Guatemala. Monday, March 26, 1990. Caught the 6:30 a.m. bus from Antigua for the 20-minute ride to Santa Maria de Jesus at the base of Volcan Agua. Signed in at the municipal office (.25 Q each) and headed out for a sunny, 3 ¾ hour hike to the top.

Can you remember as many details from a hike you might have done almost 18 years ago? Don’t worry, I couldn’t either without my trusty journal to kickstart the trip down memory lane. Journals plus photos ensure a record of past trips that is clear and concise. So how do you go about it? Read on!

Journalling
Some people find journaling to be a daunting proposition, but it doesn’t need to be. The trick is to simply start. Pick up a cheap, spiral-bound notebook or a leather-bound trip diary or a waterproof logbook – it doesn’t really matter what you write in, it only matters that you begin writing. Personalize your trip journal if it helps, but don’t get on hung up on thinking it needs to be ‘perfect’. Perfection will just hold you back.

Make sure you have more than one writing tool (pens and pencils always, always get lost – only to resurface after you’ve given up the search!). Now start writing. Write when you’re taking a breather on a cross-island hike past hillside taro plots and hand-dug irrigation ditches. Write at the start of the day as you lay still snuggled deep in your sleeping bag at the base of Mt. Robson. Write as darkness descends on the Skyline Trail. Write sitting upright in a cabin at Elk Lakes. Write laying down in the parking lot while you wait for your hiking partner to shuttle the car. Just write.

If the muse abandons you and you’re stuck on what to put down, start with the basics - date, time, location, distance, weather, guidebooks used, maps used, names of hiking partners. Record what you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you taste, how you feel, what you think, what you’d like to do next, what you really did, what you didn’t do (but want to next time!), how the experience is making you re-evaluate your goals in life – write whatever you want, just get going.

Store your journal(s) in a safe place once back on home turf.

Photography
Keep it simple. I do know of hiking friends who lug all the lenses and filters and camera bodies with them – but I don’t. For one thing, I’m more a writer than a photographer. For another – I’m a clutz. My digitals have gone swimming in the ocean off Vancouver Island (not a good sign when it flashes you while shut off!); bounced down a sandstone cliff in Utah; and gotten a little soggy on a backcountry trip to the Kootenays.

So I stick to relatively inexpensive point-and-shoot digital cameras and store the photos on CD’s, labeled and kept handy in a soft-sided CD case beside my desk. A card reader (cheap and durable) saves wear and tear on your camera and is worth the investment.

This year I’ve added a new collage frame to our walls – marking my daughter’s growth as hiker (from being carried on my husband’s back to carrying a bigger backpack than mine!). Memories like these deserve to be recorded.