We're close enough to our hike that we opened an account at TrailJournals.com. This is a well thought out journal service for both through hikers and section hikers needing a trail journal. A trail journal account includes a journal, gear list, photo album, a video album and a guest book. TrailJournals.com is not free, but is donation financed. The suggested donation of $25 is a fair price for the value.
We've largely finished our TrailJournals gear list and have uploaded pictures of all our major gear, save a vintage aluminum pot. One of the less obvious steps in loading gear is picture first, text second. One you save your gear details there is no way to add a photo except delete and re-enter. Also, you don't need photos of your actual gear as chances are someone else is using the same gear and has already uploaded the photo. Its fascinating scrolling down a list of hundreds of stoves, followed by hundreds of cups.
We have also added three pre-hike trail journal entries. There's a short list of requirements to have one's trail journal "go public". Three journal entries is required to trigger appearing in the hiker listings.
We plan to ask a family member to transcribe our TrailPhone audio trail journal entries to our written trail journal. The section we are hiking doesn't include many opportunities for a section hiker to lollygag and update a trail journal. We also are not taking a smartphone or other technology for journaling from camp.
As we are taking disposable cameras for our section hike, photos of our section hike will not be available until after we are back home and the film developed and transferred to CD-ROM.
We have also setup a personal YouTube channel. We plan to take our photos and create the obligatory slide show video showing the same highlights from our section hike as everyone else - Weaverton Cliffs, Annapolis Rocks, Correspondents Memorial, etc. Chevy Chase driving in circles in London comes to mind: "Look everyone, Washington Monument!"
By the way, once this post cycles off the homepage, you'll still be able to find mine and other interesting hiker journals in the bottom of the green trail section on the right side. Oh, look! There they are now.
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