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| Training: Eating the biggest burrito of my life to keep what little fat I have on me! |
My goal in recording the daily events that unfolded as I hiked was primarily so I could revisit and relive the experiences later. As it is with most journals, the contents have much more meaning to those involved than to others that didn't experience the same things. This is especially true when simply reading about the daily events that someone wrote, even if especially descriptive. I feel that being able to listen to the journal adds an interesting aspect to reliving the events, as you can hear in my voice the inflections and emotions I felt about particular events. I think it captures a bit more of the essence of trail life because of the nuances and subtleties in speech versus words.
The following posts are the transcribed text from the 21 audio journals that I recorded for each day of the hike. Each post includes photos from that specific day on trail, a map of my GPS track for the actual segment of trail hiked and a link to listen to the original audio recording. I highly recommended listening vs reading! Just click the "PLAY DAY XX AUDIO JOURNAL" and you will be able to listen to it. Also, the audio journal mp3's are available for download singly or as a whole .ZIP file from the right-side bar, under 'My PCT Downloads'. You can also choose to play individual entries from that link.
In most instances I was recording the previous day in the morning of the day that followed it, therefore some 'today' and 'yesterday' references may be confusing or inaccurate. Also, if reading, it may be difficult to read at first because it was spoken rather than written. I've done my best to try and separate thoughts and convey feeling etc that are expressed in how the actual words were spoken. But, because it is more or less flow of consciousness, thoughts can occur or change mid-sentence with with little regard to proper sentence structure and punctuation. I commonly denote the change of thoughts and mid-sentence tangents with "....".
My last two journal recording were actually recorded 6 months after I got off trail, as I did not record anything once I knew the hike was most likely over due to injury. I think these are the most interesting recording because I had a good amount of time to reflect on what I had done and what had happened, which adds a retrospective angle to my thoughts and feelings.
I hope you enjoy!
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| Mather Pass looking north at the Palisade Peaks. |
