Wish I had the skill and patience to produce something like this. Nice thing to leave behind...
http://www.thehikeguy.com/2011/01/04/500-moleskine-miles/
http://www.thehikeguy.com/2011/01/04/500-moleskine-miles/
Beautiful Hiking Journals...
- Thread starter DavidJT
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He could BE the new AW!
I always want to keep a journal and tried to last year. Got a little notebook with elastic to hold it shut and a pencil in. Even cut the pencil in half to fit nicely against it. Wrote one night's piece about where we had walked then couldn't think of owt to put in it the rest. "Got up about 8am, brew, breakfast, pack up and off. Walked over X ridgeline until we pitched in a col I didn't know the name of. Weather was wet and sunny at times." That was kinda what I put in it. REally couldn't see the point after that. For me the memories are in my head not on paper. I keep many thousands of journals worth of them there and can recall them with just a simple trigger from the place I'm in or a conversation with mates. How many journal keepers carry their memories around like that? How heavy their pack would be? Good for some but if you can't draw nor write entertainingly then I suppose they become just simple a simple list of where you went on what day. A kind of list without soul.
I always want to keep a journal and tried to last year. Got a little notebook with elastic to hold it shut and a pencil in. Even cut the pencil in half to fit nicely against it. Wrote one night's piece about where we had walked then couldn't think of owt to put in it the rest. "Got up about 8am, brew, breakfast, pack up and off. Walked over X ridgeline until we pitched in a col I didn't know the name of. Weather was wet and sunny at times." That was kinda what I put in it. REally couldn't see the point after that. For me the memories are in my head not on paper. I keep many thousands of journals worth of them there and can recall them with just a simple trigger from the place I'm in or a conversation with mates. How many journal keepers carry their memories around like that? How heavy their pack would be? Good for some but if you can't draw nor write entertainingly then I suppose they become just simple a simple list of where you went on what day. A kind of list without soul.
Yes but it's amazing some of the details that you forget, the animals that you saw, the things that didn't go quite right, the kit that you took, the food that you cooked?
But as Wainwright himself confessed, once he had started to write the books he realised that they would serve him well in his later years when he would no longer be able to tramp the fells. For some of us, having an aide memoire would be good practice...especially if, like me, it's hard sometimes to remember where you left your car key 
Cheers
Sack
Cheers
Sack
Yes Puddle but if you haven't got the creativity to express it on paper through sketches and words then its just a shopping list. Or is that just me thinking that? I can write and can be creative but I just can't when it comes to trail journals. I do have a good memory though it does need a trigger to come out sometimes. It does mean that I can remember a lot of details that TBH would never make any journal I kept. From the butterfly that landed on the rock in the path I was on when I did Z hill. How it just posed perfectly for my camrea phone first open winged then closed wing for a side on shot. Then after I'd taken all the shots I wanted it flew off, as if it knew its job was done. Things like that are in my head from a thousand plus days in the hills but when writing it up I doubt I'd do it justice. I can see it now, the light the weather the whole walk... its just not the same on paper.
Out of interest its not a skill you can learn neither IMHO but something you have or not. As a kid on our summer holidays our parents made me and my sister keep a holiday diary each. My sister practically wrote an essay a day for it. I treated it like my music lessons as something I had to do but didn't want to. I'd write for a couple of minutes, get bored then ask a parent if it was enough and I could go. Often to be told to write some more. It never worked for me but for schoolwork I could write a good story just it wasn't my story.
The one skill I want more than most is the ability to draw. With pencils in a sketch book. Mostly line drawings of buildings I see and architecture but also hill skylines. Never happen. Of course give me something logical, technical and scientific to look at or study and it goes in like ink into blotting paper. We all have our limits and talents. I've begrudgingly accepted that with my journal attempts.
Out of interest its not a skill you can learn neither IMHO but something you have or not. As a kid on our summer holidays our parents made me and my sister keep a holiday diary each. My sister practically wrote an essay a day for it. I treated it like my music lessons as something I had to do but didn't want to. I'd write for a couple of minutes, get bored then ask a parent if it was enough and I could go. Often to be told to write some more. It never worked for me but for schoolwork I could write a good story just it wasn't my story.
The one skill I want more than most is the ability to draw. With pencils in a sketch book. Mostly line drawings of buildings I see and architecture but also hill skylines. Never happen. Of course give me something logical, technical and scientific to look at or study and it goes in like ink into blotting paper. We all have our limits and talents. I've begrudgingly accepted that with my journal attempts.
Paul, see my post 7
Re the artistic side of things, you can teach yourself, or at least start off with photos. If you want some titles of books that may be of use, pm me.
ATB
Sack
Absolutely brilliant, I found it interesting that he would never leave without it. I imagine he'd prioritised the notebook just like I would a FAK!
He's certainly tech savvy too with the Blog but it's nice to see handwritten accounts and sketches, maps & observations.
I have a terrible memory and even worse drawing skills but can see it come in handy as a way to record highlights of a day so when I do get round to blogging on line it will aid my memory!!
He's certainly tech savvy too with the Blog but it's nice to see handwritten accounts and sketches, maps & observations.
I have a terrible memory and even worse drawing skills but can see it come in handy as a way to record highlights of a day so when I do get round to blogging on line it will aid my memory!!
My god wish I had his talent and perseverance to do such things cos they will be
Brilliant memory in years to come
Brilliant memory in years to come
I've been keeping journals for a good few years now and you do forget so much in a surprisingly short length of time. I do also constantly wish I was putting more effort into them but somehow it never quite happens...
Simply fantastic. To be that dedicated! But then maybe I should be. Time to dust of the pencils and start jotting.
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