[pct-l] Hand-written trail journals

[Dirk Rabdau]

With the advent of new technology, a person can update his or her trail journal from almost anywhere a cell connection can be found.  From the latest smart phone to pocketmail, the march of "progress" continues.

I ran into a friend yesterday who is an avid sailor. He takes his boat out on the open ocean for weeks at a time and keeps a hand-written journal of the adventures. When I asked whether or not he considered carrying a laptop or another electronic device to keep his journal, he offered an opinion I hadn't considered. "The value of a journal isn't entirely in the actual journaling. There is something very satisfying about picking up an old journal on the shelf and examining it for what it contains. Besides the day's proceedings, the margins are often filled with long-forgotten notes, rough charts and estimate, and items collected along the way, such as an old photograph. These are things that an adventure make."

This made re-evaluate what I would bring along on a long-distance. The Internet is a terrific medium, but does the medium itself come with its own self-imposed restrictions? The reason I bring an old Palm III and keyboard on the trail has more to do with the fact that I can type much more quickly than I can write. But I am under no illusion: there is nothing romantic, 20 years later, about HTML. Picking up an old journal, its pages yellowed and spine worn, suggests history, and with it, a certain sense of nostalgia. The age of electronic text certainly will not carry the same currency. 

Thoughts from the legion of trail journal keepers out there?