How I wrote a hike journal for one year straight.
2 pages from my 3-day hike in Totes Gebirge
I had to think quite hard to come up with something to recommend. What do I got to offer? What experiences did I make to pass on?
The place where I might have something would be in my hiking journal. But hey, actually, how to keep one for an extended time is the real thing!
Starting the Recommendation Category
So I’ve decided to talk about my hiking journal or logbook. I started it mid May 2021. It’s almost full, with 35 entries spanning 140 pages. To be perfectly honest, I really am quite proud to have kept going. Its not trivial to fill an entire notebook with stories, drawings, mountain hut rubber stamps, DIY stickers and memorabilia cut out from brochures. And when I mentioned having spent 30ish hiking days that year, it was met with surprise and regard. I did spend an entire month outside…
What to fill it with
In the beginning the aim was to have a standardized logbook, to fill out every page like a form. Researching retail-logbooks and inspiration on Pinterest led me to a few categories I started with:
First time/Revisiting
Companions
Weather
Food
Costs
Duration
Distance
Notes
Trail Name
Date
Index Number
Location
Rating
Start
End
Difficulty
But as you can tell, this is quite the list. It did help me start though. Without these as guidelines what to write about I probably would have been lost.
Being indulgent with yourself
It didn’t take long until I was looser with the categories. Not only because I felt trapped by the strict rules, I imposed on myself, but also because not every outdoor experience can be broken down into 16 categories. I wanted to incorporate these facts in more organically. Also, what if I’m on a multi-day hike? Do I write first-time/revisiting every time? That felt a little superfluous. So, I just followed them as loose guidelines. Combined the Start/End/Difficulty/Duration/Distance into a fact table.
Rating the difficulty of a trail overall seemed hard to me as well, so I just went on to describing the trail in the note paragraph and paid special attention to different sections of the trail. As a result, the statistic sector shrunk a little, while the description segment grew. In this one I didn’t hold back.
Go wild
As you can see in the bottom slideshow, I’m making stickers! Designed in Adobe Illustrator, printed on label paper and then covered with the glossy sticky sheets used to protect books. I love to sit down and pick a special theme for the hike to illustrate. Initially I wanted typical badges, but having them made in low quantities doesn’t pay off: For a single industrially embroidered badge I would have to pay ~50€. So stickers it is!
So I glued in brochures, maps, stickers, tree bark painted in the way marker colours, stamps, feathers, photographs, the Lost and Found Information calling card as I lost my wallet in the train once, admission tickets, 30-year-old documents found in an old aluminium factory, postcards and so much more. No wonder the thickness of the book doubled in size and weighs significantly more now.
But this luxury of always having your diary with you, the option to just sit and take down your thoughts, dreams, and complaints on the trail, inspired by your experiences, is worth every gram to me (~300g, wouldn’t be worth its weight for ultra-lighters). When I sit in the warm mountain hut common room, drinking my cold Almdudler while rain storms outside the panorama windows, I feel at peace, time slows down and I can settle in and let the hardship of the day slip off my body and give my aching bones some rest.
Why this journal is more than its content
Of course, I thought about, and did, writing the diary on my phone and transfer it to the journal after the hike to save weight, but a sterile looking book doesn’t carry as much emotional weight. The trembling handwriting thanks to a shaking train or knees tells its own tale. Water-soaked pages, blurry ink and shit stains of crows that sat over me while I wrote just give an extra ounce of character.
The content of the description section went from purely reporting about the trail to a pouring my heart out, complaining about the trail, the weather, the circumstances, the pain and whatever came to mind, as well as admiration and awe for nature, the solitude, or my company. It became a place to let it out and hold on to, even if its not a daily diary as other people keep at home, but a sporadic, event-guided one. I get to revisit the places and my emotional state when reading it again. And should I revisit the same trails, I get to compare how I felt differently, what was on my mind back then? What is on my mind now? Reminiscing, melancholia and being content and at peace.
And let’s not forget the quality of statistics and information collected over the span of a year. When I fill the book I will do a recap, summarise my kilometres, vertical meters, money spent during my trails, lessons learned, and places visited. I look forward to having a bookshelf with my outdoor diaries lined up, year after year.
