shelter registers if they so request them.

One of the coolest things I have ever seen is young children looking up the "register" entries in the Lake of the Clouds Hut in the White Mountains of NH. This one kid found entries from one of her parents, and one of her grandparents. To see the excitement on that child's face was pricesless. It's stuff like that that helps people pass along their enthusiasm for hiking to the next generation.